The New Crowd's First Test:Are Hill Democrats Serious on Ethics?

[cal04]

This time it's going to be different.

Whenever a new crowd displaces an old guard, the promise is always the same. The fresh managers swear they understand what the tired bunch they're replacing did wrong and vow to make all things new.

The Democrats who take power in Congress on Thursday have been given an opportunity that has not come their party's way for a half-century: They can remake their own image -- and Congress's -- and they can begin to restore public confidence in government.

While control of the Senate has flip-flopped between the parties since 1980, the House has stayed in one party's hands for long periods. Democrats controlled the House for 40 years after 1954, Republicans for the past 12. The 2006 election marked the first time since that 1954 contest that both houses switched from the Republicans to the Democrats.

E. J. Dionne Jr.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100696.html

[izzie]

1. I do not think so. All that money. New guys maybe OK but

I feel the leaders may fall back into the money thing.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

2. If they don't...

Then they face the wrath of the electorate. ALL the electorate. People want this crap fixed.