Reason's Radley Balko demonstrates how
Democrats are already showing signs of abandoning pledges to clean
up Washington. West Virginia Democrat Alan Mollohan will keep his
Appropriations Committee seat even though he was dismissed from the
House ethics committee. As the Washington Post
notes, in winning, he overcame "investigations of his real
estate dealings and allegations that he used his influence to shift
millions of taxpayer dollars to friends and relatives." Meanwhile,
Rep. Alcee Hastings is set to be chair of the Intellegence
Committee even though the former federal judge "was impeached and
removed from the bench by a Democratic Congress in 1989 for taking
bribes."