OPIINIIONS OF OTHER NEWSPAPERS
Kudos to Hensarling; others should follow

Did anybody on Capitol Hill notice that we just had an enormously consequential election?

And that voters said pretty clearly that they were sick and tired of Congress' corrupt ways?

From the looks of the congressional leadership balloting two weeks ago, you'd almost believe no one in Washington was listening.

The Republicans appeared the deafest.

In the Senate, they elected Mississippi's Trent Lott as their No. 2, owing (some GOP senators said later) to his skills as a legislative tactician.

Forget for now the PR unwisdom of returning Ol' Strom's "podna" to leadership. Why is Mr. Lott such a staunch opponent of reforming "earmarking, " the process through which legislators quietly fund pet projects? Because he's a pork procurer so ravenous that he puts Jimmy Dean to shame.

On the House side, members returned by shockingly comfortable margins their status quo leadership team of John Boehner of Ohio and Roy Blunt of Missouri, two members hailing from K Street.

They easily turned aside leadership bids by reformists Mike Pence of Indiana and John Shadegg of Arizona, dashing the hopes of many grassroots Republicans that the party would learn from its losses and make significant change quickly. Kudos to Dallas Rep. Jeb Hensarling for being one of the lonely House Republicans to stand up for reform.

Perhaps the House GOP is counting on Democratic bungling to return them to power. At the rate Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi is going, they might have a shot.

Days after promising to run "the most ethical Congress in history," Ms. Pelosi threw her weight behind ally John Murtha for majority leader.

Mr. Murtha, a blunt retired Marine who has been, at best, a foot-dragger on ethics reform, lost the race, proving that the House Dems aren't fools.

Ms. Pelosi risks going 0- for-2 on the ethics front if she goes through with plans to appoint Florida's Alcee Hastings, a former federal judge thrown off the bench by a Democratic Congress on corruption charges, to run the intelligence panel.

When the new Congress convenes in January, members will almost immediately have a chance to do the right thing on ethics reform, including legislation reining in earmarking.

Here's hoping both parties recover from these leadership blunders and remember what the voting public said less than three weeks ago at the polls.

Getting rid of lobbyists would be good start

For the past year Texas Gov. Rick Perry has tried to defend the indefensible: spending more than $1 million in public funds to hire private firms to lobby Congress on the state's behalf.

Now that both houses are under the control of Democrats, Perry has lost his last flimsy justification for keeping the Federalist Group and Cassidy & Associates feeding at the public trough.

The Federalist Group's lead Texas lobbyist, Drew Maloney, was a top aide to then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. In that job Maloney raised money for the successful GOP effort to win control of the Texas House. Cassidy & Associates' lead lobbyist for the state is Todd Boulanger, a former partner of convicted and imprisoned felon Jack Abramoff.

The 12 Democratic members of the Texas delegation to the next Congress have written a letter to Perry rightly calling for an end to the outside lobbyists ' contracts.

They claim the Constitution assigns that function to the representatives elected by the people, and the lobbyists in question never made any contacts with Democratic lawmakers concerning state priorities.

"Texas House Democrats do not need or want any assistance from private lobbyists to represent the state of Texas," the letter states. "Taxpayers already pay Texas' elected officials to represent them, and the state of Texas has too many pressing needs such as education, health care and public safety to give any more taxpayer money away to Washington lobbyists."

Democrats are not the only critics of the lobbyist contracts. Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn temporarily froze payments to one of the lobbying groups last summer, citing shoddy documentation for services rendered. In her opinion, Texas law prohibits the use of tax dollars to lobby elected officials, influence elections or support candidates at the state or federal level.

Perry's spokeswoman, Kathy Walt, said her boss would request that officials in the Texas Office of State- Federal Relations review the contracts.

That is the same agency that rubber stamped the deals at the governor's urging.

Texas House Democratic leader Jim Dunnam of Waco contends that no further review of the matter is necessary. "With over a million tax dollars being wasted, the time for 'evaluations' and 'reviews' is over," he wrote Perry. "It is time to take these lobbyists off the state payroll."

The Chronicle wholeheartedly agrees. Voters elect U.S. senators and representatives to represent Texas interests in Washington.

Those officials have ample budgets to hire qualified staff to carry out that function. The governor's precedent-setting decision to hire politically tainted lobbyists paid with taxpayer dollars was wrong when he made it in 2003. The lobbyists' contributions to Republican officials only make the deal more suspicious.

If the Texas Office of State- Federal Relations won't cancel the contracts, the Legislature should clearly prohibit state agencies from hiring private lobbyists. That way, no Lone Star politician will be able to line cronies' pockets under the rubric that they are doing the people's business.

-- Houston Chronicle