How You Can Help

Support President Obama in his Efforts to Clean Up Washington

Over the last 4 years ethical scandals have hurt our faith in our
nation's elected officials. President Obama has made ethics a cornerstone issue of his presidency, and by issuing executive orders on ethics as one of his first actions in office he has taken decisive action. Click here to call and applaud his first steps towards transparency.

Overview

Scandals over the last four years have revealed a number of cases of overt corruption.

Former Governer Blagojevich tried to exchange a Senate seat for money and appointments and lost his office in the process. Sen. Murtha requested massive amounts of earmarks for 2010, including millions for former clients of the PMA Group, which shut its doors last month in the fallout over a federal probe into campaign finance irregularities.

Former Congressmen Randy "Duke" Cunningham (Calif.) and Robert Ney (Ohio) were caught trading votes for campaign contributions and other bribes. Disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff landed in jail for masterminding efforts using campaign contributions to steer public funds to his pet projects. Rep William Jefferson (La.) is under investigation after the FBI found $90,000 in cash in his freezer.

We know this is only the tip of the iceberg.

Last year TexPIRG helped put into place the Office of Congressional Ethics and pass the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act. This year we are working to watchdog the OCE as it takes up matters for the first time, as well as ensure that politicians and lobbyists follow the strong regulations as outlined in HOLGA.