Congress Gets Serious about Ethics

Sure, an hour a year ought to be plenty.

One of the changes that House Democrats pushed through at the start of the new Congress is a requirement that all members and staffers get annual ethics training. And for those of you who are lucky enough to be working this week, you can start your training Wednesday, according to a recent memo from the House ethics committee.

Under House rules, all lawmakers and staff must receive one hour of ethics training a year. And House officers and senior aides, as well as those lucky staffers designated "principal assistants," will have to get an additional hour of training.

Each office and committee must name an "ethics certification officer" by the end of this month, and that person will make sure the rest of you receive the training.

When you can't trust people to be responsible, and you're unwilling or unable to monitor irresponsibility and unethical behavior within your normal systems, you end up creating layers of regulation, red tape, and bureaucracy -- like annual training and official "ethics certification officers." And then you call them "ethics certification officers" instead of actual ethics officers, because the goal is to certify that you've completed ethics training, not to actually ensure ethical behavior.