A couple of weeks ago, after Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) launched a new effort to get Capitol Hill staff to pay more for health care to spite the White House, Senate Democrats decided it was time for a brush-back pitch. Dems sent word that if Vitter’s crusade continues, they’d push their own measure: lawmakers would be ineligible for health care subsidies if there is “probable cause” they solicited prostitutes.
It wasn’t a subtle move — Vitter, of course, ran for the Senate on a far-right “family values” platform, before he was caught hiring prostitutes
The Louisiana Republican did not respond well to the proposed tactic, and he filed an ethics complaint against Sens. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), accusing them of, well, it’s not altogether clear what Vitter was alleging. The complaint largely amounted to, “Dear Ethics Committee, Democrats might be mean to me. Please stop them.”
This didn’t work out especially well for the troubled conservative lawmaker.
The Senate Ethics Committee has dismissed a complaint made against Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and Ethics Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., by Republican David Vitter of Louisiana.
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“The committee has previously concluded that mere allegations, with no evidence or information to support their substantive merit, are insufficient to extend the Committee’s investigative process,” wrote Ethics Chief Counsel and Staff Director John Sassaman.
Sassaman announced the finding in a letter to Vitter, in which he noted that Vitter didn’t provide evidence that Boxer and Reid had anything to do with the alleged misconduct.
In the larger context, I’m not even sure what Vitter is trying to accomplish with tantrums like these. In general, the senator’s hooker problem doesn’t really generate that much attention, anyway. As a wise man recently joked, “Senator Vitter has already paid for his crimes — literally.”
By throwing a fit over Democratic references to his sex scandal, Vitter is only helping remind the public about his sex scandal.
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