Freshman Senators Take Action to Investigate Defense Contracting Abuse

Nine freshmen Senators are launching an independent commission that will investigate wartime contracting abuses.  Congressional sources tell The Blue State that this bipartisan commission will be announced tomorrow during a press conference at 3 PM ET.  What they will do is submit an amendment to a pending defense authorization bill that sets up the independent, bipartisan commission to uncover contracting fraud and offer solutions to prevent future abuse.  The amendment would also expand the authority of the Inspector General, whose job it is to investigate such abuses.

The Senators that came up with this proposal were Jim Webb of Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Jon Tester of Montana, Ben Cardin of Maryland, Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, and Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island.

Bob Corker (R-TN), the only freshman Republican Senator, chose not to take part in this effort.

I know it can be frustrating to see the Democrats not do more tochallenge the Bush Administration on Iraq -- almost as if the 2006election didn't mean anything.  Actually, the election was importantbecause we brought in a class of freshman Senators whose campaigncontributors included people like you and me.  They are less indebtedto the special interest than they are to those who got them into power -- us!  Whenever that happens, you see efforts like this to push back against the establishment.

Comments

[George]

By bi-partison, you mean Democrat/Independent?

[Chief Editor: Todd]

No. To my knowledge, none of these Senators will be on the commission. It will be a bipartisan group of non-lawmakers....similar to that of the Iraq study group