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A report from The Hill dot com from December features the changing of the guard on Oversight in the 111th Congress. Longtime super sleuth and self-proclaimed defender of the free world Henry Waxman left the Oversight Chairmanship for a post at Energy and Commerce and that can’t be a good thing. At least when he was doing nothing worthwhile at Oversight his exploits were useful fodder for eomedic episodes on various media including blogs.

Edolphus Towns is the new sherrif in (pardon me) town as far as House Oversight is conerned which is usually only with the opposition party. Based on a quick review of the associated websites there seems to be little of interest happening which is also a good thing. Partisan hangings are not worth the price of admission even though the Minority Office of Oversight has a nice note on David Obey’s son lobbying for billions in pork from the porkulus bill.

Below is The Hill reference mentioned above.

“I am humbled and honored by my colleagues’ support and confidence,” Towns said in a statement. “There is a great deal of work to be done to ensure a smooth transition, and I look forwardto working with both my Democratic and Republican colleagues in concert with the Obama Administration to ensure the federal government is transparent, responsive and efficient.”

On Town’ own house website he points out ‘community activist’ on his resume’. Is that a bigger deal than community organizer in liberal circles or simply an oversight? Maybe he really meant organizer since it may be good to cozy up to the new Commander-in-Chief.

Edolphus “Ed” Towns, a former social worker and community activist in Brooklyn, New York, is a 13-term veteran in the House. In the 110th Congress, Rep. Towns served on both the powerful Energy and Commerce Committee and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. On December 10th 2008, Rep. Towns was elected chairman of the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform for the upcoming 111th Congress.

A Wikipedia account featured personal history on Towns that has its impressive qualities. Now it will of course be a matter of time to see if this Oversight Chairman simply attempts to execute opposition party members or even-handedly pursues ethical and legal violations. It must have been too early for investigating the string of minor criminals standing in line for confirmations at the Senate hearings. But if he follows Obama’s lead the criteria for ethics and other matters will be modified as the situation warrants. For example, allowing a tax evader to become Treasury Secretary.

Stanford Matthews
MoreWhat.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 14th, 2009 at 1:43 pm and is filed under Public Affairs, wordpress, Politics, GOP, Democrats, Waxman, disclosure, ethics, oversight, Congress, David Obey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.