Fair Elections/Campaign Finance Ohio Tea Party splits with Boehner on ethics While Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) won’t commit to keeping the Office of Congressional Ethics, the umbrella tea party groups said, if anything, it should only be expanded. Congress The incoming Republican Congress must avoid the ethics boomerang Lisa Gilbert of Public Citizen reminds us what a House under Republican leadership looks like – Abramoff, private trips, wasteful earmarks, the K Street Project. “We must strive to continue to improve our ethics process rather than turn back the clock to the style of the prior Republican majority.” Plan to cut mortgage deduction stirs housing industry’s K Street machine The mortgage interest tax deduction won’t go down without a fight—with trade groups and their lobbyists already reaching out to lawmakers to stop it (and they’ve got plenty of campaign cash behind them). Did DeLay have time to block the swap? An update from the trial of Tom DeLay in Texas—with the jury hearing about whether DeLay knew of the corporate money swap that led to the indictment and whether he could have stopped it. The incredible shrinking Chamber of Commerce It seems that the U.S. Chamber could be inflating their membership size directly—and may have fewer than 100k, maybe even 50k. A big difference than the 300k it says it has—and a real show that it shouldn’t have the clout that it does. In the States Public campaign financing pilot program receives contributions, support And the West Virginia judicial public financing program is off to a good start. Advocates and elected officials held a press conference to praise the start of the system and some began making donations to the system.