this came in the wake of the jack abramoff scandal in 2006 when all organizations year worked on drafting in promoting the honest leadership in government act to set up a series of congressional ethics rules as well as for the lobbyist one of the key problems that we doted was enforcement and historically has always been the responsibility of members of congress themselves to oversee members of congress both in the house and the senate side run by members of congress and the senate still does operate largely in secrecy. that i am doing of a great job confidentially and even though the public doesn't know what they're doing that is the basis of their effectiveness that is ridiculous following in the wake of the jack abramoff scandal with the ethics committee literally did almost nothing we recognized that enforcement is the major problem so then restarted to promote an institution for the office of congressional ethics is staffed and run by outsiders that cannot be members of congress or registered lobbyist even though they don't have enforcement in the -- authority they conduct an investi

house of representatives and that money was funded through a contribution to a charity run by jack abramoff and abramoff used those funds -- >> wasn't that a corporate contract? i'm talking about an individual contractor here. that is the point before us. >> it was. but the danger can happen in either case. so it's not the case that the congress -- >> it can happen but i'm asking has it happened. >> certainly at the state level. for example -- >> but not at the federal level. >> at the federal -- well, not necessarily the actual contractor because there are a lot of people that personally associated with the contractor. for example, congressman randy cunningham another one of the most nor tore youse scandals. money was funded by him to several candidate commitees by a defense contractor mitchell ade and other individuals to go to randy cunningham and other candidates and party commitees. so you're not going to find an example of the person who was the actual contractor at the federal level having given a contribution to a party committee for a noncandidate committee. but again at the state

gingrich funding issues, bill clinton's fundraising programs, the passage of mccain-fine gold, the jack abramoffndal, citizens united, and now the recent rise of super pacs. he has won several awards such as the alfred i. dupont columbia silver baton and also the radio and television correspondents' annual award for excellence. ruth marcus is a columnist and editorial writer at the washington post. she focuses on american politics and domestic policy. she's been with the post since 1984. she joined the national staff in 1986 and has covered a wide variety of issues including campaign finance, the justice department, the supreme court and the white house. she joined the editorial board in 2003 and began writing a regular column in 2006. john harwood is the chief washington corps bottom for cnbc and also a political writer for "the new york times." he writes the weekly column "political memo" for the paper, and in addition to cnbc, john offers political analysis on nbc's "meet the press" and also the pbs show "washington week in review." brody mullins is a reporter for "the wall street journal" ba