Oops, I think I lobbied on myself

There is a interesting article by Hans A. von Spakovsky on the Weekly Standard's website called "The Nominee Who Lobbied Herself".  Go read it because it could become very interesting.

Will Hilda Solis's breach of House ethics rules disqualify her from serving as Secretary of Labor?

Per Hans, the Ethics Manual of the House (specifically page 352) restricts the lobbying of members..."members should not take an active role in lobbying Congress on behalf of a private organization since that would conflict with a Member's general obligation to the public".

Solis was a co-sponsor in 2007 of both the Employee Free Choice Act and the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, while serving as a board member of American Rights at Work (pro-union organization).  AWR spent $110,000 in 2007 and $120,000 in 2008 on lobbying expenses according to lobbying disclosure forms filed with Congress.  But wait there's more...not only was Solis a board member of AWR, she was the treasurer and thus would have approved the spending by AWR on lobbying other members of Congress on both of the bills she was sponsoring for passage.  Might want to refer back to page 352 of the Ethics Guidelines, because, I think that maybe, just maybe, that might be a conflict of interest.

The rest of the story as Paul Harvey would say is that Solis tried to cover all of these up...again read Hans story at the Weekly Standard.  Obama, Obama, Obama---welcome to the big leagues where every mistake has the Hubble telescope trained on it...who is your next pick for Secretary of Labor?