House leader promises ethics reform News
House leader promises ethics reform

[JURIST] Speaker of the US House of Representatives Dennis Hastert (R-IL) [official website] outlined a plan Sunday to implement more stringent restrictions on the "perks" members of Congress may accept from private parties. Reconsideration of the restrictions was sparked by the recent Congressional ethics scandal involving former Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff [JURIST news archive], and Texas Congressman Tom Delay [JURIST news archive]. Abramoff and Delay have been at the center of a campaign finance scandal that has resulted in Abramoff pleading guilty [JURIST report] to fraud, conspiracy, tax evasion and mail fraud charges and Delay relinquishing his post as House Majority Leader [JURIST report]. A former aide to Hastert told reporters that the legislation will likely tighten existing ethics rules [House backgrounder] imposed by the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 [PDF], and greatly limit, if not eliminate free travel, meal and entertainment members of Congress receive. The Chicago Tribune has more.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.