Definately a surprise out of Harry Reid’s Senate:

Members of Congress convicted of serious crimes would lose their taxpayer-paid pensions, sometimes totaling more than $100,000 a year, under a measure unanimously approved by the Senate Friday.

The 87-0 vote to deprive lawbreaking lawmakers of their retirement benefits was part of a comprehensive ethics and lobbying bill that the Senate has taken up as its first piece of legislation in the new Democratic-controlled Congress.

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Currently, a lawmaker can lose his or her pension only if convicted of crimes such as treason or espionage. The Kerry provision would extend that to cases of bribery, conspiracy to defraud the United States and perjury.

Read more at Foxnews.com

This is a very good surprise out of the Senate, and even for liberal John Kerry. This is a small step to correct an enormous problem of corruption in Washington, but every little bit of corrective legislation helps. Props go out to the bipartisan efforts in the Senate to pass this bill. Let’s hope the House does the same.