Congress is doing some deep thinking about how to add teeth to its ethics provisions. The Dems are talking about a special outside ethics office, blah blah blah.

Here's an idea that'd encourage your local U.S. Representative start behaving: Make Congressional offices subject to the federal Freedom of Information Act. Currently almost every scrap of paper compiled by your congressman, at your expense, is not considered public information. You can't review his phone records even though you and other citizens paid for the calls (along with the phone, the roof over the phone, and the computer he was using to browse internet porn while he was on the phone).

You can't review his calendar to see how often he meets with lobbyists. You can't review his correspondence to see if he's abusing his Congressional postage privilege.

So: Spend millions to create an outside ethics review office, or spend $0 to tweak the FOIA law. I think we know which one Congress will choose.