Nancy Pelosi isn’t wasting any time in trying to get Congress to be better behaved in 2007:

Democrats will adopt and then amend the House Rules package tomorrow to ban all travel paid for by lobbyists or organizations that employ lobbyists, require the ethics committee to pre-approve travel paid for by outside groups, enact a total gift ban, and require lawmakers to pay the market cost of flying on a corporate jet, said Democratic staffers and officials with government watchdog groups.

And, because they feel they lost the 2003 Medicare prescription drug benefit vote because GOP leaders held it open for three hours, during which they flipped opponents into the “yes” column, Democrats will include a provision in the rules to prevent any sort of repetition, said aides to incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

Democrats also will eliminate the practices of changing conference reports after members have signed them and excluding elected members from conference committees.

…

Democrats complained vociferously about the House GOP’s tactics during the past four years, such as preventing Democrats from offering amendments on the House floor, excluding them from conference committees, and holding votes open for much longer than the traditional 15 minutes.

…

In addition to revising ethics rules, the Democratic majority on Friday will debate and vote on procedural and budgetary reforms — measures to ensure that members have 24 hours to review legislation, earmark reforms and pay-as-you-go requirements — said senior Democratic aides.

There’s more, read the rest.

You’ll hear Republican whining about a “Minority Bill of Rights” which Nancy Pelosi introduced in 2004. The interesting thing is that it includes most of the same language as the Democrat’s larger ethics reform bill. We’ll see if the Republicans line up to support Pelosi’s larger, more comprehensive version this time. As it stands, they’re just whining about getting the same treatment they gave the Democrats without acknowledging their own duplicity in the matter.

I’m actually impressed and the cynic in me is surprised. I believe the Democrats will be better, but if they’re able to live up to the ideals expressed in this reform package, our government will be more open and our nation better for it.