cover image Cleaning House

Cleaning House

James K. Coyne. Regnery Publishing, $21.95 (235pp) ISBN 978-0-89526-516-6

Coyne, a former Pennsylvania Congressman who co-founded Americans to Limit Congressional Terms, and Fund, an editorial writer for the Wall Street Journal, feistily round up evidence against the excesses and irresponsibilities of the ``Careerist Congress.'' In arguing the case for congressional term limits, they assemble myriad tales of ordinary congressional privilege abuse that may have fueled much of the force behind the Jerry Brown and Ross Perot movements. Although this assault on franked and targeted mail, nepotism loopholes, lobbying practices and House banking procedures skirts the question of why a constituency keeps its career Congresspersons in office, the authors give us a chilling view of the workings of ``the only organized political party America has--the Incumbent party.'' First serial to Wall Street Journal. (Oct.)