TURNING THE ETHICS TABLES: “Senate Republicans said Thursday they would invoke new ethics rules to block Democratic efforts to send to President Bush the first appropriations package of the 110th Congress. . . . Under the new ethics law, which was enacted in September, sustaining a point of order would strike the offending language, in this case the Veterans Affairs measure. The bill without the offending language would then be sent back to the House for reconsideration. Before the law, sustaining the point of order under Senate Rule 28 would essentially kill the bill. Congress changed the rules to make it easier for members to strike language inserted during the penultimate stage of the legislative process. When they regained their majority at the beginning of the year, Democrats vowed to make conference committee action more transparent after complaining for years that Republicans had abused the process by inserting provisions in the dead of night.”