Representative David McKinley frequently makes it into the pages of our local "newspapers." For those new to this blog, McKinley is an Ogden Newspaper favorite and is regularly featured on the front page for addressing veteran's groups, winning bogus awards, supposedly saving hundreds of thousands of jobs, and going shopping. Periodically, McKinley pens a pro-coal, anti-EPA opinion piece, which along with the regularly scheduled pro-McKinley editorials, makes the opinion pages sometimes look like an extension of his website. Even when he does something wrong, like getting in trouble with the House Ethics Committee, the local editor, Mike Myer, rises to his defense as he did last fall. Yes, he is clearly a local favorite.

I thought about our local congressman as I read about House Republicans secretly killing the congressional ethics board on Monday and then, faced with public opposition, reversing themselves on Tuesday. How did our local congressman vote? Given his protestations that he was wrongfully accused of ethical violations last fall, my hunch was that he voted in favor of killing the board. If we had real news media that served this area, I think we might have gotten an actual answer or at least one that dodged the question but suggested an answer. (How difficult would it have been to ask Rep. McKinley or one of his representatives how he voted?) Our chief source of information on such issues, however, our local "newspapers," apparently didn't bother to inquire. Instead, we got a generic editorial that tried to spread the blame while ignoring the lack of accountability from our local congressman. The editorial begins:

Apparently it was not only Democrats who didn’t get the message on Nov. 8. Some Republican leaders in Congress may have missed what voters were saying, too.

Sorry, it wasn't the leadership, it was a majority of Republican house members.

They did so because of complaints — from lawmakers of both parties — that the office had targeted them over relatively inconsequential issues.

Both parties? Really? This was purely a Republican vote and it was done in private! If Democrats wanted this, why not bring it to a vote before the entire House?

Even with the change, ample safeguards would have remained in place.

The editorial writer needs to read the paper's front page. The AP story concludes that the vote was a

secretive move Monday to neuter the independent Office of Congressional Ethics and place it under lawmakers' control.

At least one newspaper made an effort -- from this morning's Charleston Gazette-Mail:

Rep. David McKinley's and Rep. Alex Mooney's offices did not respond to multiple emails asking whether they voted to weaken the ethics office, which was set up in 2008 after three members of congress were sent to jail on corruption charges.

Similarly, Talking Points Memo, which had district constituents attempt to find out how their congressman voted, put McKinley in the "we'll get back to you" column.