The most open and ethical Congress in history blocking a probe into the connection between donations from PMA and earmark appropriations to its clients? Seems about right.

House Democrats on Tuesday stopped a Republican plan to force a campaign finance inquiry that likely would have investigated several influential Democrats. It was the eighth time since late February that the Republican move was halted.

One of the biggest recipients has been the chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania.

The vote was 215-182 to stop consideration of a GOP resolution to initiate a House ethics committee inquiry. It called for an investigation into campaign contributions to House lawmakers by recipients of pet project money and their lobbyists. …

The Republican resolution focused on a lobbying firm, PMA, which was raided by the FBI last year. The company’s political action committee records were carted off, along with files of some of its lobbyists.

In 2007 and 2008, Murtha, Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va. and Rep. Peter Visclosky. D-Ind., directed $137 million to defense contractors who were paying PMA to get them government business.

At the same time, the three lawmakers received huge amounts of political donations from PMA lobbyists and their clients. Murtha has collected $2.37 million from PMA’s lobbyists and the companies it has represented since 1989, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks political money. Visclosky has collected $1.36 million; Moran, $997,348.

Congressional Democratic attempts to cover for the corruption of their colleagues is so transparent that it’s sickening. In 2006, Democrats won control of Congress largely on the promise of cleaning up the culture of corruption in Washington and returning ethical governance to the halls of the legislature. Instead, they’ve continued to give taxpayer money away to donors and block any investigation into their activities.