Yesterday’s election of John Boehner as House majority leader is a sign that congressional Republicans are beginning to understand what they need to do to overcome the taint of scandal hanging over them in the wake of the exposure of the crimes of Jack Abramoff. Mr. Boehner, in his eighth term representing a corner of western Ohio, has never solicited a pork project for his district and, although he was the chairman of the education and workforce committee, was not part of the Tom DeLay clique that led the party into temptation in respect of big government and abusive pork.

Mr. Boehner is a big improvement on Roy Blunt of Missouri, who after serving as Mr. DeLay’s whip emerged as acting majority leader when an indictment forced Mr. DeLay out of leadership. Mr. Blunt appeared to have bought into the DeLay philosophy that effective politicking was an end in itself without regard to the soundness of the underlying policies. Sometimes that worked, as when they delivered a narrow victory on the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Other times it didn’t, as when they delivered a Medicare prescription drug benefit that is rapidly becoming a liability for the party or when they lost their nerve on Social Security reform. In rejecting Mr. Blunt’s bid, Republicans appear to have embraced the notion that his brand of congressional leadership is what got them into a lobbying scandal in the first place.

Not a moment too soon. Already Mr. Blunt had started the hard work of lobbying reform by pushing through a largely cosmetic measure to restrict the floor privileges of former members of Congress. It garnered a wide majority when it came for a final vote, but most members of both parties were rightly skeptical of whether it would actually solve anything. The real solution to lobbying abuses lies in reforming the appropriations process. Congress need not ban all earmarks, since pork can be an effective tool to circumvent obstinate bureaucrats, but it can illuminate such earmarks before voting on spending bills.

Mr. Boehner now has a chance to shake things up. He may not be as reliably conservative as the dark-horse fiscal hawk who was eliminated from the race in the first round of voting yesterday, John Shadegg of Arizona, but he’s more likely than was Mr. Blunt to lead the party in the right direction. Moving in the “right” direction is just what this party adrift needs.