I can understand, to a certain extent, why today’s House Republicans have turned their collective backs on some of the reforms mandated by the Contract with America. Ideas such as term limits and a balanced-budget amendment to the Constitution look pretty ridiculous in hindsight, so it’s tough to criticize the GOP for abandoning the ideas now.
But Newt Gingrich was on to a political and policy winner a decade ago by embracing an initiative that makes lawmakers abide by the same laws as everybody else. The “Congressional Accountability Act” was political gold — and Newt used the idea as a sign of Republicans’ commitment to much-needed reform.
Ten years later, of course, today’s Republicans have little use for the idea.
House Republican leaders want to exempt members of Congress from laws against discrimination that apply to private employers, despite the Republicans’ Contract With America pledge that ”all laws that apply to the rest of the country also apply equally to the Congress” and a decade-old law that placed Congress under antidiscrimination statutes.
The irony is, this move was prompted by a discrimination lawsuit filed against a Democrat, which you’d assume would make the House GOP happy. They’re not — because they realize once lawmakers can be held responsible for their actions in court, it’s only a matter of time before a Republican is in the same circumstances.
As a result, the top three House Republicans (Hastert, DeLay, Blunt) filed a brief in the discrimination case on behalf of the entire House, saying members of Congress should be exempt from discrimination law.
I think it’s fair to say the Republican “revolution” of 1994 is officially dead.
House Dems are prepared to have a field day with this one.
Democratic House leaders refused to sign off on the House brief, saying that if the court accepts that reasoning, the 10-year-old Congressional Accountability Act would be rendered meaningless. That law, passed shortly after the Republican takeover of Congress in 1995 and designed on the first plank of the Contract with America, specifically stated that Congress should be covered by the same statutes against discrimination that apply to private-sector employers.
”This is a total flip-flop, a repudiation of the contract,” said Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton, who held a news conference yesterday to call attention to the Republicans’ move. ”It’s really wrong for Congress to pass laws that cover the private sector that don’t cover ourselves.”
The GOP response was particularly amusing.
[A spokesman for Hastert, John Feehery,] said they were surprised that minority leader Nancy Pelosi balked at the attempt to help a fellow Democrat.
”We were trying to support [Pelosi’s] own member,” Feehery said.
(sarcasm alert) Sure, since the GOP leadership is always going out of its way to help out House Dems, that’s believable. Please.
In this particular situation, Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Texas) has been sued by her former chief of staff for alleged age and racial discrimination. House Dems believe Johnson is innocent (both Johnson and her former aide are black, making racial discrimination highly unlikely), but also believe she should be held to the same legal standard as any other employer in America. Republicans, meanwhile, believe the lawsuit should be dismissed out of hand, regardless of merit, because members of Congress shouldn’t have to deal with such matters.
If there’s been a more blatant abandonment of the Contract with America’s principles, I haven’t seen it.
Representative Christopher Shays, a Connecticut Republican who helped draft the Congressional Accountability Act a decade ago, said the law was written specifically to eliminate the kinds of exemptions House Republican leaders are now looking to create.
”The Congressional Accountability Act requires Congress to live by the laws it imposes on the rest of the nation,” Shays said in a prepared statement. ”While each case should be decided on the merits, the intent of [the law] was not to allow ‘speech and debate’ immunity to shield members from liability in suits filed by staff under the act.”