With all the talk circulating about Tom DeLay’s ethics quagmire, it’s easy to forget that the House of Representatives still doesn’t have a functioning Ethics Committee right now.
When we last checked in on the panel, Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), the ranking Dem on the Ethics Committee, had brought the committee to a halt, refusing to allow the panel to conduct business under new, looser, and less effective rules that were implemented to shield DeLay from further scrutiny. There are five Dems and five Republicans on the committee, but the panel cannot conduct business until a majority of its members adopt the new guidelines. The Dems have refused, demanding the full House revisit the issue and vote on reestablishing the old ethics guidelines.
You’ll be pleased to know that the Dems haven’t caved an inch since the clash began.
With the standoff over the House ethics committee now entering its second month, the panel’s ranking member, Rep. Alan Mollohan (D-W.Va.), is standing firm in his bid to overturn three controversial ethics rules changes pushed through the House by GOP leaders on the first day of the 109th Congress.
The ethics committee is scheduled to meet Wednesday, after a weeklong postponement due to Pope John Paul II’s funeral and the resulting disruption of the House schedule. Though this week’s meeting is likely to happen as planned, there is little sign of any movement that could allow the panel to carry out its official duties.
Mollohan, meanwhile, is prepared to offer the GOP something of a compromise.
He’s prepared to ask if the majority will join him in creating a bipartisan task force to look at January’s rule changes, a move Nancy Pelosi suggested a month ago but was deafeated on the House floor. One has to assume it will be rejected again.
Barring that, Mollohan still has a pending resolution to undo the GOP changes. It has 208 co-sponsors — 206 Dems, plus former Ethics Committee Chair Joel Hefley and Chris Shays, both of whom are Republicans.
Could there be a better time to tackle this? When House Republicans decided to gut House ethics rules for DeLay’s benefit, the Majority Leader was just a corrupt leader unknown to most of the public and largely ignored by the media. But now, with new revelations about DeLay’s lapses popping up constantly, the entire debate has taken on new significance.
With just a few more GOP moderates, Mollohan could force a floor fight over his resolution and get every lawmaker on the record, making a clear choice: in support of congressional ethics or in support of Tom DeLay.
Stay tuned.