House Ethics Committee Chairman Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) has not exactly impressed his colleagues with stellar work. The committee stood at a standstill for most of the year until Hastings agreed to reverse ethics rules that had been manipulated to benefit Tom DeLay. Since then, Hastings’ committee has conducted no work because he insists on hiring his political aides to oversee committee operations, despite an explicit rule that mandates “a professional, nonpartisan staff” on the Ethics Committee.
As it turns out, that’s only the beginning. Hastings also enjoys close ties to the lobbying firm that is the center of the ethics scandals surrounding DeLay. The firm, Preston Gates & Ellis, former home of Jack Abramoff, has given Hastings $14,000. What’s more, Hastings denounced stricter labor laws for the Marianas’ Islands — an Abramoff client — shortly after a meeting with Preston Gates.
And as if that weren’t enough, we now learn that Hastings has been lax in disclosing his travel history.
The chairman of the House ethics committee apparently did not properly file a required report about a $3,170 trip to Canada last year. His staff said it must have been lost in the mail.
Perhaps the report, due nine months ago, will turn up. But this is a potentially embarrassing juncture for the chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-Wash.), to suffer a paperwork blunder. […]
The errant report came to light when PoliticalMoneyLine, a Web site specializing in money and politics, compared the trips summarized on lawmakers’ annual financial disclosures — released earlier this month — with those on the more detailed disclosure forms that are supposed to be filed within 30 days of a trip.
Hastings listed a trip from July 30 to Aug. 1, 2004, to Stuart Island, B.C., that was paid for by Washington Group International, an Idaho-based engineering and construction company that provides nuclear-cleanup services.
It’s all becoming a bit too much for Hastings, who has told colleagues he might quit his committee chairmanship soon.
Leave it to House Republicans to choose an Ethics Committee chairman with ethics problems.