The natural reaction for Dems to news that House Republicans were willing to launch an ethics investigation into Tom DeLay was exhilaration. Finally, Dems were supposed to think, the GOP was caving to pressure and DeLay’s misdeeds would get a thorough review.
That may have been the natural reaction, but it was also the wrong one. The Republican offer was a sucker’s bet, designed to give DeLay and his cohorts exactly what they want. Dems were right to reject it out of hand.
The problem here is a blurring of the lines between two problems. One is the array of ethical and legal lapses surrounding DeLay; the other is a rigged House ethics process, designed to make ethical transgressions (such as DeLay’s) easier to get away with. The Republican pitch yesterday hoped to obscure the difference; Dems saw through this immediately.
Dems demand that the process is now broken, thanks to fraudulent changes made to the ethics process by Hastert and DeLay earlier this year. It’s led to a complete shutdown on the House Ethics Committee. Republican said yesterday that they’ll agree to a DeLay investigation — just as long as Dems forget about fixing the broken rules.
House Republicans said yesterday they are prepared to launch an ethics investigation of their second-in-command, majority leader Tom DeLay of Texas, who has been dogged by allegations that he accepted free trips from lobbyists, among other possible violations of House rules.
But the Republicans coupled the offer with a demand that Democrats drop their opposition to new rules enacted by the GOP in January. Democrats, who have prevented the House Ethics Committee from meeting this year in protest of the new rules, quickly rejected the plan.
”These are two totally separate issues,” said the committee’s ranking Democrat, Representative Allan Mollohan of West Virginia, referring to the DeLay probe and the rewriting of ethics rules.
The House Democratic whip, Representative Steny Hoyer of Maryland, went further, saying in a statement that the GOP move was a ”charade” and ”a calculated attempt to divert attention from the fact that the Republican majority has neutered the Ethics Committee in the House by imposing partisan rules that hamstring any meaningful inquiry.”
Damn straight.
Under the proposal Republicans unveiled yesterday, DeLay would be investigated, but under faulty rules that would ultimately exonerate him of any wrongdoing. What’s more, if Dems went along with this scam, they wouldn’t be able to push for the broader ethics reform that they’re demanding now. As the Washington Post put it:
A more fundamental problem is that — were the Democrats to accept this offer, and they’ve said they won’t — the panel would be operating, now and in future Congresses, under the flawed rules imposed unilaterally on the Democratic minority.
Let’s also not forget the impact on DeLay. As a practical matter, pushing DeLay’s crises into an ethics subcommittee isn’t a way to hold the Majority Leader responsible; it’s a way to get his problems off the front page. Because an ethics investigation proceeds under strict confidentiality, DeLay and his allies would have a trump card every time a reporter asked about his transgressions: “I’d love to talk about that, but the matter is before the House Ethics Committee.” No wonder DeLay didn’t complain when the pitch was made yesterday.
In other words, there’s literally no upside to yesterday’s offer and Dems deserve credit for seeing through the nonsense immediately. Indeed, the fact that House Republicans would even make such an offer suggests they are more desperate than they appear.