This week’s reversal from House Republicans on some proposed changes to the chamber’s ethics rules has been widely noted. ABC News characterized it as DeLay & Co. “retreating” on an ethics overhaul. Roll Call said the GOP “blinked.”
This gives the House leadership far too much credit.
Over the last several weeks, DeLay, Hastert, and the GOP House majority have unveiled four measures that would have a sweeping impact on how congressional ethics are enforced.
1. Change the party’s own rule about lawmakers serving in the leadership while under criminal indictment (the DeLay rule).
2. Weaken the standards for what constitutes an ethics violation, removing a provision from the chamber’s guidelines requiring members to conduct themselves in a way “that shall reflect creditably on the House.”
3. Require a majority in the House Ethics Committee, instead of an even split between the parties, to proceed with an investigation.
4. Replace Joel Hefley as chairman of the House Ethics Committee with DeLay sycophant Lamar Smith.
House Republicans did reverse course on the first two of these four proposals, but before they start accepting praise for leaving congressional ethics in tact, no one should forget that the other two changes are moving forward.
Hefley, for example, is still getting the boot. As Sam Rosenfeld noted yesterday, he’ll likely be replaced by Lamar Smith, who happens to be the same lawmaker who proposed the now-disgraced “DeLay Rule” in the first place. Hardly the kind of move that inspires confidence.
The measure requiring a majority to conduct investigations in the House Ethics Committee, meanwhile, is even more troubling.
The rules change — magnificently mislabeled the “restore presumption of innocence” provision — would require that an ethics complaint be dropped unless there is bipartisan agreement to proceed. “Presumption of indolence” might be a more appropriate term. Under the previous rules, if the chairman and ranking member couldn’t agree on how to handle a complaint, it would be assigned to an investigative subcommittee or it would at least linger on the committee agenda. Now the complaint would be dismissed.
This change is as unnecessary as it is unwise…. [U]nlike other House panels, the ethics committee contains equal numbers of Republicans and Democrats, so ultimately no action is taken without some bipartisan agreement. Insisting on such agreement before an investigation can even begin, however, is a recipe for inactivity. Which may be precisely why the House leadership cooked it up in the first place.
Ya don’t say.