Some of you may be wondering what the status is of the House ethics investigation into Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Now that the rigged rules have been repealed and the Ethics Committee can operate, the investigation is finally on track, right? Wrong.
Despite an apparent breakthrough when Republican congressional leaders reversed ethics committee rule changes opposed by Democrats, continuing conflict over staff hiring has kept the panel stalled. Without a staff of objective, nonpartisan investigators, the panel cannot review allegations of improper funding of trips taken by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and many other representatives of both parties.
At issue is whether the committee chairman, Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., can place his chief of staff in a similar role on the committee. The rules state that the staff must be nonpartisan and jointly selected by members of both parties. The ranking Democrat, Allan Mollohan of West Virginia, calls Hastings’ move illegal. The impasse between the five Democrats and five Republicans on the panel prevents Hastings from hiring a new staff chief counsel and investigators.
In the interests of impartiality, the committee is evenly divided, with five Dems and five Republicans. In turn, the committee staffers are supposed to be, and always have been, divided evenly as well. Except the new chairman of the committee, hand-picked by DeLay and Hastert, wants to ignore the rules and stack the staff with his people. Naturally, Dems aren’t happy, and so the ethics process is once again at a standstill. The Houston Chronicle ran a terrific editorial recently encouraging Republicans to get their act together.
It’s impossible to maintain even the facade of an impartial ethics committee if one side is allowed to select staff members who clearly owe their loyalty to one party or the other, rather than the integrity of the House. When Democrats controlled the House, they adhered to the rules, and an investigation led to the resignation of House Speaker Jim Wright, D-Fort Worth. The current majority apparently believes rules are made to be rewritten whenever they work to their disadvantage.
The Republican leadership has already badly burned its fingers several times by overreaching to neuter the House watchdog. By now they should have gotten the message from the American people: Back off, play fair and let that ethics hound hunt.
There’s one upside to these delays. The investigation into DeLay’s shenanigans is expected to take about a year. In other words, had they begun in April, the final report would come out next spring. So, if Republicans keep stalling on getting started, the results of the investigation will be available — you guessed it — right around the time of the 2006 election.
Note to GOP: if you want to put off the probe for a few more months, it’s all right by me.