With the recent run of ethical abuses by members of the House of Representatives, you’d probably expect that there would be some sort of crackdown. But you’d have to be familiar with the current make-up of the House to suspect that the crackdown would be on the Ethics Committee rather than the body’s various malefactors.
First there was the DeLay Rule. This one amounts to a whole Tom DeLay Protection Act of 2005.
Let’s get down to details.
As the Washington Post noted last Friday, House Republicans are planning to begin the new session of Congress tomorrow with a wholesale weakening of the ethics rules that govern the House. Perhaps the most important one is the removal of the rule that members of the House “shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House.”
The rule change was proposed to the House Rules Committee by Reps. Lamar Smith of Texas and Dave Camp of Michigan. Both loyal DeLay soldiers, Smith is a DeLay right-hand-man from back home, who says the “The [current] rules benefit the aggressors who file complaints.”
As the Post noted, this provision is that which “has been used to discipline members for taking bribes, fixing parking tickets and having sex with House pages.” In other words, it’s the rule that covers all the various sorts of sleaze that aren’t specifically enumerated in the House code — sort of the inverse of the constitution’s ‘necessary and proper’ clause. (After all, wouldn’t it be fun to have the House ethics code says 1a. Members shall not fornicate with House pages. 1b. Members shall not give a C note to House staff to ignore visits to office by call-girls …’ You get the idea.) You might just call it the Sleaze Rule.
Perhaps more to the point, it formed the basis of the Ethics Committee’s multiple ‘admonishments’ last year of Tom DeLay.
The GOP caucus could see as well as anyone that something had to be wrong when the Majority Leader was cited again and again for unethical behavior. So in characteristic form, they repealed the rule under which he was cited.
One person who thinks this is a bad idea is Joel Hefley of Colorado, the Chairman of the Ethics Committee and perhaps better known to you as a member of the Shays Handful.
According to this morning’s CQ Today, he’s told aides he opposes the changes — particularly that to the aforementioned Sleaze Rule — plans to speak out against the change tomorrow on the House floor before the change comes to a vote. And he said the following in a written statement: “This is not the way to effect meaningful reform. Ethics reform must be bipartisan and this package is not bipartisan. If the House is to have a meaningful, bipartisan ethics process, changes of this magnitude can be made – as they were made in 1997 and 1989 – only after thoughtful, careful consideration on a bipartisan basis.”
And with a statement like that, as you might expect, ol’ man Helfey probably ain’t long for the Chairmanship. Reportedly he’s about to be canned by Speaker Hastert and replaced by … who? … you guessed it, Lamar Smith.
Is Chris Shays going to have his hands full on this one too? Tune in to C-Span tomorrow. They’re not allowed to have this one behind closed doors.
