....by this congress, else this republican dominated congress will go down as the most cronified congress in history.
<snip>
February 5, 2005
EDITORIAL The New York Times
Tom DeLay's Inoculation Committee
House Republican leaders continue to try to hobble embarrassing ethics investigations of the majority leader, Tom DeLay. As expected, Representative Joel Hefley of Colorado, the ethics chairman, was removed after daring to oversee three reprimands of Mr. DeLay last year for cutting ethical corners. The new chairman, Doc Hastings of Washington, is an ally of Speaker Dennis Hastert. Mr. Hastings is expected to be more of a team player than Mr. Hefley, who was widely shunned by fellow Republicans as being "out of control" with the ethics portfolio.
Beyond the chairman, two other Republican members were replaced by lawmakers who have donated thousands of dollars to a legal fund set up to defend Mr. DeLay's integrity. The money bolsters him in an investigation into campaign money-laundering in Texas, where three DeLay allies have been indicted. The fund for the combative leader, called The Hammer, has raised a million dollars, with more than a third, in the circular ways of political money, donated by his House followers.
Mr. DeLay may not be a criminal target in Texas, as he maintains, but the hobbling of the committee seems designed to inoculate him against further peer reviews. The Republicans have changed the committee rules. The committee has 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats, so it often split 5 to 5 on how to deal with a complaint. Before, a 5-to-5 split kept the complaint alive to be investigated by a subcommittee. Indeed, that was the process that led to the public warnings last year about Mr. DeLay. Now, a 5-to-5 vote deep-sixes a complaint.
<more>
<link>
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/05/opinion/5sat3.html?oref=login&th 
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