A group of House Republican lawmakers, stewing over a Democratic ethics complaint filed against Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), is pressing for the GOP to file a reciprocal complaint against Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for violating campaign-finance law.
That would shatter what’s left of the ethics truce party leaders forged in the late ’90s and could lead Republicans and Democrats to remilitarize the ethics battlefield with tit-for-tat complaints.
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House Republican leaders, less choleric than the rank-and-file members who want to target Pelosi, are discussing reforming the procedures of the Standards of Official Conduct Committee, as the ethics panel is formally known, to tighten confidentiality of ethics proceedings and give accused lawmakers more opportunity to defend themselves.
The reforms could also render ethics complaints less damaging by making it easier for the committee to dismiss them and reducing the influence of outside groups that want to have lawmakers sanctioned. Republicans suspect that the Democrats colluded with outside groups by leaking the ethics schedule to them so that they could lobby committee members and maximize damage to DeLay.
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert may decide to replace Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.) as chairman of the committee. His handling of the complaint against DeLay infuriated many House Republicans. Hefley says he was threatened by colleagues.
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http://thehill.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/121504/ethics.html 
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