HOW DEMOCRATS CAN OVERTHROW THE HOUSE.
Learning from Newt
by Michael Crowley
Post date: 01.13.05
Issue date: 01.24.05
arly last year, a Democratic representative named Chris Bell decided it was time someone really went after Tom DeLay. Like many of his Democratic colleagues, Bell had come to believe that DeLay, a fellow Texan, was not just a tyrannical House majority leader, but that his pursuit of power had led him to trample House ethics rules. So Bell drafted a complaint that amounted to a long rap sheet against DeLay, charging him with selling legislative favors to energy company lobbyists, illegally using corporate donations, and pressuring the Federal Aviation Administration to track a planeful of Texas Democrats mixed up in a state legislative dispute. But, when Bell filed his complaint, he found that, however much his Democratic colleagues railed against DeLay, they were nervous about taking him on. "Privately, it was 'You're my hero,'" he sighs. "But no one wanted to be publicly supportive. When we looked for people to make public declarations, it was awfully quiet." Democratic leaders like Nancy Pelosi were quick to tell reporters that they had not encouraged Bell's action.
Bell was only a freshman, and he was learning an important fact about today's House Democrats. While they may boil with outrage at the actions of House Republican leaders, there are limits to what they are willing to do. Many Democrats, especially older ones with memories of a more civil time in Washington, are squeamish about flamethrower politics. For seven years, they had observed an informal ethics "truce" with Republicans, and they were loath to shatter it.
Today, Bell stands vindicated on both substantive and political grounds. Substantively because, last fall, the House Ethics Committee wound up admonishing DeLay on two of the three charges Bell leveled. Politically, because Bell's complaint landed a body blow against the GOP leadership, which suffered a fusillade of public outrage and negative press when--in obvious response to Bell's complaint--it tried to loosen the House's ethics rules last week to make such complaints harder to file. (The ending was not so happy for Bell himself, who was redistricted out of his seat last year.)
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050124&s=crowley012405Long, but good stuff. Hope all of our House members read it.
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