OH Editorial: House GOP Ethics Concession Only Grudging

[kuozzman]

When the Republicans took over the House in 1994, they enacted a no-indicted-leaders rule. When they solidified their grip in 2004, they abandoned it.

The result was a blizzard of scorn directed their way, and, apparently, a really dirty feeling. Now they have unanimously lathered up and rinsed off.

Of course, they did so only after Rep. DeLay bid them to. Presumably, if he were still hanging tough, so would they be. Cleanliness may be next to godliness, but in Washington, it is way behind partisan loyalty.

Rep. DeLay says he doesn't expect to be indicted. That may be the only reason the Republicans have backed off their plan on indicted leaders. They can keep him no matter what the rules are.

But some say that another reason for the back-off is that Rep. DeLay recognized the harm he was doing to the party: causing it to be seen as corrupted by 10 years of power.

It is amazing that the Republicans ever loosened the rule against indicted leaders in the first place. That they have backed off is not much comfort. The back-off may mean nothing more than that they feel politically invulnerable. It is not clear that they concluded their position was wrong on the merits.

Meanwhile, word still has it they are going to remove the Republican chairman of the House Ethics Committee, who voted to admonish Rep. DeLay.

And they have now adopted a rule change that, had it been in effect last year, might have prevented the DeLay case from ever being investigated.

Until now, when a complaint has been brought before the Ethics Committee and has been deemed relevant to the committee's work, it has resulted in an investigation unless a majority of members opposed one.

The committee is, under the rules, evenly divided between Democrats and Republicans. So if a division is along party lines, an investigation goes forward.

Under the new rule, an investigation would have to be supported by a majority, meaning at least one member of each party.

Adopting such a rule might make sense if one believed that the House is having too many investigations and that they are motivated by partisanship. In fact, however, the DeLay investigation was the first in several years.

The change is a decision to err on the side of laxness, as opposed to vigilance.

As they made this decision, the House Republicans decided not to proceed with another loosening of the rules that they had toyed with, besides the one about indicted leaders and the majority vote. But apparently they had to get something in there just to show who's in charge, just to show that they are not totally cowed by the criticism of their approach to ethics.