A Heck of a First Day: Rules, Ethics, and Party Strategy

The 109th Congress got off to a lively start on Tuesday, January 4th, 2005 when House majority leader, Tom DeLay (R-TX) put a stop to a dispute that was shaking the House ethics committee and disturbing his party.

The short-lived controversy reveals key strategies of both the Democrats and Republicans and shows the importance of party discipline and loyalty.

The matter also illustrates the significance of public opinion, which greatly influenced the House Republican’s decisions in this matter.

Changing the rules

In November 2004, Republicans voted to eliminate a rule that would force any member indicted of a felony charge to step down from his or her leadership position. This rule change has been widely recognized as a move to protect DeLay, who was reprimanded for bribery and other ethical misconduct in 2004.

In addition, DeLay’s associates have been indicted by a Texas grand jury on charges of money laundering and illegal campaign financing. Although DeLay himself has not been formally accused, House Republicans worried that an indictment could force their leader to step down, weakening their party. So House Republicans demanded that the rule be changed, arguing that a party leader should not be removed from power because of an accusation that could, they reasoned, be the result of partisan politics.

In addition to changing this rule, House Republicans sought to change the House ethics manual by removing a phrase that requires Congressmen and women to conduct themselves at all times "in a manner which shall reflect credibly on the House of Representatives." This phrase has been used repeatedly to punish members of Congress accused of disreputable behavior, including DeLay.

Resistance and strategy

The public, Democrats, and some Republicans were angered by the proposed rule change; they argued that deleting this catch-all phrase would further immobilize the already-weak ethics committee.

Colorado Republican Joel Hefley, chairman of the ethics committee, was firmly against the change, as were a number of House Republicans who reported their frustrations to the press under the protection of anonymity.

But DeLay and other Republican leaders were aware of the disagreement among Republicans in the House, many of whom had received angry letters from their constituents.

In order to preserve party unity, please the public, and deny the Democrats a sharp political weapon that they could have used to discredit Republican leadership, DeLay decided not to change the rulebook. And DeLay withdrew the proposal himself in order to present the party as unified and principled.

However, House Republicans were able to undermine the ethics committee with a different strategy, one that relies on partisan politics.

House vote disables ethics committee

On this first supercharged day of the 109th Congress, the House voted 220 to 195 to allow ethics complaints to automatically expire in the event of an ethics committee deadlock. Such a deadlock is expected, since the committee is made up of 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats and party leaders on both sides are likely to require party loyalty.

Party loyalty and partisanship are not necessarily negative forces - historically, parties have allowed otherwise disparate groups to form coalitions, and presently, the parties serve as watchdogs for one another. And without representation of conflicting points of view, you have a dictatorship.

Nevertheless, critics say that this new rule will kill most ethics complaints. Before the rule change, claims were investigated automatically if committee members did not take action in 45 days.

The new rule requires the ethics committee chairman and a ranking Democrat to agree on an investigation. By using their majority position to make this rule, the Republicans have effectively given themselves a one-sided veto of every ethics investigation.

The current chairman, Hefley, who tends to disagree with DeLay on ethics issues, will probably be replaced by Representative Lamar S. Smith (R-TX), who would be unlikely to allow an investigation against DeLay.

Both parties claim victory

Republicans had to change their strategy, but they’ve declared victory. DeLay says he foiled the Democrats’ plan to paint Republicans as unethical on the first day of the new session.

Democrats claim a win since Republicans dropped their plan to rewrite the ethics manual.

But the people are successful as well, since constituents proved to both sides that they are interested and aware. Public protest and a free press make a difference.

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Update Posted on: 1/10/2005