Ethics Hokey Pokey: What is it all about?

The House of Representatives changed Ethics Committee rules for the second time this year, again in response to ethics problems faced by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R- Texas) and in keeping with their practice of using their majority victory in 2004 to advance their major change in philosophy and policy in all three branches of government.

This time around, Republicans gave in to Democrats’ demands because they wanted to jumpstart an Ethics Committee hearing that could exonerate DeLay.

Party strategy

Republicans say that Democrats blitzed the media with DeLay’s alleged ethics violations while holding up the committee that could vindicate him -- keeping Republicans in a whirlpool of a scandal. Their only choice was to submit to the Democrats’ demand that new ethics rules be repealed.

Democrats have refused to participate in the Ethics Committee since new rules were established in January 2005. Their tactic became effective once Republicans began itching to have DeLay investigated. Without an investigation, speculation went unchecked, and Republicans couldn’t report to their angry constituents that the matter was being examined.

What were the rule changes that Democrats opposed?

On the 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. Without representation of conflicting points of view, you have a dictatorship.

But Democrats argue that partisanship within the ethics process amounts to unchecked ethics violations, and so they themselves used partisan politics to overturn the Republican’s new rules.

So what are the rules now?

On April 27, 2005, the rules from the 108th Congress were reestablished by a vote of 406-20. This means that claims will be investigated automatically if committee members do not take action in 45 days, and a complaint cannot be dismissed without the committee’s consent. In addition, the House repealed the right to a hearing for any congressperson accused of ethics violations.

Although many Republicans felt pressured into overturning the new rules, some voted with a clean conscience. Representative Kenny Hulshof (R- Missouri) said that the return to the old rules reestablished a credible ethics process. Others, like House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R- Illinois), believe the old rules to be inherently unfair and want to reevaluate them in the future. However, before the initial rule change, Democrats suggested that a bipartisan task force do just that, but Hastert rejected the proposal.

Committee problems

Although Democrats have agreed to participate in the Ethics Committee, there are still obstacles to the DeLay investigation.

Democrats say that the current Republicans (several newly appointed) should not participate in the investigation, since all five Republican committee members have either received funds from DeLay’s political action committee or given money to his defense fund.

Republicans respond that these contributions will not affect committee members’ ability to look at the facts openly and fairly.

What do you think?

Should committee members recuse themselves if they have given money to or received contributions from the congressperson in question? What does it mean when Congress changes ethics rules because of partisan pressure? What should a fair ethics process look like?

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Update Posted on: 5/2/2005