Republicans Rescind House Ethics Rules Changes

The Washington Post

By Mike Allen

House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, a Republican from Texas, pledged yesterday that his office will turn over “everything that we have” about controversial overseas trips, as House Republicans overwhelmingly agreed to rescind rules changes imposed in January that led to a shutdown of the ethics committee.

The decision – announced by Republican leaders yesterday morning and ratified last night by a 406 to 20 House vote – was a rare concession of error by House Speaker Dennis Hastert, a Republican from Illinois, and other GOP leaders who had pushed through the rules over strong objections from Democrats. The standoff had left the chamber with no mechanism for investigating the mounting questions about trips DeLay accepted. All 20 of those voting against restoring the old rules were Republicans.

DeLay said that as soon as the committee reconvenes, he wants it to issue what he called “clear guidelines to the members when it comes to these trips and how they are taken.” The majority leader said he will also ask the committee to “look at these issues as it not only pertains to me, but the entire House.”

He defended the concept of congressional travel and said he would oppose efforts to stymie it. “I know some of these leftist groups would love to isolate members of Congress so that we don’t talk to Americans,” he said.

The ethics committee admonished DeLay three times last year for official conduct deemed inappropriate by members. Since then, his foreign travel and ties to Washington lobbyists, including Jack Abramoff, have drawn close media scrutiny. The Washington Postreported last weekend that Abramoff charged DeLay’s airfare to London and Scotland to his American Express credit card in 2000. House ethics rules bar lawmakers from accepting travel and related expenses from registered lobbyists.

House members are given a 71-page “Gifts and Travel” booklet that spells out acceptable practices. Asked if the rules were not clear, DeLay replied, “No, obviously not.”

The ethics committee is split between five Republicans and five Democrats, making it the only committee that does not have a Republican majority, and Democrats used that leverage to refuse to organize the committee under rules changes that Republicans pushed through in January. Democrats refused to negotiate until Republicans announced Monday that they would go back to the rules that had prevailed from 1997 until this year.

Amid loud grumbling from some Texans and conservatives, Hastert convinced a closed-door meeting of House Republicans early yesterday that they needed to support the repeal of three ethics rules changes made in January.

One, known as the “automatic dismissal rule,” required the committee to dismiss a complaint against a member after 45 days if the committee was deadlocked over the matter. Under the old rule, the committee would have to continue considering the complaint.
Another rule change, known as “right to counsel,” gave members the right to a lawyer of their choice if called before the committee. Democrats complained that would allow one lawyer to represent multiple witnesses and learn all the evidence.

A third, the “due process rule,”guaranteed a member the right to respond if the committee were about to issue a public letter of reprimand or admonishment. Democrats said that could force a hearing too quickly, but they agreed members should have some kind of notice.

After the closed meeting of GOP members, Hastert insisted that the January rules changes were fair but said he was “willing to step back” because Democrats were using the changes as a reason to block the panel from organizing. Without mentioning DeLay by name, Hastert referred to a member “on our side” who “needs to have the process move forward so he can clear his name – right now, we can’t clear his name.”

“The media wants to talk about ethics, and as long as we’re at a stalemate, that’s all that is in the press today, ” Hastert said. “We need to get this behind us.”

Wednesday’s developments are certain to trigger prolonged political warfare in the House over ethics standards. Republicans have vowed to try to shift the focus of the controversy to the Democrats.

Hastert said last week that there are “four or five cases out there dealing with top-level Democrats,” whom he did not name. Several House Republicans said they planned to use time on the House floor to outline what they consider to be transgressions by Democrats. Ethics Chairman Doc Hastings, R-Wash., whom Hastert named in February after his predecessor ran afoul of the party leadership, said he is now ready to appoint a subcommittee to investigate what he has called “various allegations concerning travel and other actions by Mr. DeLay.”

Democrats complained that Hastings planned to name a close aide as the panel’s staff director, while in the past the chairman and ranking member have agreed on a bipartisan staff.

“Even in defeat, it seems the majority has no shame,” said Rep. Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y. As the House prepared to vote Wednesday night, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier, R-Calif., said the action would return the chamber to the same ethics rules that existed last year -”word for word, comma for comma.”

DeLay, appearing at a weekly news conference he holds in his conference room at the Capitol, said he is “looking forward” to appearing before the committee.

“We will submit, and ask the ethics committee to take a look at, our actions as it pertains to trips that have been questioned,” he said. “We will give them everything that we have. And we will ask the ethics committee to look at it and make a judgment.”

DeLay said his staff has spent weeks compiling “all the information that we have – you’re talking about going back 10 years or more.”

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