Rewriting Ethics History ,
Mr. Tom "my way or the highway" Delay
IN THE PAST few months, the previously somnolent House ethics committee has
roused itself to admonish Majority Leader Tom DeLay (D-Tex.) for various ethical
missteps. "Beyond the bounds of acceptable conduct," the committee's Republican
chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (Colo.), and Democratic vice chairman, Alan B.
Mollohan (W.Va.), summed it up in a letter to the leader.
The committee found that Mr. DeLay's holding a golf fundraiser for energy
companies just as the House was to consider energy legislation was
"objectionable . . . because, at a minimum, [it] created an appearance that
donors were being provided special access to you regarding the then-pending
energy legislation." It also concluded that Mr. DeLay's drafting of Federal
Aviation Administration officials to hunt down fleeing Democratic Texas state
legislators who were foiling the leader's redistricting plans "raises serious
concerns" about misusing government resources for partisan purposes. It said
that Mr. DeLay improperly offered to endorse the son of retiring Rep. Nick Smith
(R-Mich.) in exchange for Mr. Smith's vote on the Medicare prescription drug
bill. And it cautioned the majority leader, "In view of the number of instances
to date in which the Committee has found it necessary to comment on conduct in
which you have engaged, it is clearly necessary for you to temper your future
actions. . . . "
Mr. DeLay responded with his customary sensitivity to ethical concerns,
crowing that -- despite the tough language -- he had been cleared because the
committee had not found a specific violation of House rules. Yesterday, though,
Mr. DeLay and his allies held a triumphal news conference that made his previous
statements look like a model of contrition. The occasion was the ethics
committee's finding that Rep. Chris Bell (D-Tex.), the lame-duck lawmaker who
summoned up the courage to file a complaint against the majority leader, had
himself violated ethics rules because of the document's "excessive" and
"inflammatory" charges. "I am grateful today that we finally have vindication of
Mr. DeLay, and we have placed the blame where it properly belongs," said Rep.
John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.). Rep. Henry Bonilla (R-Tex.) absurdly termed the
Bell complaint "one of the greatest abuses of the ethics process that the House
of Representatives has ever seen" -- as if the ethics committee had not found
grounds to admonish Mr. DeLay. Mr. DeLay himself insisted that he had simply
been given a routine "mild warning" from the ethics committee. This transparent
effort to rewrite history doesn't withstand scrutiny.
In truth, the ethics committee had grounds to criticize both Mr. DeLay and Mr.
Bell. The Bell complaint was replete with hyperbolic language and extreme
accusations. But it also prodded the ethics committee finally to conduct the
investigation of Mr. DeLay that it should have been doing on its own.. The
committee has closed its doors to complaints filed by outside groups, meaning
that only a brave lawmaker can file a complaint. Now its action against Mr.
Bell, with its explicit and chilling warning to lawmakers that they risk being
disciplined themselves for filing such complaints, means that only the bravest
of lawmakers will dare. The committee added that it didn't intend "to inhibit
any member from filing a complaint that he or she believes in good faith
warrants consideration," but it's hard to see how it could avoid having such an
effect. Meantime, the rules for the 109th Congress may be rewritten to make it
even harder or riskier to bring ethics complaints. The last thing the House
ethics process needs is less vigor.
