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House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rules

By TChris, Section Other Politics
Posted on Fri Mar 11, 2005 at 01:56:59 PM EST
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by TChris

The House of Representatives is unable to conduct ethics investigations of its members -- a result certain to delight some Republican representatives, but one that should be disturbing to the public.

The 10-member ethics committee -- five Democrats and five Republicans -- deadlocked late on Thursday on a vote to adopt new Republican rules that would make it tougher to launch an ethics investigation. A majority is needed to adopt the rules.

The full House approved the revision in January "after Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas was admonished by the ethics panel on three separate matters in 2004." The change would require a majority of the committee to vote in favor of an investigation, permitting an ethics complaint to die if the committee votes along party lines. Republicans, concerned that more ethics complaints might be made against DeLay, have worked to assure that impropriety goes uninvestigated.

Last month, House Speaker Dennis Hastert, an Illinois Republican, shook up the committee by naming [Doc Hastings, a Washington state Republican] chairman and putting two contributors to DeLay's defense fund on the panel. The action prompted complaints that Republicans were trying to shut down ethics enforcement

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi would like the ethics process to be "bipartisan again."

In a clear reference to DeLay, Pelosi said at her weekly news conference: "In order for whatever accommodation they wanted to make for whoever they wanted to make it, there is no ethics process under the rules that they have put forth."

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    House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rules | 10 comments (10 topical)
    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#1)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 11, 2005 at 05:33:29 PM EST
    Excellent!

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 11, 2005 at 06:18:03 PM EST
    You can't have rules in a dead nation, Bush will see to that fact, our government is not a government of the people or a government under laws and ideas of the people, but a nation as corrupt as any third world non government, just ask why are our borders opened and why so many illegal being smuggled each day? why is Bush so happy with the violent attacks on this dead nation and why is he backing a known terrorists in iraq? and why he is dealing with the Red Chinese, and for what reason? but you will answer that question and you won't like it, that is the real reason people don't want to look. Ethics a joke on us all and it will kill millions of us, any way many have the same Ethics as A.H. And many are working for others ideals and other nations and not for you. Long live the Ideals Of F.D.R.

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Fri Mar 11, 2005 at 07:47:51 PM EST
    This doens't make sense. If no rules were changed, then the old rules are still in place. Therefore, ethics complaints can stillbe brought. Perhaps you can provide some substantive content to your complaint, rather than just repeating what some non-lawyer said about this rather complex issue.

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 12, 2005 at 07:47:44 AM EST
    The party of values has no time for ethics.

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#5)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 12, 2005 at 02:31:32 PM EST
    So is the only issue the Democrats are complaining about the requirement that launching an inquiry will require a majority vote, meaning 6 out of 10? If so, why? Are they so enamoured with their ability to launch partisan probes based on a party line vote that they can't even see their own interest here? If it takes at least one Republican to launch a probe against a Republican, then it takes at least one Democrat to launch a prove against a Democrat. If all it takes is one party voting to investigate a member of the other party, we get the kind of stupid investigations that have been wasting too much time already.

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Mar 12, 2005 at 05:23:29 PM EST
    justpaul writes: If all it takes is one party voting to investigate a member of the other party, we get the kind of stupid investigations that have been wasting too much time already. Ken Starr? If he committee votes on straight party lines to a deadlock on an ethics investigation, an ethics investigation probably needs to occur. It's a no-brainer. So, paul, do you Ken Starr over-functioned?

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#7)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 12:59:56 AM EST
    Help! Ethics in government is a joke.

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#8)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 06:27:23 AM EST
    do you Ken Starr over-functioned? Excuse me? I think there are a couple of words missing there. If not, I have no idea what you are asking CA. But as for Ken Starr: Last time I looked, he wasn't appointed by the Ethics Committee, he was appointed by Janet Reno, the then Attorney General. Had he been appointed by the committee on a five-five vote, such an appointment would have been support for my position that it shouldn't be that easy to luanch an investigation. Are you, CA, saying that you think all of the Ken Starr investigations were warranted and necessary?

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 10:58:19 AM EST
    add think and you have it. I have a tremendous headcold, lots of antihistamines on board and still not feeling great. You got the gist, though missed the point that I doubt you had any misgivings about Starr's wide-ranging investigation without regard to who appointed him. If I am wrong about that and you think Starr should have contained himself to the Whitewater real estate matter, please say so and I will stand corrected. Nixon made exactly the same argument against the Watergate investigation, it just went on and on, there was nothing there. Now, I for one, don't believe we got to the bottom of watergate. That has to do with the real target of the breakin. What were the Nixon cabal afraid that the democrats knew about? But Watergate and Lewinsky are really not on a par. One was a subversion of democracy on a rather large scale directed from the WH, the other is an issue of a couple of over-sexed consenting adults with questionable taste. The lying that Clinton engaged in was despicable. Under oath it was perjury and his bar license was suspended as I recall, but the democracy was not threatened by Bill and Monica activities.

    Re: House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rule (none / 0) (#10)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sun Mar 13, 2005 at 01:34:58 PM EST
    CA, Not being privy to all of the evidence upon which Janet Reno and that three judge panel based their decisions to broaden Starr's scope, I can't offer a final conclusion on whether any of those tangenital investigations was really worth the effort. I will say, however, that assuming they were, I would have preferred to see a different person do the investigating. I think a lot of the problem with the Starr investigation(s) is that he was delving into so many things it started to look like an inquisition instead of honest law enforcement issues. But I don't think I missed the point, hystamines in your system or not. You asked about Starr, and he wasn't appointed by the Ethics Committee. But if the committee did choose to launch an ethics investigation of one of our "representatives" because they were guilty of perjury or unlawfully obtaining confidential FBI files of their political opponents, I would hope it would be based on a bipartisan, not party line, vote. The system as it exists today at least has the appearance of being used for purely political purposes. And if the only thing the Democrats are holding out for is the ability to launch investigations on a party line vote, then it looks like they just want to continue the worst aspect of the current system. As for Bill and Monica: I'm not so sure that the democracy was not threatened to the same extent it was in Watergate, which is to say not very much. Watergate was the coverup of a stupid second-rate burglary attempting to gain political intelligence on the opposition (in which it was very similar to the collection of those 900+ FBI files in the White House for which no one ever answered). The security of the republic was not threatened by this, just the dignity of the office of the presidency. Monicagate was the coverup of a stupid sexual dalliance, but it did involve direct perjury on the stand and probably witness tampering as well. If the President of the United States can openly lie on the stand and it doesn't mean anything because "it was only about sex", then we are all free to decide for ourselves when it is really necessary to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And if that's the case, you can pretty much forget about justice for the forseeable future.

    House Ethics Committee Fails to Adopt New Rules | 10 comments (10 topical)