WASHINGTON, 29 April 2005 — House Republicans, yielding to political pressure, retreated Wednesday night from changes they made earlier this year regarding rules that govern how the chamber’s ethics committee investigates complaints to its members.
Wednesday’s change cleared the way for an investigation of the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
After a closed-door meeting with House Republicans, House Speaker Dennis Hastert told reporters the reversal was made by a need to resolve the torrent of questions surrounding the conduct of DeLay. The reversal was a surprising turn as Republicans confronted the fallout from a stalled ethics process that Democrats said was rigged to protect DeLay, who was already admonished three times by the ethics committee last year.
The Republican majority leader — who faces intense scrutiny of his travel, fundraising practices and relationship with controversial lobbyists — came under an increasingly intense criticism for changing the rules in January in a way that Democrats said would make the committee unable to pursue wrongdoing by members.
DeLay, said Wednesday afternoon that he was pleased that the stalemated Ethics Committee could get back to work. “I hope for a fair process that will give me the opportunity to set the record straight in an appropriate forum,” he said.
Legal experts speculate that DeLay is in serious danger of being declared in violation of House ethics rules, now that ethic charges against him will be examined in Congress
Last year, the ethics committee reprimanded DeLay three times for official conduct deemed inappropriate by Congressional members. Since then, his foreign travel and ties to Washington lobbyists have drawn intense media scrutiny.
According to published reports, a registered foreign agent paid for one of DeLay’s overseas trips and a registered lobbyist used his credit card to pay for another foreign airfare — actions the ethic’s rules forbid.
The trip with the most potential problems for DeLay occurred in 2000, when much of DeLay’s trip was charged to an American Express credit card issued to Jack Abramoff, a registered Washington lobbyist who is currently under investigation by federal authorities and a Senate committee in connection with tens of millions of dollars he collected for public affairs work for Indian tribes.
Lobbyists are prohibited from paying for lawmakers’ travel, even if the expenses are reimbursed by an authorized source.
DeLay also might have accepted gifts that exceeded congressional limits, taken an expense-paid trip overseas for longer than the rules allowed and not disclosed all of the benefits he received.
In a briefing with reporters, DeLay called the House travel rules unclear and said he saw the coming ethics inquiry as a way to provide new guidance for lawmakers.
Rep. Alan Mollohan of West Virginia and Rep. Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, the Democratic leader, applauded the decision to change the rules back, which represented a significant political embarrassment for a majority accustomed to winning almost all its fights.
“The decision of the Republican leadership to abandon its misguided attempt to change bipartisan ethics rules is a victory for the American people,” Pelosi said.
This is the second time in recent months that Republicans had to reverse a change they had made; in January, House Republicans restored a rule prohibiting their leaders from staying in their posts if indicted.
In a show of support for the embattled DeLay, President Bush made a political gamble earlier this week by offering the Texas Republican by inviting him to a public event and on a trip back from Texas to Washington aboard Air Force One.
Political observers say the president considers DeLay indispensable in helping him pass legislation, and that he needs DeLay on Social Security, the budget and other issues. It was DeLay who helped Bush pass a new prescription drug benefit for Medicare recipients in late 2003.
The president’s backing buys DeLay some time, but history shows that once an ethics investigation is started against a congressional leader, they usually don’t come out of it unscathed. DeLay risked being admonished, censured or, at worst, expelled by a House vote.
