Rigging the Rules

[radfringe]

Rigging the Rules
Friday, December 31, 2004; Page A28
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A37888-2004Dec30.html

"A member . . . officer or employee of the House shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect creditably on the House." -- Code of Official Conduct, Rule XXIII, Clause 1.

OF ALL THE ethical rules governing the conduct of House members, this is perhaps the most critical. It has been used to discipline members for taking bribes, fixing parking tickets and having sex with House pages. It formed the basis for reprimanding former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.). Perhaps most pertinent, it was the rule cited by the House ethics committee earlier this year in its serial admonishments of Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) for hosting a golf fundraiser for energy lobbyists on the eve of House consideration of the energy bill; offering to endorse the political campaign of a lawmaker's son in exchange for the member's vote on the prescription drug bill; and enlisting Federal Aviation Administration officials to hunt down fleeing Texas lawmakers who were foiling his redistricting plans for his home state.

No wonder House leaders want to eviscerate it.

Doing their customary end run around the ethics committee, House leaders are proposing to rewrite the provision as part of an overhaul of House rules for the incoming Congress. A draft circulated Wednesday to Republican members says the rule will be changed so that it won't apply if a lawmaker has otherwise followed "applicable laws, regulations and rules." Under the new rule, this catch-all provision -- which has caught some pretty egregious conduct in the past -- would be riddled with holes. No matter how slimy a lawmaker's behavior, it couldn't be deemed an ethical violation unless the ethics committee could cite a specific subparagraph of a specific regulation that was breached.