[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL Tom DeLay's Inoculation Committee

[Michael Butler]

 The New York Times
February 5, 2005
EDITORIAL
Tom DeLay's Inoculation Committee

House Republican leaders continue to try to hobble embarrassing ethics
investigations of the majority leader, Tom DeLay. As expected,
Representative Joel Hefley of Colorado, the ethics chairman, was removed
after daring to oversee three reprimands of Mr. DeLay last year for cutting
ethical corners. The new chairman, Doc Hastings of Washington, is an ally of
Speaker Dennis Hastert. Mr. Hastings is expected to be more of a team player
than Mr. Hefley, who was widely shunned by fellow Republicans as being "out
of control" with the ethics portfolio.

Beyond the chairman, two other Republican members were replaced by lawmakers
who have donated thousands of dollars to a legal fund set up to defend Mr.
DeLay's integrity. The money bolsters him in an investigation into campaign
money-laundering in Texas, where three DeLay allies have been indicted. The
fund for the combative leader, called The Hammer, has raised a million
dollars, with more than a third, in the circular ways of political money,
donated by his House followers.

Mr. DeLay may not be a criminal target in Texas, as he maintains, but the
hobbling of the committee seems designed to inoculate him against further
peer reviews. The Republicans have changed the committee rules. The
committee has 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats, so it often split 5 to 5 on how
to deal with a complaint. Before, a 5-to-5 split kept the complaint alive to
be investigated by a subcommittee. Indeed, that was the process that led to
the public warnings last year about Mr. DeLay. Now, a 5-to-5 vote deep-sixes
a complaint.

Mr. Hastert's hamstringing of the panel may come back to haunt him. The
impotent process is unlikely to produce more warnings to Mr. DeLay to
"temper your future actions" - the very cautions the G.O.P. needs if Mr.
DeLay indulges in more of the political hubris behind his ethics problems.

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