10.10.2005
The Hear-No-Evil Congress (NYTimes.com)
EDITORIAL
Published: October 10, 2005
One of Washington's more amusingly titled institutions - the House ethics committee - is at it again, which is to say not at it again. The panel is a stunning still-life study in Capitol casuistry and partisan standoff. It is dedicatedly not shining a light on complaints pending against a half-dozen members, resolutely holding just one meeting for this entire year, and wallowing in the stagnation that Tom DeLay, the indicted, deposed majority leader, engineered when he purged the committee's chairman and watered down its rules.
Mr. DeLay now faces criminal charges in Texas for allegedly violating campaign laws, but taxpayers should still not expect much of a stir by the House's moral arbiters. The new committee chairman, Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington State, made that clear last week when he stoutly defended the innocence of Mr. DeLay, his political mentor, while insisting that the House ethics committee would continue to shy from its own inquiry. "We don't have the resources," Mr. Hastings told The Yakima Herald-Republic, even though the committee received a 40 percent budget increase this year.
The Republican majority is in dire need of a sense of shame. Speaker Dennis Hastert should prod something better from Mr. Hastings. The committee also needs a nonpartisan staff with credible bipartisan rules and an agenda that dares to come to life.
What are the people's lawmakers afraid of finding out about themselves?
(More ... The Hear-No-Evil Congress - New York Times) ¶ 21:33
Published: October 10, 2005
One of Washington's more amusingly titled institutions - the House ethics committee - is at it again, which is to say not at it again. The panel is a stunning still-life study in Capitol casuistry and partisan standoff. It is dedicatedly not shining a light on complaints pending against a half-dozen members, resolutely holding just one meeting for this entire year, and wallowing in the stagnation that Tom DeLay, the indicted, deposed majority leader, engineered when he purged the committee's chairman and watered down its rules.
Mr. DeLay now faces criminal charges in Texas for allegedly violating campaign laws, but taxpayers should still not expect much of a stir by the House's moral arbiters. The new committee chairman, Doc Hastings, a Republican from Washington State, made that clear last week when he stoutly defended the innocence of Mr. DeLay, his political mentor, while insisting that the House ethics committee would continue to shy from its own inquiry. "We don't have the resources," Mr. Hastings told The Yakima Herald-Republic, even though the committee received a 40 percent budget increase this year.
The Republican majority is in dire need of a sense of shame. Speaker Dennis Hastert should prod something better from Mr. Hastings. The committee also needs a nonpartisan staff with credible bipartisan rules and an agenda that dares to come to life.
What are the people's lawmakers afraid of finding out about themselves?
(More ... The Hear-No-Evil Congress - New York Times) ¶ 21:33
