Congress Watch: House braces for ugly ethics probes

Posted 7/13/05
By Terence Samuel

While the Senate braces for the upheaval of the first Supreme Court confirmation in more than a decade, the routinely more contentious House is preparing for its own period of mayhem with the launch of a series of probes into alleged ethics violations by several members, Republicans and Democrats alike. After a six-month stalemate, it now seems that much of the ethics committee's work, and more significantly its reports and conclusions, will take shape in the crucible of an acrimonious election next year.

"Obviously, by definition, the work of the ethics committee of the United States House of Representatives overseeing the conduct of its members and staff takes place in a political context," says Rep. Alan Mollohan, the top Democrat on the committee. "So day in and day out, week in and week out, we are dealing with politics."

But it's likely to be politics of the dirtiest kind. Already Democrats have begun running ads in the districts of GOP members who face public ethics allegations that may end up before the committee. But after seven months of partisan haggling, Democrats and Republicans are about to hire an investigative staff to delve into the always ugly ethics allegations, most notably some against Majority Leader Tom DeLay, who was admonished by the committee three times last year. DeLay faces questions about overseas travel that was allegedly paid for, improperly, by lobbyists, including the now infamous Jack Abramoff, who is at the center of a sprawling, hydra-headed probe into lobbying and criminal violations. DeLay has said that he assumed that his trip was paid for by the nonprofit organization that invited him on the trips, which is legal. And he had said repeatedly that Democrats are playing politics with the ethics process, intentionally delaying the committee's work in order to use the ethics cloud as a campaign issue in 2006.

"The reason the Democrats cannot afford to work with us on the rules and the process right now is that this would undermine [Illinois Rep.] Rahm Emanuel's election strategy for next year," says one senior GOP aide. Emanuel heads up the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

There is as yet no date-certain for when the investigations will begin, but it'll be weeks before a staff is in place, up to two months according to insiders, putting us into September before any probe gets going.

"Given where we started in January, we are in a good place now," says Mollohan.