Made-to-Order Ethics

Republican lawmakers beat two tactical retreats this week. The first was jettisoning any pretense of fiscal conservatism by raising the debt limit by another $800 billion to create an $8-trillion-plus national debt.

The second, and more startling, was altering ethics rules so that Rep. Tom DeLay of Texas can continue to serve as House majority leader even if he is indicted for campaign finance violations.

If these moves keep up, the GOP is going to become a carbon copy of the old Democratic Party, which used to embrace deficit spending and cavalierly ignored ethics rules. It was the Democrats’ ethics scandals that originally helped bring the GOP out of decades in the political wilderness to seize control of the House in 1994.

In 1993, Republicans passed a rule requiring indicted leaders to surrender their positions. Republicans wanted to show that in contrast to the flurry of Democratic leaders, such as House Speaker Jim Wright, who were embroiled in scandal, its party was squeaky clean.

No longer. Like the arrogant Democrats of yesteryear, House Republican lawmakers are doing as they please. DeLay has been rebuked by the House Ethics Committee twice this fall for skirting campaign finance rules.

A Texas grand jury has indicted three fundraisers with close ties to DeLay on charges of illegally steering corporate contributions to GOP candidates for state office, but why let that interfere with his duties? If DeLay is indicted, so the GOP thinking goes, it’s only because a partisan Texas district attorney is out to destroy him.

Democrats such as House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are predictably huffing that Republicans are showing that “they simply do not care if their leaders are ethical.” But Pelosi herself was fined in March by the Federal Election Commission for using multiple political action committees to exceed federal campaign contribution limits.

Still, the Democrats have wised up: They are planning to adopt a rule stating that any indicted leader has to resign his or her position.

As the Republican example shows, the Democrats know that as soon as the rule becomes inconvenient, they can scuttle it.