GOP Backs Off on Ethics Changes

House Republicans on Monday reversed a decision, made less than two months ago, that would have allowed Majority Leader Tom DeLay of Texas to remain in his leadership post if he was indicted by a grand jury in his home state.

They also backed down from a proposed change that would have made it more difficult to bring ethics complaints against lawmakers. Critics had said the proposal was designed to shield members of Congress from punishment for engaging in the kind of hardball politics that led the House ethics committee to rebuke DeLay last year.

The decision to rescind one controversial rule change and abandon another was seen as an effort to blunt the criticism -- from Democrats, congressional watchdog groups and even some Republicans -- that has threatened to overshadow the GOP’s ambitious agenda for the new, more Republican Congress, which convenes today.

But in a sign that the partisan atmosphere on Capitol Hill is getting more heated, House Republicans voted to support the repeal of a long-standing rule that prohibited direct criticism of senators during floor debate.

And they backed a rule change that would require any ethics investigation to be supported by a majority of the House ethics committee -- an action that could make it more difficult to begin such an inquiry. Under current rules, an investigation can proceed even if the committee, which has five Republicans and five Democrats, is deadlocked.

The rule requiring Republican leaders to step down from their positions if indicted took effect with the House GOP members’ vote, since it only affects that party. All other provisions will be voted on today in the full House, where Republicans hold 232 of the chamber’s 435 seats.

Pressure for Republicans to rescind the rule about their leadership grew after House Democrats earlier Monday voted to require their leaders to relinquish their positions if indicted on felony charges.

DeLay surprised his colleagues Monday night by asking them to rescind the change they adopted in November to protect him from what they called a politically inspired investigation. That change allowed GOP leaders to keep their positions even if they were indicted by grand juries in their home states.

A Texas grand jury has indicted three fundraisers with ties to DeLay on charges of illegally funneling corporate contributions to GOP candidates for state office. DeLay spokesman Jonathan Grella said Monday that during the closed-door session with GOP rank and file, the majority leader expressed confidence that he would not be indicted.

By rescinding the rule, Republicans were “denying the Democrats their lone issue,” Grella said. Noting that the GOP had expanded its House majority in the November elections, Grella said the controversial rule change was “the only thing that kept [the Democrats] warm in the postelection cold.”

DeLay “did a lot of thinking over the Christmas recess” and decided that the rule change was taking attention away from the GOP legislative agenda, Grella said.

DeLay apparently told House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) on Monday of his decision to seek to rescind the rule.

Jennifer Crider, a spokeswoman for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), said of the GOP’s decision: “Even the Republicans had to bow to pressure that was too hot to handle.”

Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.) said he was pleased that his fellow Republicans could put the controversy involving DeLay behind them and move on to the GOP’s legislative agenda. “I feel like we’ve just taken a shower and can now go to war,” he said.

Wamp had argued that the Republicans should not retreat on ethics, noting that in 1994, when he first came to the House as part of a new GOP majority, “the first thing we were asked to do was raise the standards.... Isn’t it unfortunate that 10 years later, 23 freshman Republicans are asked to lower the standards?”

Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R-Ill.) praised DeLay for pushing to undo the controversial rule. “It’s a mark of a leader to take a bullet for the team,” he said.

The proposed rule change adopted Monday would require a majority of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct -- the ethics panel’s formal name -- to vote before an investigation could proceed. Currently, if no action is taken on a complaint within 45 days or if the committee is deadlocked, a complaint automatically goes to an investigative subcommittee.

John Feehery, a spokesman for Hastert, said the provision was designed to preserve a “presumption of innocence.”

But Rep. Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) expressed concern about the proposal, saying ethics investigations would now be unlikely “unless a Republican is willing to investigate a Republican and a Democrat is willing to investigate a Democrat” -- a reference to the evenly split committee.

“You always needed a majority [vote] to make a finding, but the point is once you have an investigation, it’s harder to cover things up,” Shays said.

The GOP members dropped a controversial proposal that would have weakened a 36-year-old rule that could lead to a lawmaker’s reprimand for conduct that did not violate a specific rule but was deemed a discredit to the House.

The retained rule requires House members and aides to conduct themselves “at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House.”

That proposal was dropped after Democrats, watchdog groups and even the Republican chairman of the ethics committee came out against any effort to weaken the ethics rules.

“This is not the way to effect meaningful reform,” the chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo), said in a statement issued Monday. “Ethics reform must be bipartisan, and this package is not bipartisan.”

The discussion of ethics rules comes amid reports that House leaders are considering replacing Hefley as chairman of the committee, which issued rebukes of DeLay last year. A decision is expected this week.

The rule that the Republican members had sought to change -- but decided to retain -- was the basis for the committee’s admonishments of DeLay for involving a federal agency in a Texas partisan matter, for staging a fundraising event in a way that appeared to link access to DeLay with political donations, and for saying he would support the campaign of a retiring congressman’s son to succeed his father if the congressman voted for legislation adding a prescription drug benefit under Medicare.

DeLay’s allies have contended the Texas investigations are politically motivated and designed to weaken the majority leader, whom they credit with helping to expand the GOP’s numbers in the House.

He spearheaded a redistricting effort in Texas that resulted in five House Democrats retiring or losing their bids for reelection in 2004.