Investigate Only When Favorable

Well, it seems that Tom DeLay has been buying time. All the denials of ethical improprieties have actually been stall tactics to allow his fellow Republican House Ethics Committee members time to make the necessary changes, rules and such, so Mr DeLay can get off easy.

Yesterday, the Republicans offered to open an investigation of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. The Democrats declined.

A little history is in order. Tom DeLay is accused of several instances of inappropriate use of monies and position. Last year, DeLay was admonished three times on a unanimous vote of the Republican-led House Ethics Committee.

Timothy Noah, at Slate's Chatterbox, zeros in on the bribery accusation which resulted in the Ethics Committee deciding DeLay "did not believe he acted improperly under House rules". So, DeLay gets what equates to a slap on the wrist.

Since when does a psychopath believe he is acting improperly? His behavior is always justified.

When the new Congress convened in January, Republicans unilaterally pushed through
three basic changes:

• Allow the dismissal of a complaint if a majority of the panel cannot agree on how to proceed after 45 days


• Allow lawyers to represent multiple participants in any inquiry


• Allow lawmakers a chance to respond if they are to be named in committee reports

Democrats contend the changes were designed to shield DeLay from further scrutiny.

The change requiring dismissal of a case unless a bipartisan majority votes for an investigation within 45 days was especially troubling to Democrats. The Ethics panel has an even distribution of Republican and Democrat, five each. Thus, neither side, by itself, has a majority.

Currently, a tie vote or disagreement on how to proceed would automatically dismiss the case, allowing either party on the evenly divided committee to stop an investigation.

If I were a Democratic member of Congress, I would want to wait until the previous rule is restored before aggreeing to the investigation.

Let's see how the GOP spins this. Perhaps they will make it seem as if they are willing to begin the investigations yet it is the Democrats waffling and the most likely reason given will be the lack of proof, therefore it would only be fair to drop the investigations altogether. Right?

Watch the media...


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