House Has An Aversion To Ethics

An oxymoron is defined as a combination of contradictory or incongruous words.

Like "jumbo shrimp," "old news" or "legally drunk."

Well, I have an oxymoron I want to add to the list - "House ethics."

The "House" being the U.S. House of Representatives, of course.

The whole Tom DeLay thing is really rubbing me raw.

I think anybody who has ever read any of my political rantings knows I tend to be conservative.

I will admit for the record that's true. I am conservative. You know - respect for the unborn, small government, low taxes.

But I find myself more frequently wanting to distance myself from the current crop of Republicans in Congress.

I don't know what they are, but they're not conservatives.

It's starting to freak me out.

It's a classic case of giving somebody enough rope. And trust me, the Republicans will hang if they don't get their collective act together.

Take Tom DeLay. What a piece of work. They call him "The Hammer" 'cause he can really take care of business. He can really Git 'R Done, so to speak.

In fact, he can Git 'R Done so well, his GOP buddies seemed willing to toss ethics to the wind to protect him.

First, they wanted to change the House rules so that indicted leaders could continue to hold leadership posts in the chamber, remember that?

But after an outcry from, well, just about everybody that heard about it, the Republicans decided they probably didn't need to do that after all.

This was driven by the fact that DeLay, the majority leader, was facing indictment over some funky campaign dealings in Texas.

But in January, the GOP-led House did vote to change a key rule to require a majority vote on the ethics panel to conduct formal investigations into allegations of wrongdoing against a member.

You see, the ethics panel is evenly split between Democrats and Republicans.

Before the rule change, an investigation was automatically triggered if the ethics committee remained evenly split for 45 days.

Comes now Tom DeLay with trips and airfare paid for on a lobbyist's credit card. That's a violation.

But hey, no majority vote, no investigation. Not in 45 days. Not ever.

This, of course, enrages Democrats, who essentially decide to shut down the ethics committee. In the meantime, the Demos get to make hay over DeLay, and rightly so.

So just this week, again under intense scrutiny and political pressure, the GOP reversed itself on the majority vote rule.

GOP lawmakers said they were hearing complaints from constituents who questioned their commitment to ethics. Well, duh.

When you couple the effort to protect DeLay with the GOP in the Senate threatening to kill the filibuster for judicial nominees, I'm surprised Republicans don't have a full-on constituent rebellion on their hands.

So now, the full ethics committee is free - if a member files a complaint - to begin an official investigation of DeLay.

DeLay is no stranger to ethics problems. The committee has chastised him three times just last year.

He got in trouble for calling the Federal Aviation Administration to interfere with a Texas redistricting battle, golfing with energy execs while the energy bill was cooking and offering to support the candidacy of the son of another congressman if the congressman vowed to support the 2003 Medicare bill.

For the record, the congressman, Republican Nick Smith, voted no on the bill.

In his most recent boondoggle, DeLay, according to legal experts, probably has breached at least a few congressional regulations.

Published reports indicate a registered foreign agent paid for one of DeLay's overseas trips and a registered lobbyist used his credit card to pay for another foreign airfare.

Those actions are against the rules.

DeLay also might have taken gifts over the limit, taken an expense-paid trip overseas for longer than the rules allow and failed to disclose all the benefits he received, that's all.

But you know what, even if he is investigated, nothing likely will come of it. Perhaps a slap on the wrist.

The legal experts say the way the rules are written leaves tons of wiggle room.

Apparently, if a member of Congress is misled about who's paying for things, he can be exonerated.

So at the end of the day, it's going to come down to whether DeLay "knew or should have known" that he might possibly be violating House rules.

And you know where that's headed.

Now, all you haughty Democrats out there, take heed.

The Democrats have been pushing hard on this DeLay thing, and rightly so. But the sick thing is, they're no better.

"From the boulevards of Paris to the beaches of Puerto Rico, members of Congress - Democrat and Republican - have taken more than $16 million in trips paid by private sources in the last five years," according to a report released by PoliticalMoneyLine, an independent research group.

Oh yeah, listen to the Democratic leader of the House, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, of California. Of course, this wonderful quote about ethics came from last October. She probably wouldn't have said this yesterday.

"Let me just make one statement about the Republicans. ... Their greed will be their downfall. Anyone who has a critical eye about what is appropriate behavior will know that there is abuse of power here. There is behavior that borders on corruption."

But documents obtained by ABC News show Pelosi's no saint.

Over the past three years, members of her staff took 41 free trips - 12 of which were not properly disclosed.

How's your "critical eye" doin' there, Nancy?

My question is, why do our congressmen need to be jetsetting anyway? Shouldn't they be in Washington doing the people's business?

All of this leads me back to my original premise.

Politics is devoid of ethics. House ethics is an oxymoron.