The House Ethics Committee dodged a bullet this week that would have emaciated its power. But the reprieve may be short-lived. They could, however, greatly aid their cause if they would demonstrate that they are actually doing their job.
And doing their job isn’t announcing an investigation of a member after the Justice Department has announced an indictment. The time for the Committee to demonstrate it is actually investigating is to do it before an indictment is announced. Their announcement on Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) is late and virtually meaningless since they traditionally defer to a Justice Department criminal case.
Maybe a member should file an ethics complaint against the Ethics Committee for bringing disrepute to the House, because that is what a non-functioning Ethics Committee does. It also invites not-so-well-thought-out proposals in the name of “reform.”
A Democratic leadership initiative to create a new Office of Congressional Ethics was derailed this week after a near-revolt when members of the leadership-controlled Rules Committee as well as rank-and-file members raised serious objections. Republican members had already expressed their opposition.
It is a rare day in the House when the chairwoman of the House Rules Committee (a Speaker appointment) publicly questions the wisdom of legislation they are asked to process, especially when the legislation is backed by the leadership.
Why the concern?
Well, first because it is constitutionally suspect. Our Founding Fathers provided in Article I, Section 5 of the Constitution that “Each House may determine the Rules of its proceedings, punish its members for disorderly behaviour and, with a concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.” The House of Representatives would turn over the decision of whether to investigate to outsiders appointed by the Speaker and minority leader. That power is significant since in this day and age, a member under investigation is assumed guilty until proven innocent.
Second, the proposal would allow two out of the six appointees to start an investigation, thereby ending the practice of needing a majority vote in legislative proceedings. And since the Ethics Committee has five Democratic and five Republican members, it also ends the need for bipartisanship on ethics cases. That may seem like a quaint concept or the reason that the change is necessary in the first place, but it actually ensures fairness and respect for end result.
The House has rarely questioned a bipartisan recommendation of the committee even when it has recommended expulsion of a member.
I watched first-hand an Ethics Committee wracked by partisanship in the days following the Republican takeover in 1995. A bitter minority vowed vengeance on Speaker Newt Gingrich, who led the Republicans to majority status and had also used the ethics issue as a tool to gain the majority. (Sound familiar?) He also filed the original complaint against Speaker Jim Wright that eventually led to his resignation. An ethics process in the hands of a bitter minority is an invitation to bring partisan spite into the ethics process and destroy its credibility and fairness.
But even in the midst of this partisanship, there was bipartisanship in the investigative subcommittee that investigated Gingrich (Gingrich admitted providing the committee with incomplete and misleading information and agreed to pay $300,000) as well as other investigations initiated by the committee in those years — such as probes of Reps. Jay Kim (R-Calif.), Mel Reynolds (D-Ill.), Barbara Rose-Collins (D-Mich.) and Walter Tucker (D-Calif.).
Only the committee can save itself from the rush to “reform.” They haven’t helped their cause, as member after member has been indicted while they have concentrated on rules for the national party conventions. An ethics task force in 1997 gave the chairman and the ranking minority member the ability to explain to the public what they were doing. It’s time they used that power before the public and other members think they are totally irrelevant, if they don’t already.
Van Der Meid was staff director and chief counsel to the House Ethics Committee. He is now with the law firm McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.