Ethics Schmethics
Tim Mooney
After briefly flirting with changing ethics rules, House Republicans have decided to drop their effort. The GOP was prepared to change provisions that would force a leader to leave his or her post if indicted by a grand jury. Guess who's been targeted for indictment? Tom Delay (R-TX). He's been in a world of hot water over some pretty blatant violations of state election laws. Looks like some folks might be abandoning the S.S. Delay?
Actually no. Seems the indictment is now suddenly considered unlikely, and the rule change has been dropped. Totally unrelated, I'm sure...
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9:32 p.m.
Jan 3, '05
Maybe it's better that DeLay should stay the leader. As an optimist, I'm always thinking that the SS GOP is about to go down. I'd hate to think the Cap'n wasn't guiding it when it happened.
8:54 a.m.
Jan 4, '05
Tim,
This is a screamer and all too common to elected officials at all levels. The Republicans (the party of Moral Values) here in Oregon are also hellbent on limiting public input by reducing notification of hearings, and financially gutting the state's ability to investigate "malfeance" on the part of legislators.
Unlike the squishy liberals, they are are determined to get on the legislator-to-lobbyist carousel, without interference from gummint. If capitalism is the reborn religion, why should meddlesome regulators be allowed to keep hardworking legislators from cashing in ASAP?
Apparently moral warriors in the legislature are to ignore that part of the Bible where in the book of Matthew, Jesus counsels a wealthy young man thus: "Sell all your goods and give to the poor, and come follow me".
Nope, our conservative legislators at the state and federal level would rather to go with the much more pleasant advice from Ayn Rand, to worship the dollar, even if this goes against the interests of their constituents.
Jan 4, '05
You know, the Republicans are many things, but stupid clearly isn't one of them. The rule change's supporters still claim that the changes would be the right thing to do, but DeLay's spokesman said that they were doing it to deprive the Democrats of their lone issue. "Lone" might be stretching it, but with the Republicans in control of every piece of the government, Democrats have been eager to grab on to this issue. So the Republicans dropped it. Incidentally, I think this trend of the House leadership reacting to public opinion bodes well (or, at least, less poorly) for the coming congressional cycle. Bush has nothing to lose and will push his agenda, but the Republican Party has to be thinking about 2006 and 2008, and may well shy away from the worst excesses of the Bush agenda (on Social Security and tax reform for starters.)
4:17 p.m.
Jan 5, '05
I'm a little confused. The link declaring DeLay's indictment "unlikely" is from NOVEMBER. Since then, two corporations have turned state's witness in the investigation. DeLay himself is saying he doesn't think he'll be indicted, but I've not seen anyone say that recently, and to me the flipping of Sears and (forget the other company) suggests there's a real good chance he WILL.