| Chairman Dreier responded
last week in a letter to Rep. Slaughter stating, "As
we move forward with the Committee's agenda in the 109th
Congress, I will keep your request in mind."
As Rules chairman, Dreier sits in a powerful position
relative to ethics charges that have swirled around
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX). Dreier gave
$5,000 to DeLay's legal defense fund, one of the larger
donors that includes much of the Republican House caucus.
Along with Dreier, Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) and Rep.
Cole (R-OK)—who also serve on the Rules Committee—have
each contributed $5,000 to DeLay's fund.
In a letter to Rep. Dreier released Tuesday, Slaughter
thanked Chairman Dreier for his response but expressed
her dismay that he had not seen fit to hold hearings
on ethics promptly.
"I am disappointed, however, that you provided
no timeframe as to when a hearing on this important
matter will be scheduled," Slaughter said in a
statement provided to RAW
STORY. "It is imperative that
the Committee hold hearings on this as soon as possible.
I would suggest that we do so within in the next few
weeks."
Dreier could not be reached for comment.
The Rules Committee has oversight over House ethics
rules. At the opening of the current Congress, Republicans
introduced a controversial rules package which has,
Democrats say, thrown the Ethics Committee into chaos.
"Mr. Dreier and Mr. DeLay broke down the House
ethics process," Slaughter said. "As a result,
the Ethics Committee is currently incapable of functioning."
"The Rules Committee must take this issue up and
show once and for all that we are committed to restoring
the integrity and honor of this House," Slaughter
added.
Slaughter has been a vocal opponent of DeLay's moves
to quash ethics investigations. DeLay recently removed
three GOP members of the Ethics Committee that voted
to rebuke him last year for ethics violations.
The congressmembers' exchange follows. Image versions
of some letters have been included.
###
LETTER TO CHAIRMAN DREIER FROM REP. SLAUGHTER:
April 11, 2005
The Honorable David Dreier
Chairman, Committee on Rules
H-312, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Chairman Dreier:
Thank you for your letter acknowledging receipt of
my request for an original jurisdiction hearing on House
Resolution 131, which would restore the rules governing
the House Ethics process that were changed on opening
day. I am disappointed, however, that you provided no
timeframe as to when a hearing on this important matter
will be scheduled.
It is imperative that the Committee hold hearings on
this as soon as possible. I would suggest that we do
so within in the next few weeks.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Hon. Louise M. Slaughter
Ranking Member, Committee on Rules
###
LETTER TO REP. SLAUGHTER FROM CHAIRMAN DREIER:
The Honorable Louise M. Slaughter
Ranking Minority Member
Committee on Rules
United States House of Representatives
H-152, The Capitol
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Ms. Slaughter:
Thank you and our Democratic colleagues on the House
Rules Committee for writing me to request an original
jurisdiction hearing on H.Res. 131. I appreciate your
interest in these matters.
As we move forward with the Committee's agenda in the
109th Congress, I will keep your request in mind.
Again, thank you for writing me.
Sincerely,
David Dreier
###
LETTER TO CHAIRMAN DREIER FROM RULES COMMITTEE DEMOCRATS:
March 17, 2005
Chairman David Dreier
House Committee on Rules
H-312, Capitol Building
Dear Chairman Dreier:
We are writing to request that the Rules Committee
hold an original jurisdiction hearing on H. Res. 131,
a bipartisan proposal to restore the ethics complaint
process to the one that existed before the Republican
leadership unilaterally changed it at the beginning
of the 109th Congress. H. Res. 131, which currently
has 204 co-sponsors, was referred to the Rules Committee
on March 1, 2005, but to this date, the Committee has
taken no action on it.
Although this resolution should properly be referred
to the Subcommittee on Rules & the Organization
of the House, which is chaired by Rep. Hastings of Washington,
we request a full committee hearing instead, given the
conflict it would create for Rep. Hastings, whom the
Republican leadership recently made Chairman of the
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct (Ethics Committee).
We ask for this hearing because it would give our committee
an opportunity to begin repairing the damage that has
been done over the past few months to the House ethics
process.
When the House adopted the 109th Rules package on January
4, 2005 on a party-line vote, it was the first time
in the history of the House ethics process (which dates
back to 1968) that the House has changed its ethics
rules without the involvement of both parties. The two
preceding ethics rules reforms (in 1989 and 1997) were
undertaken by bipartisan task forces that spent months
discussing and drafting new rules. In 1997, for example,
under Speaker Gingrich, the House created the Task Force
on Ethics Reform to address the problems that had appeared
in the ethics process during the 104th Congress. This
12-person group (6 Republicans and 6 Democrats) worked
for more than four months to draft new rules, which
they submitted to the full House for debate and approval
in September, 1997.
Rep. Mollohan's resolution would repeal the three changes
the 109th rules package made to these 1997 rules. Most
importantly, his resolution would restore the so-called
"45-day rule" (also called the "automatic
transmittal rule"), a procedural safeguard the
1997 Task Force developed to handle the situation in
which the Ethics Committee fails to act on a properly-filed
complaint within 45 days. Under this rule, if the Committee
did not act in 45 days, the complaint was automatically
forwarded to an investigative subcommittee.
This 45-day rule was a cornerstone of the task force
recommendations because it helped ensure that a valid
complaint would be judged on its merits and would not
be stalled in the committee due to partisan politics.
The 109th rules package substituted this safeguard with
what has been called the "automatic dismissal rule,"
which would allow 5 Committee Members from one party
to take no action for 45 days and thereby allow a properly-filed,
meritorious complaint to be automatically dismissed
without further investigation. As Ranking Member Mollohan
recently noted, when the House considered a similar
automatic dismissal rule in 1997, it rejected it by
a bipartisan vote of 236-181 (vote # 410, Sept. 18,
1997).
In short, the rules changes the Republican Leadership
unilaterally imposed on January 4, 2005 destroyed the
fundamental principle underlying the 1997 reforms and
the consistent, long-standing practice of the Ethics
Committee---that the Committee's operations must always
be based on bipartisan consensus. These rules changes
have dealt a mortal blow to a process whose goal, as
the 1997 Task Force put it, is "a nonpartisan peer
review system which has the trust and confidence of
both the Members and the American people."
We direct you to the words of the House's resident
experts on the ethics process, the Chairman and Ranking
Member of the Ethics Committee in the 108th Congress.
During the debate on the opening day of the 109th Congress,
then-Chairman Hefley said:
I have had the privilege of serving on the Committee
on Standards of Official Conduct since 1997 and have
had an additional responsibility as serving as chairman
since 2001. And during that time, I have learned one
paramount lesson: ethics must be bipartisan. The ethics
process must be bipartisan. Ethics reform must be bipartisan,
and the ethics committee must be bipartisan...The ethics
committee is a bipartisan committee that follows the
evidence wherever the evidence leads. Meaningful ethics
reform must be genuinely bipartisan. To have a bipartisan
process, any significant change in the ethics rules
must be made only after careful, thorough bipartisan
consideration, as was done in 1989 and 1997. (Congressional
Record, Jan. 4, 2004, p. H 16)
When he introduced H. Res. 131, Ranking Member Mollohan
expressed almost the exact same sentiments. He said:
Approval of this resolution, Mr. Speaker, is also necessary
for one other reason, and that is to affirm the long-standing
principle in the House that major changes in the ethics
rules and procedures must be made on a bipartisan basis.
When the House revisited its ethics rules and procedures
in both 1989 and 1997, the work was done through bipartisan
task forces that gave thoughtful consideration to proposals
from all Members. In contrast, Mr. Speaker, the changes
made in the rules package adopted in January were made
on a party line vote, with no input whatsoever from
anyone in the minority. Approval of this resolution
will be a critical step in restoring the bipartisanship
that is essential if there is to be a meaningful ethics
process in the House. (Congressional Record, March 1,
2005, p. H 832)
Hundreds of media reports have documented the Republican
Leadership's push to alter the ethics rules to protect
Majority Leader Tom DeLay from scrutiny for his actions
over the past several years. In the wake of two unanimous
Ethics Committee actions concluding that Majority Leader
DeLay acted improperly on three separate occasions in
the 108th Congress and a Texas grand jury indictment
against two of the Majority Leader's top aides, the
Republican Leadership undertook a systematic effort
to shield Mr. DeLay from being scrutinized for his behavior.
Other than the changes in the 109th rules package we
discuss in the section above, the Republican Leadership
jammed a rule through the Republican Conference that
would have allowed Majority Leader DeLay to keep his
leadership post even if he were indicted of a crime
by a grand jury. Even more shocking was the Republican
Leadership's proposal to eliminate the long-standing
"general rule of conduct" in our House Rules
that requires Members to conduct themselves "in
a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House
of Representatives." Thankfully, the rank-and-file
Members of the Republican Conference eventually killed
these ideas after public outcry.
The Republican Leadership did not seem to be deterred
by this setback dealt by their Republican colleagues,
nor were they satisfied with the passage of the ethics
rules on the first day of the 109th Congress. Since
that time, they have purged the Ethics Committee of
those Republican Members who dared act in the best interests
of the House, rather than the Majority Leader. Speaker
Hastert recently removed Chairman Hefley and two other
Republican Members (Reps. LaTourrette and Hulshof) from
the Ethics Committee because of their outspoken support
for keeping the ethics rules from the 108th Congress.
Within weeks of this move, the new chairman of the committee,
our Rules Committee colleague Rep. Hastings of Washington,
fired two long-time Ethics Committee professional staffers.
As you know, the Ethics Committee has not yet organized
in the 109th Congress because the Committee has not
been able to get a majority vote to adopt the Committee's
new rules. We think this stalemate is the direct result
of the partisanship that the Republican Leadership has
brought to the ethics process over the past few months.
We think a good first step to begin repairing the damage
to the ethics process would be a hearing on H. Res.
131. As the 1997 Task Force observed in its final report:
"Reform of the standards process in the House has
always been conducted in a bipartisan manner."
We sincerely hope that the 109th Congress will not go
down go down in history as the one that ended this invaluable
tradition.
We look forward to your response to our request.
Sincerely,
Hon. Louise M. Slaughter, Ranking Member Hon. James
McGovern, M.C.Hon. Alcee Hastings, M.C. Hon. Doris Matsui,
M.C.
Correction: The draft edition of this article stated
that Rep. Slaughter had written three letters, which
errantly included a letter from Chairman Dreier in the
total.
Article originally published Apr. 12, 2005. |
