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01/02/2005: "Tying Up the Ethics Issue"

It is reported that the Republican Majority in the House of Representatives is considering changes to rules for the House Ethics Panel. Presumably they now see congressional ethics as a question of only passing importance and have moved to reduce the chance that the House will be diverted from more pressing issues like increasing military spending and permanentizing tax cuts. The proposed new rules are said to require that at least one member of the Ethics panel who belongs to the same party as the suspected ethics violator has to vote to proceed with the investigation. This is doubtless inspired by the bipartisanship demonstrated in pursuit of similar issues, for example the Clinton impeachment. Even with this rule, however, there is a danger that an ethics investigation might actually move forward. Consider the case of Representative Joel Hefley of Colorado, the current chairman of the House Ethics Panel. He recently shocked and disappointed his party colleagues for allowing the issuance of Panel reports critical of Tom DeLay. Investigations allowed by the Panel eventually caused DeLay to be censured not once but twice last year. It is very likely that Hefley will be stripped of his post as a result, but is that really enough to protect the reputation of the House from embarrassing ethics investigations? Clearly not! SherWright.com is thus offering a modest proposal for a more effective rules change, a change that would further eliminate the possibility of a “rogue” investigation. Our proposal is what might be called a “faith based” proposal, echoing a technique used back when the judiciary routinely employed faith-based determinations of guilt before it was subsumed by atheism. Here’s what we had in mind: the accuser should have his or her hands tied to his or her ankles and they should then be thrown into a body of water (say, the Tidal Basin). If they float, the accused is innocent and the investigation must be quashed. If they sink, the case can proceed. While this might be seen as requiring a certain level of sacrifice on the part of those who feel an investigation needs to be pursued, it’s clearly a small price to pay to ensure a high standard of ethics in the House of Representatives of the United States of America!