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01/05/2005: "Smokescreen!"

The headlines today are about how the House of Representative Republicans have backed off on giving their Majority Leader Tom DeLay a free pass on losing his leadership role if he is indicted. It’s hilarious (and maybe carefully planned) that this serves as a very effective smokescreen hiding what the headline would otherwise be, that the House GOP has adopted the rules reported in our 1/3 entry, Tying Up the Ethics Issue. It’s hilarious (and maybe carefully planned) because this has allowed them to crow about how backtracking on Tom was a strong stand in support of ethics. One GOP Representative is quoted as saying “I feel like we all just took a bath.” This backtrack was a diversion from the main thrust on the ethics front, a significant hobbling of the ethics process, as we discussed in the earlier entry. As you will recall, the new rule is that a tie among the parties quashes the investigation. The angle they used to sell this significant weakening the rule was “presumption of innocence.” While this sounds nice, it has no bearing on the reality of the situation. Presumption of innocence has nothing to do with whether or not an investigation goes forward. It relates to what happens after the investigation is complete. Had these rules been in place before been followed before, three investigations that later led to censures would have been quashed. This is prima facie evidence that the new rules will cause the dropping of ethical lapses that otherwise would have been proven. Here is what GOP crowing about how the new rules strengthen ethics investigations is like. Imagine that a city achieves a record conviction rate under a particular district attorney. Then imagine what it would do for the state of justice in that city if the reaction of the City Council is to fire that crusading DA and to change the rules so that grand juries require unanimous agreement from the relatives of the accused for an indictment to be handed down. The result is no trials and more criminals on the street. I’m reminded of that staple of cop shows where the Captain tells the detective “drop the case or I’ll have your badge!” Am I exaggerating? First, the chairman who allowed the successful investigations to go forward is being replaced. Second, there is a clear conflict of interest in requiring that at least one Republican cross party lines to allow the investigation to go forward. As just seen by the example being made of the Ethics Committee Chairman, a Republican doing that can expect reprisals. It puts members in the position of having a very strong incentive to cover up ethics lapses rather than pursuing them, in the same way that having only relatives of the suspect on a grand jury would preclude indictments. And we all know that covering up ethics lapses just makes for a bigger mess when it all finally comes out. Getting back to our example, the only perverse benefit the city would gain by setting up a system that virtually guarantees no indictments is the ability to make the bogus claim that “the city is safer! Look, there hasn’t been a single conviction!” And this is exactly what House Republicans have in mind.