Man, those guys on the other side of aisle sure have been
reeling lately.
House Republican leaders, acknowledging that ethics disputes are taking a heavy toll on the party's image, decided yesterday to rescind a controversial rule change that led to the three-month shutdown of the ethics committee, according to officials who participated in the talks.
Republicans touched off a political uproar in January by changing a rule that had required the ethics committee to continue considering a complaint against a House member if there was a deadlock between the committee's five Republicans and five Democrats. The January change reversed this, calling for automatic dismissal of an ethics complaint when a deadlock occurs.
Democrats rebelled against that and other changes -- saying Republicans were trying to protect House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) from further ethics investigations -- and blocked the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, as the ethics panel is officially known, from organizing for the new Congress [...]
A House Republican leadership aide said that the automatic-dismissal rule is "the rule that is most commonly believed to be designed to protect Tom DeLay" and that it was "impossible to win the communications battle" on it.
I like to say that while in the minority, we have to savor the few victories we can get. But lately, it's been a virtual buffet, with Republican numbers collapsing under the weight of GOP corruption, social security privatization, the Schiavo fiasco, and the Nuclear Option power grab.
And this one is huge, marking another setback for corrupt House leader Tom DeLay, who will now face those ethics investigations he worked so hard to avoid.