Just saw on MyDD's "Breaking Blue" that Melissa Hart (R-PA) is in a tightening
race.
She is also a member of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, aka the Ethics Committee.
This diary speculates on what that could mean for the Foleygate investigation underway by the committee.
Recap the recent committee history for those unaware:
The Ethics committee is unlike other committees in that it has equal membership of Democrats and Republicans. As we've seen so often in the Judicial committee hearings, the committee majority can get away with a lot. The only advantage the Republicans get here for being the Majority party is that they appoint the Chair.
The current Chair is "Doc" Hastings (R-WA). CREW tells us that Hastings was picked because he is loyal to Hastert first:
[...]Representative Chris Bell had the audacity to file an official complaint against Representative Tom DeLay in June 2004. The Ethics Committee broke its slumber and handed DeLay three "admonishments"--official letters of rebuke that began the former majority leader's ethical and legal free fall.
The House Republican leadership responded by kicking the chairman and two other Republicans off the committee. New chairman Doc Hastings, a loyalist of GOP Speaker Dennis Hastert, then tried to install his chief of staff to lead the committee's investigations. At that point, last April, Democrats stopped attending meetings and effectively shut down the committee. Squabbling over staffing and investigative jurisdiction continued to paralyze the committee throughout 2005.
For quite awhile, I had come across snippets from people complaining about the inactivity of the House Ethics committee, and I never bothered to look deeper and understand why. Now it is clear: The Ethics Committee is still powerful, but as I discovered from CNN:
Blame it on a deal made in the mid-1990s. That's when, by many accounts, House Democrats and Republicans were each convinced that the opposing party was using ethics charges for unfair political attacks. So both parties agreed to a truce.
We can be angry that the Democrats agreed to this, and worry about what misbehaviours they participate in that they fear reprisal about, but the upside of this is that the Ethics Committee is still potent, when a member lodges a complaint.
FoleyGate
The committee was finally spurred to action over Mark Foley. This was simply too big and the country too enraged for the "truce" to hold it back. I also see why the Republicans were reluctant to allow the committee to investigate this: because they know they can't force the committee to do a whitewash.
There are 5 Republicans, and 5 Democrats on the committee. They have named an investigatory subcommittee (the significance of that term I will explain later) to investigate Foleygate, of the two most senior members from each side. Yes, this includes Hastert tool Hastings. It also includes Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) - you may have seen her hilarious performance on the Colbert Report. She's a former Judge.
So how does Hart's possible electoral troubles play into this? Well, looking at MyDD's house forecasts, and even the Republicans' own leaked list of competitive districts shows that Hart is the only member of the committee whose reelection is known to be uncertain.
In a rare period of circular Republican firing squads, could Hart provide a crucial swing vote to give the Democrats a majority in the committee's recommendation to the House? Various reports indicate the Foleygate investigation is chugging along rapidly. This is the committee, that, at the height of Republican domination in the House, actually reprimanded Majority Leader Tom Delay. True, Hastert replaced 3 Republican members of the committee after that, but with Hart in trouble, we might just see her vote for a result very unfavourable to Hastert, Boehner and Reynolds.
It Gets Better
From the Rules of the committee:
If a Statement of Alleged Violation is transmitted to the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member pursuant to Rule 22, and no waiver pursuant to Rule 26(b) has occurred, the Chairman shall designate the members of the Committee who did not serve on the investigative subcommittee to serve on an adjudicatory subcommittee. The Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the Committee shall be the Chairman and Ranking Minority Member of the adjudicatory subcommittee unless they served on the investigative subcommittee.
Now I'm no expert, but the two most senior members from each side are on the investigatory subcommittee (which determines if any wrongdoing occurred, and by whom), and the rules say the adjudicatory subcommitee (which decides punishments) must be different members. Hart is the 4th most senior Republican, out of 5, and would be in line.
This is the subcommitee that will decide what punishment to recommend to the house over this. The punishment can be up to and including, expulsion from the House. Further, the rules say the subcommittee can meet with a "majority plus 1" constituting a quorum. If the adjudicatory subcommitee is like the investigatory one, with 2 members from each side, Hart can be absent and the Democrats would have a 2-1 majority in deciding the fate of any Republicans found to have acted improperly by the investigatory subcommittee.
What will Hart do? Something to watch.
Keep the pressure on her:
Jason Altmire (D) for Congress
Crossposted at MyDD