GOP Finally Blinks!

Well, you can color me surprised, as the GOP has apparently decided the heat on DeLay is starting to burn and contrary to my earlier prediction, have decided to reverse recent changes to the House Ethics Committee rules which have caused Democrats to block the Committee from meeting, and kept growing ethics issues surrounding DeLay from being investigated. This is probably a good move for the GOP as it will give plenty of time to have these DeLay problems swept under the rug long before the 2006 election.

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GOP to Reverse Ethics Rule Blocking New DeLay ProbeJanuary Change Led Democrats to Shut Down Panel

By Mike Allen

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, April 27, 2005; Page A01

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.

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A congressional aide said that changing the rules will mean "a couple of great days for Democrats" but that Republicans have calculated this will deny them long-term use of the ethics issue heading into next year's midterm elections

More...

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It's pretty clear that the GOP wants to neutralize the DeLay ethics issues long before the mid-term elections and from watching Faux News it's pretty clear that this rule change is a weapon that cuts both ways. They will probably investigate and sanitize DeLay (just as they did three times last year), then they'll go after Stephanie Tubbs-Johnson, Sheila Jackson Lee and Nancy Pelosi for a similar, but far less credible, ethics violation.