Hastings Backs Off Partisan Ethics Rules

The Associated Press is reporting this evening that Doc Hastings, recently-installed chairman of the House Ethics Committee, "has conceded that his Republican colleagues must reverse partisan changes to investigative rules if they hope to break a deadlock that has virtually shut the panel down," according to "a senior GOP aide." The report offers no on-the-record confirmation of this turn of events, which would certainly be music to the RINO's ears.

According to the report, "The aide would not discuss advice that Hastings gave Speaker Dennis Hastert but said he was under the impression that the speaker agreed the House must be willing to somehow change its January decision to get the ethics panel functioning." The matter will apparently come under discussion tomorrow at the weekly closed-door Republican caucus meeting, and, the aide said, "until the speaker and Hastings gauge the sentiment at the meeting, it is not clear whether the party will allow a reversal that would amount to a full retreat."

The Republican majority pushed through rules changes in January at the start of this session of Congress that made it harder to begin and continue investigations of House members, and have been widely perceived as being intended to protect the embattled Tom DeLay. Additionally, the former chairman of the Ethics Committee and several other Republican members were replaced with other representatives, who have in the past donated to Tom DeLay's legal defense fund. To backtrack on the January rules changes would be a significant retreat for the House leadership, but is, in the RINO's opinion, completely necessary and proper.