NYT: House Ethics Chairman (Hastings) May Quit, Officials Report

[DeepModem Mom]

House Ethics Chairman May Quit, Officials Report
By PHILIP SHENON
Published: June 23, 2005


WASHINGTON, June 22 - The chairman of the House ethics committee, Representative Doc Hastings, Republican of Washington, is warning that he may resign from the post this summer because of a stalemate of months with Democrats over whether and how to conduct investigations of Representative Tom DeLay and other lawmakers, Republican Congressional officials said.

They said Mr. Hastings had told colleagues privately in recent weeks that he might step down out of frustration with what he considered intractability of Democrats on the panel and their repeated public attacks on his leadership.

The committee is deadlocked over several issues, including staffing for the committee, and has been unable to pursue investigations of Mr. DeLay, the majority leader, or anyone else. House Republican officials say the departure of Mr. Hastings and the appointment of a new chairman could mean months of additional delay before the committee is able to resume any of its investigative work.

Mr. Hastings has also faced criticism in recent weeks over newly disclosed documents that show he has worked closely for years with lobbyists at a Seattle-based law firm that is under scrutiny because of its ties to Mr. DeLay. The firm's former star lobbyist arranged lavish overseas trips for Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican.

Last week, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, cited the lobbying ties in calling for Mr. Hastings to recuse himself from any investigation of the majority leader. Newspaper editorials in Mr. Hastings's home state have joined in urging him to step aside to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23ethics.html

[Erika]

1. First glance says the GOP gentleman is dirty

and bailing out.

[IndianaGreen]

3. Like you said, Hastings is a crook!

Mr. Hastings has also faced criticism in recent weeks over newly disclosed documents that show he has worked closely for years with lobbyists at a Seattle-based law firm that is under scrutiny because of its ties to Mr. DeLay. The firm's former star lobbyist arranged lavish overseas trips for Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican.

I don't think there is a single Republican with integrity in Congress. We should declare the Republican Party a criminal enterprise and RICO those bastards until all of them are behind bars.

[radfringe]

12. Silly Dem

ethics aren't for republicans...

meanwhile - any bets that Hastings gets a new job with lobbyists?

[Oversea Visitor]

2. Cowards running at the first sign of trouble

No remorse No mercy for the likes of them

[LightningFlash]

4. Only a true coward runs....

Hastings must know he got involved with the wrong crowd big time, to take his tail and tuck it. The Jack Abramoff society crowd is high crime and it sounds like he doesn't even want to be near the fallout shelter. May he resign then in disgrace and let DeLay face his own devastating outcome. :thumbsdown:

[aquart]

5. Too damn bad, fascist flunky.

[jmcon007]

6. "...the rest of the story" as Paul Harvey might say:

taken from Raw Story

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Democrats_continue_crusade_over_Congressional_ethics_0622.html

June 21, 2005

HOUSE RULES REQUIRING A NONPARTISAN PROFESSIONAL ETHICS COMMITTEE STAFF MUST BE COMPLIED WITH

Dear Colleague:

In recent weeks a number of Members have made the point that the House of Representatives needs to have a functioning, effective Ethics Committee. As the Ranking Minority Member of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, I could not agree more. Why, then, is the Committee not proceeding to fill the many vacancies in its staff, so that the Committee can begin to address the heavy workload that it is now facing?

The reason is that an issue has arisen within the Committee that is, in essence, whether the House Rules on the staffing of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct will be complied with. My position on this matter is very straightforward -

The House Rules on committee staff are clear and unambiguous,

Those rules require that the Committee have a nonpartisan professional staff that is selected by vote of the full Committee, and

In staffing the Committee for the 109th Congress, it is critically important that the Committee comply with those rules.

The rules relating to the Ethics Committee staff are set out in clause 3(g) of House Rule XI, and their full text is set out in an attachment to this letter. Those rules provide that the Committee staff is to be "assembled and retained as a professional, nonpartisan staff," and they further provide that -

all members of the professional staff "shall be appointed by an affirmative vote of a majority of the members of the committee."

"each professional staff member shall be professional and demonstrably qualified for the position for which he is hired";
"the staff as a whole and each member of the staff shall perform all official duties in a nonpartisan manner," and

"no member of the staff shall engage in any partisan political activity directly affecting any congressional or presidential election."

These rules were authored by the 1997 House Ethics Reform Task Force, and the report of the Task Force highlights the importance of these rules to the proper functioning of the House ethics process:

In order for the Standards Committee to function effectively, its professional staff must operate in a completely nonpartisan manner, and each member of the staff must have the trust and confidence of all Committee members. A nonpartisan staff is also essential to engendering confidence, both within and outside the House, in the impartiality of the Committee as a whole.

Unfortunately, the Chairman of the Committee has been insisting on implementing an entirely unprecedented proposal on Committee staffing that disregards these key rules. His proposal asserts that the Chairman has the unilateral power to appoint as "Majority Staff Director" of the Committee an individual who is a shared employee of his personal office and the Committee - an appointment that would be made without any vote of the Committee, let alone complying with the rule's requirement for a majority vote of the Committee, and without regard to the rules' clear requirements for staff of professionalism and a nonpartisan background. There could hardly be a worse time to inject partisanship into the Committee staff, in total disregard of both the terms of the rules and the consistent manner in which those rules have been implemented over the past seven years.

After you review the applicable rules, I believe you will be as impressed as I am that this is not a complicated matter, and it does not involve any question of interpretation of the rules. Instead, this is a simple matter of applying the terms of the rules according to their plain meaning. I have repeatedly made my views on this matter known to the Chairman of the Ethics Committee, but with this issue remaining unresolved after several months, I believe it is important that each Member be apprised of the basic questions that are at issue here. I would be happy to respond to any questions you may have on this matter.

Sincerely,

Alan B. Mollohan Member of Congress

[Old and In the Way]

8. Sounds quite logical.

Put objective people in to investigate Congressional corruptness.

Of course, Hastings can't do that without decimating the Republican Party. Democrats are smart not to go along with this charade. Much better to let the people see that Republicans are trying to game the rules to cover their crimes.

[Robbien]

7. There is no reason for him to quit. No one is getting investigated

Tom Delay is not under investigation for ethics violations
All the crooks in the Abramoff mess, Frist, Hastings, Ney, Ralph Reed and Delay, are not under ethics investigations.
Duke Cunningham is not under investigation for ethics violations.
Bob Taft and the Noe coin crew have seemed to evade ethics investigation.

Why should Frist quit? No one is making a complaint.

[EST]

9. If you look at cspan2-right now, you will find the hearing

concerning the Abramof criminality hearing replayed.

[LightningFlash]

11. He is the prime reason the investigations are stalling...

He, Doc Hastings is the prime reason the investigations into criminal conduct are taking longer than prosecutors want. It's because Hastings has alot of shady connections to Mr. Abramoff and these other extremist christian crooks and he knows it too. If he has something really dirty that can be nailed on him, he'd rather resign and get the hell out of the way before the storm hits.

Hastings might even be relatively innocent and got involved with some very bad people, that point is irrelevant. What's true is he is too close to the crime-scene to be involved in any worthwhile investigations around these people.

[Hobarticus]

10. Get off the cross, someone else needs the wood...

Do your job, and you won't have to quit, scumbag...

[sidpleasant]

13. Good!

House Republican officials say the departure of Mr. Hastings and the appointment of a new chairman could mean months of additional delay before the committee is able to resume any of its investigative work.

Good! I want any investigation of Delay postponed as long as possible, preferably late summer next year, so Dem Congressional candidates can bash their Republican opponents with Bug Man's corruption.

[gratuitous]

14. House Ethics Chairman May Quit, Officials Report

But it's not what you think, it's because those darn Democrats are so intractable!

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/23/politics/23ethics.html

By PHILIP SHENON
Published: June 23, 2005

WASHINGTON, June 22 - The chairman of the House ethics committee, Representative Doc Hastings, Republican of Washington, is warning that he may resign from the post this summer because of a stalemate of months with Democrats over whether and how to conduct investigations of Representative Tom DeLay and other lawmakers, Republican Congressional officials said.

They said Mr. Hastings had told colleagues privately in recent weeks that he might step down out of frustration with what he considered intractability of Democrats on the panel and their repeated public attacks on his leadership.

* * *

Mr. Hastings has also faced criticism in recent weeks over newly disclosed documents that show he has worked closely for years with lobbyists at a Seattle-based law firm that is under scrutiny because of its ties to Mr. DeLay. The firm's former star lobbyist arranged lavish overseas trips for Mr. DeLay, a Texas Republican.

Last week, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, cited the lobbying ties in calling for Mr. Hastings to recuse himself from any investigation of the majority leader. Newspaper editorials in Mr. Hastings's home state have joined in urging him to step aside to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

__________________________

It has nothing to do with Hastings' corruption, so stop saying that!

[bemildred]

15. "House ethics" is an oxymoron, and Hastings is a corrupt hack. nt

[Rainscents]

16. Is this guy from Washington State? If so, he is toast!

Washington State has new system for primary... Who ever gets the most votes goes on to General Election. This could mean Dem's could take the top two spots and fight each other for General election, or it could be the other way around.

[maxsolomon]

17. bustin your bubble

hastings is the rep from CENTRAL washington, chelan county specifically. god, ski doos & columbia basin agriculture. home of the subsidized tax rebel.

they'd vote him in for life if they felt it would piss off 1 seattleite.

the only hope over there is that the latino population starts voting.

[Rainscents]

18. Congress and Senate... Everyone vote. East, West, South and North.

Whole state of Wash for them in... He will be toast for '06!

[Johnyawl]

20. you definately need a civics lesson...

...Member of the House of Representatives (Congressmen) are elected from congressional districts within the states, they are not elected by state wide vote. Doc Hastings' district is about 70% republican. You can be assured that under Washington's new primary system both the top two candidates in that district will be republicans. The republicans would have to divide their votes between 3 candidates for a Democrat to even make the ballot in the general election.

I think Hastings is only talking about resigning his Ethis Committee Chair, but even if he resigned from the House, or chose not to run for reelction, his replacement would be a republican. There's not a snowballs chance in hell of electing a Democrat from that district.

[lumpy]

23. Some of those 'east-siders' of Wash. state

are becoming disillusioned with their party affiliation. Many are farmers who are feeling the heat.

[Johnyawl]

25. not enough to make a difference

KKKarl will use the "godless, gun-grapping, gay democrats" boogieman to keep them in line.

It would take a major world wide depression to shake eastern Washington loose from the republican party.

[maxsolomon]

26. strangely enought, we have several on order

housing bubble
peak oil
how about housing bubble + peak oil?

they won't turn to west siders - they'll turn to reactionary nationalism.

[Supersedeas]

19. a conflict of interest and the Rethug blames it on Democrats--lol

[demo dutch]

21. Let him resign!

[librechik]

22. ahh, the pooor Pukkkes, having to suffer with Dem obstructionists

spare me--they will LOVE the additional deLay, so to speak.

[Heddi]

24. Hey! Hastings is from my town (yakima)

I remember during the elections his stupid sappy commercials where he was endorsing this or that candidate. I don't remember what he looked like, but I could tell just by looking at him that he was a repub :)

[Justitia]

27. Dean says he should recuse himself and he up & quits????

Guess it was getting hot under that spotlight.
Gee, he looks kinda guilty, huh?

Beautiful.

[LightningFlash]

28. The hicks in Washington would never vote him out.

Because they're too damn incompetent it seems to do it. So force him to resign and assign a real chairman to the investigation.