Ugly ethics

At the beginning of the raucous ethics reform debate Tuesday night, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) asked on the House floor whether he would be granted time to speak out against the Democratic measure.

Rep. Betty Sutton (Ohio), a freshman who was managing the floor debate for the Democrats, initially told Abercrombie he would get to speak “if there is time remaining.”
Abercrombie, a grizzled Armed Services subcommittee chairman who is in his 10th term, was not satisfied.

“That’s non-responsive,” he said. “Will there be time or not?”

Sutton, appearing a bit rattled, explained she could not guarantee Abercrombie floor time.
Abercrombie looked incredulous. “And this is about ethics? … Thank you. I think we’re off to a wonderful start.”

The circus was indeed just getting started.

Later in the evening, Democrats held a vote open for roughly 10 minutes to overcome a procedural vote that was crucial to passing the underlying measure that created the so-called Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).

A review of the C-SPAN tape shows Democrats were down 169-192 on that motion when the 15-minute clock struck zero. To be fair, many votes do not end exactly when the clock expires, but Democrats clearly extended the roll call to twist arms.

After convincing a handful of their members to change their votes, Democrats gaveled the motion to an ugly 207-206 victory.

Republicans cried foul, as they should have. But they cannot wear the white hats on House floor procedures; they held a vote open for nearly three hours on the 2003 Medicare prescription drug bill.

While 10 minutes is not three hours and keeping a vote open for almost 180 minutes between 3 a.m. and 6 a.m. was extremely unseemly, there was no rule that was broken in 2003.

Democrats, pointing to that three-hour vote, claimed the higher moral ground last year by changing the House rules, which now state that a vote “shall not be held open for the sole purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote.”

House Democrats attempted to spin what happened Tuesday night, but no amount of spin can change the fact that Democrats broke their own rule.

The underlying ethics bill, meanwhile, passed by a more comfortable margin, 229-182.

But three House panel chairmen — Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), Energy and Commerce panel Chairman John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Veterans’ Affairs Committee Chairman Bob Filner (D-Calif.) — voted no.

They are not fond of the creation of an independent ethics panel, and their concerns are warranted.

Dingell, the dean of the House, stated, “In today’s world, where the Internet and 24-hour cable news amplify and repeat almost any charge, regardless of its veracity, it seems unlikely that many members of Congress will be able to avoid public scrutiny if they commit illegal or unethical acts.”

House leadership officials have stressed that the lower chamber may re-examine the OCE at a later date, suggesting that if it doesn’t work, it would be changed or eliminated.

Abercrombie, who was ultimately granted two minutes of floor time by Sutton (and another minute by Republicans), delivered a passionate speech against the OCE proposal: “Any referral to the OCE will be seen as tantamount to a guilty verdict. Any other conclusion by the House ethics committee will be seen as a cover-up. Mark my words, that is exactly what is going to happen.”

Whether or not Abercrombie’s prediction comes true, it is likely that House Democrats will be revisiting what they created Tuesday night.