Jefferson indictment sparks House ethics feud

The attempt of House Republicans to show up Democrats on the issue of corruption turned into an ethics arms race Tuesday night on the House floor.

In the end, the House passed, by overwhelming margins, two measures ordering the ethics committee to investigate Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.), and any member who has been arrested or indicted.

{mosads}But before the votes came, Democrats and Republicans traded charges about who is more ethical and who has done more to clean up corruption.

The Republican resolution called for the ethics committee to investigate Jefferson, who was indicted Monday on 16 counts of bribery and corruption. The resolution, which specifically called on the committee to look into whether Jefferson should be expelled, passed 373-26. Also, 13 members, including members of the ethics committee, voted “present.”

Republicans stressed that Democrats had not renewed the ethics subcommittee investigating Jefferson since taking power five months ago. They noted that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) prevented the subcommittee from being named because she did not select potential members for investigative subcommittees until Tuesday – after Jefferson was indicted.

“It’s somewhat of a sad state of affairs that this committee wasn’t formed until today and it took this indictment to get this subcommittee named,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio).

Seeking to blunt the impact of Boehner’s resolution, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) rushed to the floor a measure that would order the ethics committee to investigate any member who was indicted or arrested on criminal charges. It passed 387-10, with 15 members voting “present.”

The legislation came under sharp attack from Rep. David Dreier of California, the top Republican on the Rules Committee, who complained the resolution was poorly drafted and could spark an ethics investigation of a traffic ticket or an arrest at a protest. Hoyer said the ethics commission would not investigate trivial matters.

“When Mr. Abramoff takes trips with lots of people, that is not a traffic ticket, that is not a protest at the Sudanese Embassy and the American people know the difference,” Hoyer said.

Among those voting against both resolutions was Rep. John Doolittle (R-Calif.). Doolittle’s home was searched by the FBI in April as part of the investigation into disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Also voting no was Rep. Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), who served on the ethics committee in the past and said an ethics investigation can interfere in a criminal investigation.

“These competing resolutions contribute to the dumbing down of the House,” LaTourette said.

Two freshman Democrats, Reps. Nancy Boyda of Kansas and Ed Perlmutter of Colorado, called for Jefferson to resign during the debate.

The competing resolutions rendered moot a dispute that arose among the leaders of the ethics committee itself.

In an early effort to head off the Republican’s Jefferson resolution Tuesday, ethics Chairwoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio) announced that she and ranking Republican Rep. Doc Hastings (Wash.) had agreed to create an ethics subcommittee to investigate Jefferson.

Tubbs Jones did not say when she had “been in contact” with Hastings on the matter, and her statement sparked a bout of partisan divisiveness unusual for the ethics committee.

Hastings fired back that Tubbs Jones had misstated their conversation and scolded her for issuing a unilateral statement. He indicated that he had been pushing for such an ethics subcommittee long before Tubbs Jones agreed to name one.

“It has been my repeatedly expressed desire since the beginning of this Congress for the Committee to empanel a subcommittee to investigate Representative Jefferson, but one has yet to be named,” Hastings said.

An investigative subcommittee of the ethics committee had been appointed to look into Jefferson last year. But it requires a vote to reauthorize an investigation when a new congress takes over and that never happened.