Ethics Committee won't Investigate
DeLay
Seattle Times
Hastings says ethics panel won't investigate DeLay
By Alicia Mundy
Seattle Times Washington bureau
October 6, 2006
WASHINGTON — Rep. Doc Hastings, the Washington state Republican who
chairs the House ethics committee, touched off a political controversy this
week with statements supporting embattled Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas.
Hastings told the Yakima Herald-Republic that his committee would not
investigate a 15-month-old complaint about DeLay's role in alleged illegal
campaign contributions in Texas.
Such an investigation would duplicate the work of the Texas district
attorney who obtained indictments against DeLay over the fund-raising issue,
Hastings said. "We don't have the resources," he added.
A Hastings spokeswoman later said the congressman wasn't ruling out an
investigation after the criminal case.
In the Yakima interview, Hastings also suggested that the case brought by
Travis County prosecutor Ronnie Earle in Austin, Texas, is a Democratic
partisan move.
"If you look at Ronnie Earle's background, he's done these things," Hastings
said. "The majority leader has said this is a political vendetta."
DeLay stepped down as House majority leader after the first indictment, for
criminal conspiracy, was handed up last week. He was indicted on two
money-laundering counts this week.
Hastings' comments were criticized by Democrats and some public-interest
groups.
"It's outrageous for the chairman of the ethics committee to virtually
endorse the idea that the indictment is a political vendetta. It's a matter
that is before the committee," said Norman Ornstein, a congressional scholar at
the conservative American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
Chris Bell, a former Texas Democratic representative who filed the ethics
complaint against DeLay in June 2004, accused Hastings of using his
chairmanship to protect the former Republican leader.
Shortly after the complaint was filed, the committee voted unanimously to
defer action on the matter until the criminal investigation was complete.
"They said they would hold off, but they agreed to review it later," said
Bell, now running for governor in Texas.
Hastings spokeswoman Jessica Gleason said Hastings didn't say the panel
wouldn't take up the DeLay complaint.
"Congressman Hastings was simply referring to the ethics committee's
longstanding practice of deferring action on matters being prosecuted by state
or federal authorities until the judicial process has run its course," Gleason
said.
She also said the panel couldn't afford to duplicate investigations.
Once the criminal prosecution is finished, Gleason said, "An adequate
investigative record can be made available to the committee without the need to
go out and reinvent the wheel."
Rep. Joel Hefley, the former ethics-panel chairman, recalled a previous case
in which criminal and ethics investigations occurred simultaneously.
"We went to the DOJ [Department of Justice] and kind of got permission to
continue with an investigation that we were very deeply into," said Hefley,
R-Colo., ousted from the ethics chairmanship by GOP leaders in January.
Ornstein said Hastings' comment about a lack of resources "does not wash" in
light of a 40 percent budget increase for the panel in April.
Hastings lobbied for the money to create a more "ethical culture" in the
House.
Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a Washington, D.C., public
advocacy group that specializes in campaign-finance reform, said the ethics
panel could investigate at least seven issues involving DeLay.
Six other congressmen also are facing ethics probes. They include Jim
McDermott, D-Wash., who gave an illegal tape recording of a phone call to the
media in 1997.
The committee has not met formally since May, when Hastings caused a
stalemate over partisan staffing issues. The panel will not have a full
investigative staff in place for another month.
Hastings received $4,500 from DeLay's political-action committee, ARMPAC, in
1994; he received a $1,400 in-kind contribution from ARMPAC in 1998.
Public-interest groups have called on Hastings and others, including Rep.
Dave Reichert, R-Wash., to return money they received from DeLay or his PACs.
Reichert has received $20,000 from DeLay.
Alicia Mundy: 202-662-7457 or amundy@seattletimes.com
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