2 GOP Members of Ethics Panel Bow Out of DeLay Inquiry

WASHINGTON —  As the House ethics committee moved toward an expected investigation of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, two of the panel’s GOP members recused themselves Wednesday from a probe of the Texas Republican because they had contributed to his legal defense fund.

The committee members took the step as two House Democrats proposed tougher rules governing congressional travel and lobbying, a measure inspired by the controversy over the funding of trips taken by DeLay.

Three House Republicans, meanwhile, sought to shift the spotlight from DeLay by noting that questions surround who paid for travels by some Democrats.

The Republicans urged Democrats to be as vigorous in demanding an accounting by their own members as they have been in pushing for a probe of DeLay.

DeLay is expected to be the target of an investigation by the ethics committee, which met Wednesday for an organizational session. Delay was admonished by the ethics panel on three separate matters in 2004.

The meeting came after the House last week resolved a lengthy standoff over how the panel’s investigations should proceed.

Republicans bowed to Democratic demands to rescind a rule that would have made it more difficult for the committee to initiate investigations.

Two of the panel’s GOP members, Rep. Lamar S. Smith of Texas and Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said they would recuse themselves from any matter involving DeLay that comes before the panel.

Smith’s political action committee contributed $10,000 to DeLay’s legal defense fund; Cole’s gave $5,000. Both donations were made before the congressmen were appointed to the committee.

“Any decision of the committee on any matter relating to Mr. DeLay will come under intense scrutiny,” Smith said in a statement. He said that he was recusing himself “to ensure that any decision is ... not subject to any question.”

Cole said that it was “important for the committee and for the House that its actions be viewed as nonpartisan and objective.”

But he also assailed, without mentioning any names, “those that sought to politicize the ethics process.”

“They should recognize the ethics process is to judge and, if necessary, discipline individual members. It is not a means to score partisan political points,” Cole said.

The recusals, as well as the decision by committee chairman Doc Hastings (R-Wash.) to allow reporters briefly into the panel’s usually closed-door sessions to observe procedural votes, underscored the political sensitivity of the expected investigation of DeLay, the House’s No. 2 leader.

DeLay has been buffeted by questions over trips he took that allegedly were paid for by a lobbyist and foreign agent, in violation of House rules.

The Washington Post has reported that Jack Abramoff, a Washington lobbyist under investigation for his dealings with Indian tribes, used his personal credit card to pay DeLay’s airfare on a 2000 trip he took to Britain.

DeLay has repeatedly said he believed his trip was funded by a think tank, which is allowed by House rules.

Questions also have been raised about a 2001 trip he took to South Korea. The Korea-U.S. Exchange Council paid for that trip, which began a few days after the organization registered as a foreign agent.

DeLay has said that he did not know the group had registered as a foreign agent.

On Wednesday, DeLay said his attorneys were preparing a response for the anticipated ethics committee investigation.

DeLay, asked by reporters Wednesday whether he was confident he would be cleared of any wrongdoing, replied: “Absolutely.”

“We did everything by the book,” he said.

The legislation proposed by Democratic Reps. Martin T. Meehan of Massachusetts and Rahm Emanuel of Illinois would require lawmakers to disclose more detailed itineraries of their trips and prohibit registered lobbyists from organizing junkets.

It also would extend to two years the waiting period for former lawmakers to lobby Congress. The current waiting period is one year.

“Today, there is an ethical cloud hanging over this institution,” Meehan said. “The scandal is not just that some people may have broken the rules; the rules themselves are a scandal.”

Republicans dismissed the Democratic proposal as politically motivated.

DeLay said he would prefer that the ethics committee give lawmakers better guidance on adhering to existing rules. He said that since questions have surfaced about his trips, several members of both parties have filed revisions to their travel reports.

“There needs to be a better process, and a process that is recommended by the bipartisan ethics committee, not a political process,” he said.

Three Republican lawmakers pressed House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) to push for an investigation of privately funded trips taken by fellow Democrats.

“It appears more and more that your repeated calls for an investigation of Mr. DeLay are more driven by politics than by any real concern for the House rules,” Republican Reps. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia and Geoff Davis of Kentucky said in a letter addressed to Pelosi.

In a similar letter sent to House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), the three GOP lawmakers highlighted news stories reporting that Abramoff or his law firm paid for a 1997 trip to the Northern Mariana Islands by Democratic Reps. James E. Clyburn of South Carolina and Bennie G. Thompson of Mississippi.

The Democrats have said they believed nonprofit groups paid for the trip, as permitted by House rules.

Pelosi spokeswoman Jennifer Crider said the Republican letter “smacks of a political stunt,” contending the letter was sent to reporters but not to Pelosi.

In addition to the expected ethics probe, DeLay faced a new, potentially troublesome political problem at home.

Democrat Nick Lampson, a former four-term congressman who lost his seat last year in a DeLay-engineered redrawing of House district boundaries in Texas, announced plans to challenge DeLay next year.

DeLay won reelection last year with 55% of the vote -- a relatively low total in an era when district lines in most states are drawn to heavily favor one party or the other.

A survey this week by a Houston TV station found that 51% of voters in DeLay’s district disapprove of the job he is doing.

But Carl Forti, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, dismissed the notion that DeLay could be politically vulnerable.

“Nick Lampson couldn’t win his own district, even after out-spending his opponent by nearly $1 million,” he said.