House Democrats voted 99-58 to strip William Jefferson of his committee seat. Josh Marshall points out Pelosi has done this once before, when Ethics Committee co-chair Allan Mollohan attracted negative publicity for connections between earmarks and real estate investments.
For the sake of precedent I would have preferred that Pelosi wait for the indictment rather than just remove Reps who attract politically-inconvenient publicity. If indictment is too low a bar there has to be some sort of automatic trigger that the party can set so that these decisions don’t get made on a case-by-case basis. Say, a reprimand by the Ethics Committee automatically bumps you down the committee-chair pecking order or something along those lines.
But any way you cut it Nancy Pelosi’s itchy trigger finger looks like a vast improvement over the Republican standard of rallying behind any Rep, no matter how dirty, until he or she is literally indicted out of Congress:
Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay urged colleagues Wednesday to “stand on principle” and ignore the media in a farewell speech to fellow House Republicans at their weekly private meeting.
DeLay, facing trial in Texas on campaign money laundering charges, is leaving Congress Friday. He plans one more speech before ending a 21-year career in the House.
Several rounds of applause and cheers could be heard from behind the closed doors. When they were opened to let a congresswoman in, members could be seen on their feet, cheering and applauding.
The modern GOP in a nutshell. Speaking as somebody who has put in more volunteer hours for Republican candidates than many rightwingers, stories like this make it easy for me on election day.
***Update***
Following the Democrats’ lead, the full House strips Rep. Jefferson of his committee seat.