On November 17th, 2004, by voice vote, the House Republican Conference decided that a party committee of several dozen members would review any felony indictment of a party leader and recommend at that time whether the leader should step aside.
The current party rule in this area requires House Republican leaders and the heads of the various committees to relinquish their positions if indicted for a crime that could bring a prison term of at least two years. It makes no distinction between a federal and state indictment. Three of DeLay's political associates already have been indicted by that Texas grand jury.
Rep. Henry Bonilla, R-Texas, said that under the change embraced Wednesday, the House Republican Steering Committee would have 30 legislative days to review a felony indictment and recommend to all House Republicans whether a lawmaker who is charged could remain as a committee chairman or leader.
Expect more of the same from the Texas lawmaker and his cronies.
It’s only a rule they say.
Rules were made to be broken.
But this rule wasn’t broken. Merely changed. DeLay hasn’t been indicted yet. The rules were changed in order to be prepared for DeLay to get indicted. In the future we can probably expect no further delay for DeLay from Bonilla.
As efficient as they are I believe its safe to say that in the future when a House Republican (or the President) needs to do something illegal on Thursday the law will promptly be changed on Wednesday.
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