House Moves to Investigate Jefferson
Via Reuters: House votes to investigate indicted lawmaker
The House of Representatives, prodded by Republicans, voted on Tuesday to possibly consider expelling indicted Democratic Rep. William Jefferson of Louisiana before he even stands trial.
On a bipartisan vote of 373-26, the Democratic-led House approved a resolution directing its ethics committee to investigate federal bribery charges against Jefferson and recommend whether the nine-term lawmaker should be removed from Congress.
Only five members of the House have been expelled in the past 150 years.
Not surprising, if a little quick. Still, if the NFL can seek to suspend players for poor behavior sans a criminal conviction, it isn’t beyond the pale that the Congress would investigate (and perhaps expel) one of it members before a conviction, depending on the nature of the evidence.
I am curious why the 26 “nays” voted nay in this case.
Twenty votes not to investigate. The Congresssional Black Caucus perhaps?
A little quick? I think not.
Look, Pelosi has been trying to squash this investigation for the last six months. The prevailing view within Congress has been that this investigation should have been started quite some time ago. With the indictment, Pelosi no longer has cover for her squashing attempts, and the prevailing view of the body of Congress, can go forward.
Of course, it should be noted, that the reasoning behind the prevailing view of the body of Congress, is fairly well split between Democrats wanting/needing to cut their losses, and Republicans wanting to apply the consequences of Jefferson’s actions and democrat in action about Jefferson, to the forthcoming election.
And of course in a world which measures speed of action by when the investigation actually starts, Pelosi can say she acted quickly, and decisively.
It should also be noted, that while the vote was 373 to 26, that thirteen members voted “present”, ffectively voting against the measure to investigate Jefferson. That’s 39 members, gang, not 26.
Personally, I’d like Jefferson to stay in office as long as possible. If nothing else, he is effective in the role of a millstone around the necks of congressional Democrats.
Bithead,
Until now, Jefferson had not been charged with doing anything illegal. Sure we were all told about the bribe money in his freezer, but he has only recently actually been indicted. If anyone has been taking their time on this, it’s the FBI.
Besides that, this isn’t about investigating whether or not he committed a crime, the FBI is doing that part. This is about investigating whether or not he should be expelled from the House. I’m not sure we want to start expelling people from Congress based on crimes they haven’t been charged with.
As for Jefferson being a liability to Democrats, I believe more Republicans have been harmed by him so far than Democrats. Remember the outrage when his office was searched by the FBI?
Can you imagine a republican getting the same deference from the current Congress?
Correct. And you will recall, that the Republicans had already passed (And suffered under) a rule stating that anyone caught in such a situation would be removed.
The Democrats claimed they were going to be even more strict as regards corruption. Apparently, theyn lied… because the first thing they did when this situation came about was to stonewall any action taken against Jefferson.
And yes, I remember a lot of people complaining about Jefferson’s office being searched. Democrats, mostly. Interestingly, the same group of people, mostly, who worked so hard to stifle any investigation of Jefferson at the Congressional level. Gee… I wonder why?
And I wonder how they’ll react now that the indictments are in, and that search was validated?
Since a member of the House can only be expelled except by a 2/3 majority vote, I don’t see how the Republican party could have passed a rule accomplishing the same without a vote.
Let’s see:
http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/house-approves-speedy-probe-for/20070604133509990001
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052201080.html
And just to stop anyone from claiming this is all liberal media bias:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,236103,00.html
Back to you:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/22/AR2006052201080.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/05/22/jefferson/
Again, you:
Good question, lets take a look:
http://news.aol.com/topnews/articles/_a/house-approves-speedy-probe-for/20070604133509990001
http://www.chicagodefender.com/page/national.cfm?ArticleID=9606
It looks like you’ll have to try a little harder to find something to criticize the House Democrats of ethics problems.