Hastings says ethics panel won't investigate DeLay

Hastings says ethics panel won't investigate DeLay

The Seattle Times | Complete article
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.

So, while DeLay is on trial in Texas, the House Ethics Committee, which has dragged its feet for months on this and other investigations, again postpones its own investigation of the wrongdoing of the former majority leader.

Hastings will be interviewed Oct. 11 by my student journalists, and I imagine they'll have a few questions for the Ethics Committee Chair, also their Congressman. We'll see.

-- Wenatchee, Wash.