Lawmaker (D) Welcomes Possible Ethics Vote (on rules)

WASHINGTON - The senior Democrat on the House ethics committee on Friday welcomed reports that House Speaker Dennis Hastert may allow a vote on new rules that have paralyzed the panel.

But Rep. Alan Mollohan (news, bio, voting record), D-W.Va., added that the issue won't be resolved unless Hastert also persuades Republicans to eliminate the rules that Democrats say have undermined the committee's traditional bipartisan nature.

Hastert, R-Ill., told The Wall Street Journal for a story in Friday's editions that he did not rule out allowing a vote to reverse new ethics committee procedures the Republican majority pushed through last January.

Under the new rules, ethics complaints are automatically dismissed if the evenly divided committee doesn't act within 45 days, a period that can be doubled if necessary. That means that at least one member must break ranks with his party before an investigation of a party colleague can go forward.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050422/ap_on_go_co/house_ethics

There's the blink.

Is that the blink, or is something else going on here.

of addressing the dems' line in the sand over the rules. Mollohan, of course, stipulates the need for the vote to succeed- that it not be an empty gesture- but the repubs have actually *mentioned* the rules vote now, bringing it up for consideration.

As I recall, the repubs took lots of heat for the DeLay Rules last year. They wouldn't want to just bandy them about.

I think this is an important development. We'll see. I'd like to read the WSJ piece.

not just the ethics committee