Ethics panel members are always on the hot seat(Gene Green/Lamar Smith)

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/rssstory.mpl/politics/3153084

...
Smith, who was noticeably missing last week from a GOP news conference on the stalemate, declines to comment. Through his spokesman, he refers to the ethics committee manual that says only its chairman and ranking member can discuss issues before it.

His absence at that meeting has raised questions about whether he supports a GOP compromise under which the committee would launch an investigation of DeLay, R-Sugar Land, if the Democrats agree to the controversial Republican rule changes
...But Smith's financial dealings with DeLay have drawn criticism. He raised money for DeLay's political action committee and twice donated to the majority leader's legal defense fund — $5,000 in July 2000 to help DeLay counter allegations filed by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and $5,000 in June 2004 to help him fight ethics complaints lodged by former Houston Rep. Chris Bell, a Democrat.....

Smith's contributions to DeLay have prompted watchdog groups to argue that he should step down. He has refused

Unfortunately he is my congress critter. Hopefully not for much longer, we are keeping careful track of his actions on this committee. He is extremely versatile, screwing us in a multiplicity of ways. I have been hounding him for a "town meeting" around here, but he got toasted so badly when he last met with the residents of this area that he has been holding them in more repugnantly red portions of his district (no mean feat since the great gerrymander).

I read the article in the paper earlier this morning and fail to see how Gene Green even figures into it.

As a member of congress, where DeLay is the majority leader and as a congressman from the same general region, ie, home of NASA and many petro chem plants, why wouldn't he work together for anything that benefits his constituents?

I don't see how they can lump that together in an article about the cozy relationship between DeLay and Lamar Smith. It looks like the media trying to pull a Democrat into the muck.

Mary