GOP Tightens Grip on House (this post is about the U.S. House; but less drastic tightening has been in the works in the Ga. House as well.)

Excerpts from The Washington Post, 01-09-05:

GOP Leaders Tighten Their Grip on House

House Republican leaders moved swiftly last week to tighten and centralize control of the new Congress by replacing uncooperative committee chairmen and changing the chamber's rules to deter ethics investigations of leaders.

The Republicans expanded their majority by only three seats in the Nov. 2 election, yet party leaders have been emboldened by GOP domination of all branches of government and appear determined to squelch dissent in their own ranks and to freeze Democrats out of key decisions.

Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) moved to force out the ethics committee chairman, Rep. Joel Hefley (R-Colo.), who supported three formal admonishments of Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) last year, and ousted the chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee for failing to toe the party line on spending. The GOP leaders also rammed through a change in House rules to make it more difficult in the future to file an ethics complaint against DeLay or other members.

A Republican leadership aide said the strategy for the week was to undermine any effort by Democrats to make DeLay as divisive and symbolic a figure as former speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) was in his day. "They want to 'Newter' DeLay -- to isolate him and make him the issue, not any policy issue," the aide said.

But Republicans had already made other changes, both large and small, to diminish the influence of Democratic lawmakers. For instance, Republicans have made it harder for Democrats to offer amendments to pending bills or participate in conference committees, where House and Senate versions of bills are reconciled. Democrats complain that Republicans even make it hard for voters to reach Democratic committee Web sites by making users going through the majority's home page.

Republicans respond that the system is designed to avoid confusion since there is only one committee, and add that if they wanted to be tyrannical, they would not let the minority have Web pages at all.

Democrats and some Republicans, troubled by the moves, cite parallels between today's Republicans and the Democrats who lost their 40-year hold on the House in 1994 after Gingrich and other conservatives campaigned against them as autocratic and corrupt, and gained 52 seats.

"It took Democrats 40 years to get as arrogant as we have become in 10," one Republican leadership aide said.

Julian E. Zelizer, a Boston University history professor who edited the 2004 anthology "The American Congress," said Republicans used the past week to "accelerate the trend toward strong, centralized parties."

"This is a move toward empowering the leadership even beyond what you saw in the 1970s and 1980s," Zelizer said. "They have been going for broke."

Republican lawmakers acknowledge that they are acting partly out of Darwinian necessity. With a narrow 232 to 201 margin over Democrats, and a historical tendency for the party holding the White House to lose seats in midterm elections, the Republicans say they cannot afford defections or internal dissension.

House leaders also replaced Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Christopher H. Smith (R-N.J.), who was beloved by veterans and did not hold down spending the way leaders wanted. The new chairman is Rep. Steve Buyer (R-Ind.), who convinced party leaders during a rigorous job interview that he would be tougher.

A leadership aide described Smith as "just not a team player." To underscore their point, leaders not only demoted Smith but also removed him from the committee.

Late last week, the leadership picked veteran Rep. Jerry Lewis (R-Calif.) as the new chairman of the House Appropriations Committee. Lewis's first action was to oust staff director James W. Dyer, a 10-year veteran of the committee who was a frequent target of conservative critics. Hastert also added a seat to the Republican side of the committee, increasing his party's margin over Democrats from seven to eight.

"There is a purge going on around here," said Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.).

Critics say Republicans are taking a risk by further alienating Democrats, because President Bush may need a few Democrats to vote for his agenda items -- most notably, an overhaul of Social Security -- to give political cover to the GOP.

"They say they want bipartisanship," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), who is to be announced today as the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. "I think they need it. But there is no room for it when they run a political and legislative strategy that is abhorrent to bipartisanship, then bemoan the lack of civility."

Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) poked fun at the Republicans by handing out two pages of quotes from today's leaders railing against the arrogance of Democratic leaders before the GOP won control in 1994. "Republicans Backtrack on Ethics Principles from the 1980s and 1990s," blared his headline.

Defending his fellow Republicans, Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (Calif.) said members of the public understand due process and the presumption of innocence and so will approve of last week's ethics rule change. He said that rather than autocracy, the tone that was being set was "strong leadership."

"We are a stronger party today than we were at the first of the week because we have so successfully worked through these things," he said.

Republican Conference Chairman Deborah Pryce (Ohio) said her party had showed "a strong voice" in the opening week of the 109th Congress. Asked whether ethics would linger as an issue, she said, "I think we did a good job of putting all that to bed."