Dear Representative:
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) is not the only House member, of either party, to have violated House ethics rules, but his repeated scandals highlight the dire need to create an independent ethics agency.
How can Rep. DeLay be "investigated" by a House ethics committee when he made substantial campaign contributions to nearly all of the Republican members, and they owe him political favors? How can your constituents take seriously a process riddled with such glaring conflicts of interest? Regardless of which party controls the House, members are under enormous pressure to ignore unethical behavior by their colleagues.
I urge you to support legislation creating an independent ethics agency to review ethical violations by Rep. DeLay and any other member of Congress. At a minimum the agency should be:
Run by individuals who are NOT sitting members of Congress, and who have no conflicts of interest
Staffed by career professional investigators, not political appointees of either party
Given the authority to conduct independent investigations, subpoena witnesses and issue fines for ethics violations
Only such an independent agency can free the House from the political gridlock that has essentially destroyed ethics enforcement and brought us to this current sorry state. As your constituent, I urge you not to wait for the next round of tit-for-tat partisan ethics "attacks," or worse yet another seven-year period of inactivity from the ethics committee. The time for an independent ethics agency is NOW, and it should start with Rep. Tom DeLay.