New GOP Thinks Laws Shouldn’t Apply To Congress

Republican power keeps growing.

In January 2005 Republicans said they want to oust the bias law from Congress. This action is illustrative of the GOP revolution, but to understand the impact it is necessary to understand the history, which unfortunately is not being provided by the compliant American press.

Ten years ago, the bias law – an anti-discrimination statute – was added to the rules that govern Congress. Before that, anti-bias laws did not apply to Congress at all.

Good change, really; it merely put congressmen on an even surface with everyone else in the nation.

But that was 10 years ago.

Now things are different.

Now Republicans have a president, a House of Representatives, a Senate, more governors than the Democrats and the feeling its time to run things the way they see right. So this silly law ought not apply to congressmen. It might get in their way when they are trying to legislate; it might be an impediment to their action when they are making laws and their approach shouldn’t be reigned in by any oversight, which this law was designed to do and in fact does.

Strangely, ironically, the anti-bias law got applied to Congress as part of the so-called Contract With America, the Newt Gingrich Republican dogma that came to Washington in 1995, along with a passel of hard-core Republicans determined to fight President Bill Clinton and hope to destroy his presidency.

The anti-bias legislation had tons of things included within it.

One was to apply anti-discrimination law to Washington, D.C.

Ahhhh, so this was a Republican construct; what do you know?

Well that was all good and fine until now. And the GOP catalyst for change is both strange and convoluted, which is probably to the Republicans advantage.

Now there is a discrimination lawsuit against a congressman – a Democrat at that. This lawmaker had fired his black chief of staff, Beverly Fields. She complained after another black woman was fired and she sided with her. The congressman was Eddie Bernice Johnson, of Texas.

Not only is he a Texas Democrat, he is black himself.

This a rare case to begin with, but it is being allowed to continue in court, so Johnson’s lawyers say the Constitution protects members of Congress from having their speech or debate "questioned in any other place." This defense stretches the intent of the original protection, which was designed to allow members of Congress to speak without fear on the floor of the House and Senate. But the Eddie Johnson defense would imply that House and Senate members can hire and fire as they wish, regardless of any anti-bias laws as they apply everywhere else in the nation.

Johnson could fight this whole case as a normal citizen under the anti-discrimination laws and probably win. But Republicans are looking for a way to do away with the law, so they are actually helping him along. He’s the perfect foil: a Democratic black congressman from Texas faced with discrimination charges from black employees. The overall goal of the GOP is easily hidden behind this façade.

And the Republicans weighing in on this issue are no small fry either; they are Republican Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican majority whip Roy Blunt, and Republican majority leader Tom DeLay.

Tom Delay? The one who had the Republican Party rule makers change the law to let him stay in office if indicted, and then changed it all back when the pressure got too great, saying he said he could handle it on his own? Yes, that very same Tom DeLay.

DeLay has shown his power to make the laws and rules of Washington dance to the Republican jig. So when he graciously turned to his fellow Republicans and told them that he could make it through the investigation into his actions, because he was a guy who would take a hit if he had to for the GOP team, he already had good reason to know he was not going to face indictment.

Tom DeLay does not take hits for the team, he administers them.

So with other powerful House members filing "friend of the court" briefs, DeLay is now doing his best to return Congress to what it was for many years; that is, an exclusive club with its own laws and rules, aloof and beyond the rules that govern the conduct of the mere mortals who inhabit the rest of the country.

Remember, the Contract With America was created by Republicans to elect Republicans in the early and middle 1900s. Yet today’s Republicans are repudiating it.

Why?

Because today’s "Republicans" in the White House and the upper echelons of Congress are not really Republicans at all. Call them what you will, but they are tearing down the very Contract With America they and their predecessors built. Doing away with anti-bias laws for Congress is just one of the first things on the agenda.

One older Republican, Representative Christopher Shays, helped write the legislative version of the Contract With America, which is called the Congressional Accountability Act. It was, he now says, exactly the sort of practice that Rep. Johnson is accused of that the law tried to stop; exactly this stuff.

"The Congressional Accountability Act requires Congress to live by the laws it imposes on the rest of the nation," stated Shays, speaking from prepared remarks. "While each case should be decided on the merits, the intent of (the law) was not to allow ‘speech and debate’ immunity to shield members from liability in suits filed by staff under the act."

Congressional members cannot treat staff workers any differently than a standard employer treats his or her employees. If they cannot do that, they do not belong in Washington at all, and of course this should apply to all of the law structure.

The ‘bias law,’ formally known as the Congressional Accountability Act, was an improvement because it moved Congress closer to having to abide by the rules everyone else lives under. It makes good sense; that is, how can an elected congressman or senator truly represent the public if he or she is not bound by the very laws being created?

Apparently the current, dominant and radical GOP believe that their actions should be sacrosanct, and above the laws of the land, therefore Eddie Johnson has proved to be a useful tool for them.

W.F.