2 GOP Ethics Panel Members Boost Gingrich

WASHINGTON â€”  In a boost for embattled Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), two key GOP members of the House Ethics Committee on Tuesday said that they support his reelection as speaker on Jan. 7, despite his admitted ethical lapses.

That endorsement--from the two Republicans most directly involved in the Gingrich investigation--came as the ethics panel announced it would begin deliberations Jan. 8 on how to punish Gingrich. The decision dashed the hopes of nervous Republicans who had wanted to know the committee’s final judgment before voting on whether to give Gingrich a second term as speaker.

But some of those jitters may be calmed by Tuesday’s letter from the two Ethics Committee members, who signaled to their GOP colleagues that they would support the lightest formal punishment for Gingrich, who has admitted that he gave false information to the committee and violated other House rules in connection with a college course he taught.

“We know of no reason now, nor do we see any in the normal course of events in the future, why Newt Gingrich would be ineligible to serve as speaker,� said Reps. Porter J. Goss of Florida and Steven H. Schiff of New Mexico, the two GOP representatives of the four-member ethics subcommittee that conducted the investigation.

There are 10 members, evenly divided between the parties, on the full committee that will decide Gingrich’s punishment.

The letter provides Republicans with the clearest signal to date that Goss and Schiff do not intend to vote for any punishment harsher than a reprimand, the lightest of the formal sanctions typically considered by the committee. A reprimand would allow Gingrich to remain as speaker; a panel vote to censure him, by contrast, would cause him to automatically lose the speakership.

Goss and Schiff said they were writing to House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) to ask him to circulate their letter because so many Republicans had asked for their guidance on the opening day vote for Gingrich. “We believe it would be valuable for members to have as much information as possible before the vote for speaker, and we are taking every effort to that end,� Schiff and Goss wrote.

They said that expressing their support for Gingrich’s reelection as speaker did not violate House rules prohibiting them from discussing the ethics case.

House Minority Whip David E. Bonior (D-Mich.), Gingrich’s leading foe, denounced the letter as “an attempt by the Republican leadership to shore up crumbling support for the speaker.�

Republicans had initially hoped that the Ethics Committee could move on the case before the speakership vote. About a dozen Republicans have said they were uncertain about whether they would vote for Gingrich until they had more information from the committee.

But as the ethics panel’s members this week discussed the timetable for handling the case, it became clear the matter could not be settled by Jan. 7.

The committee, in its announcement Tuesday, said a final House vote on the Gingrich case would take place no later than Jan. 21.

The committee said it would begin the final stage of its probe in a closed session Jan. 8, when the panel would receive the findings of its investigative subcommittee.

The subcommittee conducted the probe of a college course Gingrich taught in 1993-95 with financial support from a nonprofit foundation. The subcommittee found--and Gingrich admitted--that he had violated House rules by presenting false information to the committee about the course’s relationship with GOPAC, his political action committee, and by failing to ensure that he complied with laws prohibiting the use of tax-exempt contributions for partisan purposes.

After the closed meeting on Jan. 8, the panel will hold a public hearing on what kind of sanction to impose, at which it will hear from Gingrich’s lawyer and from James Cole, the special counsel who helped the subcommittee conduct the investigation. An Ethics Committee aide said he did not expect Gingrich himself to appear.

The panel’s deliberations on what punishment to impose will be held behind closed doors.

The letter circulated to all members by DeLay was the latest in a series of steps taken by GOP leaders to shore up support for Gingrich’s reelection. They conducted a mass conference call with lawmakers Monday, set up a hotline for taking questions on the case and have been sending packages of information to members in their home districts.

A head count being conducted by DeLay’s office--with about half the Republican conference counted so far--has turned up only one member who will not vote for Gingrich’s reelection, an aide to DeLay said. That one member is Rep. Michael P. Forbes (R-N.Y.), who this week publicly disclosed his decision to oppose the speaker.