A scandal in Washington

Since the plea agreement of Jack Abramoff, the dominos have been tumbling. Perhaps the most important domino to finally fall is that of Congressman Tom Delay (R-TX) who had to relinquish any hope of regaining his position as the Republican Majority Leader in the House of Representatives. Republicans have lost one of their strongest leaders. Not only did Delay push for a conservative agenda, but he pushed -and pushed hard- to defend the majority status for Republicans in Congress.

However, Delay should be a cautionary tale. In pushing to defend the majority he lost sight of why we have a majority. Congressman Shadegg (R-AZ) is right when he points out Republicans came to power in the House in 1994 on two principles: reform the House and reduce the size of government. Delay became the embodiment of the betrayal of both those ideas when he announced there was nothing left to cut from the federal budget.

We now have a race for Republican majority Leader between three conservative Republicans: Missouri's Roy Blunt, Ohio's John Boehner and Arizona's John Shadegg. Blunt was the perceived front-runner heading into this weekend. Shadegg, a late entry, has positioned himself as the reform candidate in the race, and has been endorsed by Club for Growth and the publications Human Events and National Review. Interestingly, Shadegg has also attracted the support and backing of a coalition of center-right bloggers.

While my preference is for Shadegg, ultimately his election won't matter if the Republicans in the House of representatives cannot do more to shrink the size of government. As conservative writer Jonah Goldberg put it so well,

The real reform needed isn't more campaign finance restrictions and denying Congressmen the ability to get a free lunch or trip (though some of those measures might make sense in the short term). And the real reform needed isn't government financed elections -- as Daniel Schorr suggested this morning on NPR. The real reform required is to trim government back, back, back. The less government picks winners and losers and the less it involves itself in a trillion decisions it should not be party to, the fewer incentives there will be for lobbyists to give a rat's ass about Washington in the first place.

It's likely whatever reforms the Republicans put into place at this time will not have much of a positive impact in this November's elections. Republicans will probably lose a seat or two, and they will have deserved the losses.

However, Democrats shouldn't be too gleeful over the scandals plaguing the congress. They need to remember what happened in 1994 was something of "a perfect storm" (to use an overused cliche) when the Republicans took control. It wasn't just the scandals that plagued the Democrats that year. President Clinton's proposal to nationalize most of America's health care had just been stopped by the Republicans, who suddenly found themselves reinvigorated in opposition. Republicans had a leadership that came of age under Reagan and the first President Bush and they put together a new agenda of reform and smaller government. Republicans were recruiting a better slate of candidates than ever before. Most importantly, Republicans had finally won at the level of redistricting and reapportionment. Without the new congressional lines, all of the other factors combined would've meant a closely divided House, but one still in control of the Democrats.

Since there is nothing in the Abramoff revelations to suddenly transform electoral politics, it's a safe assumption Republicans will still be in control after this November's elections. The question is, what kind of Republican Party will it be?