Minnesota Congressional Republicans and the DeLay rule

Josh Marshall has been all over the vote taken by House Republicans to do away with an old rule that says that people who are indicted have to give up their leadership posts. See, Tom DeLay may be indicted for any number of reasons, and if that happened, it would be a tragedy if he had to step down from his post as Majority Leader. "Partisan politics" is what Republicans are squawking, saying that DeLay's indictment is politically motivated. They probably came around to that point of view the moment Ken Starr left Washington.

But anyway, Minnesota has four Republicans in the House of Representatives, and how they voted is the big question. Unsurprisingly, mindless shills Kenney and Kline seem to have supported the move. Jim Ramstad, who appears to have some decency, unlike many Republicans first elected in the past few years, voted against the rule. Gil Gutknecht thinks it was a mistake, but it wasn't so big a mistake that he actually attended the meeting to vote against the rule change.

The Republican Party: giving criminals a second chance by employing them in House Leadership positions.