Justin Rood October 23, 2006, 4:58 PM

A close review of the ties connecting House Speaker Dennis Hastert to the GOP lawmakers overseeing the House probe into his handling of the Foley scandal helps explain why no fewer than seven public interest groups have called for the matter to be turned over to an impartial outside counsel.

When the scandal erupted earlier this month, the ten-member House ethics committee created a special four-member panel to investigate the matter, ignoring calls to use an impartial outsider. That investigatory panel is led by the top Republican and Democrat on the committee, Reps. Doc Hastings (R-WA) and Howard Berman (D-CA); joining them are Reps. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones (D-OH) and Judy Biggert (R-IL).

But oh, the conflicts. House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) is so close to Hastings, the top Republican, he’s rumored to have put Doc’s name on a secret “succession list” to take his place in case of a catastrophe.

Hastings, who’s called a “loyalist” and “protege” of Hastert — which are terms about as close to “brown-noser” as Washington insiders ever use — was given the ethics chair by Hastert, who used him to replace Rep. Joel Hefley (R-CO), the last ethics committee chairman, who upset the speaker by ruling against former majority leader Tom DeLay.

Hastings isn’t the only GOP member of the panel with ties to embattled House speaker. Leadership ambitions, which need a Speaker’s help to become real, are dishearteningly present among Republican members of the ethics committee, as Congressional Quarterly recently noted (sub. req.).

Such dreams are the stuff favors are made of:

- Lamar Smith, R-Texas, is poised to succeed F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis., as the senior Republican on the Judiciary Committee in the 110th Congress.

- Tom Cole, R-Okla., is vying with Phil English, R-Pa., and Pete Sessions, R-Texas, to succeed Thomas M. Reynolds, R-N.Y., as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

- Melissa A. Hart, R-Pa., has been mentioned as a possible candidate for several leadership posts, such as chairwoman or vice chairwoman of the House Republican Conference.

- Judy Biggert hasn’t been viewed as a potential leadership climber, but Hastert’s trust in his Illinois delegation colleague was evident last year when she became the only ethics committee Republican besides Hastings who was not purged after the panel rebuked then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay[.]

Hastings himself wants to take over leadership of the Rules Committee, an obscure but powerful panel that runs the legislative agenda for the House, according to CQ.

And then there’s the money. As USA Today reported earlier this month, Hastings has taken $2,500 from Hastert; Biggert, who’s on both the ethics committee and the smaller panel investigating Foley, took $8,000. FECInfo has more on members of the ethics committee, which oversees the probe: Hart took $20,999, and Cole has taken $16,000.

Any wonder, then, that Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), Common Cause, Democracy 21, Public Citizen, the League of Women Voters, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (US-PIRG), and the Campaign Legal Center have all called for an outside counsel?

Mark Foley