Analysis: GOP Jumpy About DeLay Successor

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Behind closed doors, all three men running to succeed indicted Rep. Tom DeLay as House majority leader faced a question that betrayed Republican nervousness in a season of scandal. Rep. Scott Garrett of New Jersey asked whether they or their staff members had done anything that might work to the election-year detriment of a party already wounded by the congressional corruption probe symbolized by lobbyist Jack Abramoff. ''My rationale is that I think ethics is going to be an issue not just today, but will be hammered by the Democrats, right or wrong, the next 10 months,'' Garrett said afterward in an interview. ''So it's natural to make sure that whoever is in leadership in the future comes into it with a clean slate and no surprises.'' One by one, Reps. Roy Blunt, John Boehner and John Shadegg offered assurances on Monday in separate appearances before conservatives attending a Republican Study Committee retreat in Baltimore.

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Leadership elections aside, Republicans put their nervousness on full public display when they called for a rules change to strip lawmakers-turned-lobbyists of access to the House floor or gym. ''Republicans have been and are the party of reform,'' Rep. David Dreier of California said repeatedly. Other Republicans said they did not see the connection between his claim and the rules change he backed. Rep. Henry Bonilla of Texas said as much at a closed-door meeting, then said afterward that he and others ''see this rule as reactionary, as being done out of fear. ''No one in any district that I know of has been asked about some 85-year-old former member hanging out in the back of the chamber,'' he said. The change passed anyway, 379-50.

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Democrats watched the Republican discomfort with a show of amusement and a plan for attack. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., poking fun at the proposed new gym rule, suggested Republicans should demand that former lawmakers step off the exercise equipment when an incumbent wants to use it. In a more serious vein, Democrats have researched any links that Blunt, Boehner and Shadegg have to Abramoff or other lobbyists, as well as their ties to DeLay.

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''No matter who Republicans elect, it's easy to show they're supporting more of the same ... part of the same pay-to-play system that's made Washington the mess that it is right now,'' said Bill Burton, a spokesman for the House Democratic campaign organization. It's the same line of reasoning that prompted Garrett to ask his question on Monday. ''Roy Blunt essentially said it was likely whoever we chose as majority leader would be beaten up in the media,'' said Blackburn.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-Nervous-Republicans.html

[peacetalksforall]

1. Blunt assured his compatriots? I thought there was already plenty of

questionable stuff out there that involved him? I hope they choose him.