Strip Issa of his committee chair

Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) has proven himself to be unqualified to be chair of a major House committee (especially the Government Oversight Committee) because of his undisguised partisanship that goes beyond political rivalry and has become abuse of power.

He has cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, and government workers thousands of hours in bogus investigations of scandals that exist only in his wishful thinking, the most notorious one being the so-called IRS scandal.   According to Issa, there was a conspiracy between the White House and the IRS to unfairly target conservative groups applying for 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) status.  He claims that only Tea Party organizations "received systematic scrutiny because of their political beliefs."

 A special IRS office has the responsibility to determine whether applicants are indeed non-political in their activities, which are limited to advocacy for the general welfare and education.   It turns out that Issa asked for a list of such conservative groups that had to go through extra review -- and was given that information.   He did not ask for a complete list of all organizations that had been scrutinized.

It is true that, at that time, the IRS was using a list of words to target applicants.  And when there was a surge of Tea Party organizations applying, they added some words like "patriot" and "Tea Party" to the list of self-descriptions that would flag the application.

But it is not true that only conservative groups were flagged.   They have now released data going back to 2010, when liberal groups like ACORN were suspect.    Overall, the practice of using specific words to pick out applications for further review, has been aimed more at progressive groups than conservative ones.   Charts have now been released to prove this.

Issa knows this.  At least he has been told it again and again.  But he refuses to back down on his vendetta against the IRS and specifically Lois Lerner who was in charge of this IRS section and who has refused to testify under 5th amendment protection.

Even beyond his abuse of investigative power, is the jaw-dropping disrespect he has repeatedly shown to the ranking Democrat on his committee, Rep Elijah Cummings.   It's all preserved on a now infamous clip of the proceedings.    Here's a still photo from that interaction, which captures Issa's look of contempt at his colleague Cummings.



Issa had allowed no discussion during this committee meeting, and Cummings was trying to assert his right to speak.  Shortly after this photo, and with Cummings still trying to speak, Issa stood up and told the staff to cut off Cummings' microphone.  Which they did.    The ranking member of the committee was not allowed to raise his objections during this whole committee meeting.

That is abuse of the chairman's power, not to allow the ranking member to make his statement.   Issa later did offer an apology, and Cummings accepted it.   But this was perfunctory.   Issa gave no indication that he has changed either in his feelings or in the way he intends to conduct the committee -- except when the reaction against him demands it.

Ralph