After House Majority Leader Tom DeLay was admonished three times by the House Ethics Committee this summer, the Republicans realized that they would have to do something to protect their corrupt leadership. Not wanting to make it a campaign issue, they waited until now -- nearly two months after the election -- to begin implementing new rules to ensure their improprieties will not be further investigated. The New York Times' Carl Hulse and Katharine Q. Seelye report:

In the wake of back-to-back ethics slaps at the House majority leader, Tom DeLay, House Republicans are preparing to make it more difficult to initiate ethics investigations and could remove the Republican chairman who presided over the admonishments of Mr. DeLay last fall.

A House leadership aide said a package of rules changes to be presented to the House when Congress convenes on Tuesday could include a plan that would require a majority vote of the ethics panel to pursue a formal investigation. Now, a deadlock on the panel, which is evenly split between parties, keeps a case pending. The possible change, the aide said, would mean that a tie vote would effectively dismiss the case.

The aide said the change would instill more bipartisanship in ethics cases. But Democrats and outside groups said the proposal would dilute an already weak ethics process.

Republican corruption and coverups are disgusting and a blight upon the American Democracy. If nothing is done soon, our faith in the Democratic system will erode to points unseen since the wake of Watergate or Iran-Contra. The media must be alert and the American people must not let the Republicans get away with this.