No precedent for removing Condit from committee

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- On the day Rep. Gary Condit returned to Capitol Hill, there were more calls Wednesday for his removal from the House Intelligence Committee.

But removing someone from a committee assignment is relatively uncharted territory.

"Parties are very reluctant to get into the business, once they have made those assignments, of removing people in an arbitrary fashion because of the precedent it would set and the instability it would cause," said Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute.

Sen. Phil Gramm, R-Texas, was booted off the budget committee when he was serving in the House as a Democrat. Democrats took that action because they were unhappy that he backed President Reagan's budget.

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According to congressional historians, however, no one has ever been forced to leave a committee because of personal misconduct.

House Democrats do have disciplinary rules for senior committee members. They can lose the top job if they are censured by the House or convicted of a serious felony. If senior members are indicted, they must temporarily step down.

That is what happened to former congressman Dan Rostenkowski in 1994 when he was indicted on corruption charges and lost his chairmanship of the powerful Ways and Means Committee.

But nowhere is there a rule about people such as Condit, who has not been indicted or censured and who is not the top-ranking member of any committee.

"Frankly, I think [House Minority Leader Dick] Gephardt would have to explain why, if he chose to remove Condit from the committee, he would need to tell the public what it is that warrants Condit's removal from the committee," said Rich Cohen of the National Journal.

One Republican leader said Democrats might be wise to make a change.

"I do think that prudence might ssuggestto Mr. Gephardt that he talk to Gary about stepping down," said House Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas. "I don't think that would be an inappropriate course for the minority leader to take."

But as one-time White House chief of staff Leon Panetta pointed out, there is no evidence Condit committed a crime and he is not a criminal suspect.

"He's screwed up badly, he's handled it badly as a politician, but is that reason for taking him off the Intelligence Committee? I'm not so sure," Panetta said on CNN Wednesday night.

"I think the bigger question would be, not so much whether they take him off the Intelligence Committee but whether they put increasing pressure on him to indicate that he's going to run for office," said Panetta, who served under President Clinton.

Longtime Washington insider David Gergen agreed, calling Condit "unfit for public life."

"He would help his party a lot if he simply said, 'I do not plan to run for re-election,'" said Gergen, who appeared on the same CNN program with Panetta.

"That would obviate this thorny question of whether you try to throw someone off a committee. It is not a good precedent to set, absent some clear indictable behavior."