Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-Hawaii) is challenging actions by his Democratic leaders and plans to ask the ethics committee to determine whether House rules were broken during a recent ethics vote.

“That was a violation of our own rules,” he said. “You’ve got to be very careful when you start telling people you’re better than they are.”

The fiery Democrat says this inquiry is not a “guerilla raid on the leadership” but instead a “constructive” effort to find out what a new House rule against holding votes open for the purpose of changing their outcome means in real practice. Democrats passed the rule in early 2006 as part of their new majority pledge to run the most ethical Congress in history. 

“If we’re not going to enforce that rule, we should get rid of it,” he said.

In March, House leaders held open a vote in order to pass a bill creating an outside ethics office. The day after the vote, Abercrombie was vowing revenge against his leaders. 

“This is not remotely over,” he said at the time. “They messed with the wrong guy.”

When told about Abercrombie’s plans, Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), who chaired the ethics task force that came up with the proposal, said: “Good for him. He’ll win a lot of friends.”

The outside ethics office passed, 229-182, but in order to move the bill, Democratic leaders held open a procedural vote that preceded it for more than 10 minutes while they pressed several Democratic members to change their votes from no to yes.

If that vote had failed, opponents of the ethics office could have wrested control of the floor, offered alternatives or other amendments, and potentially killed the outside ethics office altogether.

The day after the vote, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and her top lieutenants dismissed charges that she broke her own rule, and ridiculed any comparison to the three hours Republicans held a vote open in 2003 to pass the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Pelosi also implied that some Democrats were unaware of the implications of the procedural vote and that’s why it took so long.

“Some people didn’t recognize that, what the consequences were of that, in terms of being able to bring up the bill,” she said at the time.

Abercrombie criticized that explanation, arguing that the rule doesn’t say votes can be held open longer than the allotted 15 minutes if members don’t understand the process.

Capuano defended the way the vote was conducted and said the new rule was put in place to avoid the brass-knuckles threats then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas) issued during extended votes.

Abercrombie opposed the creation of an outside ethics office made up of non-members because he believed it would spur political witch-hunts. Even though the proposal stirred nearly two weeks of open acrimony on both sides of the aisle, Abercrombie was the lone Democrat to attack the plan, delivering an impassioned speech on the House floor.

After the clock ran out on the vote, Abercrombie could be seen in the well of the House trying to get the attention of the chair to ask if everyone had voted. His inquiry at the time was not recognized.