The Free Press, Mankato, MN

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August 31, 2010

Our View: Beware of overreach

The Free Press

— Whenever there is a change of leadership in America, there exists the danger of overreach. If Republicans succeed, as many predict they will, in winning back the majority from Democrats in November, experts will chalk it up in part to overreach — Dems pushing too hard on health care, ramming through too many large spending bills, for starters.

Already, however, reports are circulating that Republicans are preparing to do some overreaching of their own. Potential GOP committee chairmen, Reps. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., and Lamar Smith, R-Texas, have not been shy in saying how sweet it would be to investigate several issues relating to how the White House and its Democratic allies have done business over the last two years, and a few staffers are brandishing words like “subpoenas” around.

Some of those probe-friendly issues are of particular interest to Republicans, but probably won’t register a ripple to the majority of voters post-election. Do the majority of Americans, for instance, look forward to hearings over the details of the White House’s attempts to entice candidates Joe Sestak and Andrew Romanoff from their Pennsylvania and Colorado Senate races? Do they want time and effort diverted from serious national issues so that the Justice Department can be probed on why the New Black Panther Party wasn’t prosecuted for alleged voter intimidation at a Philadelphia polling place in 2008?

We can be thankful that when power is transferred in America, we don’t behave quite as badly as they have been known to behave in non-democratic systems. Nobody gets sent to Siberia and low-level bureaucrats don’t disappear without a trace. But the temptation for endless committee investigations (what some call witch hunts) is always there.

It is possible in today’s atmosphere that reports of Republican investigations are being exaggerated. Democrats may have good reason to fan the rumors in order to inspire more of their voters to go to the polls on Nov. 2. But if Republicans are smart, they’ll consider their options with a measure of concern for their own political futures.

If it turns out that overreach will have brought the Democrats down in 2010, it remains plausible that overreach might bring the Republicans down in 2012.

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