For House leaders, no clear rules for policing their own For all the talk of "zero tolerance" and "draining the swamp," both Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) have generally been reticent to take public action against lawmakers suspected or accused of transgressions. Like the people they represent, members of Congress are considered innocent until proven guilty. But the actual bar for meting out internal punishment is far less clear; some lawmakers have been slapped by their leaders at the first hint of scandal, while others have been allowed to hang onto their jobs and their committee assignments long after the emergence of allegations against them. "I think there's a pretty high bar," said Steve Elmendorf, who served as top aide to former House minority leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.). I think there's a pretty consistent standard that you have to have something more than a newspaper story saying somebody is the subject of an investigation. Pelosi and Boehner's offices declined to comment, but House Republicans and Democrats have nearly identical internal rules on this subject: Any party leader or chairman of a committee or subcommittee who is indicted on felony charges must temporarily step down from his or her post. In practice, lawmakers rarely make it that far, and the rules are silent about how to handle rank-and-file committee members. "It depends on what kind of political heat the leadership and their colleagues will get over an investigation," said Ron Bonjean, the former spokesman for then-speaker Dennis J. Hastert (R-Ill.) and then-Senate majority leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.). In 2006, Pelosi led an effort to force Rep. William Jefferson (D-La.) to surrender his seat on the Ways and Means Committee. The move came a month after the FBI mounted a high-profile raid on Jefferson's congressional office and disclosed that $90,000 in cash had been found in his home freezer, but a full year before the Louisianan was indicted and three years before he was convicted on corruption charges. This isn't about proof in a court of law. This is about an ethical standard," Pelosi said at the time. The Democratic Caucus voted to take the seat away after Jefferson refused to step down voluntarily, and the embattled lawmaker complained that there was no clear guideline for when a member under scrutiny was supposed to give up his post. Similarly, Rep. John T. Doolittle (R-Calif.) surrendered his position on the Appropriations Committee in 2007 at the urging of GOP leaders, soon after the FBI raided his house as part of the Jack Abramoff corruption investigation. But unlike Jefferson, Doolittle was never indicted. The day after Doolittle left the Appropriations Committee, Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) - also with a push from Boehner - stepped down from the Intelligence Committee after the FBI raided his family's insurance business. He was indicted in 2008, and is still awaiting trial amid legal wrangling over his case.