Back before Utah’s Jason Chaffetz had gone completely over to The Dark Side -- back in the summer of 2014 -- the up-and-coming congressman from Utah engaged in an exercise that was intended to appear, and perhaps actually to be, an extraordinary effort to make the House of Representatives a less toxic place.
As reported at the time by Our Man in Washington -- Thomas Burr -- Chaffetz was in line to take over the chairmanship of the key House Oversight Committee. As an act of good will, he and the ranking Democrat on that panel, Maryland’s Elijah Cummings, visited one another’s districts.