Bush, Fighting ‘Sleaze’ Issue, Urges Broad Ethics Standards : Says Congress Too Should Be Subject to Special Probes

Republican George Bush, in a move to combat Democratic charges of “sleaze” in the Reagan Administration, today proposed rewriting conflict-of-interest rules that govern federal employees to cover a wider variety of misconduct and said members of Congress no longer should be exempt from the provisions.

“Those who take on the people’s trust must hold themselves to an exacting code of conduct. We can expect, and indeed, tolerate nothing less from the people who work for the government,” the vice president said.

Bush, the all-but-certain Republican presidential nominee, discussed the subject of ethics and standards of conduct in a speech to a gathering of congressional interns at the Library of Congress.

In a break with the current Administration, Bush said, “I wholeheartedly endorse the concept of an independent counsel,” but again said that the independent counsel law should apply to members of Congress as well.

“To exempt Congress from any of these rules, as does current conflict-of-interest law, is to establish a double standard that breeds suspicion, breeds cynicism and in my judgment breeds abuse,” he said.

In Climate of ‘Sleaze’

Bush’s speech comes on the heels of Democratic charges of sleaze in the Reagan Administration. More than 100 Administration officials have been accused of wrongdoing during Reagan’s term, including some of his closest advisers, such as Michael K. Deaver, convicted of three counts of perjury, and Lyn Nofziger, convicted of three charges that he illegally lobbied the executive branch for private clients.

Bush said that as President he would establish an office of senior counselor to the President whose first responsibility would be ethics. He said the counselor would be in charge of a White House ethics office that would complement the work of the existing Office of Government Ethics.

Bush complained that the present system of federal ethics law “is a confused quilt work of executive policy statements, administrative regulations, criminal laws. Indeed, virtually every agency of government issues its own set of standards of conduct.”

He said that under his Administration the code of conduct would be clear, uniform and reflect common sense. “Nothing will be overly technical. What is intuitively right--what your conscience tells you--will invariably be the written rule,” he said.

He said the standards he would prescribe would eliminate “needless restrictions” to avoid discouraging good people from serving in government.

“Today there is little or no room under the conflicts law for the exercise of discretion and the fashioning of a measured response,” the vice president said.

“To put it in high relief, one is either charged with a felony or nothing at all,” Bush said. “This is plainly unacceptable.”