Members Selected for Bipartisan Panel to Study Laws : Bush to Act Quickly on Ethics Questions

In his first days in office--and possibly on Inauguration Day itself--George Bush will establish a bipartisan commission to examine the full scope of ethics laws that govern federal officials and employees, sources close to the President-elect said Wednesday.

Hoping to put an early and positive stamp on a sensitive issue, Bush aides have lined up seven people--including former Atty. Gen. Griffin B. Bell from the Carter Administration and Fred F. Fielding, President Reagan’s first White House counsel--to review current ethics laws as well as stronger ethics legislation that Reagan vetoed Nov. 23.

The ethics commission is part of a package of closely guarded initiatives for the new Administration’s first hundred days that have been the subject of virtually nonstop meetings among Bush aides over the last few days. Bush plans to discuss some of those initiatives with the members of his Cabinet-to-be in a meeting today.

Provides Focal Point

An early move on ethics can provide a positive focal point for Bush, much as Reagan signaled his attack on federal spending by freezing government hiring on his first day in the White House and Jimmy Carter moved to heal the Vietnam War trauma by granting amnesty to those who fled the country to avoid the draft.

Bush also apparently hopes to buy some time from a Congress already moving to revive the vetoed legislation, which would have restricted for the first time paid lobbying by former members of Congress and their top aides. It also would have tightened lobbying restrictions on former White House officials and others who left jobs in the executive branch of government.

“I think it’s a fairly good thing to do on the first day of your presidency. It’s a good statement for the President to make, that he wants an ethical Administration,” said Bell, who has been asked to be the vice chairman. But Bell left open just how far the panel might go, saying he understood the vetoed legislation to be “on the drastic side” and adding, “I didn’t know we needed any more ethics laws.”

The idea to make government ethics the first of Bush’s public initiatives goes back to last July, when the Reagan Administration was under fire on ethical issues. Bush promised that, if elected, he would appoint a special counselor responsible for ethics and that his Administration would send an “unmistakeable” message that public employees must be held to “an exacting code of conduct.”

At the time, some of his aides were concerned that although Bush had faced no questions about his own personal affairs, he would pay a political price for the problems of some top Administration officials. Reagan’s first deputy chief of staff, Michael K. Deaver, was convicted of perjury, former political assistant Lyn Nofziger was convicted of illegally lobbying former White House colleagues, and several other senior and mid-level Administration officials came under sharp criticism for other activities.

“The importance here is that the President-elect was sincere in the campaign in expressing his interest in ethics and making sure it is done promptly and a bill submitted to Congress,” said Jan Baran, counsel of Bush’s campaign organization who is on the list of commission members.

Baran said the commission would go beyond “post-employment conflicts” and would examine all aspects of government ethics, emphasizing the need to deal equally “among the three branches of government.”

Inclusion of judges and members of Congress in ethics laws regulating the conduct of current and former officials in the executive branch would represent a major expansion of present laws.

The new Congress already has signaled its intent to move on ethics issues. House Speaker Jim Wright (D-Tex.) and House Minority Leader Robert H. Michel (R-Ill.) plan to name a bipartisan task force to carry out an in-depth review of House ethics rules.

Lawmaker Encouraged

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of a House subcommittee with jurisdiction over the Ethics in Government Act, said he was encouraged that Bush was “willing to move quickly.” But, referring to Bell’s expressed skepticism about the need for tougher regulations, Frank noted, “These are not the gangbusters of ethics enforcement.”

According to sources close to Bush, the commission’s members, in addition to Bell, Fielding and Baran, would include Lloyd Cutler, White House counsel during Carter’s final two years in the White House; former Sen. Harrison H. Schmitt (R-N.M.); former U.S. Appellate Court Judge Malcolm R. Wilkey, and R. James Woolsey, undersecretary of the Navy during the Carter Administration. Wilkey would serve as chairman, and staff members would be borrowed from the White House counsel’s office and the Justice Department.