Don’t weaken the House ethics process

When Democrats regained control of the House in 2006, incoming Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D- San Francisco) promised “the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history.” To redeem that pledge, the House in 2008 established an independent Office of Congressional Ethics to investigate complaints against members and refer them to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, also known as the Ethics Committee.

Now members of the Congressional Black Caucus, unhappy over referrals involving several of its members, have proposed a resolution that would muzzle this ethical watchdog. Pelosi and the rest of the House leadership must resist any attempt to undermine the office, which has forced the Ethics Committee to confront allegations of impropriety that in the past might never have come to light.

The resolution proposed by Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D- Ohio) and 19 other members of the Black Caucus would impair the office in several ways. At present, a preliminary investigation of a member must be undertaken if requested by two members of the office’s board of directors from different political parties. Under Fudge’s resolution, the office could investigate only on the basis of a sworn complaint from a citizen “asserting personal knowledge of an alleged violation,” a much higher threshold. That also would limit the role of good government groups that now need only convince two board members that an investigation is required.

Equally damaging, the resolution would prohibit the public release of the facts of an investigation by the office unless the Ethics Committee found misconduct. That would deprive voters of knowledge about ethically questionable behavior that didn’t rise to the level of a violation of House rules, and would make it easier for the committee to exonerate members who should be disciplined.

In proposing to weaken the office, Fudge complained that it is “the accuser, judge and jury” and that its procedures depart from the standards of the “American justice system.” Yet the “judge and jury” in ethics investigations continue to be members of the Ethics Committee. As for comparisons with the judicial system, charges against criminal defendants are made public before a final disposition; so should serious allegations of ethical impropriety by members of Congress.

Disclosure of information gathered by the Office of Congressional Ethics allows the public as well as the Ethics Committee to assess members’ conduct. Shrouding such information in secrecy doesn’t befit the “most ethical Congress in history.”