Ethics panel probes Rep. Richardson

The House Ethics Committee announced on Friday that it has launched an investigation into Rep. Laura Richardson (D-Calif.).

The investigative subcommittee is looking into whether the three-term lawmaker violated House rules and pressured her congressional staff to work on her campaign.

Richardson’s investigation is the third probe into a black lawmaker that the secretive Ethics panel has launched this year. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Ill.) are also under investigation.

It comes in the wake of charges of racism that boiled among members of the Congressional Black Caucus last Congress. Richardson pointed to possible racial motivations as a potential catalyst for the investigation, according to a report. 

No black members were chosen to sit on Richardson’s investigative subcommittee, which is made up of its Republican chairman Rep. Charlie Dent (Pa.) and ranking Democratic Rep. John Yarmouth (Ky.), as well as Reps. Rob Bishop (R-Utah) and Ben Luján (D-N.M.), the only other Latino member of the committee besides Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.). Sanchez, who is the panel’s ranking Democrat recused herself to eliminate any possible conflict of interest that redistricting may cause.

The news of the investigation comes at a tough time for Richardson, who faces a difficult reelection battle next year. The redistricting process pits her against Democratic Rep. Janice Hahn, who replaced Jane Harman earlier this year after Harman resigned. Democratic state Assemblyman Isadore Hall is also expected to run in the primary.

The Ethics Committee has been doing a preliminary investigation of the allegations against Richardson for the past year. Congressional staffers are only allowed to work on a member's reelection effort on a volunteer basis or if they're paid out of campaign funds. They cannot be "compelled" to work on the campaign.

The ethics panel — made up equally of Republicans and Democrats — voted to form a four-member investigative subcommittee on Thursday.

At least eight current and former Richardson staffers told investigators “they felt compelled to work on her 2010 reelection campaign on their own time,” according to a report by the Los Angeles Times, citing an anonymous source. Additionally, the source said some aides testified that official House resources, such as congressional phones and copying machines, were used in the campaign.

Richardson confirmed the panel's vote in a statement to the paper, saying she was “unjustly” targeted.

The lawmaker also "suggested she was a target because of her race and sex," the newspaper said. Her statement said she would "explore the issue of whether the ethics committee has engaged in discriminatory conduct in pursuing two investigations against me while simultaneously failing to apply the same standards to or take the same actions against other members — of whom the overwhelming majority are white males."

The Ethics Committee came under fire with accusations of racism last Congress when all eight of the members it was investigating were black. Rep. Mel Watt (D-N.C.) who was under investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) last year, unsuccessfully tried to slash the independent office’s budget by 40 percent earlier this year.

Last year, the Ethics Committee investigated Richardson for allegedly receiving preferential treatment from a bank in regard to a foreclosure on her California home. The panel cleared her in that case.