Capuano wants to change the current plan so that at least one member of the office’s governing board from each party would have to sign off on a complaint before it could be forwarded to the full ethics committee. Under the original plan, two members could refer a complaint even if they were from the same party.
“The proposal will be amended so that reviews can be initiated only pursuant to a bipartisan request,” Capuano wrote. “Members are protected, but so is the integrity of the process.”
Republicans said that Capuano’s changes mean that the governing board of the ethics office will be susceptible to the same partisan gridlock that has often paralyzed the ethics committee.
In an interview, Capuano acknowledged that partisan stalemates over board appointments are possible if the amendment passes.
“It is a risk that will be run with these amendments,” he said.
Ethics committee deadlocks have occurred several times in recent years. In 2005, for example, the panel was locked in a partisan stalemate over whether Rep. Doc Hastings’s (R-Wash.) chief of staff should become the panel’s staff director, when the committee was investigating then-Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
DeLay accused Democrats of deliberately stalling the probe in order to drag it into the midterm elections. Democrats argued that Hastings had shown ineffectual leadership and had too many conflicts of interest to name his own top staffer to the committee.
----------------------------- Changes to the Democrats’ plan for an independent ethics office include:
- Two board members, one Republican and one Democrat, can forward ethics complaints to the ethics panel for review. The original proposal would have allowed any two members of the panel to recommend an ethics committee investigation.
- Appointments to the board must be approved by the Speaker and minority leader jointly, with no time limits for avoiding a partisan deadlock. The original proposal would have allowed partisan appointments if the two leaders could not agree after 90 days.
- An initial review by the office would be terminated unless three members of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) vote to advance it. The original language said that only a vote of four OCE members could terminate a review before it advances to the second phase.
- A flurry of smaller tweaks would clarify language aimed at preventing inappropriate communications between House members and OCE board members and staff and prevent the board members or staff from leaking and from seeking federal elective office for three years, among other things.
|
