House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wants to ship a Republican ethics proposal back to the bipartisan task force that labored for nearly a year to draft a proposal for an independent ethics commission.

Meanwhile, she plans to go forward “soon” with a vote on an ethics commission proposal that was pulled from consideration last week, which will include several changes floated Monday by the top Democrat on the task force.

She calls such a meeting “a constructive step toward identifying ways of expanding the transparency and accountability of the ethics process.”

Pelosi announced plans nearly a year ago to allow outside ethics complaints against members of Congress to be screened by an independent commission. She tasked a group led by Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) and Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) with working out a proposal, but the two sides parted ways before Capuano released his proposal for an independent commission late last year.

House leaders scheduled a vote last week, then pulled it Wednesday night after Republicans released their ethics proposal, which called for changing the existing ethics committee instead of creating a new entity.

Democratic leaders said they postponed the ethics vote because they wanted time to review the Republican proposal,  but many Democrats opposed the proposal from Capuano.

Late last week, Democrats indicated they wanted to bring the proposal up again this week for a vote on the House floor Thursday.

Capuano responded to widespread criticism that his proposal could lead to partisan witch hunts by signing off on several changes to his proposal. They were highlighted in a “Dear Colleague” letter Capuano circulated that said the changes would make it “impossible to initiate a partisan witch-hunt” through the independent commission.

For example, Capuano said the proposal would be changed so that reviews of a member’s ethical conduct could only  be initiated pursuant to a bipartisan request.

Many members had protested that the original proposal would allow the commission to refer ethics complaints to the ethics commission based on the recommendation of just Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) board members from the same party.

One of the amendments addresses concerns that appointments to the six-member OCE board, which cannot include lawmakers or lobbyists, could be made in a partisan way if the Speaker and House minority leader could not come to an agreement on a nominee and were deadlocked for 90 days.

The proposal now mandates that the Speaker and minority leader make appointments to the OCE board jointly with no time limits to provide for a way to end a partisan deadlock over a nominee.

The third major change would address complaints about the possibility for partisan inquiries by two “rogue” commission members. The original language said that only a vote of four OCE members could terminate a review  before it advances to the second phase. The amendment would terminate a review unless at least three members of the OCE affirmatively vote to advance it.

“This effectively requires the original two, jointly appointed, bipartisan members to convince at least one more jointly appointed member that more information is needed to make a thoughtful decision on an allegation,” Capuano wrote.

The amendments will be offered during a Rules Committee meeting planned for Wednesday.

Capuano noted that the two watchdog groups that supported his previous proposal, Common Cause and U.S. PIRG, are backing the changes, as are longtime congressional observers Norm Ornstein at the American Enterprise Institute and Thomas Mann at Brookings. Several other prominent watchdogs, such as the Campaign Legal Center and Democracy 21, openly lobbied against the original proposal, arguing that it was too weak.

Capuano will join representatives from Common Cause and U.S. PIRG on a Tuesday press teleconference call to urge House members to support the stalled proposal.

Capuano also listed a flurry of smaller tweaks clarifying language aimed at preventing inappropriate communications between House members and OCE board members and staff, preventing the board members or staff from leaking and from seeking federal elective office for three years.