Ethics Watchdogs Snarl at the Messenger

[groovedaddy]

The House ethics committee is openly — and foolishly — sniping at its newly appointed ally in the difficult task of policing members’ behavior. A recent ethics committee report exonerated an accused congressman but blistered the new semiautonomous Office of Congressional Ethics, or O.C.E., for “fundamentally flawed” procedures in vetting the complaint for the committee.

The accusation appears groundless, but the lawmakers on the committee spent 30 pages displaying their resentment of the new office. This investment of resources would be far better focused on members’ behavior rather than the agency created by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to help the ethics committee shed its well-deserved reputation for inertia and evasion.

At issue was the behavior of Representative Sam Graves of Missouri in asking a business associate of his wife to testify before the Small Business Committee. In clearing the congressman, the ethics committee attacked the O.C.E. for suggesting there may be “an appearance of a conflict of interest.” There is no explicit rule barring an appearance of conflict, the committee thundered, accusing the O.C.E. of trying to invent one.

Wait a minute. The House does have an ethics standard mandating members behave “at all times in a manner which shall reflect creditably on the House.” Its ethics manual includes cautions against “appearance of impropriety.” The worrisome question now is whether the ethics panel has promulgated a loophole for flatly ignoring appearances of conflict of interest.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/opinion/13fri4.html?th&emc=th

[Uncle Joe]

1. There damn sure ought to be an explicit rule barring an appearance of conflict.

I wonder why there isn't?

Does anyone know who makes the rules?... oh yeah, never mind.

Thanks for the thread, groovedaddy.

[OnyxCollie]

2. Is O.C.E. competing against the ethics committee Porter Goss is on?