Senate panel kills ethics office proposal
WASHINGTON – A key Senate committee Thursday rejected a proposal to create a new agency to oversee congressional ethics, dealing a major blow to efforts to give outsiders at least some authority to police lawmakers’ conduct.
The plan to set up an independent Office of Public Integrity was derailed by the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee – despite its sponsorship by the panel’s chairwoman, Republican Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, and the ranking Democrat, Sen. Joe Lieberman of Connecticut.
The measure’s 11-5 defeat underscored the growing resistance on Capitol Hill to sweeping reforms advocated by government watchdog groups and some lawmakers in the wake of recent political scandals. Rather than significantly rewrite their rules for conduct, most members of Congress appear to favor more extensive reporting requirements – mostly for lobbyists.
The defeat of the ethics office proposal sparked sharp criticism.
“We are really disappointed,” said Mary Boyle, a spokeswoman for Common Cause. “For Congress to produce any kind of credible reform, they need an enforcement mechanism.”
The proposal called for establishing an office that would operate independently of the existing House and Senate ethics committees and would have the power to initiate investigations of lawmakers. The office and its staff would be led by a director hired by congressional leaders; its findings would be turned over to the congressional ethics panels, whose members would then decide on any penalties.
In Thursday’s debate, several senators balked at ceding even limited oversight power to an outside agency.
“There is no need to reinvent the wheel,” said Sen. George Voinovich, R-Ohio, who led opposition to the proposal. “The Office of Public Integrity is a solution in search of a problem.”
Voinovich is chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, as well as a member of the homeland security panel.
After the latter committee scotched the ethics office provision, it approved legislation that would require lobbyists to provide more detailed reports on their activities, to file that information more frequently and to disclose money spent to promote the interests of their clients.
The bill also would require lobbyists to list annually the campaign donations and fundraising events in which they take part.
Penalties for violations of these rules would be increased. And the so-called “cooling off” period – the time a former senator must wait before lobbying his one-time colleagues – would be extended to two years from one year.
The bill is expected to be combined with another passed earlier this week by the Senate Rules Committee; that legislation would be brought to the Senate floor as early as next week.
The Rules Committee measure aims to rein in “earmarking” – the popular legislative practice of tucking money into bills, often at the behest of lobbyists, for projects benefiting a particular state or industry.