A bipartisan task force is proposing the creation of a new congressional office that would have the power to initiate ethics complaints against members of the U.S. House of Representatives. While the proposal may create the appearance that Congress is getting tough on misdeeds, it has little chance of actually doing anything to discourage unethical behavior.
Under the proposal, complaints initiated by the new Office of Congressional Ethics would be considered by the House ethics committee. The office would be staffed by six people – three appointed by the speaker and three appointed by the minority leader – who would be paid to serve part-time, four-year terms.
Outside groups and citizens would not have the power to file complaints against House members, and the office wouldn’t have subpoena power. Essentially, the task force wants to create an office whose staffers work for the people it’s charged with investigating without giving them insulation from political pressure and the power to do the job.
The power would come with the threat of a subpoena. The insulation would come with a standard procedure for outside groups, not the office itself, to initiate complaints.
As it stands, the proposal is no better than the current system, which only allows House members to initiate complaints. Democrats and Republicans in the House have a longstanding truce. They won’t file ethics complaints against each other, so misdeeds go unpunished.
In New Mexico, the truce has left two scandalous situations unresolved.
Remember when David Iglesias, former U.S. attorney for New Mexico, earlier this year accused U.S. Rep. Heather Wilson, R-N.M., of pressuring him to speed indictments in a public corruption probe to sway voters in the November 2006 election? Wilson admits placing the October 2006 phone call but says she didn’t pressure Iglesias.
The situation warrants a formal investigation by the House ethics committee, but, though Wilson was interviewed by committee staffers, no formal investigation has taken place.
Then there’s the situation surrounding Rep. Steve Pearce, R-N.M. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington alleged earlier this year that Pearce failed to report his 2003 sale of the assets of an oil-well company to another company in exchange for 540,000 shares of stock. The group says his failure to do so likely violated the Ethics in Government Act.
The allegations landed Pearce on CREW’s list of the 22 most corrupt members of Congress. Pearce has said the allegations aren’t true, but has refused to explain.
A similarly weak system in state government
A similarly weak system for ensuring ethical behavior exists in Santa Fe. The problem with the state’s process for handling complaints against state lawmakers is that there is no independent body to investigate. A subcommittee of lawmakers is charged with investigating complaints against peers. As long as its members don’t find probable cause that an ethics violation occurred, the complaint never becomes public.
If you want evidence that the system isn’t working, consider this: In a state with a history of scandal, and with the former president of the state Senate currently under indictment for taking part in a scheme to bilk taxpayers out of $4.2 million, no committee considering a complaint has found an ethics violation since 1992.
There are currently two situations that need investigation but aren’t getting it:
• The wife of Democratic state Rep. Richard Vigil and others are facing felony charges, in part for spending public money on a late-night, invitation-only party – money that Vigil secured through the legislative process for a staff training event for a high-school program his wife used to run. The money was also spent on other plush items for the program, including a 42-inch plasma screen television that, according to the receipt, was picked up from Sears by Vigil. It has since vanished.
• A bar owned by Democratic state Sen. Mary Jane Garcia was recently cited for serving an intoxicated person. Weeks later – before the department that handles administration of liquor licenses took action against the bar – Garcia called, in her capacity as a senator, a meeting attended by dozens of representatives of the liquor industry and a handful of legislators. Garcia and others berated state officials – including those whose department is responsible for taking action against Garcia’s bar – during the contentious meeting.
Garcia’s actions create the appearance that she was threatening, in her official position, the department that is seeking sanctions against her bar. The Vigil situation raises questions about whether he knew his wife was misspending money he appropriated and what happened to the television.
Still, no ethics investigations.
What both legislative bodies need is a system that is independent, transparent and powerful. It’s great that the task force in Washington wants to create an investigative body that’s not made up of House members, but it needs subpoena power and the ability to accept outside complaints. It’s great that the state Legislature has a formal process that lets outside complaints trigger investigations, but those complaints need to be investigated by an independent group.
The current systems are inadequate. That’s just another reason people are so jaded and cynical when it comes to their government.
A version of this article was published today on the Diary of a Mad Voter blog published by both the Denver Post’s Politics West and the independent Web site NewWest.net.