Press Center
March 15, 2005
Contact: Mary Boyle, (202) 736-5770
Statement by Common Cause President Chellie Pingree At Congressional Ethics Coalition press conference
Today as we stand here, the integrity of the House of Representatives lies in tatters on the House floor. The ethics committee is stalled and unable to take action, and allegations of ethical misconduct are piling up by the day.
Common Cause is calling on all House members to support a resolution by Congressman Alan Mollohan that would repeal or modify some of the ethics rules changes passed by the House at the beginning of the 109th Congress. Those rules changes significantly undermined the already weak ethics process in the House.
The House of Representatives is a critical institution in our democracy. Its Members pride themselves on being directly accountable to the American people. They even call the chamber the "People's House."
Forty years ago, Democrats decried the unethical behavior of the Watergate scandal and swept into the House in record numbers. Ten years ago, Republicans, campaigning on House ethics problems, took control of the House for the first time in decades. Now is the time for both parties to join together to put the ethics of the House back in order.
The first step is to bring Congressman Mollohan's resolution to the floor and pass it.
The resolution would:
- Repeal the "bipartisan protection act," worst of the new ethics rules, which allows either party to block an investigation by voting along party lines.
- Do away with the "45 day rule" which automatically ends a case if the ethics committee takes no action in that amount of time.
- Repeal the "collusion" rule, which allows a single lawyer to represent more than one individual involved in an ethics investigation, preventing the ethics committee from corroborating their stories independently.
Passing this resolution and reversing the rules changes is critical to the integrity and credibility of the House. But it is only a first step.
The House must come together and re-invent the way it polices itself. There must be a bipartisan process for reforming the system. As you know, Joel Hefley, the discarded chairman of the ethics committee, said that any meaningful ethics reform must be genuinely bipartisan, and he is right.
Reforming the system also requires that the House do so in an open, accountable manner. The last time a bipartisan panel studied and recommended changes to the ethics process, in 1997, the proceedings were virtually all behind closed doors and the recommendations of that task force reflected an insular view of the institution.
Finally, while it appears that much of the ethics process and the ethics committee itself have been eviscerated to protect the majority leader, this issue is not just about the troubles of Congressman Tom Delay. The allegations about Rep. Delay must be fully investigated, but if Delay were gone tomorrow, it would not mean the House has solved its ethics problems.
The House must restore some accountability to the ethics process and begin addressing the allegations that have been raised in recent weeks regarding Tom DeLay and others, both Democrats and Republican. Voting in support of Congressman Mollohan's proposal is a first step in that direction.