Why I voted Against the Ethics Bill
Washington,
Mar 16, 2008 -
Representative K. Michael Conaway
San Angelo Standard-Times
Members
of Congress have long resigned themselves to the knowledge that the American
public does not think very much of them.
Sadly, that does a great disservice to most of the members who were elected
to serve in this great institution. The
overwhelming majority of us are honest, upstanding people who have come to
Washington to work hard on behalf of our constituents back home.
Unfortunately,
a few individuals have taken the time they were given as a Representative and
instead used it to enrich themselves and cheat the public. These scandals have badly shaken the public’s
faith in our institutions, and given them good cause for giving Congress low
marks.
As
many of you probably remember, the honesty of Congress figured prominently into
the 2006 Congressional elections. When
Speaker Nancy Pelosi was sworn into her role, she promised the American people
that the House of Representatives would pass meaningful ethics reform. Unfortunately,
the culmination of her year long “Special Task Force on Ethics Enforcement,” a
bill we voted on last Tuesday, had little meaning or substance to it at all.
Speaker
Pelosi’s plan would create a new office, the Office of Congressional Ethics, to
conduct preliminary investigations into allegations of misconduct. It would
then forward its findings and recommendations to the existing Ethics Committee,
which would conduct its own investigation.
This new office would consist of a committee of six individuals, who are
not lobbyists or Members of Congress, appointed evenly by the Speaker of the
House and the House Majority Leader. It would have the power to accept
accusations and investigate them, and then make findings of fact for the House
Ethics Committee.
Unfortunately,
Speaker Pelosi’s proposal is duplicative of the current process and does not
address the current paralyzing short comings of the ethics process. Instead of strengthening and providing
transparency to the Ethics Committee, the House Majority has created a new
bureaucracy that will be bound by partisan conflict, used as a political weapon
to intimidate and cloud the careers of guiltless Members of Congress, and will
probably raise more questions that it solves.
The
standards of proof for this new office are far lower than those of the official
Ethics Committee, as the office is intended to serve as a “watchdog” of
congressional behavior. In practice, it
will likely serve as a repository for every salacious story on Capitol
Hill. It will be the place for
disgruntled staffers, lobbyists, and others to leave their tips and innuendo of
wrong doing, generating little more than baseless investigations. These
investigations may go nowhere or they may be exploited as gratification to
political agendas.
In
this forum, Members would not necessarily be afforded the opportunity to face
their accuser, a particularly un-American form of judicial proceeding. I also have great reservations about the
proceedings remaining secret, and I fear that the allegations investigated by
the office will wind-up vomited into the public arena.
As a
Member of Congress, my ability to serve my constituents is only as good as my
integrity. Yet, under the rules created
for this new office, Representatives could be investigated for a wrongdoing by
the fabricated word of one disgruntled individual. The reputations that Members of Congress have
nurtured their entire lives will be destroyed the moment a story of an
investigation by the Office of Congressional Ethics leaks. Regardless of a later finding clearing the
Member of any wrongdoing, these individuals will be found guilty in the court
of public opinion.
Any
type of unethical scandal involving Members of Congress is a serious affair;
but we do not need to create another layer of bureaucracy to investigate petty
rumors. I would agree that the current system should be more effective. The
House Ethics Committee remains in need of reform to strengthen its
independence, make its process more transparent, and ensure that Members face
appropriate punishment for wrongdoing. I support making such changes in a
rational manner, but I cannot support a plan that subjects Members to the
swirling suspicions of Capitol Hill, there are too many good people who might
get caught up in the crossfire.
A
stronger Ethics Committee would help flush out corrupt and unethical Members of
Congress, but in the end, Members of Congress are human and no matter what
investigative committees exist, corruption in Washington will continue. The best oversight
in Congress will always be in the hands of the voters who choose whether to
reelect a candidate. Constituents must remain engaged and vigilant and hold
their elected officials accountable for their behavior. Only in this way can we ensure that the members
of the People’s House are fit to represent the People.
