A task force appointed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi moved a step closer today to creating an Office of Congressional Ethics by approving a report calling for such an office. (Only the four Democrats on the bipartisan panel voted for the proposal.) And a resolution creating this sort of office was scheduled to be filed today, CQ Politics reports. But the proposal, which would establish an investigative office without the power to issue subpoenas, is being attacked as toothless. In a quickly issued press release, four good-government groups–Campaign Legal Center, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, and Public Citizen–declared, “Without subpoena power or access to subpoena power, the Office can be ignored in its efforts to interview individuals and obtain documents that may be central to the ethics matter at hand.”
Public Citizen et. al. are pulling for an amendment that would grant the new office subpoena power. And that’s going to be tough fight. After all, the GOP members of the task force refused to endorse even a weak version of the office. And the Democrats have not been wildly enthusiastic about this endeavor. The task force’s report was originally due May 1. The task force was only eight months late. The Democrats, now in power, do not seem eager to push reform with bite.
