Ethics panel scolds GOP lawmaker over namesake firm

The House Ethics Committee publicly rebuked Rep. David McKinley (R-W.Va.) on Wednesday for ignoring its advice to change the name of his namesake former engineering and architecture firm. 

The panel said McKinley failed to heed its guidance given as early as November 2010 that the firm, McKinley & Associates, should change its name in order to avoid a violation of House rules.

{mosads}McKinley instead sold his interest in the firm and left the name intact. The committee further complained that McKinley didn’t inform it of his actions until after the fact.

House rules prohibit lawmakers’ names to be used by firms providing professional services involving management of others’ assets in order to avoid potential conflicts of interest with their public duties. 

Before winning election to the House in 2010, McKinley was a civil engineer and established his own firm where he served as an officer and director.  

In a letter to McKinley made public on Wednesday, the House Ethics Committee recounted how the West Virginia lawmaker sought counsel from the panel after winning his first election. Ethics staff recommended that he change the name of the firm and even sent a formal advisory opinion in June 2011, but McKinley repeatedly challenged the advice.

House Ethics Committee Chairman Charlie Dent (R-Pa.) and the panel’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Linda Sanchez (Calif.), said McKinley’s behavior set a bad example for the rest of the House. 

“Your disregard for the Committee’s advice and processes not only led to a substantive violation of these principles, it impaired the Committee’s function in enforcing the standards set by your peers. Thus, your actions failed to comply with the spirit and letter of House Rules, and did not reflect creditably on the House,” Dent and Sanchez wrote.

In an August letter to the Ethics Committee, McKinley said he was following advice from his attorney at the time. He called a public reproval of his actions “disproportionate and unjustified,” saying any violation of House rules was “unintentional.”  

McKinley added that the new owners were unwilling the change the name of the firm.

“After receiving conflicting guidance from the staff of the Ethics Committee, my attorney concluded that I had two options — change the name or sell the company. We chose the latter. Unfortunately, the advice of my former attorney was incorrect,” McKinley said in a statement.  

McKinley also disputed the Ethics Committee’s timeline of events and said he told the panel’s chairman in a June 2011 House floor conversation that he had sold his interest in the firm. He said it would be an “erroneous suggestion” to say he didn’t inform the committee of the sale until August 2012.

“I regret not having responded more formally at the time — including by providing a more formal notification of the sale — to the Committee’s June 24, 2011 letter regarding McKinley & Associates,” McKinley wrote.