Groups balk at disclosure

A central plank of congressional ethics reform appeared in danger of collapse yesterday when government watchdog groups balked at disclosing their donors.

A provision of the proposed reform would force watchdogs to reveal their donors if they file ethics complaints. But the watchdogs, which have long called for openness in government, voiced strong opposition to openness on their own part.

{mosads}The donor disclosure rule is part of a proposal to create an independent ethics panel to police behavior in the House.  

Groups such as Public Citizen, Common Cause and Democracy 21 have made the creation of such an office one of their top priorities in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, which resulted in the former lobbyist pleading guilty to bribing government officials.

They have also pushed lawmakers to allow outside groups to file ethics complaints. The draft proposal for the ethics panel would grant that wish, but at the cost of requiring all complainants to reveal their funding sources.

Government watchdog groups, who helped Democrats convince voters of the existence of a culture of corruption in Congress, also condemned the proposal for not giving the proposed ethics panel enough investigative power and for creating a loophole that would allow complaints to languish in obscurity.

Earlier this year, the groups said the establishment of an ethics-enforcement office on Capitol Hill would determine whether Democrats had followed through on their campaign promises to clean up Washington.

Now they say recommendations compiled by a special task force headed by Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.) fall short of real reform.

“Public Citizen is fully prepared to denounce the plan that we’ve seen so far,” said Craig Holman, an advocate for the group who was briefed on the proposal by congressional staff. “It doesn’t do anything. This is actually a step backward. It sets up a little screening process to screen out what Capuano would call frivolous complaints but that I would call sensitive complaints.

“In the recommendations given to [House Speaker Nancy] Pelosi (D-Calif.), groups that file complaints would have to disclose their donors; you can imagine how upsetting this is to the donor community.”

Holman predicted there would be widespread opposition to the disclosure provision because it would force groups to reveal their entire donor list for writing a single complaint.

The opposition of outside groups to the ethics task force’s initial recommendations will make it difficult for Democratic leaders to unveil a final proposal before the end of the month. Pelosi had set a May 1 deadline for the proposal.

Complicating matters, rank-and-file lawmakers have also voiced opposition to an independent panel investigating ethics complaints.

“That’s what the ethics committee is for,” said Rep. John Murtha (D-Pa.), a senior member of the Appropriations Committee and close ally of Pelosi’s.

Several watchdog groups raised their concerns in interviews yesterday.

Gary Kalman, an advocate for U.S. Public Interest Research Group, said he could not support a proposal that included donor disclosure.

“The notion that the government would make private organizations have to disclose their donors is highly problematic,” he said. “I would have a very difficult time supporting that proposal, and there would be significant opposition from across the political spectrum.”

But lawmakers say that if watchdog groups are demanding greater transparency of Congress, they should be willing to submit to the same scrutiny.

“You can’t have it both ways,” said Rep. Zack Space (D-Ohio), a freshman who has led members of his class in their call for leaders to establish an independent ethics office.

Space said that Capuano has presented only a general outline of what the independent ethics panel would look like.
Capuano reportedly shared his recommendations with Pelosi before the Memorial Day recess.  

“I’ve still not seen the written document,” he said. “My expectation is that we were going to get it this week.”

But watchdog groups that have worked with Democrats this year on ethics reform say they have received briefings from Democratic staff on the draft proposal for the ethics panel. Several advocates familiar with the proposal described its components.

• Republicans and Democrats would appoint an even number of members to the panel — most likely three GOP and three Democratic appointees. Current lawmakers and lobbyists could not sit on the panel.

• The panel would receive complaints from outside groups and then invite witnesses to provide relevant testimony.

• The panel would not have subpoena power or the power to put witnesses under oath.

• Upon receiving a complaint, the panel would have 45 days to compile a report recommending dismissal or further action and pass it to the House Standards of Official Conduct Committee. If the panel could not complete its report within 45 days, it could grant itself a short extension.

 • The ethics committee would have up to 90 days to create an investigative subcommittee to probe the complaint or vote to dismiss it. If the committee voted to dismiss the complaint, the independent panel’s report would be made publicly available.

Lloyd Leonard, an advocate for the League of Women Voters, said the proposal included a loophole that would allow complaints to languish without action. He said if the ethics committee simply declined to take action on a complaint referred by the independent investigative ethics panel, the complaint would die.

“There is no requirement for the ethics committee to act,” he said. “Then nothing is ever made public.”

Leonard called the proposal a “whitewash.”

Meredith McGehee, the policy director for the Campaign Legal Center, called it “window dressing.”

“From what I’ve seen, it’s totally inadequate,” she said of the proposal. “While it creates some outside panel, [the panel] has no subpoena power. It is what I would call an office of frivolous complaints.”