Goss among former members appointed to ethics office

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Thursday announced joint appointments to a landmark ethics review board that for the first time will allow private citizens to review allegations against members.

Still, four out of six members of the board for the newly created Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) will be former members of Congress, including former CIA Director Porter Goss (R-Fla.), who will serve as co-chairman.

{mosads}The other board members include Rep. David Skaggs (D-Colo.), who will serve as chairman of the board, former Rep. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke (D-Calif.), former Rep. Karan English (D-Ariz.), former House Chief Administrative Officer Jay Eagen and Allison Hayward, the former chief of staff to Bradley Smith, a Republican-appointed former chairman of the Federal Election Commission.

Two additional former members will serve as alternate appointees to the board: former federal judge and ex-Rep. Abner Mikva (D-Ill.) and former Rep. Bill Frenzel (R-Minn.).

The OCE will conduct preliminary reviews of ethics complaints and make recommendations to the full ethics committee for further investigation and action. Some watchdogs have criticized its lack of subpoena powers.

Unlike previous bitter partisan fights over the makeup and staff of the full ethics panel, Pelosi and Boehner worked closely together to select the board members.

“The new Office of Congressional Ethics is essential to an effective ethics process in the House,” Pelosi said in a statement. “With the creation of the Office of Congressional Ethics, we bring a new element of transparency and accountability to the ethics process.”

“I am pleased that this distinguished group of individuals has agreed to serve,” Boehner said in a statement. “The American people have every right to expect the highest ethical standards in the people’s House — and these widely respected men and women should be applauded for the considerable personal sacrifices they are making to help achieve that important goal.”

The appointment of Goss, a prickly personality who left the CIA after a short, turbulent tenure, surprised even some Republican members of Congress. Several shook their heads in disbelief when told he was named to the board.

While he was chairman of the House intelligence committee, Goss opposed launching an investigation into the Valerie Plame CIA leak case.

Goss is close to Boehner and served with Pelosi on the intelligence and ethics panels.

"Mr. Goss previously served on the ethics committee with distinction, and he is widely respected on both sides of the aisle for his time and service as a member of this institution,” said Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith.

Republican Conference Chairman Adam Putnam (Fla.) said he supported Goss’s appointment, although he didn’t know why the former senior GOP member would want to come out of retirement to take it.

“[Goss] is a man of impeccable character, integrity and conviction and I can’t imagine why he wanted to take this job,” Putnam said.

In response to a question about his rocky tenure at the CIA, Putnam said Goss’s time there was marked by a reorganization that was “painful but necessary.”