Scott named to fill vacancy on House ethics committee

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) tapped Rep. Robert “Bobby” Scott (Va.) to fill a Democratic vacancy on the ethics committee Thursday.

The seat came open after the death of the panel’s chairwoman, Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-Ohio), in August.

{mosads}“As a highly respected House member, Bobby Scott brings a wealth of legal knowledge and experience to his new duties on the ethics committee,” Pelosi said in a statement. “I am confident that his passion for justice and due process will guide his work on the committee.”

Ethics committee members are in the awkward position of policing their peers, so service on the committee is considered something to be avoided by most members. Even so, Scott said he was honored to be appointed to the panel for the remainder of Tubbs Jones’s term.

“As a member of the committee, I will do my best to uphold the integrity of the U.S. House of Representatives,” he said in a statement.

Unlike most House panels, the ethics committee is composed of an equal number of Democrats and Republicans to ensure that investigations aren’t politically motivated.

Pelosi also has the power to name a new ethics committee chairman. Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas) is serving as acting chairman and could remain in that position until the end of the year and a new Congress.