Cases currently on the House Ethics Committee's docket that were referred by the Office of Congressional Ethics and have now reverted to a preliminary investigative stage that requires no further public disclosure include that of Rep. Vern Buchanan.
In recent months, the committee has not cleared, sanctioned nor empaneled a subcommittee by the conclusion of the 90-day period in relation to the Buchanan, Hastings, Jackson and Meeks cases. Instead, Ethics Chairman Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) and ranking member Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) said that the probes of all four Members would continue as Rule 18(a) investigations, a preliminary and open-ended stage that allows the committee to continue gathering information. The committee will not be required to comment further on the cases unless it decides to empanel a subcommittee and hold a rare public ethics trial.
"The belief was that public disclosure of the incomplete file of what [the OCE] found was a sort of club to get the Ethics Committee to act within that time period," said Kenneth Gross, an attorney at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. "The club of public disclosure seemed to have its desired effect for the last couple of years, but for some reason it appears to be dissipating at this point."
In a summary of the committee's recent activities sent last month to Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and now-Minority Leader Pelosi, Bonner and Sánchez pointed out that the Ethics Committee is unique in that it cannot set its own case load and that the "advent of the Office of Congressional Ethics, and the additional review and documentation procedures mandated for the ever-growing privately-sponsored travel agendas of House Members and staff, have significantly increased the demands on the Committee's nonpartisan ethics and investigative professionals" in recent years.
At one point last year — in the midst of ongoing, but unrelated, investigations of California Democrats Maxine Waters and Laura Richardson, for which subcommittees have been formed — the number of individuals on the committee's investigative staff dropped from 21 to 15. Multiple positions remained vacant for several months until the committee put together its current staff of 22 "professional, nonpartisan" employees and two counsels who assist Bonner and Sanchez.
Buchanan's attorney alluded to the panel's case statistics when responding to the committee's decision to pursue a Rule 18(a) investigation last month.
"Today's action by the House Committee on Ethics does not constitute any judgment on the merits. Rather, the Committee's heavy workload," Patton Boggs' William McGinley said.
Even so, both government watchdog groups and Members want open cases resolved.
"While the Ethics Committee rightly dismissed one of the allegations against me that was before OCE, I have long said that it should swiftly close out the other, as well," Meeks told Roll Call in a statement.
"The whole point of the Office of Congressional Ethics was to force the House Ethics Committee to carry through. ... It was working. I hope it's not falling to the wayside," Public Citizen's Craig Holman said.
House Democratic Caucus Chairman Xavier Becerra and Rep. Joseph Crowley, vice chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, address a news conference immediately after the closed caucus meeting.
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