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SLOW PROGRESS ON ETHICS PANEL: For the past eight months, the House ethics committee has been wit?

By Glenn Reynolds

SLOW PROGRESS ON ETHICS PANEL:

For the past eight months, the House ethics committee has been without its top staffer and chief counsel, a vacancy that comes as the panel struggles to forge ahead on investigations of high-profile Democrats.

William O?Reilly, the panel?s former staff director, left the committee last summer and has not been replaced. But the committee is trying to launch an inquiry into the finances of Rep. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.), chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, and is under pressure from Republicans to launch a probe into lawmakers? relationship with the PMA Group, the now-defunct lobbying firm.

All of this work is much more difficult without an expert staffer running things behind the scenes.

How convenient. More background here:

The PMA scandal is also unfolding as the ethics committee tries to work without its chief staffer. The FBI raided the firm?s offices in November, and it imploded afterward. Investigators are reportedly looking into alleged ?straw man? donations to lawmakers from PMA lobbyists, including the former owner, Paul Magliocchetti, although no one has been charged in the case at this point.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) has offered six privileged resolutions calling on the ethics panel to investigate PMA and its ties to members, but so far Democrats have defeated Flake?s resolutions. Reps. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.) and Peter Visclosky (D-Ind.) have attracted most of the attention as the PMA scandal has unfolded, but dozens of other lawmakers had ties to the firm as well.

I don’t think Democrats feel any urgency about looking into these matters.

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on April 14, 2009 (boomark / email).