Pelosi Vows To Push Ethics Changes Through House

 Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) isn’t backing down from establishing an independent outside ethics board for the House but would consider changes that assure that no complaints are initiated without bipartisan support, reports Politico's David Rogers.

The California Democrat said “public cynicism” toward Congress justified the proposed reform plan, and she had “no doubt” that the measurewould be enacted despite Republican criticism and internal dissent in her own caucus.

In a setback this week, Democrats were forced to pull back from bringing the proposal to the floor Thursday, but the speaker said flatly that a majority will be found for passage.

She said some “tweaks” are still possible to address lawmakers’ concerns about the proposal crafted by Rep. Michael Capuano (D-Mass.), chiefly about the formulation for initiating ethics complaints. As currently proposed, but two of the six members on the outside panel could initiate a complaint unless overruled by the remaining four. Pelosi said she did not want to raise the two-vote threshold to require a larger consensus. But she was open to considering a change that would require that both parties be represented among those two votes.

“Instead of having two members, have two members, one of each party,” the speaker said.
Pelosi made her remarks at an often feisty press conference in which she challenged President Bush to drop his veto threats against a House-passed energy bill repealing tax breaks for big oil companies and reinvesting the money in the development of renewable fuels.

The speaker said she remains hopeful of a House-Senate agreement next week on legislation governing the administration’s secret electronic surveillance program, aimed at terrorists. But she dismissed complaints by the president—voiced again at a White House press conference Thursday-- that Democrats were putting the nation’s security in jeopardy.

Pelosi said the proof was in the fact that Bush had balked at her efforts to give him a three week extension of current law as the talks continue. “I say without any doubt that if the country were in any jeopardy he would certainly have signed the extension,” she said.