May 14, 2007 -- Reform Groups and CED Outline Essential Elements for Effective OPI

Enclosed for your information is a letter reform groups and the Committee for Economic Development sent today to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), expressing support for the establishment of a nonpartisan and professional Office of Public Integrity (OPI) and outlining elements that the groups believe are absolutely essential for an effective and publicly credible OPI.

The reform groups signing the letter include the Campaign Legal Center, Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG. The Committee for Economic Development, which also signed the letter, is a national organization of business leaders and educators.

May 14, 2007

Dear Speaker Pelosi,

Our groups support the establishment of a nonpartisan and professional Office of Public Integrity (OPI) to assist the House Ethics Committee in enforcing the House ethics rules. The organizations include the Campaign Legal Center, the Committee for Economic Development, Common Cause, Democracy 21, the League of Women Voters, Public Citizen and U.S. PIRG.

We want to take this opportunity to make clear what we believe are absolutely essential elements for an effective and publicly credible OPI. A similar letter is being sent today to House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH).

First, the OPI must have the authority to investigate allegations of ethics violations on its own initiative or on the basis of outside complaints filed with the OPI.

You cannot have an effective or credible OPI if it is not allowed to investigate matters initiated on its own authority, and if its only role is to filter outside complaints for the Ethics Committee.

Second, the OPI must have access to subpoena power in order to be able to conduct investigations and must have adequate staff resources to fulfill its responsibilities.

The idea that the OPI can conduct meaningful investigations without the availability of subpoena power flies in the face of reality and would deny the OPI the power that the House considers essential for its own Committees to conduct investigations.

The OPI could be granted subpoena power by statute. Alternatively, the OPI could be provided with access to subpoenas in a manner similar to the way that investigative subcommittees of the Ethics Committee currently are under Rule 19(b)(5), by having the Chairman and Ranking Member of the full Committee issue such subpoenas. In any event, the OPI must have access to subpoena power in order to be able to do an effective job of helping to enforce the House ethics rules.

Third, the OPI must be able to make recommendations to the Ethics Committee that the Committee undertake proceedings on matters that the OPI has investigated.

It makes no sense to create an OPI and then prevent it from making recommendations to the Ethics Committee about potential ethics violations that need to be investigated. This would neuter the OPI and turn it into a ministerial Office whose role is simply to pass on matters to the Ethics Committee.

Fourth, the Ethics Committee must be required to issue a report to the public on its findings and conclusions with regard to any matter the OPI sends to the Committee for further proceedings.

The public has a right to know, with regard to any matter brought by the OPI to the Ethics Committee for investigation, the reasons for the actions taken by the Committee. There is no justification for the Committee to take actions on such matters without explaining its findings and conclusions to the public.

In addition to these essential elements, we believe the OPI should be responsible for providing ethics training and ethics advice and guidance to Members and congressional staff, and should be the central depository for financial disclosure and travel reports filed by Members and congressional staff, and for lobbying reports filed by lobbyists.

Without the four essential elements described above, any proposed OPI will not be real or publicly credible and our organizations will not support it.

Our organizations appreciate that, through the ethics enforcement task force, a bipartisan effort has been made to address the fundamental problems that have plagued ethics enforcement in the House. But these problems have bipartisan roots and were caused in the first place by the so-called "bipartisan truce" in enforcing the ethics rules that existed during much of the past decade.

The overriding goal here must be to effectively and credibly solve the core ethics enforcement problems, and not to produce a result that in the name of bipartisanship fails to make the fundamental changes necessary to effectively reform the ethics enforcement process.

We strongly urge you to reject the recommendations of the special task force on ethics enforcement if they do not include the essential elements outlined above, and to bring to the House floor a proposal for an OPI that includes these essential elements.

Campaign Legal Center
Common Cause
Democracy 21
League of Women Voters
Public Citizen
U.S. PIRG