Discrediting the House

MANY INDIVIDUALS on Capitol Hill remained "willfully ignorant" of the dangers posed by former representative Mark Foley's sexually predatory behavior toward House pages, the House Ethics Committee concluded last week. This poor judgment, the committee said, did not leave when Foley resigned in September but even now poses "a present danger to House pages and to the integrity of the institution of the House."

Sounds like pretty serious stuff, and it is.

The Ethics Committee, which has slumbered through one of the most ethically calamitous sessions of modern times, surprised some with the strength of its findings, but not of its recommendations. It said, in effect, that while Speaker Dennis Hastert, other House members, and staff should have done more, they didn't have to.

No laws or House rules were violated, the committee said in a report by two Republican and two Democratic lawmakers. Even the rule that requires all members and staff to act in a manner that reflects creditably on the House can't be invoked for every misjudgment or failure of diligence, it said, cravenly devaluing its own findings.

Painfully, Massachusetts residents are all too familiar with this pattern, because of their experience with the priest sex abuse scandal and the church hierarchy's persistent willful ignorance and repeated cover-ups.

In Washington, the Ethics Committee concluded that knowledge of Foley's improper advances was widespread in the House. Hastert's own chief of staff knew of the reports for at least three years and his chief counsel for nearly a decade, the report said. Yet the House leadership was clearly more interested in protecting its wayward member, and also protecting itself from bad press, than in protecting the young in its charge. And now, despite its findings, the Ethics Committee is itself clearly more interested in protecting the House leaders than the pages.

This ethical collapse may yet have value, however, as it should compel the new Congress to include a significant new ethics enforcement mechanism in the package of reforms it is promising for the start of the new session.

The best idea is to create an Office of Public Integrity. A completely autonomous body would start with the most credibility, but is probably not politically feasible. However, such an office created within the House framework could prove effective and earn public support. Under a version backed by many reformers, including Representative Martin Meehan, the office would not have authority to punish, but only recommend sanctions to the Ethics Committee. However, if it had an independent staff, the power to conduct investigations, and a broad enough scope, it could effectively pressure the Ethics Committee to do the job it has assigned to it.

Any reform without enforcement is no reform at all.