House Ethics or the Lack Thereof

CREW (Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington) have been trying to get House members to file two ethics complaints since last October. The complaints are against Rep. Bob Ney of Abramoff scandal fame and the disgraced Rep. Duke Cunningham.They have since added Rep. Jerry Lewis and Rep. Roy Blunt, the New House Majority Leader to their impressive roster.

As I pointed out earlier, House members are the only ones with standing to file such a complaint so CREW asks constituents to help by downloading the complaints and delivering them to their respective representatives.
As of today, not one House member of either stripe has filed a single ethics complaint against anyone.
This has led Melanie Sloan, the Executive Director of CREW to doubt the
willingness of House members to exercise any oversight over their colleagues.

My own experience is described in the article at the bottom of this page titled "Clean House".
Toward the end of January I called my Rep. Jay Inslee's office and spoke with
Kennie Endelman, Inslee's Regional Director and asked for an update.
She said yes that Rep. Inslee had not filed the ethics complaints but it doesn't mean he won't.
They were looking at the issue of strategy.
I passed on Melanie Sloan's information regarding House Rules that filing automatically triggers an investigation and failing that triggers a sub-committee that opens an investigation. The House was not in session yet and Kennie said she wanted to check on the rules and she would get back to me. The plot thickens.
Carol DW