House Ethics Panel Update

In a brief addendum to a post from late Wednesday, I am pleased to be able to report that after months of gridlock, the House ethics committee will finally begin functioning in the near future. Late Thursday, chairman Doc Hastings and ranking member Alan Mollohan announced that staffing issues have been resolved: the committee will "hire a new chief counsel who will also be the panel's staff director."

The written statement from Hastings and Mollohan said that personal aides to committee members "have no managerial or supervisory authority whatsoever over the members of the professional, nonpartisan staff," a blow to Hastings, who had been insisting that a personal staff member of his be have a supervisory role over committee employees.

This remains good news, and I'm pleased that perhaps now, finally, the committee can get to work and do its job.