Interesting editorial about ethics in today's East Valley (AZ) Tribune.   Ethics reform does depend on House members wanting it to work -- and, unfortunately, even under the new system, success depends on House members policing themselves.  That is unlikely:

But the House brought this on itself. The ethics committee was never a ball of investigatory fire, but under Republican leadership it became totally inert and was almost hopelessly tainted when the GOP leadership tried to manipulate the panel to protect then-Republican leader Tom DeLay.

While the committee sat by passively, two House members were jailed, two more were indicted, several more are under investigation and there was an embarrassing scandal involving a member and the congressional pages.

The upshot, said Rep. Michael Capuano, D-Mass., principal author of the independent panel: “The public really does not trust us on ethics issues at this point. They think we are all here protecting each other.” No fools, the public.

The OCE may be an effective body or it may not — it has no power to compel testimony. As with other attempts at ethics reform, this one will work only if the House members themselves want it to.