Senior Republican Says 'Wheels Falling Off' Ethics Committee

10 Nov 2009 // The "wheels have been falling off" the House Ethics Committee's work, one senior House Republican claimed Monday.

Rep. John Carter (R-Texas), the secretary of the House Republican Conference, criticized the committee for moving too slowly in investigations into longstanding allegations of impropriety among some members.

"The wheels have been falling off the Ethics Committee recently," Carter told the conservative blog Right Wing News, pointing to the most recent leaks of ongoing investigations published in the Washington Post and New York Times.

"It was supposed to be very confidential until things were all done," Carter said. "That's the downside when you're sitting around looking at these allegations that have been hanging around for two and three years and wondering what in the heck they are doing with their time."

Carter has been on his own campaign on ethics recently, having pushed House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel (D-N.Y.) to step down from that position amidst an ethics investigation. That push failed in the House last month.

"These allegations look bad, why don’t you resolve them?" Carter asked. "I think they're trying to resolve them. I certainly hope so because there's no solution to our ethics problems if they never can come to a resolution."

Carter had become ensnared in his own ethics snafu recently after having failed to report nearly $300,000 in income from his sale of stock in oil companies during 2006-07.