Another, longer delay. Another commitment to move forward and pass a bill:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi refused to commit Thursday to bringing up a controversial ethics measure for a vote next week, raising the possibility that it may be at least April before the House addresses the issue again.

“We will pass the bill,’’ the California Democrat predicted. “I don’t know what the timing will be.’’

If the measure strongly supported by Pelosi and authored by Rep. Michael E. Capuano , D-Mass., isn’t voted on next week, it will be held over until the House returns from its two-week Easter recess. That would mean it would be early April, at the earliest, before the measure could reach the floor.

Such a long break could give Pelosi and Capuano, who has already introduced one set of amendments to his measure, more time to address lawmakers’s concerns, make changes or pressure more Democrats into supporting it. It would also give outside groups such as Common Cause and U.S. PIRG more opportunity to lobby skeptical House members.

But Pelosi, who has made lobbying and ethics reform a hallmark of her “New Directions’’ Congress, insisted that the concept of an outside ethics panel to work alongside the existing ethics committee will remain the centerpiece of the Capuano resolution.