Over at Huffington Post, Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes about the current status of ethics reform in the House -- or lack therof, so far:

The legal and political tumble of one politically brittle Congressman, though, hardly signals the dawning of a new day for ethics reform. In the months since Pelosi swore to clean the swamp the only tangible reform she can point to is a tougher restriction on gift giving. But the big-ticket reforms such as the creation of an independent panel to investigate ethics violations has withered on the vine. The House has had ample chance to cleanse its stable before Pelosi dumped Jefferson from the House Ways and Means Committee last year. And even more chance to nail down the reforms during the months that Jefferson twisted and squirmed in the wind waiting for the legal hammer to fall.

Each time it deliberately fumbled the ball. In 2005, the House shoved through a rule that if the ethics panel chair, either the ranking Republican or Democrat fail to approve an ethics complaint for investigation within 45 days, it was dead. In other words, no matter how blatant a house member's action, that meant no probe, no violation, and no sanctions. Democrats blasted the rule change as a shabby and very transparent cover to shield Texas Republican Tom De Lay from an ethics probe, or worse.

It was. Yet, the ethics panel took the hint. It reduced its staff, and barred outside groups from filing ethics complaints against House members. Under the new rule, a complaint from the outside had to be certified by a House member. The chance of that happening is virtually nil. That slammed the door on credible groups that have brought documented complaints of abuse. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, for instance, called for an ethics probe of Jefferson a month before Pelosi made the demand. The citizen's group complaint almost certainly spurred her to act.

Thanks for the plug.  And, you're right.  There's a lot left to be done.   

Incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is now facing a second ethics challenge: who will be the chair of the House Intelligence Committee.  Pelosi has already nixed Jane Harman.  The next in line is Congressman Alcee Hastings (D-FL) who is also an impeached federal judge:

Pelosi has decided that the ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), won't be getting the chairman's job.

The Congressional Black Caucus is pushing Hastings, but Rep. Silvestre Reyes of Texas has emerged as the compromise front-runner, several sources said.

If she buckles to pressure from the Black Caucus and awards the prized chair to Hastings, Pelosi will have squandered her credibility on the "culture of corruption" issue she made her trademark in the last campaign.

"It's hard to talk about culture of corruption and how we're going to be the most ethical Congress ever if you don't take everything into account," said Rep. Eliot Engel (D-Westchester/Bronx).

Engel's comment seems to indicate that members of the Democratic caucus understand that ethics matter.  Let's hope that translates to the leadership as well.

The media seems to remember Nancy Pelosi's commitment to oversee the "most ethical Congress in history."  They also are going to hold her to those words: 

Was it only a week ago that a triumphant Nancy Pelosi, presumptive new speaker of the House, crowed to an Election Night crowd that "Democrats intend to lead the most open, the most honest and the most ethical Congress in history"?

Well, so much for that promise.

Obviously choosing not to lead by example, Pelosi has thrown the prestige of her new position behind the ethically tainted Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania for majority leader, spurning the man who's in line for the job, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland.

A bitterly divided House Democratic caucus votes today - and if it goes with Murtha, it'll have selected one of the most ethically dubious members of the entire Congress.

Indeed, many of the good-government groups that decried the state of ethics in the GOP-controlled Congress have long complained that Murtha represents just about everything that's wrong with Washington.

Speaker-to-be Nancy Pelosi's decision to endorse John Murtha for the post of Majority Leader has generated controversy.  That decision has also caused the media to examine Mr. Murtha's shady ethical history.  Today's Washington Post:

House Speaker-designate Nancy Pelosi's endorsement of Rep. John P. Murtha's bid for House majority leader set off a furor yesterday on Capitol Hill, with critics charging that she is undercutting her pledge to clean up corruption by backing a veteran lawmaker who they say has repeatedly skirted ethical boundaries.

Pelosi (D-Calif.) directly intervened in the heated contest between Murtha (D-Pa.) and House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) on Sunday by circulating a letter to Democratic lawmakers. The letter voiced her support for Murtha and put her prestige on the line in a closely fought leadership battle. Some Democratic lawmakers and watchdog groups say they are baffled that Pelosi would go out of her way to back Murtha's candidacy after pledging to make the new 110th Congress the most ethical and corruption-free in history.

Murtha, a longtime senior Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, has battled accusations over the years that he has traded federal spending for campaign contributions, that he has abused his post as ranking party member on the Appropriations defense subcommittee, and that he has stood in the way of ethics investigations. Those charges come on top of Murtha's involvement 26 years ago in the FBI's Abscam bribery sting.

The Post gave prominent coverage to CREW's criticism of Murtha's ethical woes:

"Pelosi's endorsement suggests to me she was interested in the culture of corruption only as a campaign issue and has no real interest in true reform," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a Democratic-leaning group. "It is shocking to me that someone with [Murtha's] ethics problems could be number two in the House leadership."

Don't forget that Tom DeLay was also the "number two in the House Leadership" for a long time.  That set a bad precedent for any kind of ethics reform or enforcement. 

David Corn weighs in on the Murtha endorsement by Pelosi in his column today:

Murtha, according to [CREW's Melanie] Sloan, was also instrumental in undermining the House ethics committee. In the late 1990s, he successfully pushed (with other legislators) to change the committee's rules to prevent it from accepting ethics complaints from parties outside Congress. He also pressed Democratic leaders to name Representative Alan Mollohan of West Virginia the senior Democrat of the ethics committee. Mollohan has had his own ethics troubles--which have forced him off the ethics committee--and is a member of CREW's Top (or Bottom) 20...."Murtha really doesn't like the ethics committee," says Sloan, speculating this may be due to Murtha's involvement in the Abscam bribery scandal of the late 1970s and early 1980s. (The ethics committee chose not to file charges against Murtha, after which the panel's special counsel resigned in protest.) "Murtha seems like a bad choice from our perspective," Sloan said.

The fight to be Pelosi's No. 2 has its odd dynamics. Hoyer is regarded as a centrist sort of Democrat. He's no virgin when it comes to the institutional corruptions of House, readily hitting up corporate interests for campaign cash. But Hoyer has not been accused of ethical violations.

Corn notes that siding with Murtha over Hoyer is "risky" for Mrs. Pelosi.  He wonders if this was a contest she should have just ducked.

Today, CREW issued the following news release questioning Nancy Pelosi's endorsement of Congressman John Murtha to become Majority Leader when Congress convenes in January under Democratic control:

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) questioned soon-to-be House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) commitment to eradicating corruption with her endorsement of one of the most unethical members in Congress, Rep. John Murtha (D-PA), to be Majority Leader of the House of Representatives.

Rep. Murtha was listed in CREW’ report Beyond DeLay: The 20 Most Corrupt Members of Congress (and five to watch). As reported in the study and by the news media, Rep, Murtha has been involved in a number of pay-to play schemes involving former staffers and his brother, Robert “Kit” Murtha.

Eight incumbents in CREW’s report lost their races to ethics issues.

“Future House Speaker Pelosi’s endorsement of Rep. Murtha, one of the most unethical members of Congress, shows that she may have prioritized ethics reform merely to win votes with no real commitment to changing the culture of corruption,” Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW said today. “How can Americans believe that the Democrats will return integrity to the House when future Speaker Pelosi has endorsed an ethically-challenged member for a leadership position? Rep. Murtha is the wrong choice for this job.”

Not only is Rep. Murtha beset by ethics issues, The New York Times reported on October 2, 2006 that he has consistently opposed ethics and earmark reform. Sloan continued, “Rep. Murtha’s opposition to ethics reform does not bode well for future Speaker Pelosi’s promise to enact ethics legislation in the first 100 hours of the new Congress.”

This is an inauspicious way to start for Pelosi.  In the House, the Democrats came in to power, in part, because of the rampant ethical scandals faced by the GOP.   The Democrats cannot have lost sight of what that means already, could they?