Give ethics panel real power

Orlando Sentinel: As a series of scandals hit the U.S. House in the last Congress, the members designated as the chamber’s ethics cops were asleep on the beat. It took outside investigators to uncover the corruption that the House ethics committee overlooked or ignored.

Now a task force is poised to propose a badly needed independent agency for ethics enforcement in the House. But members need to give the proposed agency more muscle to do the job.

Outside complaints

The House ethics committee, with five lawmakers from each party, is empowered only to investigate complaints from House members. They seldom file complaints — even when the target is across the aisle — which helps explain the panel’s inaction. The Senate’s ethics committee, by contrast, looks at outside complaints.

Members of the independent ethics agency would not be current House members or lobbyists. But they also would be barred from taking outside complaints.

The Democrats who took charge in Congress this year deserve credit for passing a sweeping range of ethics reforms. But if the new rules are to be effective, an independent agency needs to have the power to enforce them.