House Creates New Panel On Ethics

This is something that we have discussed in class...and it has to do with Congress! This new panel is a way of policing Congress instead of just using the "fire alarm" oversight of the House Ethics Committee. I believe this new panel will be a good thing for Congress in terms of, perhaps, raising their low approval ratings. This seems to have been a long time coming. To me, it seems quite stupid to have members of your own legislative body, let alone party, decide who needs to be investigated and for what. I'm sure that many conflicts and behind the scenes deals might be avoided with the creation of this panel. An independent ethics panel may instill a little more trust in Congress by actually looking into things that, as Fred Wertheimer says in this article, get sucked into the black hole of the Ethics Committee.