The committee probing Collins: an investigative lamb, not a lion

WASHINGTON – Rep. Chris Collins can't be pleased that the House Ethics Committee is investigating his investment in an obscure Australian biotech firm. But he can take comfort in the fact that for most lawmakers, such probes end in nothing worse than embarrassment.

The House Ethics Committee conducted 23 investigations in the last Congress, which spanned 2015 and 2016, and performed 34 probes in the two years before that. And out of all those investigations, the committee disciplined a mere four members of the House – each with a letter of reproval, a mild reprimand.

Ethics experts aren't exactly impressed with the committee's performance.

"The House Ethics Committee doesn’t have a great track record in recommending discipline for House members, outside of truly egregious cases that capture substantial media attention," said Donna M. Nagy, executive associate dean and C. Ben Dutton professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law and an expert in stock ownership among members of Congress.

Congressional ethics experts cite one key reason for that middling track record: the fact that the Ethics Committee is a panel of House members placed in the uncomfortable position of judging their own peers.

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