Congressional ethics investigators concluded there “is substantial reason to believe” that Florida’s Rep. Vern Buchanan, one of the top Republicans in the House, violated ethics laws by failing to report his position with a half-dozen firms, according to records released Monday. Read full article > >

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Congressional investigators find ‘reason to believe’ Buchanan broke ethics laws

A sweeping new ethics bill would also require disclosures by thousands of employees in the executive branch.

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Senate Approves Ban on Insider Trading by Congress

In a sign of just how unpopular Congress has become, rank-and-file senators hijacked this week’s debate over a narrow conflict-of-interest bill and turned it into the chamber’s most sweeping ethics debate in a generation. Read full article > >

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Minor Senate bill sparks major debate on ethics

The Senate on Monday began its most substantial debate on congressional ethics in nearly five years, a proposal that would formally prohibit insider stock trading on Capitol Hill and bring the chamber’s financial disclosure laws up to date with technology. Read full article > >

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Senate begins debating insider-trading bill

The first Washington sex scandal I remember following involved Daniel Crane, a Republican congressman from my home state of Illinois, who was censured in the (first) House page scandal in 1983. In July of that year, the House Ethics Committee announced that Crane and his Democratic colleague Gerry Studds (Mass.) had been accused of having sex with teenagers in the congressional page program — Crane with a young woman who was 17, and Studds with a young man the same age. The committee originally voted to reprimand both men, but a little-known congressman from Georgia argued that a mere reprimand wasn’t punishment enough. Read full article > >

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‘Family values’ still matter — when it’s the other party’s indiscretions

Sometimes earmarking government money pays off for U.S. lawmakers — even after they’ve left office. A new report has found seven former lawmakers who have lobbied Congress on behalf of organizations that they funded while in office. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington found that former lawmakers have received $1.9 million in revenue from lobbying clients that they funded with taxpayer dollars when sitting in Congress. Read full article > >

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Report: 7 ex-lawmakers now lobby for groups that got earmarks

Newt Gingrich used ethics issues to make political gains from the beginning of his career, but in the end ethics issues helped topple him from power in the House.

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The Long Run: The Long Run: Gingrich Stuck to Caustic Path in Ethics Battles

One of the raps on Mitt Romney is he’s not a natural. That he seems fake even when he’s rehearsed being real. One confirmation of this awkwardness may be in the way he is approaching his attacks on Newt Gingrich. Unlike Iowa, where he took the more traditional route of letting his super PAC do his dirty work, now he’s doing it, too. And not in the sunny persona of Ronald Reagan, who perfected the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger approach. Instead, it is as if Romney has memorized the opposition research books and is reciting as many attacks as he can fit into a sound bite. (Sound bites are allowed to drag on when they are more negative.) Gingrich is bad on Fannie Mae, bad on health care consulting, ethics, can’t get nominated, can’t win. Bad, bad, bad. Read full article > >

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Romney’s attacks: Savvy or desperate?

TAMPA – A combative Mitt Romney on Monday broadened his call for Newt Gingrich to release records from his work as a consultant, speculating that those documents and records from a House ethics investigation from his time as speaker could show “potentially wrongful activity of some kind.” Read full article > >

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Mitt Romney expands attack on Newt Gingrich, slamming work for health-care firms

If the campaign includes a fraught discussion about minorities and entitlements, work ethics and what it means to be American, it will have gotten under way in earnest in South Carolina this week.

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Political Memo: Risks for G.O.P. on Attacks With Racial Themes — Political Memo

A 3-year-old child, her fierce parents and a group of doctors are introducing many of us to one of the most disturbing debates within medical ethics. The child is Amelia Rivera. She has a rare chromosomal disorder called Wolf-Hirschhorn syndrome, which causes severe developmental delays. She also needs a kidney transplant within the next six to 12 months. Read full article > >

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Denying an organ to a ‘mentally retarded’ child

The Washington city council passed an ethics overhaul package, including a new process for expelling members accused of wrongdoing, after a series of damaging accusations.

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Image Tarnished by Scandals, Washington Council Overhauls Ethics Rules

The House Committee on Ethics said Thursday that it was extending an investigation into the conduct of Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.), who has previously come under scrutiny for reimbursements made to his employees for campaign donations. The announcement by Chairman Jo Bonner (R-Ala.) and ranking member Linda T. Sanchez (D-Calif.) marks another political challenge for Buchanan, the senior Republican fundraiser in the House, who is also facing a separate Justice Department probe. Read full article > >

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House ethics panel extends probe of Fla. GOP Congressman Vern Buchanan

The D.C. Council approved an overhaul of the city’s ethics laws Tuesday, toughening disclosure requirements and for the first time agreeing on an impeachment process that punishes misconduct. The bill, approved by a vote of 12 to 1, caps a six-month effort by the council to respond to a series of ethical controversies involving some council members that have shaken the public’s confidence in its ability to police itself . Council member Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) voted no. Read full article > >

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D.C. Council overhauls ethics rules

LONDON — CNN star interviewer Piers Morgan faces questions Tuesday about his time at the top of Britain’s tabloid industry — widely anticipated testimony that may dredge up allegations his British newspaper career was colored by wrongdoing. Morgan ran two British tabloids — the News of the World and the Daily Mirror — before his editorship was cut short by scandal in 2004. He’s due to give evidence to Britain’s media ethics inquiry by video link from the United States — one of a host of tabloid newspaper executives to face the inquiry, set up in the wake of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Read full article > >

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CNN interview star Piers Morgan faces UK media inquiry over former role as UK tabloid chief