Ethics Committee

The General Assembly's joint ethics committee has recommended unanimously that the Senate censure Sen. Ulysses Currie, once a powerful committee chairman, for failing to disclose that he was being paid to represent a grocery chain before state agencies. In what would be the harshest action taken against a legislator since 1998, the ethics panel also urged senators to strip Currie "immediately and permanently" of all but one committee assignment and to bar him from any role in House-Senate negotiations to resolve differences over bills.

Del. Joseph F. Vallario Jr., the Prince George's County Democrat who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, is the frequent target of accusations that his public role and private interests conflict. That criticism usually boils down to a disagreement with his views on legislation and anger at his willingness to use his power to bottle up bills he doesn't like. But a complaint filed against him with the legislature's ethics committee is different; it centers on discussions about a piece of legislation that became law (in fact, one he voted for)

A General Assembly committee charged with reviewing the behavior of state Sen. Ulysses Currie met briefly Thursday behind closed doors in what was described as an organizational session. Currie, a Prince George's County Democrat recently acquitted of federal bribery charges, did not appear. Del. Brian McHale, co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethics, would not comment except to say the panel's initial meeting focused on organization and procedure. "I'm not going to run the risk of violating what I'm required to protect," said McHale, a Baltimore city Democrat.

The General Assembly's joint ethics committee has recommended unanimously that the Senate censure Sen. Ulysses Currie, once a powerful committee chairman, for failing to disclose that he was being paid to represent a grocery chain before state agencies. In what would be the harshest action taken against a legislator since 1998, the ethics panel also urged senators to strip Currie "immediately and permanently" of all but one committee assignment and to bar him from any role in House-Senate negotiations to resolve differences over bills.

Mount Airy Mayor Gerald R. Johnson has reappointed South Main Street resident Richard J. Swanson to the town's ethics committee.The committee meets only when an ethics issue arises concerning a town employee or official. It has four members, all serving four-year terms.FireMount Airy: Firefighters responded at 3 p.m. Thursday to an auto fire on westbound Interstate 70 near Route 75. Units were out seven minutes.Mount Airy: Firefighters responded at 3: 38 p.m. Thursday to an auto fire in the 1000 block of Twin Arch Road.

WASHINGTON - The top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Ethics Committee has requested a formal review of lobbying practices in the chamber to determine whether tighter restrictions are needed. "I believe a Senate-wide review of policies that relate to all current lobbying practices is in order and have conveyed that to the chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee," Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada said in a statement yesterday. Reid has repeatedly sponsored legislation and taken other action to help real estate developers, mining companies and other large economic interests in Nevada.

NEWT GINGRICH is about to become the only speaker of the House ever to be formally reprimanded by his colleagues. This is something his fellow Republicans either have to live with or conclude that having a discredited speaker in the chair is an unacceptable impediment to the GOP agenda. They will get no help from Democrats who believe Mr. Gingrich's retention in office is their best defense against assaults on President Clinton, who begins his second term today.Mr. Gingrich's conduct in defending himself on charges of using tax-exempt money to finance his political activities has been assailed by the House ethics committee as an "intentional . . . or reckless" affront to House rules.

The legislature's ethics committee met for an hour and half yesterday to discuss Del. Gerald J. Curran's business dealings, but cut short the session because of other committee scheduling conflicts.Members of the panel emerged from the closed meeting to say they would meet again today to decide whether to proceed with a full investigation into possible ethics violations by the Northeast Baltimore Democrat.If the committee does move ahead, it must decide whether to hire an independent counsel to guide the inquiry, as it it did in the recently concluded investigation of former Sen. Larry Young.

As the General Assembly prepared to return to Annapolis, staffers for its ethics committee worked through the weekend preparing a draft report on an investigation into the business dealings of Sen. Larry Young.The 12-member Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics is likely to reach a decision tomorrow about whether the West Baltimore Democrat violated state ethics laws and, if so, what to recommend as punishment.On Friday, Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller hastily scheduled a meeting of Senate leaders for 4 p.m. tomorrow to discuss the matter.

The legislature's ethics committee will begin investigating the business affairs of Sen. Larry Young today, with the veteran lawmaker's reputation and potentially his State House power on the line.The 12-member panel is expected to outline the areas it wants to investigate, drawing from an article last week in The Sun that reported possible ethical violations by Young.The committee inquiry could clear Young of violating state ethics laws or, if it finds improprieties, lead to disciplinary action by the 47-member Senate, including expulsion.

Prince George's County Sen. Ulysses S. Currie attended a closed-door meeting of the legislature's ethics committee Monday, making his first appearance before a panel expected to recommend whether he should be punished for failing to report income on financial disclosure forms. Currie, a Democrat, was in the hearing room for about four hours. He declined to comment as he left. Joseph F. Murphy, a retired Court of Appeals judge who is representing the senator before the panel, said he expects a recommendation on Currie's fate "soon.

A General Assembly committee charged with reviewing the behavior of state Sen. Ulysses Currie met briefly Thursday behind closed doors in what was described as an organizational session. Currie, a Prince George's County Democrat recently acquitted of federal bribery charges, did not appear. Del. Brian McHale, co-chairman of the Joint Legislative Committee on Ethics, would not comment except to say the panel's initial meeting focused on organization and procedure. "I'm not going to run the risk of violating what I'm required to protect," said McHale, a Baltimore city Democrat.

An ethics investigation of state Sen. Ulysses S. Currie got off the ground today in Annapolis as the Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics  held its first meeting of the 2012 legislative session. The committee met briefly in public before closing the meeting to deal with the Currie case and perhaps other complaints covered under confidentiality provision in state law. Senate President Thomas V. Mike Miller had said Wednesday that the committee would take up the Currie case, which flows out of a federal bribery and extortion trial that led to the Prince George's County Democrat's acquittal last November.

The General Assembly's ethics adviser has counseled state lawmakers that they should disclose when they or an immediate family member serve on the boards of organizations seeking bond funding through legislation. In a memo written late Monday in response to an article in The Baltimore Sun, William G. Somerville told lawmakers they should file a form that discloses the unpaid positions and asserts their ability to "act fairly, objectively and in the public interest" with regard to the bills.

DENVER - The president of the Maryland Senate said yesterday that Sen. Ulysses Currie's work for a regional grocery chain should be investigated by the General Assembly, but Sen. Thomas V. Mike Miller dismissed speculation that he would ask the Prince George's County Democrat to step down from his leadership post. "Senator Currie, in my opinion, is guilty of making a terrible mistake," said Miller, who is attending the Democratic National Convention here. "Knowing him, I believe it was absent-mindedness.

WASHINGTON -- Arriving as president of the World Bank in the summer of 2005, Paul D. Wolfowitz told colleagues that he was eager to tackle poverty in Africa and corruption in aid. But almost immediately he became consumed by frustrating negotiations with bank officials over the status of his companion, an employee at the bank, documents released this month show. Now these documents are at the center of the World Bank's inquiry into his conduct and Wolfowitz's defense, both of which will be presented at the World Bank's board of directors tomorrow.

The Joint Committee on Legislative Ethics has decided not to investigate allegations that Sen. Richard F. Colburn required a former aide to write college term papers for him, the senator's lawyer said yesterday. The former aide, Gregory Dukes, requested that the committee investigate his allegations, but Colburn attorney Timothy Maloney said the committee wrote to the Eastern Shore Republican to say it was dismissing the complaint. "He got a letter saying they were not investigating," Maloney said.

WASHINGTON -- The House ethics committee raised four new charges against House Speaker Newt Gingrich yesterday, including the potentially devastating question of whether he has provided its investigation with "accurate, reliable and complete information."The committee of five Republicans and five Democrats voted unanimously to announce the expansion of its inquiry to add the new issues. No details were released about those questions, which included two new tax law issues and the question of whether he improperly used staff and facilities of a private foundation.

WASHINGTON -- In a coda to a year of political disasters for Republicans, the House ethics committee declared yesterday that GOP lawmakers and staff members for years remained "willfully ignorant" that former Rep. Mark Foley was making sexual advances toward male congressional pages. Instead, driven by political considerations and fear of exposing Foley's homosexuality, they failed in their duty to protect the teenagers, the committee concluded. And, the panel said, congressional officials ignored evidence of predatory behavior by the Florida Republican that began emerging more than 10 years ago. Despite these criticisms, the bipartisan ethics panel found that no House rules were broken in the handling of the Foley case.

WASHINGTON -- Speaker Dennis Hastert yesterday became the first leader of the House of Representatives in a decade to testify before its ethics committee, fielding hours of questions about what he knew about former Rep. Mark Foley's inappropriate approaches to teenage pages and when he knew it. As public dismay over Republican leadership of Congress has risen, Hastert has faced increasing questions about whether he and other party leaders ignored or...