In a statement that day, Rep. Doc Hastings (R-WA), the Republican chairman of the committee, said that with the appointment of Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) to replace Mollohan, "I'm confident that now we'll finally be able to get the Ethics Committee moving."  That is, until the next issue arises where one party can score points against the other.  And now, the ethics bill coming before the House floor, HR 4975, is a watered-down version of an already weak bill.

Indeed, it sure is easy to get frustrated about this.

But there's a silver lining solution coming from the reform-minded side of Congress: the establishment of an independent body to oversee ethics violations, such as already exists in many states.  Usually comprised of retired judges and lawmakers, these committees typically handle the investigation of complaints (sorting out real ones from trumped-up ones), and then hand a recommendation to the legislature to be voted on, thus removing partisanship from the process.  We'll see one last push for this in the House when the bill comes up for debate on Thursday, if the Democrats can get a vote on their alternative during Wednesday's Rules committee meeting.

This latest incident involving Rep. Mollohan is just that--the latest incident.  Unless reform measures get at the heart of the problem, the partisanship of the process, one cannot be serious in envisioning a House ethics committee that actually does its job well.