GINGRICH WILL FACE HOUSE VOTE ON $300,000 ETHICS FINE.

Byline: David Espo Associated Press 

Capping a tumultuous two-year probe, the House ethics committee has voted to reprimand Speaker Newt Gingrich for admitted rules violations and called for an unprecedented $300,000 financial penalty.

A formal House vote is scheduled for Tuesday.

The sanctions, ratified on a bipartisan vote of 7-1 Friday night, would permit Gingrich to retain his powerful post, and the Georgia Republican said in advance he would submit to them.

``This is a tough penalty. I believe it is an appropriate penalty,'' Rep. Nancy Johnson, the committee chairwoman, said as the vote was announced. ``It demonstrates that nobody is above the rules.''

The committee voted after special counsel James M. Cole laid out the stinging findings of his investigation in the case.

``Over a number of years and in a number of situations, Mr. Gingrich showed a disregard and lack of respect for the standards of conduct that applied to his activities,'' Cole said somberly at a public hearing.

The proposed punishment for Gingrich was a plea bargain of sorts, the product of negotiations involving Cole, the speaker and members of the ethics subcommittee that has been investigating the case.

While the committee did not formally recommend a referral to federal prosecutors, it made clear that the records in the case involving disputed tax matters will be made available to the Internal Revenue Service.

For two years, Gingrich had denied all wrongdoing. Then he admitted Dec. 21 that he had violated House rules. He said he had failed to seek proper legal advice on using tax-exempt projects to meet political goals, and he acknowledged that ``in my name and over my signature'' inaccurate statements had been submitted to the ethics committee.

Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, a late addition to the panel and defender of the speaker, was the lone dissenter in the 7-1 vote.

After days of partisan savagery, Johnson gaveled the public hearing to order in an ornate hearing room across the street from the Capitol, where Gingrich wields his power. ``The penalty recommendation the committee will consider is tough and unprecedented compared with past cases,'' she said.

If approved by the full House, the punishment would be the sternest meted out to a speaker since the modern-day ethics process was established three decades ago.

Republicans said they hope the vote Tuesday by the full House will put the case to rest.

But several Democrats renewed their call for Gingrich to relinquish power. ``Sometimes it's not enough just to say you're sorry,'' said Rep. David Bonior of Michigan, Gingrich's most tenacious critic.

One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Democrats were weighing whether to force the GOP rank and file to cast the congressional equivalent of a no-confidence vote on their tarnished leader Tuesday.

And in a reminder of the political intrigue surrounding the case, the ethics committee's senior Democrat, Rep. Benjamin Cardin of Maryland, released a document indicating there had been an organized political effort by Republicans to undermine some of Gingrich's most aggressive Democratic critics. Republicans tried to put Democrats on the defensive by ``attacking personal ethics'' and legislative records and forcing them to ``defend the Clinton administration,'' Cardin said.

Two of the lawmakers mentioned as targets - Rep. George Miller of California and John Lewis of Georgia, who have been called members of the ``Get Gingrich Crowd'' - were in the audience when the hearing began.

Cole, a former Justice Department prosecutor, said he and the four-member investigative subcommittee had been ``faced with troubling choices'' in each of the two areas to which Gingrich admitted violations.

``Either Mr. Gingrich's conduct . . . was intentional or it was reckless. Neither choice reflects creditably on the House,'' he said.