GOP HOUSE LEADERS WILL AVOID SANCTIONS FOLEY-CASE ACTIONS FOUND NEGLIGENT.Byline: Staff and Wire Services WASHINGTON -- The House Ethics Committee ethics committee A multidisciplinary hospital body composed of a broad spectrum of personnel–eg, physicians, nurses, social workers, priests, and others, which addresses the moral and ethical issues within the hospital. See DNR, Institutional review board. said Friday that a nine-week investigation into former Rep. Mark Foley's conduct had found that Speaker Dennis Hastert and other Republican leaders were negligent negligent adj., adv. careless in not fulfilling responsibility. (See: negligence) in not shielding teenagers from inappropriate advances by Foley. But the panel also concluded that neither Hastert nor other officers of the House had violated any House rules, and recommended no sanctions for their failure to stop Foley's conduct. The bipartisan report, released in the waning hours of the congressional session, concluded that ``political considerations played a role'' in some of the decisions made by lawmakers or their aides after learning about Foley's contacts with former congressional pages A Congressional page in the United States can belong to either of the Houses of the Federal Legislature:
``A pattern of conduct was exhibited among many individuals to remain willfully willfully adv. referring to doing something intentionally, purposefully and stubbornly. Examples: "He drove the car willfully into the crowd on the sidewalk." "She willfully left the dangerous substances on the property." (See: willful) ignorant of the potential consequences'' of Foley's untoward behavior, the report said. ``The failure to exhaust all reasonable efforts to call attention to potential misconduct involving a member and House page is not merely the exercise of poor judgment, it is a present danger to House pages and to the integrity of the institution of the House.'' The inquiry was led by Rep. Doc Hastings This article is about the U.S. Representative from Washington. For the Canadian footballer, see Richard Hastings. Richard Norman "Doc" Hastings (born February 7, 1941), an American politician, has been a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives , R-Wash., and Howard L. Berman, D-Calif. Berman declined to discuss the report's conclusions but seemed already prepared for critics. The panel recommended no further investigative or disciplinary proceedings against anyone involved in the Foley affair. ``I believe if a reasonable group of outsiders had been looking at the same things, they would have pretty much done it the same way,'' Berman said. ``The most important thing our committee could ever do is tell the story and hold people accountable, and this report does that. There's a lot of accountability here.'' A longtime long·time adj. Having existed or persisted for a long time: a longtime friend; a longtime resident of Detroit. longtime Adjective skeptic of moves by watchdog groups to create an independent ethics commission In the United States, an Ethics Commission is a commission established by State law to discourage dishonest practices by their public employees and elected officials. Almost all American states have such a commission. , Berman said he is open to such proposals but added that the past nine weeks investigating the Foley affair reinforces his belief that Congress can police itself. ``I think it worked well in this case,'' he said. |
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