Pelosi names Rep. Lofgren as ethics chairwoman (Dems - "Accountable" "Responsible" "Honest")

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has tapped Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a loyal liberal from Northern California, as chairwoman of the House ethics committee.

Pelosi announced Lofgren’s selection early Tuesday evening after a busy Inauguration Day. In a release, she said she would recommend Lofgren to the House Democratic Steering and Policy Committee and House Democratic Caucus.

The choice is something of a surprise, because Lofgren has already served more than the required three terms on the ethics panel, officially called the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Second stints on the ethics panel are rare, with most lawmakers trying to avoid the awkward role of policing their peers altogether.

Service on the panel is usually rewarded with a better committee assignment or plum leadership position down the road, not another tour of duty.

“Congresswoman Lofgren has demonstrated tremendous leadership in her 15 years of service to the House of Representatives, including her eight years on the House ethics committee,” Pelosi said. “With this appointment, she will hold members of Congress to the highest ethical standard.”

Pelosi has been under pressure to name a new chairman or risk delaying a high-profile investigation into Rep. Charles Rangel (D-N.Y), who is facing several ethics allegations.

Lofgren will have to handle the delicate task of handling the panel’s probe into Rangel, the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and one of the most powerful and well-liked Democrats in Congress. The fact that Rangel has been under the microscope has made finding members for the panel even more difficult.

Lofgren, who already chairs the 34-member California delegation, said she was honored Pelosi selected her as chairwoman because she recognizes the “immensely important role” the panel plays.

“Having served for eight years as a member of the committee earlier in my congressional tenure, I've seen firsthand the immensely important role it plays,” she said in a statement. “Without the public's trust and confidence, government loses its legitimacy. The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct exists to ensure that the House of Representatives maintains that trust and confidence, and in turn its legitimacy."

Lofgren also pledged to work in a “bipartisan manner to ensure that the House of Representatives maintains the highest of ethical standards and holds the public interest above all.”

Rep. Gene Green (D-Texas), who had been serving as acting chairman of the ethics panel since former Chairwoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones’s (D-Ohio) death in August, was term-limited and is no longer a committee member. In addition, the next two senior Democrats on the panel, Reps. Lucille Roybal-Allard (Calif.) and Mike Doyle (D-Pa.), also served the final year of their three terms last year and are no longer committee members.

That left Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.), but he had said he wasn’t interested in moving into the top spot. Pelosi didn’t announce who would fill the vacancies Roybal-Allard and Doyle are leaving behind.

It is unclear whether Green and the former ranking Republican, Rep. Doc Hastings (Wash.), will continue to head the investigative subcommittee probing Rangel’s activity. Green has said he would remain to provide continuity to the investigation, but that decision is up to the new chairwoman.

The ethics panel expanded its probe into Rangel in late December after a report in The New York Times raised questions about a quid pro quo involving a donation to a City College of New York education center bearing Rangel’s name, and Rangel’s alleged legislative favoring of the donor.

The probe previously covered Rangel’s failure to report rental income on a Dominican Republic villa, alleged misuse of his congressional stationery for fundraising for the education center and his use of three rent-controlled New York apartments.

Zoe Lofgren (born Sue Lofgren on December 21, 1947), American politician, has been a Democratic member of the United States House of Representatives since 1995, representing the 16th District of California (map), based in San Jose.

A lifelong Bay Area resident, Lofgren attended Gunn High School in Palo Alto, earned her B.A. at Stanford University and a J.D. at Santa Clara University. She left the San Jose area for a few years after graduation from Stanford, to serve years as a staff assistant to Congressman Don Edwards, where she worked, among other projects, on the attempted impeachment of Richard Nixon. She was also instrumental in the creation of a Bay Area wilderness area that now bears the name of Edwards.

Returning to San Jose, Lofgren worked in Edwards' District Office, while at the same time earning her law degree. After two years as partner at an immigration law firm in San Jose, she was elected first to a Community College board, then to the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors, where she served as a county executive for 13 years. Lofgren also spent three years teaching classes on immigration law at her alma mater.

In 1994, Edwards decided to retire after 32 years in Congress. Lofgren entered the Democratic primary as a decided underdog, but managed to defeat the favorite, former San Jose mayor Tom McEnery. San Jose is heavily Democratic, and Lofgren's victory in the general election was considered a foregone conclusion. She has been reelected five times against weak Republican opposition, who had little funding. Lofgren is only the second representative of the 16th District (Edwards had served since the district's creation in 1963).

Lofgren is currently the chair of the 34-member California Democratic Congressional Delegation. She serves on the Judiciary Committee and is the chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law. She also chairs the House Administration Subcommittee on Elections and serves on the House Homeland Security Committee.

During the 110th Congress, Lofgren worked for the development of fusion energy. She initiated a bill that would accelerate its uses as an alternative energy solution. Another piece of legislation that she recently authored has the goal of providing lower Internet access rates to schools, libraries, and other public institutions.

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