Stan Quoted in The Hill re: Filner Probe and New Ethics Regs

Stan Brand, who is defending Craig in the Senate ethics investigation, said the House and Senate are opening a “Pandora’s box” with their ethics inquiries of Craig and Filner. Making matters worse is the fact that any individual now can submit a complaint to a court and have a good chance of sparking an ethics probe, he added.

“[Democrats and Republicans] are playing this issue out in the hinterlands about who is more ethical, and it’s going to backfire on them,” he said. “In many ways it already has. Pretty soon it’s going to be [the case that] spitting on the sidewalk is … an offense that the ethics committee has to investigate.”

Brand also said the ethics committee was now crossing the line into members’ private conduct, in contrast to its historical practice of investigating only criminal conduct related to official business — an argument he also made in a letter to the Senate Ethics Committee on behalf of Craig two weeks ago.

“This has risks and consequences on both sides of the aisle. Every petty offense, every misdemeanor, every trivial disturbance of the peace is going to be subject to some determination under House and Senate rules,” he said. “That’s legally ridiculous, inefficient and wrong.”

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