WASHINGTON — In a rare win for transparency, the House Ethics Committee is backing off a decision that would have allowed lawmakers not to disclose privately-funded junkets on annual disclosure forms.
“We will reverse that decision,” committee Chairman Mike Conaway (R-Texas) told a Texas radio station Thursday.
“It was a wrong decision, and we’re going to fix it,” he added in the interview, obtained by National Journal.
Ethics groups slammed the panel when it quietly passed a regulation in May no longer requiring lawmakers to reveal the trips on their disclosure reports.
While the same data is maintained by the House Clerk, it’s the disclosure forms that transparency advocates and reporters routinely scour to determine how many freebie junkets and “fact-finding” missions legislators take.