Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-At Large)

Earlier this week it was D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown pushing for ethics reform, and today’s it’s Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-At Large). Loose Lips has the scoop:

At-Large Councilmember Vincent Orange just sent word to his colleagues that he plans to push emergency legislation next Tuesday to establish an task force on ethics and accountability. Orange’s task force would comprise the chairman of the Board of Elections and Ethics, the director of the Office of Campaign Finance, the attorney general, special counsel for ethics in the AG’s office, the inspector general, the city’s auditor, and the chief financial officer. Its mission would be, among other things, to draft a “code of ethics” for elected officials.

Orange will be fleshing out the details on Monday, but a teaser press release included another ethics-related piece of legislation he’s going to introduce — the Consecutive Term Limit Amendment Act of 2011. Currently, there are no term limits for councilmembers; a 1994 referendum imposing them was undone by the council itself in 2001. The issue of term limits came up during the recent April 26 At-Large Special Election, but Orange wasn’t at the forum at which all the candidates sided with limiting how long legislators could serve.

The Post also reports that Councilmember Tommy Wells (D- Ward 6) will introduce legislation barring lawyers from providing free or discounted representation to councilmembers and dramatically slashing the amount legislators can raise for their Constituent Service Funds from $80,000 a year currently to $10,000. Wells has also said he wants to see the practice of bundling ended, through which corporations can give donations to councilmembers through various LLCs and shell companies.

In related news, columnist Chuck Thies wonders today if councilmembers Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4) and Phil Mendelson (D-At Large) will step up with aggressive reforms to address some of the ethical shortcomings we’ve seen this year.