Photo by Mr. T in DC

Legislation that seeks to strengthen the District’s ethics laws moved forward today, though its progress might be slowed by members of the D.C. Council who want more time to discuss, digest and debate it.

The D.C. Council’s Committee on Government Operations voted 4-1 to send the legislation, which was introduced by Councilmember Muriel Bowser (D-Ward 4), to the full council for a first vote tomorrow. But Councilmember Vincent Orange (D-Ward 5) said he was concerned that Bowser was moving too fast to produce a worthwhile measure, while Councilmember Michael Brown (I-At Large) sought to extract a pledge from Bowser that any final vote on the legislation wouldn’t happen until January.

After a day-long hearing on the legislation last week, Bowser made a number of changes that she said strengthened ethics rules and policing. Included in those changes were longer terms for the three members of the Board of Elections and Government Accountability she seeks to create, a lowering of signature-gathering requirements from 10 to five percent of registered voters for the recall of a citywide candidate and a provision that would allow for the expulsion of councilmember for significant violations of the city’s Code of Conduct.

Additionally, Bowser said that her staff had searched for disparate ethics-related rules scattered throughout the D.C. Code and brought them all together in her new bill, adding 50 pages to the proposal.

But for a brief moment during the committee hearing this morning, it actually looked like Bowser wouldn’t have the votes to move the legislation forward.

Two of the committee’s members — Orange and Brown — expressed reservations with the proposal, while only David Catania (I-At Large) sided with Bowser. The committee’s fifth member — who could have broken a tie — was none other than Harry Thomas, Jr. (D-Ward 5), whose home was raided by federal officials last Friday in connection with the misuse of $300,000 in city funds. For obvious reasons, though, Thomas did not appear, leaving Bowser with the unpleasant chance of having her proposal voted down in committee.

At the last minute, D.C. Council Chair Kwame Brown arrived to speak in favor of Bowser’s bill. He argued that it was necessary to pass the bill before the end of the year, and pledged to schedule another legislative meeting to take into account any concerns from his colleagues. (There are two meetings planned so far — December 6 and December 20.) With his vote, the measure passed out of Bowser’s committee.

It certainly won’t sail through the full council without spirited debate, though. Orange, who said he had “severe reservations” with Bowser’s bill and said that he didn’t see the point in creating a new agency to police ethics, still looks ready to offer an alternate proposal, according to the Post. Moreover, there are still plenty of people — including candidates in the 2012 election — who argue that Bowser’s bill doesn’t address the most severe forms of corruption and influence-peddling, including the bundling of campaign contributions and the existence of Constituent Services Funds.