Ethics Panel Delays Cranston Ruling

WASHINGTON —  A Senate Ethics Committee decision on whether to recommend censure of Sen. Alan Cranston (D-Calif.) for financial misconduct was delayed again Wednesday after newly appointed committee member Sen. Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) discovered he had a potential conflict of interest in the case.

Bingaman’s surprise announcement virtually assures there will be no decision in the case before September, or 21 months after the panel began looking into intervention by Cranston and four other senators with federal regulators on behalf of savings and loan executive Charles H. Keating Jr.

Under its rules, the committee will need a Democrat to replace Bingaman because it must have three members of each party to decide a case. Bingaman will remain on the panel for consideration of other matters.

The committee accepted Bingaman’s request to be excluded from the Cranston deliberations after Bingaman told members he had just learned that his wife’s law firm is still owed legal fees for representing several Cranston aides during the panel’s public hearings on the “Keating Five” case last winter.