It was fitting that the US House approved late on the night of March 11 the creation of an independent, outside panel to enforce ethics rules, as you would have thought from listening to the debate that that lawmakers were talking about a nightmare.

Here is Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-KS): "If you have a single ounce of self-preservation, you'll vote no."

Or, Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI): "Any referral to the Office of Congressional Ethics will be tantamount to a guilty verdict. Any other conclusion by the ethics committee will be seen as a cover-up. I guarantee it."

In reality, Tiahrt and Abercrombie were talking about the creation of a new independent, bipartisan panel of non-lawmakers to monitor and enforce ethics in the US House. It will be known as the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). The House took the huge step last month of approving the panel by a vote of 229 to 182, and it is one of the most significant ethics reforms in a generation.

Now, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Majority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) are faced with the task of jointly appointing six people to the OCE. Those appointments are likely to make the panel as good or bad as party leaders want it to be.

Objective, reasonable appointees with respect for the institution of the US House can shield members from frivolous, politically motivated ethics complaints, which is the fear of many critics of this panel. If the parties appoint political hacks with an axe to grind, members will become the victims.

This ethics enforcement panel has the power to initiate and conduct investigations even without the support of a majority of commissioners. It was designed to deny veto power to either party. The danger, of course, is that no one could stop the commissioners of one party from routinely engaging in politically driven fishing expeditions and then publicly releasing their findings.

Surely it has occurred to opponents of the OCE that appointing operatives with a demonstrated interest in political mudslinging would go a long way toward destroying it.

The logic of having private citizens as part of the ethics process is not lost on the American public. One of the criticisms of Congress has been that it is only interested in protecting its own. A cynical attempt to install partisan hacks in the independent panel would not fool the public either. Neither would endless foot-dragging.

Outside groups cannot file ethics complaints to the new OCE, only members can. And at least members of the outside panel would not be asked to investigate their colleagues higher up the party ladder who control their political future. The central problem with the House Ethics Committee is how hopelessly conflicted the process is.