Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics, a Washington-based organization, has filed an ethics complaint against Rep. Eric I. Cantor, R-7th, with the House Office of Congressional Ethics.
The complaint requests an investigation into a new organization, the National Council for a New America, that Cantor, the House minority whip, set up to promote the Republican Party.
Press reports said Cantor's staff organized the group and its initial town-hall event and created its Web site. This may be in violation of House rules that prohibit House resources from being used for campaign or political purposes, said Melanie Sloan, executive director of the ethics organization.
House rules allow members to hold town-hall meetings only in their own districts, she said. The first meeting was in Arlington County, which is not in Cantor's district.
"NCNA looks political and Representative Cantor and the group's other members talk about it in political terms, so it must be a political organization," she said.
"We are 100 percent compliant with the ethics rules," said Stacey Johnson, press aide to Cantor. She noted that there are hundreds of caucuses in the House that operate in similar fashion.
The ethic's group's Web site says it "targets government officials — regardless of party affiliation — who sacrifice the common good to special interests."
It recently filed a Freedom of Information Act request for information on White House visits by 18 health-care executives.
(Cantor's wife, Diana F. Cantor, is a member of the board of directors of Media General Inc., parent company of the Richmond Times-Dispatch and WSLS.)
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