The House Ethics Committee may be doing something, according to Roll Call.  It has nothing to do with any of the federal criminal investigations that could implicate members of Congress.  This is an intra-House and intra-family issue:

The House ethics committee is reviewing whether the chamber’s rules were broken when Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) put three of Rep. Loretta Sanchez’s (D-Calif.) aides on her own payroll in late 2006 because of a budget shortfall in her sister’s office.

The shortfall occurred because a then-aide to Loretta Sanchez had been embezzling funds from the office for personal use.

Stan Brand, an attorney for Loretta Sanchez, confirmed Monday that the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct was looking into the arrangement to temporarily shift staff between the two Sánchez offices.

“We were the ones that brought all this to [the committee’s] attention,” said Brand, a former House Counsel who now heads the Brand Law Group. “When all this occurred, we self-reported to the committee.”

The review focuses in part on an agreement in which Linda Sánchez briefly put the three aides laid off from her sister’s office on her own payroll for a few weeks in late 2006 after discovering the embezzlement scandal had left Loretta Sanchez’s office short on funds.

On Monday, Caroline Valdez pleaded guilty in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to charges that she stole between $5,000 and $10,000 in early 2006.

Last month, CREW filed an FEC complaint against Palin and the RNC for improperly spending $150,000 on clothing for Palin and her family, in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA).  Sarah Palin wasn't the only candidate to improperly use campaign funds to buy clothes.

Today, CREW filed a Federal Election Commission (FEC) complaint against candidates for the House of Representatives and the presidency, for improperly spending campaign funds in violation of the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA).  Our complaint can be found here.

According to FEC reports, clothing purchases were made by the campaign committees of Reps. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) and Rob Andrews (D-NJ), Utah congressional candidate Bill Dew (R), North Carolina congressional candidate William Breazeale (R), and Andrew MacPherson, campaign staffer for Bob Barr‘s 2008 presidential campaign committee.

The amount each candidate spent on clothing is as follows:

Rep. Andrews, $952.04

Rep. Sanchez, $334.09

Bill Dew, $1,089.16

William Breazeale, $1,000

Andrew MacPherson, Barr campaign staffer, $500.00

These acquisitions violate campaign finance law.

FECA specifically prohibits a candidate for federal office from converting campaign funds to personal use. FEC regulations make clear that the prohibition applies to clothing purchases, such as those made for the above listed candidates.

Melanie Sloan, executive director of CREW, said today:

Sarah Palin wasn’t the only candidate to violate the law by using campaign money for clothing, several others did as well. Campaign finance laws are not optional, but if candidates can’t abide by these laws how can we trust them to be lawmakers?  There is no excuse for this conduct; the FEC should investigate these members and candidates immediately.