WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Rep. Marcia Fudge has introduced legislation that would weaken a congressional ethics office that found her top aide improperly helped Congressional Black Caucus members take a free Caribbean trip that was funded by corporations.

The Warrensville Heights Democrat introduced legislation last week to restrict disclosure of investigations by the

and require it to have a sworn complaint from a citizen with personal knowledge of alleged wrongdoing before initiating a probe.

"The Office of Congressional Ethics was created to provide more transparency in the House of Representatives," Fudge said in a statement released in response to press inquiries. "We must now perfect its processes to ensure that those aims are achieved in a manner consistent with America's spirit of justice. The processes must be fair to all people involved."

Ethics watchdogs said Fudge's resolution would gut the independent office that Congress created after corruption scandals cast doubt on the House Ethics Committee's effectiveness. Previously, the Ethics Committee seldom took action against members of Congress because only members of Congress were allowed to initiate complaints, and few wanted to antagonize colleagues. The Office of Congressional Ethics investigates complaints from all sources and refers possible violations to the Ethics Committee for action.

The Office of Congressional Ethics declined to comment on Fudge's legislation. Spokesmen for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi did not respond to a request for comment on Fudge's proposal and House GOP Leader John Boehner hasn't yet reviewed it, his spokesman said.

Last year, the Office of Congressional Ethics found that Fudge's chief of staff, Dawn Kelly Mobley, "improperly influenced" information that a group called Carib News Foundation provided to the House Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee was trying to decide whether a yearly Caribbean trip the group sponsored for Congressional Black Caucus members violated a newly implemented ban on corporate-funded travel.

Its report found that Mobley gave "internal committee communications" to Carib News Foundation that helped it mislead the committee about the trip's corporate sponsorships. Mobley's actions occurred in 2007, while she was an ethics committee counsel to former U.S. Rep. Stephanie Tubbs Jones of Cleveland, who then chaired the Ethics Committee and went on the trip. The report indicated Mobley acted at Tubbs Jones' direction. Tubbs Jones died in 2008, before the improprieties came to light.

After it received the Office of Congressional Ethics report, the House Ethics Committee admonished Mobley and New York Democratic Rep. Charles Rangel, whose aides knew about the corporate sponsorships. The Ethics Committee didn't discipline other members of Congress who went on the trip, finding that they "did not knowingly violate" House rules because they didn't know of the corporate involvement.

Fudge spokeswoman Belinda Prinz said Fudge was working on the resolution before she knew the ethics office was targeting Mobley. She said it's meant to ensure that complaints the committee investigates come from credible sources and aren't political fabrications.

"If an investigative file is released early, the person is tried in the media," said Prinz. "An unfounded frivolous complaint can cause irreversible damage to a person's reputation."

The resolution's 19 cosponsors are all members of the Congressional Black Caucus. Many of them went on Carib News trips.

Melanie Sloan, who heads the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said Fudge's resolution would make the ethics office "entirely ineffectual without killing it altogether." She doubts it will be approved because Congress won't want to look soft on ethics before a tough election.

"The problem here isn't the Office of Congressional Ethics, it is congressional ethics," said Sloan. "Members of Congress are astonished that someone would hold them accountable."