The move by the ethics committee suggests that a preliminary investigation found at least some evidence of wrongdoing. This is only the second time in nearly two years that the committee has formally opened a full, new investigation into a sitting House member. Ms. Berkley’s campaign said in a statement released late Monday that she welcomed the deeper inquiry and remained confident that she would be cleared. “Congresswoman Berkley’s one and only concern was for the health and well-being of Nevada’s patients,” said her campaign manager, Jessica Mackler. But Republicans in Nevada said this could be a deciding factor for Ms. Berkley, a Democrat, in her intensely competitive election contest against Senator Dean Heller, a Republican former House member who was named to the seat after Senator John Ensign resigned in 2011 under his own ethical cloud. “This will put that extra little doubt in the minds of swing Democrats and independents that Berkley needs to win,” said Ryan Erwin, a Republican political consultant in Nevada. “Because as much as she doesn’t want to talk about this, it smells bad.” Ms. Berkley has been accused of wrongly intervening with Medicare officials in 2008 after they threatened to close a troubled kidney transplant center in Las Vegas where her husband’s kidney-care practice served as consulting physicians. Ms. Berkley over the last five years has also played a leading role in the House in pushing an agenda advocated by the Renal Physicians Association, while her husband, Dr. Larry Lehrner, served as a national leader in the group. That included appealing to House colleagues to prevent cuts in Medicare reimbursement rates for doctors like her husband who perform dialysis. The investigation was started last year after an article in The New York Times examined the overlap between Ms. Berkley’s actions in Washington and her husband’s business affairs. The article noted that the contract between Dr. Lehrner’s medical practice and the kidney transplant center, University Medical Center, was expanded to a $738,000-a-year deal after the transplant center was saved. Ms. Berkley has argued that she is an advocate for kidney care patients in her home state. She also noted that she was joined by other members of the Nevada Congressional delegation, including Mr. Heller, in objecting to the planned shutdown in 2008 of Nevada’s only kidney transplant center. Federal officials ultimately allowed the transplant center to remain open, and conditions at the center, where a number of deaths had occurred, have since improved. The ethics committee first disclosed in March that it was looking into the allegations against Ms. Berkley, based at least in part on a referral it had received from the Office of Congressional Ethics, a quasi-independent body that serves as the equivalent of a grand jury on Capitol Hill. The case has already drawn attention in the Nevada Senate race. In the last month, American Crossroads, a leading conservative “super PAC,” broadcast a television advertisement questioning Ms. Berkley’s ethics, which was followed up by an advertisement by the Berkley campaign rejecting the charges. The ethics committee, which voted unanimously for the full investigation, is unlikely to comment further for several months and perhaps not until after Election Day; inquiries typically take more than six months, and in some cases, more than a year. In this case, four House members have been appointed to a special committee that will examine the allegations, with Representative K. Michael Conaway, Republican of Texas, serving as chairman. The committee’s jurisdiction will end when Ms. Berkley leaves the House, as she will do by the end of this year, either to join the Senate or to begin at least a temporary retirement from politics. Dan Schwager, chief counsel for the ethics committee, declined to predict how long this inquiry might take. A statement issued by the ethics committee also emphasized that its decision does not mean it has reached any conclusions about wrongdoing. “The Committee notes that the mere fact of establishing an investigative subcommittee does not itself indicate that any violation has occurred,” the statement said. The only other appointment of an investigative subcommittee involved Representative Laura Richardson, Democrat of California, who is being investigated based on allegations that she used House resources for personal purposes, or to help with her re-election campaign. That committee, created in November 2011, is still looking into the matter.
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