Heller: Ensign is 'wounded' senator

RENO - Nevada Rep. Dean Heller stopped short of calling for Sen. John Ensign's resignation, but he said Wednesday his fellow Republican's ethical woes are dragging him down and could end up harming all the state's GOP candidates in the fall.

"The fact we have a wounded junior senator, yeah, it is cause for concern," Heller said.

"Will it have impact up and down the ticket for Republicans this fall? I think there is the potential for that happening," he said on KRNV-TV's "Nevada Newsmakers."

A federal grand jury issued subpoenas last month to a GOP campaign committee and companies in Nevada in a probe of Ensign, who has been under scrutiny for his efforts to find lobbying work for the husband of his former mistress.

"I think we need a stronger voice back in Washington, D.C.," said Heller, who is seeking re-election to a third term in November.

"Clearly these matters are taking a majority of his time," he said Wednesday.

Aides to Ensign did not immediately return a telephone call or e-mail request seeking comment.

Ensign's affair and the legal problems it has engendered have derailed talk that he might make a run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 and forced him to resign his position as chairman of the Senate Republican Policy Committee.

The FBI and Senate Ethics Committee are investigating whether Ensign tried to limit political damage from the affair by conspiring to help the aide find a new job as a lobbyist, which might have violated restrictions on lobbying by former congressional staff.

Heller said Ensign's "problems" were a "partial determining factor" in his own decision to forgo a campaign to try to unseat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

"John Ensign's problems are John Ensign's problems. They are not my problems," Heller said. But he added that if Ensign's "issues impact me politically, then yes, I take exception to it.

"I think John needs to be more forthcoming on issues he has. He needs to come on this show and other shows and talk about those issues. I think that has caused a lot of his problems," Heller said.

Federal criminal law prohibits congressional aides from lobbying their ex-bosses or office colleagues for one year after departing their Hill jobs.

Ensign acknowledged the relationship with Cynthia Hampton last June. Ensign helped her husband, Doug Hampton, gain employment with a lobbying firm, and Ensign's parents provided the Hamptons with a payment of $96,000 that they described as a gift.

The affair ended in 2008; Ensign is married.