In the past week’s postelection chatter, a strong theme has been whether the chief concern on voters’ minds was war in Iraq or corruption in Congress.

Most of the analysis seems to credit Iraq with delivering Congress to Democrats, but there’s little doubt that a wave of misbehavior by federal lawmakers was a significant factor.

That being the case, one would expect the new Democratic leaders, who claim a mandate for change, to make as emphatic a commitment to integrity as to finding a solution in the Middle East.

So how is it that Tuesday’s formal announcement of the new majority leadership team in the Senate was accompanied by utter silence on the issue of Majority Leader Harry Reid’s ethical questions?

From Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Bob Ney and others in the Jack Abramoff circle to page pesterer Mark Foley, the unseemliness-in-office scandal occurred primarily in the House. But on Wednesday, ABC News reported on its Web site that Reid may be among the members of Congress that Abramoff implicated when he spoke with federal prosecutors.

And shortly before the election, Reid’s name surfaced conspicuously in connection with failure to report his profitable real estate dealings in Nevada.

At the time, Reid dismissed the well-documented allegations with a denial that he committed more than a technical violation. He offered to revise his previous filings to bring them up to date.

Reid himself wasn’t up for election this year, and if his situation influenced voters in other states, it wasn’t enough to offset the troubles that dogged Republican lawmakers. Ds won, Rs lost, and control of Congress changed hands.

Now that Reid’s in the driver’s seat of a thin new Democratic majority in the Senate, he has been promising the change last week’s voters said they want. But he’s said nothing to indicate that the lingering questions about his own conduct will receive a thorough, impartial examination.

In 1998, Reid paid $400,000 for some undeveloped property on the outskirts of fast-growing Las Vegas. His partner in part of the deal was lawyer and longtime friend Jay Brown. Six years later, the same property sold for $1.1 million, netting Reid a tidy $700,000.

In between, there was at least one ownership transfer on the property, a zone change that set the table for a shopping center, and a pattern of very informal intertwining of Reid’s and Brown’s interests. A complicated federal land transfer took place early in the 1998-2004 period, and although it didn’t involve Reid’s property, it helped make the eventual shopping center development more lucrative. At some point, Reid collected $18,000 in campaign donations from a political action committee run by one of those involved in the land dealings.

As an Associated Press article described it when the deals received attention in October, “The complex dealings allowed Reid to transfer ownership, legal liability and some tax consequences to Brown’s company without public knowledge, but still collect a seven-figure payoff nearly three years later.”

These are worrisome developments, and if they can be forgotten once the election is over, it will be a black mark against the integrity of the new Senate. Senators of both parties – including Washington’s Sen. Patty Murray, the fourth-ranking member of the Democratic leadership team – should get the new era off to a principled start by giving the Reid matter the attention it needs.

Respect for ethics should be more than a campaign gambit; it should be a hallmark of political legitimacy.