By Kathleen Hunter, CQ Staff

A federal appeals court in Richmond, Va., refused Friday to reconsider a recent ruling denying outgoing Rep. William J. Jefferson ’s bid to toss out nearly all of the corruption and bribery charges he faces.

The ruling paves the way for a trial date for the Louisiana Democrat, who lost his bid for a 10th term earlier this month. Jefferson faces 16 corruption-related charges stemming from allegations that he illegally brokered business deals in Africa.

The outgoing congressman on Nov. 26 petitioned the full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit to review the Nov. 12 ruling by a three-judge panel rejecting Jefferson’s bid to have all but two of the 16 felony charges against him thrown out on the grounds that they run afoul of the “speech or debate clause,” a constitutional provision that insulates legislative activity from executive review.

Jefferson’s lawyer, Robert Trout, argued that an en banc review, in which the entire court considers the matter, was warranted because the case “involves a question of exceptional importance.” But the court disagreed.

The three-judge panel agreed with U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III that a grand jury, which indicted Jefferson on June 4, 2007, had not reviewed any protected material. The lower court’s decision “to act as it did in assessing Jefferson’s speech or debate clause claim was within its discretion and entirely appropriate,” the appeals court ruled.

Jefferson had argued that grand jury testimony furnished by congressional aides violated the constitutional protections afforded to legislators.

In a memo accompanying his original ruling, Ellis, who has scheduled a Jan. 15 hearing in the case, warned that “the speech or debate clause is not a license to commit crime.”

The charges, which include conspiracy, bribery, wire fraud and money laundering, contributed to Jefferson’s unexpected loss Dec. 6 to Republican Anh “Joseph” Cao, the first Vietnamese-American to serve in Congress.

Cao will be the first Republican in more than 100 years to represent the heavily Democratic, New Orleans-based 2nd District.