COEUR d'ALENE - Phil Hart says the battle for what is right gives him the opportunity to tell an American story.

"And tell that story I will," he wrote in a press release on Wednesday.

A seven-lawmaker panel will meet later this month to consider an ethics complaint against the Idaho state representative, who faces conflict-of-interest questions that revolve around his fight over unpaid taxes and his seat on the House Revenue and Taxation Committee.

Questions were also raised over Hart's possible misuse of the legislative privilege from arrest and civil process.

The Republican representative from Athol was hit with nearly $300,000 in tax liens from the Internal Revenue Service in the last year, and the Idaho Tax Commission also claims Hart owes more than $53,000 in unpaid taxes over several years.

Hart, a third-term legislator who will run unopposed in November, on Wednesday sent the Idaho House of Representatives Ethics Committee Chairman Tom Loerstcher and each committee member his answer to the charges against him.

"American patriots fight for what is right in the country and reject what is wrong with the country," he wrote. "This battle for me is no less than fighting for what is right and just in the legislative arena and in the state that I have grown to love."

Hart said he doesn't think there has been a conflict of interest and denies the allegations.

"The ethics complaint itself was vague. For example, the alleged, so-called rule 38 violation, which has to do with voting on a bill you might have a special interest in, where the interest might be so special you shouldn't vote on the bill. But the ethics complaint never identified a piece of legislation where I might have done that," he said in a phone interview.

In his letter to Loerstcher and panel members, Hart wrote that the allegations lacked specifics. He was concerned "that anyone could choose to base an ethics complaint upon what 'appears' from 'recent news accounts.' If the Legislature were to convene an ethics committee each time a news account infers, implies, or even accuses one of its members of some inappropriate action, we would literally have no time to attend to the people's business."

He wrote that ethical complaints must be clear and specific, "and not based upon rumor, news accounts and innuendo."

Rep. George Sayler, a Democrat from Coeur d'Alene and a member of the review panel, said they will meet July 29 in Boise to begin the formal proceedings.

Hart stopped paying his taxes in 1996 when he sued the IRS, contending income tax is unconstitutional. A federal judge ruled against him in 2000, and his appeal was later denied. The U.S. Supreme Court refused to take up the case.

Hart has paid roughly $104,000 in state and federal income tax since 2006.

He worked last session on House Bill 454 to eliminate income tax on wages and salaries and meanwhile keep investment income and raise the sales tax. He hopes it will be heard in the upcoming session.

Hart said he would be willing to let the ethics committee run its investigation anyway and will "participate to the degree that I need to."

"The chairman can continue to look into this or he can dismiss the charges or do whatever."

Hart said the panel review is more a political process than a legal one.

"For example, this is the House regulating itself, it's not a courthouse where we have rules of evidence and procedure and a lot of history," he said. "We'll just have to wait and see what happens."