WASHINGTON — The anti-war candidate for House majority leader is being criticized by good-government groups for his ties to defense contractors and lobbyists.

This week, three major anti-corruption organizations in Washington came out against the candidacy of Rep. John Murtha, a Democrat of Pennsylvania, for the second most-powerful position in the new Democratic-controlled House. The groups said Mr. Murtha’s close relationship with the largest defense lobbyist in Washington, PMA Group, would raise doubts about whether the Democrats are serious about protecting the public trust.

Mr. Murtha is the choice of the next speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat of California.

Mrs. Pelosi also has hinted that she will support Rep. Alcee Hastings, a Democrat of Florida, to become chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Her support would underscore a reversal of fortune for Mr. Hastings, who was impeached as a federal judge by a Democratic-controlled Congress in 1988 for taking bribes from two mobsters who sought lighter sentences. Among the members of Congress who voted for his impeachment was Mrs. Pelosi.

The coming leadership fights will set the tone for the new Congress. If Democrats elect as majority leader the current House minority whip, Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland — and the current ranking member of the House intelligence panel, Jane Harman of California, as its chairman — they will send a message that Democrats will stand up against the kind of corruption they derided in the current, scandal-plagued Congress.

But the ascendancy of Mr. Murtha, who earlier this year proposed a non-negotiable timetable for withdrawing American soldiers from Iraq, and Mr. Hastings, who voted against the Iraq war, could signal that Democrats would be willing to use the power of the purse to stop the war in Iraq.

Mr. Murtha in particular is seen as vulnerable on the issue of special interest influence. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, he was a minor figure in the Abscam scandal, in which an FBI agent posed as an Arab sheik to bribe lawmakers. But for corporate watchdogs, his real weakness is his closeness to Paul Magliocchetti and Associates, or PMA, the lobbying group that contributed more than $30,000 to his campaign in the last election cycle.

“Paul Magliocchetti and Associates is the power broker of lobbyists when it comes to defense appropriations,” the political editor of the Center for Public Integrity, Alex Knott, said. “When we looked at the $900 billion given out between fiscal year 1998 and fiscal year 2003, we find $362 billion in no-bid contracts. That’s $1,000 for every man, woman, and child living in America. That was just given out in no-bids to many groups, like the clients of the PMA Group, which has shown they have ties to Congressman Murtha.”

Mr. Knott added: “If you want to get money in Pentagon contracts, PMA is the firm you want to hire. That is because of who they know. It is clear that John Murtha is one of those people.”

Other groups are also concerned. “The voters sent a clear message on Election Day that they are concerned about the ethics or lack of ethics in Congress,” the communications director for the Center for Responsive Politics, Massie Ritsch, said. “And if I were the new Democratic leadership of Congress, I would want to present the cleanest cast of characters I could find in order to improve voters’ perception of the institution and win them over to my side.”

On Monday, after Mrs. Pelosi announced her support for Mr. Murtha’s bid, an organization funded in part by the Democratic donor George Soros, the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, issued a blistering press release accusing Mr. Murtha of earmarking special projects in defense spending bills for companies that later hired his associates. One such case was a special earmark for AEPTEC Microsystems, a telecommunications company that went on to hire the congressman’s brother, Robert Murtha, as a contractor.

But while good government groups are raising concerns about Mr. Murtha’s candidacy, one peace group is hoping he becomes House majority leader. The organizing coordinator for United for Peace and Justice, Hany Khalil, said yesterday that while his group does not endorse the Murtha policy entirely, Mr. Murtha has “certainly played an important role in opening room within the Democratic Party for anti-war perspectives to emerge.” He added, “Certainly we would prefer to see the strongest anti-war candidates possible in the leadership, and Murtha is stronger than Hoyer.”