GOP starts new Congress with ethics misstep

WASHINGTON—House Republicans voted last night to weaken the power of the eight-year-old independent congressional ethics office, but amid backlash this morning, they quickly scrapped the plan.

“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,” President-elect Donald Trump tweeted this morning. “Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!”

Trump promised on the campaign trial to “drain the swamp” in Washington, and he and other top Republicans feared gutting ethical standards at the start of the new legislative session would look hypocritical. The ethics change proposal came from Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who offered it as an amendment to the House rules package. Last night, the House Republican conference voted 119-74 to adopt the amendment, good for two years. But an onslaught of backlash prompted an emergency meeting this morning, during which Republicans unanimously scrapped the proposal.

“I didn’t think it was the right time to do it,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. “I thought it’s something that both parties should take up at the same time.”

Goodlatte’s amendment sought several changes to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), established in 2008 after corruption charges sent three members of Congress to jail. The change would have barred the OCE from accepting anonymous tips against lawmakers, stopped investigations on activity prior to 2011, and allowed a congressional order to halt any investigation.

Democrats railed against the proposed rule changes. After news broke last night, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., questioned on Twitter whether Republicans thought the government had too many rules promoting ethical behavior. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., called ethics “the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”

Non-partisan and conservative groups also took umbrage with the Republican proposal.

“It is shameful that House Republicans are trying to destroy the Office of Congressional Ethics, the most significant ethics reform in Congress when it was established nearly a decade ago,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “This drive-by effort to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics, which provides appropriate independence and transparency to the House ethics process, is a poor way for the Republican majority to begin ‘draining the swamp.’”

The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said in a statement last night that altering the OCE would set up the new Congress for failure: “If the 115th Congress begins with rules amendments undermining OCE, it is setting itself up to be dogged by scandals and ethics issues for years and is returning the House to dark days when ethics violations were rampant and far too often tolerated.”

Amid the backlash, Republicans initially scrambled to defend the changes before ultimately killing the proposal.

In an op-ed in The Hill, Goodlatte said the change was long overdue and helped ensure due process for those accused.

“Since the OCE was first created, it has gone through some growing pains,” he said. “Today the OCE is able to accept anonymous complaints, meaning literally anyone from anywhere in the world can send something through a website and potentially disparage the reputation of a member without a basis in fact. Responding to an anonymous accusation drags good people’s names through the mud, costs the accused tens of thousands of dollars, and costs people their jobs.”

Ethics violations often get overblown by the media, and even if accusations don’t hold water, the damage is already done, Goodlatte said.

Although he opposed the timing of Goodlatte’s proposal, McCarthy admitted the rule change would save lawmakers from false accusations: “People have a right to defend themselves if they’re being accused of something. Let them go through and have the investigation instead of being tried in the papers and in the media beforehand. And if something is there, they will be found guilty and we will move forward.”