Republicans Want To Gut The House Ethics Office

 

The following op-ed is by Jennifer Rubin in The Washington Post:

House Republicans might have gotten off to a chaotic start on Tuesday as they struggled to elect a House speaker. But not to worry: Once they figure out how to resolve their leadership dispute (however long that will take), they will get straight to work disrupting good governance.

Among their first tasks: neutering the Office of Congressional Ethics.

The OCE, which Democrats created in 2008, was designed as an independent office with the power to investigate ethics violations among House members. (The OCE, however, can only conduct preliminary investigations and make recommendations, leaving it to the House Ethics Committee to decide whether to investigate further and enact punishment.)

Ever since the office’s conception, Republicans seeking to avoid independent scrutiny have attempted to dismantle it. So it should come as no surprise that while they cannot agree on a speaker, Republicans have apparently agreed to introduce rules changes that would hamper the OCE’s ability to do its job, including imposing term limits on its board and severely restricting its ability to hire new staff.

Even Donald Trump seems to understand the danger of this move. As the New York Times reported in 2017, “The day after House Republicans voted to eliminate an independent ethics body, members returned to work on Tuesday to find their offices inundated with angry missives from constituents amid a national uproar.” They were soon in retreat. “By midmorning, Mr. Trump had weighed in, questioning the members’ priorities on Twitter. Shortly after, lawmakers were summoned to the basement of the Capitol for a hastily convened meeting with Republican leaders.” They were forced to back down.

Apparently, Republicans today have less ethical and political sense than the disgraced president had then.

The MAGA majority’s current plan to gut the OCE is telling. As Norman Eisen, who served as ethics counsel in the Obama administration, observed, “When there is a change of control in a branch of our government, incoming leaders usually like to signal their commitment to ethics as the first order of business. But the new House GOP majority is doing the exact opposite.” They might see the tactic as a short-term solution to shield Republican members from ethics investigations, but, as Eisen notes, “the Republican caucus is inviting more corruption in their ranks.”

Consider the case of George Santos, the New York Republican entering Congress with a litany of scandals. Do Republicans really want to make it easier for the habitual liar to remain in their midst? “Maybe that’s the point,” Eisen muses. But that would undoubtedly come back to haunt them. The caucus — which includes a number of members who have expressed sympathy for insurrectionists and the promotion of the “big lie” that the 2020 election was stolen — is not one to take the oath of office seriously. Asking Republicans to exercise personal restraint is like asking a tiger to go vegan.

Fred Wertheimer, founder and president of the nonprofit group Democracy 21, warned in a written statement: “There is no basis for gutting the effective and successful OCE other than to make it easier for unethical Representatives to break House ethics rules without facing consequences for their actions.” He concludes that Republicans’ proposal could “seriously discredit the House as an institution in the eyes of an already skeptical public.”

It could also lead to the worst explosion of corruption since the 1990s, when House Democrats were racked by the Congressional Post Office scandal. This led to the downfall of Dan Rostenkowski, the powerful head of the Ways and Means Committee, who was subsequently indicted for financial misconduct, lost his seat, pleaded guilty and served 15 months in prison. Downgrading the ethical guardrails that Congress has since erected would only serve as an invitation for unscrupulous and opportunistic members to run amok in the next two years. That might further hamper the GOP’s effort to hang on to its narrow majority in 2024.

Republicans, after all, have made it clear they will pursue nonstop investigations of the Biden administration, the president’s family and whatever conspiracy theory pops into their heads. So one can only describe their resistance to scrutiny as hypocrisy.

When the inquisitors exempt themselves from ethical restraints, they send the message that rules are only for Democrats. Democrats, in turn, will send the message in 2024 that it’s time to return to honest, competent governance.