2017 Jan 3^rd

It was inevitable, although I didn’t believe the Republicans would have recognized the need to act so quickly. The House of Representatives have tried to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). This move will make that group report to the House Ethics Committee, a group best known for its expertise at whitewashing the ethical failures of   house members.

The OCE was created in March 2008 after the cases of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., who served more than seven years in prison on bribery and other charges; as well as cases of former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who was charged in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and pleaded guilty to corruption charges and former Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., convicted on corruption in a separate case.

The proposal would bar the OCE from reviewing any violation of criminal law by members of Congress, requiring that it turn over complaints instead to the House Ethics Committee . The House Ethics Committee would also have the power to stop an investigation at any point and bars the ethics office from making any public statements about any matters or hiring any communications staff. That’ll show them. We don’t need no ###### ethics committee so they can just shut the hell up; right boys?

The full House of Representatives will vote on this as part of a larger rules package up for consideration Tuesday, so by the time you read this it might be moot…or maybe when Trump comes in ethics concerns will leave the building.

Currently the ethics panel operates as an independent, non-partisan entity that has the power to investigate misconduct against lawmakers, officers and staff of the United States House of Representatives. Originally created by Congress under Nancy Pelosi's speakership in the wake of multiple lobbying scandals, it continued to act as an independent body under then-House Speaker John Boehner. Maybe  ethics are  less a concern in the Trump administration.

BULLETIN! Now we know; the proposed change in the OCE was defeated by a vote of the full house! Score one for ethics. There is nothing like publicity to sanitize public policy. I heard comments from an attorney who had worked for the OCE. His opinion was that this group will try again when no one is paying quite so much attention. He also commented on the so-called excesses of this committee such as complained about by congressman King of Iowa. The attorney claimed that these excesses were  usually associated with the activities of congressmen who preferred not to have their activities examined too closely.; and for good reason.

Donald Trump has also commented on the issue: H is complaints are given some credit for the defeat. The credit is undeserved. Trump was not complaining because he supported a stronger ethics policy, on the contrary he also talked about the OEC “excesses.” Trump complained about the house wasting time on ethics issues instead of dealing with his priorities such as eliminating “Obamacare.” It is hard to imagine anyone believing that Trump would favor a stronger congressional concern about ethics.