Effort to weaken OCE

[Daniel Schuman]

An effort apparently is afoot today to weaken the House independent ethics watchdog, the Office of Congressional Ethics, by placing it under the House Ethics Committee. OCE was created in the wake of the Abramoff scandal and the failure of the Ethics Committee to police bad actors in the House. (It is speculated the Speaker at the time did not want the Ethics committee to function because he was covering up his sexual abuse of minors, a crime for which he was convicted.) OCE and the Ethics Committee are institutional rivals, with very different incentives, and the House Ethics Committee is often viewed as not doing its job (or not doing it very well).

Reporter Billy House has the details: "Proposed Goodlatte amendment to rules package would place the independent Office of Congressional Ethics under oversight of Ethics Committee"

It seems that the amendment is being offered as part of the internal House Republican conference debate on the rules, which is taking place today. House Republicans will present their rules package late tonight or tomorrow, and it will be voted on tomorrow (Tuesday).

In doing so, this also apparently violates the GOP's Pledge to America, which says that Republicans will "give all Representatives and citizens at least three days to read the bill before a vote." This pledge has been interpreted as 3 legislative days. I am having trouble seeing how public release of the proposed House Rules tonight will satisfy that requirement, but it certainly seems to violate the spirit. The other legislation intended for consideration this upcoming week is already online.

We are reaching out by twitter to encourage the House to leave OCE as an independent ethics watchdog. Here's the tweet:

"STOP the House's assault on its ethics watchdog—Tell @SpeakerRyan @GOPLeader @SteveScalise: keep OCE independent! Call your rep 202-224-3121"

Daniel

Daniel Schuman

Demand Progress | Policy Director

dan...@demandprogress.org | @danielschuman

202-792-4550

[Gregory Slater]

Good job getting this word out.

- And thank god for the intrinsic gutlessness of the repub reps in reversing their course as soon as they realized it couldn’t be accomplished quietly in the dead of night.

It’s always important to remember that congressmen are almost uniformly gutless knaves when faced with actual resistance.

Regards,

Greg Slater