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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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House GOP votes to gut independent ethics office
[Associated Press]
DONNA CASSATA
Associated PressJanuary 2, 2017
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. listens to testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday May 19, 2015, during the committee's hearing on Policing Strategies for the 21st Century. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
FILE- In this May 19, 2015, file photo, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., listens to testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington. House Republicans on Monday, Jan. 2, 2017, voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics. Under the ethics change pushed by Goodlatte, the independent body would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)
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House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va. listens to testimony on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday May 19, 2015, during the committee's hearing on Policing Strategies for the 21st Century. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans on Monday voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison.
The ethics change, which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups, is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on Tuesday. The package also includes a means for Republican leaders to punish lawmakers if there is a repeat of the Democratic sit-in last summer over gun control.
Under the ethics change pushed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers. It would be known as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, and the rule change would require that "any matter that may involve a violation of criminal law must be referred to the Committee on Ethics for potential referral to law enforcement agencies after an affirmative vote by the members," according to Goodlatte's office.
Lawmakers would have the final say under the change. House Republicans voted 119-74 for the Goodlatte measure despite arguments from Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., against the change. They failed to sway rank-and-file Republicans, some of whom have felt unfairly targeted by the OCE.
"The amendment builds upon and strengthens the existing Office of Congressional Ethics by maintaining its primary area of focus of accepting and reviewing complaints from the public and referring them, if appropriate, to the Committee on Ethics," Goodlatte said in a statement.
Democrats, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, reacted angrily.
"Republicans claim they want to 'drain the swamp,' but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions," the California lawmaker said in a statement. "Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress."
Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, said Ryan should be ashamed of himself and his leadership team.
"We all know the so-called House Ethics Committee is worthless for anything other than a whitewash — sweeping corruption under the rug. That's why the independent Office of Congressional Ethics has been so important. The OCE works to stop corruption and that's why Speaker Ryan is cutting its authority. Speaker Ryan is giving a green light to congressional corruption."
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.
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AP Congressional Correspondent Erica Werner contributed to this report.
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The name of the office in this story has been corrected to the Office of Congressional Ethics, rather than the Office of Government Ethics. |
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Tue Jan 03, 2017 6:07 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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BREAKING: House Republicans just voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison.
House Republicans vote to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics
The ethics change, which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups, is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on…
pbs.org |
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Tue Jan 03, 2017 6:13 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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NEW YORK TIMES
With No Warning, House Republicans Vote to Gut Independent Ethics Office
By ERIC LIPTONJAN. 2, 2017
WASHINGTON — House Republicans, overriding their top leaders, voted on Monday to significantly curtail the power of an independent ethics office set up in 2008 in the aftermath of corruption scandals that sent three members of Congress to jail.
The move to effectively kill the Office of Congressional Ethics was not made public until late Monday, when Representative Robert W. Goodlatte, Republican of Virginia and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, announced that the House Republican Conference had approved the change. There was no advance notice or debate on the measure.
The surprising vote came on the eve of the start of a new session of Congress, where emboldened Republicans are ready to push an ambitious agenda on everything from health care to infrastructure, issues that will be the subject of intense lobbying from corporate interests. The House Republicans’ move would take away both power and independence from an investigative body, and give lawmakers more control over internal inquiries.
It also came on the eve of a historic shift in power in Washington, where Republicans control both houses of Congress and where a wealthy businessman with myriad potential conflicts of interest is preparing to move into the White House.
Speaker Paul D. Ryan and Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the majority leader, spoke out during the meeting to oppose the measure, aides said on Monday night. The full House is scheduled to vote on Tuesday on the rules, which would last for two years, until the next congressional elections.
In place of the office, Republicans would create a new Office of Congressional Complaint Review that would report to the House Ethics Committee, which has been accused of ignoring credible allegations of wrongdoing by lawmakers.
“Poor way to begin draining the swamp,” Tom Fitton, president of the conservative group Judicial Watch, said on Twitter. He added, “Swamp wins with help of @SpeakerRyan, @RepGoodlatte.”
Mr. Goodlatte defended the action in a statement on Monday evening, saying it would strengthen ethics oversight in the House while also giving lawmakers better protections against what some of them have called overzealous efforts by the Office of Congressional Ethics.
“The O.C.E. has a serious and important role in the House, and this amendment does nothing to impede their work,” the statement said in part.
But Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House minority leader, joined others who had worked to create the office in expressing outrage at the move and the secretive way it was orchestrated.
“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House G.O.P. has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” Ms. Pelosi said in a statement on Monday night. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”
The Office of Congressional Ethics has been controversial since its creation and has faced intense criticism from many of its lawmaker targets — both Democrats and Republicans — as its investigations have consistently been more aggressive than those conducted by the House Ethics Committee.
The body was created after a string of serious ethical issues starting a decade ago, including bribery allegations against Representatives Duke Cunningham, Republican of California; William J. Jefferson, Democrat of Louisiana; and Bob Ney, Republican of Ohio. All three were ultimately convicted and served time in jail.
The Office of Congressional Ethics, which is overseen by a six-member outside board, does not have subpoena power. But it has its own staff of investigators who spend weeks conducting confidential interviews and collecting documents based on complaints they receive from the public, or news media reports, before issuing findings that detail any possible violation of federal rules or laws. The board then votes on whether to refer the matter to the full House Ethics Committee, which conducts its own review.
But the House Ethics Committee, even if it dismisses the potential ethics violation as unfounded, is required to release the Office of Congressional Ethics report detailing the alleged wrongdoing, creating a deterrent to such questionable behavior by lawmakers.
Under the new arrangement, the Office of Congressional Complaint Review could not take anonymous complaints, and all of its investigations would be overseen by the House Ethics Committee itself, which is made up of lawmakers who answer to their own party.
The Office of Congressional Complaint Review would also have special rules to “better safeguard the exercise of due process rights of both subject and witness,” Mr. Goodlatte said. The provision most likely reflects complaints by certain lawmakers that the ethics office’s staff investigations were at times too aggressive, an allegation that watchdog groups dismissed as evidence that lawmakers were just trying to protect themselves.
“O.C.E. is one of the outstanding ethics accomplishments of the House of Representatives, and it has played a critical role in seeing that the congressional ethics process is no longer viewed as merely a means to sweep problems under the rug,” said a statement from Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, an ethics watchdog group that has filed many complaints with the Office of Congressional Ethics.
“If the 115th Congress begins with rules amendments undermining O.C.E., 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,” the statement continued.
One Republican House aide on Monday disputed the suggestion that the Office of Congressional Complaint Review was a new entity, arguing that the current staff would largely remain and that the outside board overseeing it would also continue to exist.
“It’s the same office, same people, most of the same rules,” said the House aide, who was not authorized to speak on the record.
Among the most prominent cases brought by the Office of Congressional Ethics since it was created was an investigation into Representative Maxine Waters, Democrat of California, who was accused of intervening with the Treasury Department to try to assist a struggling bank in which her husband owned stock.
Ms. Waters was ultimately cleared by the House Ethics Committee, but the committee criticized the actions of her grandson, who was then her chief of staff, and urged the House to consider broadening a ban on lawmakers’ hiring their relatives to include grandchildren.
By moving all of the authority to the House Ethics Committee, several ethics lawyers said, the House risks becoming far too protective of members accused of wrongdoing.
Bryson Morgan, who worked as an investigative lawyer at the Office of Congressional Ethics from 2013 until 2015, said that under his interpretation of the new rules, members of the House committee could move to stop an inquiry even before it was completed.
“This is huge,” said Mr. Morgan, who now defends lawmakers targeted in ethics investigations. “It effectively allows the committee to shut down any independent investigation into member misconduct. Historically, the ethics committee has failed to investigate member misconduct.” |
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Tue Jan 03, 2017 6:25 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives just did something that would make Frank Underwood blush, and Elizabeth Warren’s response is devastating.
In a Monday night vote, Rep. Robert Goodlatte (R-Virginia) introduced a series of rules that would gut the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) — an independent, nonpartisan agency set up by then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) in 2008 after several members of Congress were jailed for corruption and various other crimes. The vote comes the night before a crop of new Republican members of Congress will be sworn in. Among other things, Goodlatte’s proposed language would prevent the ethics agency from contacting law enforcement if they identify a crime.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) responded to the move in a devastating tweet that summed up the fundamental problem with Washington politicians:
Rep. Pelosi, who was recently reelected as House Minority Leader, piled on, hinting that her Republican counterparts appear to be preparing to violate longstanding ethical guidelines for members of Congress.
Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House G.O.P. has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” Pelosi said in a public statement. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”
PBS reported that Rep. Goodlatte proposed changing the name of the agency to the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, along with language that would eliminate its independent oversight. If passed in an official vote on Tuesday, the OCE would fall under the oversight of the House Ethics Committee, which is chaired by Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pennsylvania). Goodlatte’s proposal would also punish House Democrats if they attempted a sit-in on the House floor like their gun control demonstration last June, in the aftermath of the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
Jen Ahearn of the nonprofit Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) tweeted a summary of Goodlatte’s proposed new rules:
Pelosi oversaw the creation of the agency in the wake of the Jack Abramoff scandal, which resulted in Rep. Robert Ney (R-Ohio), Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-California), and half a dozen other members of Congress pleading guilty to a variety of charges like bribery, mail fraud, wire fraud, tax evasion, and making false statements.
Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan spoke out against the rules change, though he is likely to be overruled by his fellow Republicans.
Zach Cartwright is an activist and author from Richmond, Virginia. He enjoys writing about politics, government, and the media. Follow his work on the Public Banking Institute blog. |
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Tue Jan 03, 2017 7:18 am |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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ThinkProgress
Kira Lerner
Political Reporter at ThinkProgress. Contact me: klerner@thinkprogress.org
2 hrs ago
Flooded with phone calls from voters, House GOP drops effort to gut ethics panel
A North Carolina Republican said he got a “tremendous number of calls.”
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of Calif. discusses the move by House Republicans to eviscerate the independent Office of Government Ethics, during a network television interview on Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2017. McCarthy voted against the amendment but defended the overall effort by his caucus. CREDIT: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite
The House GOP reversed course on Tuesday, deciding in a closed door meeting to abandon a plan approved less than 24 hours earlier to gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE).
In an emergency conference meeting Tuesday morning, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) offered and the party approved a motion to restore the current OCE rules. The reversal came as members of Congress said their offices were flooded with calls from constituents angered by the decision.
“We have got just a tremendous number of calls to our office here and district offices concerned about this,” Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) said, according to Bloomberg News. Jones’ Communications Director Allison Tucker told ThinkProgress the congressman also received numerous emails and messages on Facebook from constituents.
After the secret vote Monday night, many people urged others on Twitter to call their members of Congress to find out how they voted. Lists of Congressional office phone numbers were retweeted thousands of times.
Democratic lawmakers also joined the outcry against the vote and publicly blasting the decision. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi declared that “ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”
President-elect Donald Trump also responded on Twitter Tuesday morning, saying that the OCE is “unfair” but questioning the House GOP’s timing. Nevertheless, media organizations credited “criticism” from Trump for the reversal.
Had the House not changed course, Congress would likely have adopted a rules package today that would have gutted OCE, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate corruption and misconduct by members of Congress. The office would have been renamed the Office of Congressional Complaint Review and would be nestled under the House Ethics Committee. The new body would have been unable to make any of its findings public or to refer them to law enforcement without approval.
A number of House Republicans have indicated that they still support crippling OCE, including Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), who said Tuesday that the move would guarantee due process for members of Congress. |
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Tue Jan 03, 2017 3:30 pm |
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untanglingwebs
El Supremo
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January 3, 2017 10:36 a.m.
The Congressman Who Helped Gut the Ethics Office Was Once Sued for Sexual Harassment
By Claire Landsbaum
Texas representative Blake Farenthold was instrumental in gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics.Photo: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call
On Monday, news broke that House Republicans voted privately to gut an independent ethics office that was established to hold members accountable for things like bribery, fraud, and conflicts of interest. They approved a measure that would put the Office of Congressional Ethics — a six-person board of private citizens — under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is made up of sitting members of the House of Representatives.
According to Politico, the change was proposed by several members of Congress who felt they’d been wrongfully accused by the OCE. One of those was Texas representative Blake Farenthold, who was accused by a former staffer of sexual harassment in 2014. The staffer alleged that Farenthold made comments about having “wet dreams” and sexual fantasies about her with the knowledge that she’d hear about his remarks. “On one specific occasion, Farenthold told Greene that she had something on her skirt and that he hoped his comment wouldn’t be taken for sexual harassment,” the complaint read. “A reasonable person would infer that Farenthold was joking that she had semen on her skirt.”
The staffer said she was fired after she complained about such treatment. Her lawsuit was eventually thrown out, but Farenthold reportedly “did not like the way the case was handled” by the OCE.
The lawsuit wasn’t the first time Farenthold had come under fire for his behavior; in 2010 his political opponent seized on a photo of the representative posing in pajamas next to a woman in lingerie. And just before the lawsuit was filed, it was discovered that he’d registered the domain name blow-me.org when he owned a computer consulting business in the ’90s.
Watchdog groups and House Democrats were quick to criticize the move to gut the OCE. “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,” Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington said in a statement. Senator Elizabeth Warren was even more explicit, tweeting, “Tell us: Who, exactly, thinks that the problem with Washington is that we have too many rules requiring the gov to act ethically?” |
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Tue Jan 03, 2017 3:57 pm |
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