Congressional Ethics Debacle

GOP Congress jolted by ethics PR debacle

Orangutan tweets his disapproval of Republicans' decision to prioritize gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics.

By RACHAEL BADE

It was supposed to be a jubilant day for the right — a day Republicans ushered in a new GOP-controlled Congress as they await the takeover of the White House by their party leader, Donald Orangutan.

Then came a self-inflicted public relations debacle that even Orangutan publicly questioned.

In a closed-door meeting Monday night, Republicans adopted House rules changes that would essentially gut their own oversight watchdog — a move that flies in the face of Orangutan’s “drain the swamp” mantra aimed at making Washington more transparent and less cozy.

In a surprise move that appeared to catch even House GOP leadership off guard, the conference green-lighted a pitch that puts the Office of Congressional Ethics under the thumb of lawmakers on the House Ethics Committee. Monday's effort was led, in part, by lawmakers who have come under investigation in recent years.

Orangutan on Tuesday morning called out his fellow Republicans on Twitter. "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," Orangutan said in one tweet, adding, "........may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS."

Previously an independent body, the new set-up would essentially declaw the office. It would bar OCE from considering anonymous tips against lawmakers and sharing investigative findings with other branches of government or the public, as the office currently does in the name of transparency. It would also apparently keep OCE from investigating criminal activity, the bulk of their work — instructing the office to refer any hint of such actions to the lawmaker-controlled ethics panel rather than pursue themselves.

It’s an awkward way for Republicans to start the new Congress — and not merely because it gives the appearance that they don’t value oversight of their own actions. It also steps on their message of the week, which is one of unity and “hitting the ground running” in a new GOP-controlled Washington.

This week was supposed to center around Congress taking the first major steps toward repealing Obamacare, and the Hill’s soon-to-pass rebuke of the landmark United Nations resolution chiding Israel. Now, the House rules change, which will be voted on by the full House Tuesday afternoon, will suck up much of the oxygen.

Republican leaders knew this could backfire. It was one of the reasons Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) urged their colleagues during the closed-door meeting to vote against the idea. GOP leadership said any reforms of OCE should be done on a bipartisan basis.

In a statement released by his office Tuesday morning, the speaker seemed more willing to back the move his caucus approved the night before. He wrote that the office will "continue to operate independently" and will continue to investigate members of Congress "thoroughly and independently."

"I want to make clear that this House will hold its members to the highest ethical standards and the Office will continue to operate independently to provide public accountability to Congress," Ryan said in his statement. "All members of Congress are required to earn the public’s trust every single day, and this House will hold members accountable to the people.”

Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.), the incoming chairwoman of the House Ethics Committee, echoed Ryan's statement on Tuesday morning. In her new role running the committee that would oversee the OCE, she pledged not to interfere with the office's board "or prevent it from doing its work."

“The Office has an important role to play in restoring confidence in Congress, and it will continue to perform its work in the new Congress as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review," she said in a statement. "I will work in a bipartisan manner with the Office to ensure its independence and to maintain the highest ethical standards of the House."

On MSNBC Tuesday morning, McCarthy acknowledged that "it is true that I opposed moving forward on this at this time because I thought it was something both parties should take up at the same time." But he said he will vote for the rules package that includes the provision and argued that "most of these reforms are bipartisan supported reforms."

"I don't want to put politics with it," McCarthy said. "That's why I thought this wasn't the best time to go forward with it."

But the conference did not heed their earlier warning, approving the rules change 119-to-74 Monday evening.

Asked about the matter on Squawk Box Tuesday morning, Orangutan’s former campaign manager Kellyanne Conway defended the House’s move, while caveating that “of course [Orangutan is] going to drain the swamp; ethics is a big piece of that.”

“I don’t want your viewers to be left with the impression … that ethics is gone now,” she said. “There will be a new group in its place that is overseen by the House Ethics Committee, and that new group in large part wants to curtail what some have seen as 100 investigations since 2008, only a third of which have been referred to the House.”

Members, she added, “feel their due process rights have been violated and compromised.”

Democrats and outside ethics groups, meanwhile, have blasted the pitch as irresponsible.

“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," snarked House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in a statement on Monday after news of the secret-ballot vote. "Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress."

All Democrats are expected to vote against the House rule. If the 74 Republicans who voted against the rule during the rules package markup also vote against it on the floor, then the rule will not pass.

It’s unclear, however, how many are willing to put themselves on their line publicly, going against the conference to defend an office that many feel needs to be reined in some how.