The Republicans’ Move Against Ethics — And How It Backfired
House GOP reverses stance after backlash
By Jordan Jenkins
The Progressive Teen Staff Writer
IN AN UNEXPECTED START TO THE 115th CONGRESS, House Republicans quickly went to work on their promise to “drain the swamp” and voted in a closed-door party meeting on the eve of the start of a new session of Congress to effectively gut the independent investigative ethics watchdog known as the Office of Congressional Ethics.
The proposed measure, which was introduced by Representative Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, would have stripped the Office of Congressional Ethics of its independent status by placing it under the authority of the House Ethics Committee itself, which suffers from the flaw of being made up by partisan lawmakers. It would have also severely limited the office’s ability to effectively conduct and discuss investigation by restricting where the office could get its information and how it could communicate and publish its findings. The measure was to be enacted by editing the rules of the House of Representatives, which are voted every two years by representatives after congressional elections.
Established in 2008 by a Democrat controlled Congress, the office was set up as a result of the Democratic Party’s campaign to clean up the “culture of corruption,” an idea that Democrats weaponized in the wake of multiple Congressional corruption scandals that mostly involved Republicans. Tasked with reviewing and investigating the ethics of members of the House of Representatives on the basis of complaints, it was designed to be completely independent from the House of Representatives itself and run by those with no involvement in the workings of the federal government, freeing it from partisan or personal biases.
In the years since its creation, the Office of Congressional Ethics has often come under fire by those it investigates, most often Republicans, as being unfair and an evasion of due process, seeing as the office does keep a public presence and often communicates its doings. This partisan dissent with the office and its actions eventually culminated in the actions of last week.
In the secretive Republican Party meeting last Monday in which the proposal was discussed and voted on, the move faced little resistance, only with dissent being expressed by important congressional figures like the current Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan. No word of the proposal or the meeting was released until late that evening, and when news did get out, it sparked a quick, fierce, and organized backlash; so much so that House Republicans backed down from the move before the House of Representatives had even met in its first session the following Tuesday.
In the secretive Republican Party meeting last Monday in which the proposal was discussed and voted on, the move faced little resistance, only with dissent being expressed by important congressional figures like the current Speaker of the House, Paul Ryan.
The attempt to eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics, as well as its failure, certainly set an embarrassing narrative for the Republican Party. The following days were supposed to convey a message of triumph and strength after a favoring election. Acting on this in particular as one of their first moves, Republicans seem to have set the stage for a Congress that isn’t going to be touting the same populist and anti-corruption messages that put them in charge.
Even if the Republican Party went into this situation with the intent to, in fact, “strengthen” the office while also ensuring due process (as has been said by some of the proposal’s supporters), there would have been no possible way to portray this in a positive light to the public eye, especially with the abrupt and secretive way it was carried out. Even President-elect Donald Trump himself sent out a tweet complaining less about the actions themselves and more so on the timing and was able to recognize how bad this looked.
The true story, though, does not lie with the plans of House Republicans, but rather the organized backlash that forced them to back down. In only the 24 hours after the news of the Republicans’ intentions to effectively demolish the Office of Congressional Ethics, there was an outcry that, unlike ones before, was not only contained to social media, but rather used as a tool to spark real world change. Constituents made phone calls to Republican members of congress en masse with the help of phone numbers circulated on websites like Twitter. Protesters arrived at the offices of their Representatives with messages warning against the passing of these measures.
The true story, though, does not lie with the plans of House Republicans, but rather the organized backlash that forced them to back down.
All of these actions in unison were enough to make House Republicans back away from their plans, showing that the voice of the public will continue to be heard and hold weight as long as it is loud. But most of all it shows exactly what will be needed of an organized, vocal, and united resistance if the Republican agenda is going to be effectively challenged.
