Boy, if there’s one thing Republicans who control the Legislative and Executive Branches hate, it appears to be independent ethics commissions. South Dakota Republican legislators sued to stop a voter-approved state ethics commission from coming into being before the 2017 Session. Now House Republicans in Washington have voted in caucus to hamstring their own independent Office of Congressional Ethics:
Behind closed doors, the caucus voted to approve an amendment to a broader House rules package that would put the office under the House Ethics Committee and significantly restrict its authority. The House will vote Tuesday on the rules package as members open the 115th Congress.
…Other changes would include requiring that any matter potentially involving a violation of criminal law be referred to the Ethics Committee. The OCE also would be barred from considering anonymous complaints, and its jurisdiction would be limited to the last three Congresses [Billy House and Erik Wasson, “House GOP Votes to Strip Ethics Office of Independent Status,” Bloomberg, 2017.01.02].
The Washington Post reports other changes:
Under the proposed new rules, the office could not employ a spokesperson, investigate anonymous tips or refer criminal wrongdoing to prosecutors without the express consent of the Ethics Committee, which would gain the power to summarily end any OCE probe [Mike DeBonis and Karoun Demirjian, “House Republicans Vote to Rein in Independent Ethics Office,” Washington Post, 2017.01.02].
In other words, if the OCE sees something, they can’t say something.
As the copy of the proposed amendment posted by the New York Times indicates, even the name of the Office of Congressional Ethics will change, to “Office of Congressional Complaint Review.”
In a sign of the Newspeak era we are entering, sponsor Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) says his amendment “strengthens” the OCE/OCCR.
WaPo says the GOP conference vote was 119–74. Rep. Kristi Noem hasn’t returned from her holiday Twitter drift, but she didn’t list gutting the OCE on her pre-Christmas policy agenda, so maybe there’s hope that she was one of the 74 who recognized that Congress only has 14 approval points left and that doing less on ethics won’t keep them. Or, maybe she’s so busy watching the Rose Parade and being “all in” for Governor that she was one of the 48 Republicans who didn’t make the caucus meeting. But we’ll get her on the record on ethics today when the 115th Congress votes on its rules for the session right after its swearing-in… which will be followed swiftly by several swearings-at.
The foxes are guarding the hen house. Unbelievable.
Blue City Embraces Ethics …
The Denver Post Editorials
A needed update for ethics rules
For too long the public has been in the dark about the value of meals and tickets that lobbyists and others with city business have lavished on Denver officials.
Ethics requirements in this home-rule city are so weak that elected officials are, for the most part, simply to list, once a year, and in some dark file room that’s not accessible by the internet, that they received a gift and who it came from. That said, the rules do have some real value. Officials can’t take money or loans, for example. And they are limited to how many perks like meals and tickets they can accept from a single entity.
After two years of work, the Denver City Council is on the verge of increasing what city officials must report in gift disclosures, how often the disclosures must be filed and requiring that the reports be made available online.
Self-imposed regulation is never easy, and we applaud the efforts of City Council members, particularly Councilman Kevin Flynn, to tackle this needed reform.
The council is expected to vote Tuesday night on a bill that would revise municipal code so that elected and appointed officials must disclose twice a year “the identification, estimated value, and the source of any gifts … in excess of $50.”
Councilwoman Robin Kniech has a proposal that would drop the threshold for reporting so all gifts are reported. Her idea makes sense, given that some groups may give multiple gifts just under the threshold for reporting that may elude scrutiny.
It seems likely the bill will pass and we hope that happens.
But disclosing the value and the source of gifts is just the first step.
Flynn is working on a bill that would also impose financial limits to the gifts from individual sources.
We hope the upgrades cut down on some of the extravagance we suspect is occurring, simply because before officials accept a steak at The Palm Restaurant, they’ll consider how it’ll look come re-election time.
State officials abide by the overly stringent Amendment 41 limits that ban gifts, even beverages, from lobbyists completely and limits other gifts to essentially $50 plus any inflation since voters passed the amendment in 2006.
Elected officials at the state level have said that strict limit has stifled the ordinary interactions between the makers of laws and those impacted by them (but that’s for another editorial, another day).
We hope officials find the political will to impose a reasonable limit of some sort on gifts in the coming months — Flynn’s proposal is around $300 per group, per year. That seems like a reasonable jumping-off point.
And while we’re making our wish list, we still think it would be prudent for city officials to create a system for anonymous reporting of ethics complaints. Certainly the ethics commission can ferret out legitimate complaints from the frivolous. We feel that requiring every ethics complaint to be signed by an accuser stifles a whistle-blower environment that can be healthy for an organization.
That issue has been a dicey one and we’re glad the board is moving forward where they can with consensus.
An update of the 2001 Code of Ethics was long overdue, and even if it’s a piecemeal approach, city officials deserve our respect for tackling it in this new year.
In a surprise move, House Republicans made ethics oversight their first piece of business. They voted Monday night behind closed doors to put Congress’s independent ethics office under the control of the House ethics committee.
I remember some wingnuts whining about a certain Black Potus who wouldn’t offer to work with wingnuts- after they bit his hand the first couple dozen ties he extended it across the aisle.
Wisconsin made their independent ethics commission totally partisan and tried to get the new Drumpf admonishtration to do the same. Easier to ignore ethics when one party controls them.
President-Elect Trump responds this morning with this double tweet obliquely criticizing the House GOP’s action:
Note that he doesn’t say the action is wrong. He just says there are more important things to do first.
So this is what draining the swamp looks like. Who knew the best way to eliminate corruption is by not looking for it!
Seriously-Drumpf is hardly the one I’d want talking about ethics to others.
Wingnuts did say they had planned to make sweeping changes w/o consulting the loyal opposition because they think they can get away with it. They are also sure they will pick up many more congressional seats in 2 years they can go ahead and eliminate the ACA and allow it to linger until after the 2018 elections. More rigged elections coming?
More rigged elections, coming. But, hey. All the best hackers are Democrats. Wait and see when we start leaking information. By the way, over 50 tax accountant experts said Don Trump’s tax exemption of a billion bucks was illegitimate. Maybe he’ll also address that this week when he backstrokes on divesting his empire.
Funny: Trump sure campaigned as if “draining the swamp” was one of the first things Congress should work on. His statement that the OCE is “unfair” runs counter to Trumpist rhetoric. Both the House GOP and Trump have some serious ethical myopia.
Drumpf said he would “take on” Wall Street and now at least 17 billionaires on on his cabinet and WH team. Good pun, Donnie.
Wingnut congressmen complained they were targeted unfairly. I’d like to hear HRC’s opinions of unfairly targeted.
“Republican ehtics” is the true definition of an OXYMORON!
Micromanaging Capital Hill from a cell phone? Now that’s got potential. he he
Don embarrassed the bejabbers out of them and they dropped it. How did our NOem vote? Ryan got his arse kicked deservedly so the little weasel
Even though the House reversed itself on the OCE, its intention is clear and is an apt expression of the level of moral and intellectual integrity of the GOP. Our president elect is a model of wretchedness and wants to carry the black flag of dishonor himself.
Trump and Congress are irrelevant. Whatever future America has will be determined in the streets and the fields of Cannonball.
Rise, Radical college professors. Remember Kent State and what we can do in the streets when necessary. “Police Brutality … Power To The People”
http://img.wonkette.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/fox.jpg
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
we’re finally on our own
this summer I hear the drumming
4 dead in O-hi-o
Cannonball was an old tv series about a trucker. Starred Claude Akins if memory serves. Circa way back when.
Nixon directly was responsible for 25,000 dead American soldiers, 500,000 wounded American soldiers, a couple of million dead Vietnamese. Proven without doubt now of prolonging the war from 1968 until 1975. Nixon lied, American soldiers died. Nixon’s papers show how it was easily done. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/31/opinion/sunday/nixons-vietnam-treachery.html?_r=0
Kent State direct result of Nixon lie, Jackson State, the same. The complete indifference to all of that killing and then the lies that followed, should be revisited as this is looking like deja vu all over again. The war machine is bigger now and more lethal. The police are militarized now and more lethal.
To be honest, though, the OCE can only do two things; issue a public report (i.e., bad press), and refer findings to the House Ethics Committee. OCE has been very careless at times issuing damaging press releases that had no substance. It definitely needs reform, but this wasn’t handled very well.
Miss Lindsey Graham-(w-SC) says getting rid of the ethics committee was the “dumbest frickin’ thing I ever heard of.” Then he said wingnuts should concentrate on making people’s lives better by cutting taxes and killing ISIS.
There are a number of austere red states that could auger cutting taxes doesn’t improve anyone’s lives, unless they are billionaires.
The House has started off looking like the Keystone Cops. So much for hoping we’d principled and competent Republicans to check Trump’s excesses.
House reneged-for now. They are putting changes off until August when everyone is on vacation.
Trump claims responsibility for the House backtracking in 3…2…1….
I see while our governor wannabe (Noem) was too cowardly to speak for OR against this when it was proposed……she is now doing cartwheels and cheers for joy that the course was reversed. You just can’t make this stuff up!
Dicta, some news sources are giving Trump credit despite his tweets that only argued with the timing of the rule change rather than the substance:
http://www.salon.com/2017/01/03/the-medias-trump-ethics-failure-crediting-the-president-elect-for-an-anti-corruption-stand-he-didnt-make/?source=newsletter
Drumpf’s mouthpiece, K-A Conway sez congress has a mandate to change ethics rules since they won a majority of both houses of congress. They already had a majority with the house majority shrinking slightly. Truth had been the first casualty in this war.
Wait until they tackle NOem’s Obamacare pet. That one is gonna bring the House down and will eliminate NOem from her shot at Pierre. She better stay in Washington because there will be no soup for her here. Talk about Keystone Cops, this will be their Nightmare on K Street.
http://juanitajean.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Screen-Shot-2017-01-03-at-1.42.22-PM.png
This pic was taken at a party with at least one underage girl scantily clad close to congresspig Blake Farenthold of Texas. No wonder he doesn’t like ethics committees.
iowa’s Dipshot Steve King wants to prevent the Scotus from citing it’s own ACA cases in the future.
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/steve-king-obamacare-supreme-court
Of course he is being laffed at.
mfi, it is interesting to me that Obamacare is the most important thing to repeal for these guys. Who would have thunk it that Obamacare is the biggest threat to them, even more so than abortion. There is no money in abortion, only political chatter that is dragged out each election cycle. The good news though is that the precious unborn baby’s called guns, will not be blathered about for the next few cycles…That is until Don decides they need to be registered and regulated. At that point, the left will rise to defend them, as defenders of the Constitution. Life is funny like that.