House GOP reverses course on gutting ethics panel

Source: Politico | January 3, 2017 |

Trump tweets his disapproval of Republicans’ decision to prioritize gutting the Office of Congressional Ethics.

Following a public outcry, and tweeted criticism from President-elect Donald Trump, House Republicans reversed course Tuesday on a proposal to gut their own ethics watchdog.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) called an emergency House GOP conference Tuesday around noon to scrap a proposed House rule that would have effectively declawed the Office of Congressional Ethics. The proposal, which House Republicans approved behind closed doors Monday night, would have defied Trump’s “drain the swamp” mantra aimed at making Washington more transparent and less cozy.

But McCarthy’s motion to restore the current OCE set-up was adopted by unanimous consent after Trump himself got involved — an intervention that irritated a number of House Republicans who supported the move to neuter the ethics office.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who said the ethics snafu was an unnecessary self-inflicted wound. “Sometimes people have to learn the hard way.”

“They need to know the gravity of this situation,” said one senior GOP source ahead of the vote to restore the OCE’s full powers, while noting that the office was not without flaws. “The best thing may be to unwind it.”

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