Gutting Congress’ Ethics Office Was a Disaster – and an Opportunity; Just Security, January 19, 2023

Gabe Lezra, Just Security; Gutting Congress’ Ethics Office Was a Disaster – and an Opportunity

"The new House Republican majority, finally seated after days of embarrassing negotiations that resulted in Representative Kevin McCarthy being sworn in as Speaker, made their priorities clear on Jan. 9. With their first official vote, they approved a House rules package that effectively gutted the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE), the independent body that helps ensure that members of the House don’t abuse their positions. It was a striking decision that sent a clear message: the new far-right majority will demand that the other branches of government live up to ethical standards and practices that they themselves have no intention of following.

McCarthy’s attack on OCE consisted of two components: first, the resolution forcedthree of the four Democrats who currently sit on the OCE Board to vacate their positions immediately. This move, which was facially based on a decision to implement term limits, undermined the bipartisan nature of OCE’s leadership and left the Board in an extremely difficult and partisan position to hire staff. Second, the new rules require OCE to hire all of its staff within 30 days – and it would likely only be able to do that after it has hired sufficient Board members. This absurd requirement fails to recognize that OCE relies on employees with a detailed and relatively rare legal skillset, making hiring a complex and time-intensive process. On top of the impossibly rushed hiring process, the provision appears written to prevent OCE from hiring any new staff after the 30-day window closes – meaning that the agency wouldn’t be able to replace staff who retire or change jobs for the entirety of the 118th Congress.

This is not the first time Republicans have attempted to destroy OCE. In 2017, Republicans voted behind closed doors to strip OCE of its independence and place it under the control of the House Ethics Committee, a move they only abandoned when former President Donald Trump denounced it on Twitter. House Republicans’ bizarre obsession with OCE ignores the fact that OCE is not a powerful institution. It is, at base, a screen to save Congressional resources. OCE prevents members and their staff from using their limited time and resources to sift through allegations of members’ potential ethics violations, determine if any are credible, and conduct preliminary investigations. OCE is supposed to save Congress time.

Despite the plethora of serious allegations that the Ethics Committee considers, the Committee itself is incredibly weak and generally unwilling to punish members. This failure is not OCE’s fault. OCE does not levy punishments, nor does it recommend them. One of its first chairs, David Skaggs, famously explained that OCE’s function is to “supplement but not supplant” the Ethics Committee. OCE’s subservient relationship to the dysfunctional Ethics Committee means that OCE’s power goes only as far as the members of the Ethics Committee will allow it. Which, in most cases, is not far at all.

This begs the question: Why was gutting OCE the new majority’s first vote in the 118th Congress? The answer is simple. They wanted to dismantle one of the key ways that members of Congress can be held accountable when they abuse their positions of trust – and they succeeded. It could not have come at a worse time."