Most members tell me blizzard of angry constituent calls were most impt factor in getting the House to sideline the amdt
— Robert Costa (@costareports) January 3, 2017
Trump didn't do this. You did this. Remember that. https://t.co/OlfRKNyHkw
— Jon Favreau (@jonfavs) January 3, 2017
Despite BettyC’s (quite sensible!) complaints, I choose to believe that scaring the Repubs into dropping their plans to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics is a victory for us decent Democrats. This is a good Washington Post summary — and if they’d left the last two words off their headline, it’d be even better — “House Republicans back off gutting ethics watchdog after backlash from Trump“:
… In a complete reversal, the House GOP moved to withdraw proposed changes they approved the day before to official rules that would rein in the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). Instead, the House will study changes to the office with an August deadline.
The about-face came hours after Trump took to Twitter to slam House Republicans for voting behind closed doors Monday night in favor of immediately weakening the independent ethics office. The vote defied House GOP leaders and complicated Trump’s “drain the swamp” campaign mantra…
Democrats and other watchdog groups were also critical of the Monday night vote. A coalition of more than a dozen organizations and activists expressed their frustration in a Tuesday morning letter to House Democratic and Republican leadership. Members also faced a barrage of angry phone calls from constituents.
“I can tell you the calls we’ve gotten in my district office and here in Washington surprised me, meaning the numbers of calls. People are just sick and tired,” Rep. Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.) said of the simmering outrage over the proposed change. “People are just losing confidence in the lack of ethics and honesty in Washington.”
In a statement, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said, “Republicans should remember the strength of public outrage they faced in the space of 12 hours as they scheme to do lasting damage to the health and economic security of millions and millions of hard-working families.”…
Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) pushed for the weakening of the OCE on Monday. His office said it would have provided “protections against any disclosures to the public or other government entities.”
A government official familiar with the internal operations of the OCE disputed Goodlatte’s assertion that the amendment would “strengthen” the office.
“Representative Goodlatte’s statement that this is an effort to strengthen ethics is a bald-faced lie,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak publicly and requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue. “This will do nothing but weaken the office and weaken ethics in Congress.”…
Also, note that we can use public outrage to leverage the difference between President-Asterisk Trump’s goals, and those of Zombie-Eyed Granny-Starver Paul Ryan and his fellow Repub thieves, fanatics, and grifters…
I'd go with outrage –> forced Trump's hand –> House GOP reversal, but YMMV. https://t.co/dC1Agsf6ce
— Daniel W. Drezner (@dandrezner) January 3, 2017
A timeline, of sorts:
.@Costareports on @MSNBC "rank and file GOP members don't like having the ethics committee around making them feel vulnerable all the time."
— Jodi Jacobson (@jljacobson) January 3, 2017
But they’re OK w people vulnerable from Muslim registries, or stop & frisk, or, like Philando Castille, getting 49 traffic stops in 13 years https://t.co/fid7Z7GNTq
— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) January 3, 2017
well, what if you were going to do a whole lot of corrupt shit and you didn't want to be nagged all the damn time by ethicists https://t.co/ZJggB4mlKJ
— Jason Linkins (@dceiver) January 3, 2017
If you want to understand why the House GOP would want to get rid of the OCE, here are the recent investigations: https://t.co/oQomaeD9WE
— Christy Fletcher (@FletcherChristy) January 3, 2017
(A whole smorgasboard of mostly-petty illegality, ranging from the classics — travel freebies for Congresscritters’ families, Alan Grayspan’s insufficiently blind hedge funds, special amendments to protect some Texan Repub’s auto dealership — to a guy getting too close to endorsing the video game League of Legends.)
Open Thread: An Ethics Win, If We Can Keep ItPost + Comments (67)