Rank-and-file House Republicans created a public relations headache for House Speaker Paul Ryan for the second time in as many months, forcing the Wisconsin Republican to rein them in the minutes before what was supposed to be a day of triumphant pomp and circumstance for the Republican Party.
Monday night a handful of lawmakers whose behavior the Office of Congressional Ethics has scrutinized persuaded colleagues during a closed-door meeting to back a proposal by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., that would have renamed the independent entity and put it under the House Ethics Committee’s purview.
Although supporters — and even Ryan — said the amendment, which would have been part of the rules package governing House operations for the 115th Congress, would not impede the nine-year-old ethics office’s work, the backlash was swift.
Democrats pounced.
“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions. Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress,” said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.
President-elect Trump, who ran on the “drain the swamp” platform, tweeted his displeasure.
“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog,” part of their list? Trump asked via Twitter.
The lawmakers’ chief complaint is that the Office of Congressional Ethics treated them shabbily — a complaint Trump acknowledged. “As unfair as it,” Trump added at the end of his tweet, referring to the OCE.
Good government groups from across the political spectrum chastised House Republicans for voting 119-74 to include Goodlatte’s amendment in the rules package.
Although initially Ryan let the “majority of the majority” rule, by Tuesday afternoon it was clear Republicans needed to back off the changes before the new Congress was gaveled to order and members sworn in.
Ryan hastily convened another House Republican Conference meeting before lawmakers took to the floor, and leadership pronounced the Goodlatte proposal dead shortly thereafter.
“I am wholly disappointed that these important reforms to strengthen due process rights and the mission of the OCE did not move forward,” Goodlatte said in a statement after the conference’s about-face. “Gross misrepresentation by opponents of my amendment, and the media willing to go along with this agenda, resulted in a flurry of misconceptions and unfounded claims about the true purpose of this amendment.
“To be perfectly clear, the OCE has a serious and important role in the House, and my amendment would have done nothing to impede their work or lessen the high ethical standards to which all members of Congress should be held,” he added.
That didn’t stop Democrats from stealing Republicans’ thunder during the perfunctory roll-call vote that saw Ryan elected speaker.
As each member was called on to state their preference for speaker, many Democrats declared their vote for Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., because they want an “ethical” and open House of Representatives. Instead of just stating “Pelosi,” about half the House Democratic Caucus took shots at the GOP and referenced the pulled Goodlatte amendment when called upon.
That was not exactly the message Republicans wanted to send on the first day of what they hope will be their most successful Congress in years. And it certainly flies in the face of Trump’s promise to “drain the swamp” that is cozy Washington.
House Republican leaders have already lined up legislation to hit the floor this week to roll back some of President Obama’s regulations and his signature healthcare law, but that is not what will be remembered about the first day of the 115th Congress.
“Not a good start for House Republicans,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., declared in a statement Tuesday.
Tuesday’s false start was reminiscent of another just after the GOP swept Election Day.
When lawmakers returned to Washington after the election and first began discussing what to include in the rules package, House Republicans angered fiscal conservatives and put watchdogs on alert with talk of bringing back earmarks — those pet projects that created numerous scandals for Republicans and were partially responsible for them losing the House in the 2008 elections.
Then, like Tuesday, Ryan had to talk members out of changes that looked like attempts to roll back reforms. But he also had to promised to address their concerns.
“Today, Speaker Paul Ryan pledged to create a transparent and accountable process to restore Congress’s constitutional spending authority by the end of the first quarter of 2017,” Rep. John Culberson, R-Texas, stated after dropping his push to adjust the earmark ban in November. “My colleagues and I agreed to withdraw our amendment based on the speaker’s promise because we are confident we can develop a method to handle directed congressional spending in a way that gives constituents confidence that their hard-earned tax dollars are being spent effectively.”
During Tuesday’s brief House GOP meeting, Republican leaders reportedly assured backers of Goodlatte’s amendment that they would craft a proposal to overhaul the OCE.
