Renewed efforts by House Republicans to impose changes on the Office of Congressional Ethics, a nonpartisan body that investigates lawmakers for misconduct, will only dampen public transparency, watchdogs say.
As part of its negotiated rules package, the House GOP is proposing term limits for OCE board members and also a mandate against the office hiring any staff 30 days from the rules package’s approval. However, watchdogs told the Washington Examiner the potential changes to OCE would make it more difficult for it to hold members of Congress accountable and are not in the public’s interest.
The House is currently on its fourth day of House speaker voting as Republicans decide whether to elect Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) or someone else. The chamber is adjourned until 10 p.m. on Friday and will vote on the proposed rules package should lawmakers elect a speaker, according to multiple reports.
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“These things are clever machinations to render OCE useless,” said Peter Flaherty, CEO of the National Legal and Policy Center, a conservative watchdog group. “How can [Republicans] be the reform party when the first thing they do is emasculate an ethics enforcer?”
“It’s such a lame attempt that anyone can see through it,” he added.
OCE is an independent body established in 2008 that reviews misconduct allegations against members of Congress and, if applicable, refers cases to the House Ethics Committee. The office lacks subpoena power, spends about three months reviewing matters, and is composed of eight voting members: four Democrats and four Republicans.
The office also fields complaints from outside organizations that it reviews. For instance, the Washington Examiner revealed in November that the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust, a watchdog, filed a complaint to OCE over Rep. Earl Blumenauer’s (D-OR) wife buying stock in a company before the Department of Health and Human Services, which the congressman oversees through a subcommittee role, handed the company hundreds of millions of dollars.
Republicans have previously targeted OCE’s power. In 2017, the House GOP scrapped a plan after blowback from former President Donald Trump that would have placed OCE under the House Ethics Committee’s oversight — effectively allowing lawmakers to judge themselves.
“This doesn’t quite go as far as that,” Jordan Libowitz, spokesman for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a left-leaning watchdog, told the Washington Examiner. “But it’s a pretty big issue.”
“Anything that could weaken OCE, done by either party, is fairly short-sighted,” said Libowitz. “You should want a nonpartisan group that can investigate Congress. The big problem we have in the Senate is that there isn’t a similar board to OCE. So it’s just the Senate in charge of policing the Senate — which is why no one ever gets punished for anything.”
The proposed changes to OCE come as Republicans continue to be scrutinized in connection to the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. OCE could investigate House GOP members who have defied subpoenas issued by the Jan. 6 committee, such as McCarthy. There has also been speculation among Congress that OCE could investigate George Santos, the GOP representative-elect from New York who was found to have lied extensively about his resume.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) is notably being investigated by the House Ethics Committee after OCE referred to it a complaint that has not been publicly disclosed. Flaherty’s group and the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust filed two separate complaints in 2021 alleging that Ocasio-Cortez may have violated House rules by accepting free tickets to the Met Gala — among other matters related to her attendance at the event.
Craig Holman, a government affairs lobbyist for the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told the Washington Examiner that the House GOP’s efforts to modify how OCE operates would “neuter ethics enforcement.”
“The first provision is designed to remove the long-standing Democrats from the board,” he said. “The second is to make it difficult for OCE to staff its office. These are measures that will render the ethics office ineffectual and which no member, from either party, should support.”
Since 2008, OCE has referred 50 Republicans and 52 Democrats to the House Ethics Committee, according to its website. The committee met 15 times in 2021 and nine times in 2022, according to a report it published on Monday.
OCE declined a Washington Examiner request for comment. The House Ethics Committee did not respond.
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“You can look at their cases over the years, and they’ve done a credible and professional job,” said Flaherty, describing OCE. “Obviously, it’s not a perfect institution. But it’s marginally better than the ethics committee because it is somewhat more independent.”
“And it’s not the perfect solution to all the ethics problems on Capitol Hill. But it’s been a useful agent that outside groups can work with when there’s egregious House rules violations,” added Flaherty.
