GOP scars its opening-day rollout with ethics bungle

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.