http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nati ... story.htmlHouse GOP backs down on ethics changes after widespread criticism
A day of pageantry to open the 115th Congress and usher in a new period of Republican governance was overtaken Tuesday by an embarrassing reversal on ethics oversight, with the GOP gripped by internal division and many lawmakers seeking to shield themselves from extensive scrutiny.
The 19 hours of tumult was set in motion the night before behind closed doors at the Longworth House Office Building, where Republican lawmakers decided over the objections of Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., to amend House rules to effectively gut the independent Office of Congressional Ethics.
They awoke Tuesday to an intense public outcry. Social media lit up with criticism of representatives trying to rein in the ethics office created a decade ago in the aftermath of scandals. Angry constituents inundated their representatives' offices with calls of protest. Journalists peppered lawmakers with questions. The halls of the Capitol felt chaotic.
Then, at 10:30 a.m., came the loudest objection of all: A pair of tweets from President-elect Donald Trump scolding Congress for making the weakening of the ethics watchdog its "number one act and priority." He punctuated his second tweet with the hashtag "DTS" - shorthand for "drain the swamp," one of his campaign-trail mantras.
With Washington's latest power dynamics in their nascent state, Tuesday's events illustrated the weight of Trump's voice in discussions on Capitol Hill. The president-elect's tweets hovered over everything and helped turn what might otherwise have been an insider-driven rule change into a national ruckus over government ethics.
The events were fast-moving Tuesday morning. As Trump was using his political capital on Congress, Republican House leaders were meeting in Ryan's office contemplating just how the day had gotten away from them - and what they might do to salvage it. Ryan would soon be sworn in for another term as speaker, and his wife and children, dressed up for the occasion, lingered outside.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., told the leaders that the rules legislation with the ethics amendment would have trouble getting the 218 votes needed to pass the floor - and they decided it must be scrapped.[the vote in the conference meeting was 119-74, with both McCarthy and Ryan opposed]
The leaders called an emergency meeting of Republican House members in the Capitol basement. McCarthy pointedly asked the members whether they had campaigned last fall on decimating the ethics office - or on repealing President Barack Obama's health-care law and changing the tax code.
The windowless room fell silent, according to several lawmakers in attendance. McCarthy gave them an ultimatum: Reverse course now, among fellow Republicans, or take a public floor vote. He asked for unanimous consent to remove the rules change - and shortly after noon, he got it. The push to amend ethics rules was now dead, or at least fast asleep.
"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 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."
So a combination of three things; public outrage, a scolding from Trump, and so many Republicans opposed that it might have failed on a floor vote brought an end to this idiotically politically tone deaf idea...
The sharpies behind this thought that by pushing it through in the middle of the night right before the opening session of the new Congress it would receive little notice, but all that tactic did was assure that it would dominate the very first post-holiday news cycle...
There are some legitimate complaints about the way this committee operates that have been raised by members of both parties (it takes very little to trigger an investigation, and leaks of information about the investigations happen more often then not) but this meat axe approach right at the outset of the new Congressional term is about as bad a self-inflicted PR move as I can imagine...
