Maine’s Republican U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin said Tuesday that he would buck his own party by opposing a proposal to gut the Office of Government Ethics, just hours before House Republicans dropped those plans under intensifying pressure that also came from President-elect Donald Trump.
The dizzying about-face came as lawmakers convened for the first day of the 115th Congress, an occasion normally reserved for pomp and ceremony under the Capitol Dome. Instead, House Republicans found themselves under attack not only from Democrats, but from their new president, over their secretive move Monday to immediately neuter the independent Office of Congressional Ethics and put it under lawmakers’ control.
Republican leaders scrambled to contain the damage, and within hours of Trump registering his criticism over the timing on Twitter, they called an emergency meeting of House Republicans where lawmakers voted to undo the change that was part of a rules package.
The episode, coming even before the new Congress had convened and lawmakers were sworn in, was a powerful illustration of the sway Trump may hold over his party in a Washington that will be fully under Republican control for the first time in a decade.
In a statement Tuesday morning, Poliquin, who was elected in November to a second term, said “the American People have spoken overwhelmingly in the last election in sending us here to fix the real problems facing our Nation” and “this is not their priority.”
“While there should be important reforms made to the Office of Congressional Ethics that both Republicans and Democrats agree on, such as ensuring due process, I opposed this proposal,” Poliquin said in the statement. “I believe it’s important that these kinds of changes to the ethics office be made in a bipartisan effort and after robust debate and discussion from both parties.”
Later Tuesday morning, Trump criticized House Republicans for the ethics proposal.
“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,” Trump had asked over Twitter Tuesday morning, in an objection that appeared focused more on timing than on substance. Trump, who will take office later this month, said the focus should be on tax reform and health care, and included the hash-tag #DTS, for “Drain the Swamp,” his oft-repeated campaign promise to bring change to Washington.
Democrats and even many Republicans were quick to point out that the lawmakers’ plans for their ethics watchdog flew in the face of that notion.
The independent ethics office was created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison, but lawmakers of both parties have groused about the way it operates. Lawmakers were especially incensed by an investigation of members of Congress from both parties who went on a 2013 trip to Azerbaijan paid for by that country’s government. Lawmakers said after the investigation was made public in 2015 that they had no idea the trip was paid for by Azerbaijan’s government, and the House Ethics Committee ultimately cleared the lawmakers.
House Republicans voted Monday to make several changes to the ethics office, so it would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers. It would be known as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, and the rule change would require that “any matter that may involve a violation of criminal law must be referred to the Committee on Ethics for potential referral to law enforcement agencies after an affirmative vote by the members.”
The proposed change prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups.
Maine’s other congressional representative, Democratic Rep. Chellie Pingree, decried the ethics proposal in a statement Tuesday morning.
“I think it’s absolutely outrageous that House Republicans voted behind closed doors to gut and severely weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics,” Pingree said in the statement. “It shows a complete disregard for the trust that voters have put in us. Members of Congress must meet high ethical standards to make sure that we are acting in the public’s interest and not our own — this nonpartisan office is critical in uncovering incidents where those standards are violated so lawmakers can be held accountable.”
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