National Post (National Edition)
HOUSE GOP TARGET OF TRUMP TWEET
Under fire for plan to gut ethics office
WASHINGTON • The new GOP era in Washington got off to a messy start Tuesday as House Republicans, under pressure from president-elect Donald Trump, abruptly dropped plans to gut an independent congressional ethics board.
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 neuter the independent Office of Congressional Ethics and place it under lawmakers’ control.
GOP leaders scrambled to contain the damage, and within hours of Trump registering his criticism on Twitter, they called an emergency meeting where House Republicans voted without opposition to undo the change.
The episode, coming even before the new Congress was 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.
GOP lawmakers who’ve felt unfairly targeted by the ethics office had defied their own leaders with their initial vote to neuter the body, but once Trump weighed in they backpedalled immediately.
“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 in a little over two weeks, said the focus should be on tax reform and health care, and he included the hashtag #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.
“We were elected on a promise to drain the swamp, and starting the session by relaxing ethics rules is a very bad start,” said GOP Rep. Tom McClintock of California.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy mentioned Trump’s opposition in the emergency meeting, and some lawmakers said it had a powerful effect.
“I do believe when president-elect Trump tweeted out ... members got calls,” said Rep. Lou Barletta. Trump spoke by phone with House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday after the ethics change was dropped.
The Office of Congressional Ethics was created in 2008 after several bribery and corruption cases in the House, 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 the government, and the House Ethics Committee ultimately cleared them.
Once the ethics controversy was dispensed with, Congress returned to the ceremonial business. As set out in the Constitution, both chambers gavelled in at noon, and as storm clouds threatened outside, the halls of the Capitol filled with lawmakers’ children, friends and spouses on hand to witness the procedures.
In the Senate, seven new members joined those who won re-election, taking the oath of office administered by Vice-President Joe Biden. The Senate will be controlled 52-48 by the GOP and includes two new Republicans and five new Democrats. They include Illinois’ Tammy Duckworth, a double-amputee Iraq war vet, who walked to the dais and stood for the oath.
Biden remains president of the Senate until Trump becomes president Jan. 20; then vice-president-elect Mike Pence will take over.