In their first act of the new year, House Republicans held a secret meeting and a secret vote to essentially kill the Office of Congressional Ethics. From Eric Lipton at The New York Times:
The surprising vote came on the eve of the start of a new session of Congress, where emboldened Republicans are ready to push an ambitious agenda on everything from health care to infrastructure, issues that will be the subject of intense lobbying from corporate interests. The House Republicans’ move would take away both power and independence from an investigative body, and give lawmakers more control over internal inquiries. [...]
By moving all of the authority to the House Ethics Committee, several ethics lawyers said, the House risks becoming far too protective of members accused of wrongdoing. [...] “This is huge,” said [Bryson Morgan, who worked as an investigative lawyer at the Office of Congressional Ethics from 2013 until 2015], who now defends lawmakers targeted in ethics investigations. “It effectively allows the committee to shut down any independent investigation into member misconduct. Historically, the ethics committee has failed to investigate member misconduct.”
Margaret Hartmann:
Democrats were already opposed to the package of rules changes, which includes measures introduced by Ryan in an apparent attempt to prevent protests from the House floor, like the Democrats sit in against gun violence last year. Many said hobbling the ethics board shows Republicans actually have no intention of following one of Donald Trump’s key campaign promises. [...]
“It should be clear by now that Donald Trump – already the most corrupt and conflicted President-elect in history – is betraying his promise to drain the swamp,” said Democratic National Committee spokesman Eric Walker. “Now Republicans in the House are following his example, attempting to cripple the independent entity that deals with ethics in Congress.”
To be clear, Trump has no direct role in the House GOP’s effort to curtail ethics investigations of its members. The president-elect recently insisted that his effort to “drain the swamp” is still on, and he could prove it by calling on members of his party to leave the Office of Congressional Ethics alone. On the other hand, Trump probably doesn’t want to start a war with the body that’s supposed to hold him accountable for ethics violations.
Rachel Bade and John Bresnahan at POLITICO:
Monday's effort was led, in part, by lawmakers who have come under investigation in recent years. [...] Now, the office would be under the thumb of lawmakers themselves. The proposal also appears to limit the scope of the office’s work by barring them from considering anonymous tips against lawmakers. And it would stop the office from disclosing the findings of some of their investigations, as they currently do after the recommendations go to House Ethics. [...]
The vote to declaw the OCE was orchestrated by several members who felt they had been wrongfully accused of unethical behavior by the OCE, according to several sources in the room. The sources said several members currently or formerly under the OCE's microscope stood up to support the pitch, which was eventually adopted by a vote of 119 to 74.
Josh Marshall at TPM:
Now, the reports from Capitol Hill are that Speaker Ryan and Majority Leader McCarthy warned against the move. And I don't doubt that that's true as far as it goes. As in they said, oh please don't do this. But c'mon! If the Speaker of the House and the Majority Leader really don't want something to happen, they can stop it. They didn't. The vote passed 119 to 74.
This is all part of Ryan's 'better way.'
So who voted for it and who didn't? If you live in a Republican district by all means call your member of Congress and find out. It's called Rep. Goodlatte's proposal to put the OCE under the authority of the Ethics Committee.
Turning to Donald Trump and his lies about job creation, The New York Times pens an editorial on the topic and uses the word “lie” in the headline — looking at you, WSJ:
It’s easy to see why SoftBank and Sprint might want to help Mr. Trump take credit for creating jobs. SoftBank’s chief executive, Masayoshi Son, wants the Department of Justice’s antitrust division and the Federal Communications Commission to allow a merger between Sprint and T-Mobile. In 2014 regulators appointed by President Obama made clear to Mr. Son that they would not approve such a transaction because it would cut the number of national wireless companies to three, from four, greatly reducing competition in a concentrated industry. Mr. Son sees a new opening for his deal in Mr. Trump, who has surrounded himself with people who have sided with large telecommunications companies in regulatory debates and have argued against tough antitrust enforcement.
This is crony capitalism, with potentially devastating consequences. If Mr. Trump appoints people to the antitrust division and the F.C.C. who are willing to wave through a Sprint/T-Mobile merger, he will do lasting damage to the economy that far outweighs any benefit from 5,000 jobs, jobs that might have been created even without the merger. Individuals and businesses will find wireless service costs a lot more when they have only Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile/Sprint to choose from.
John Nichols makes an excellent point at The Nation:
Trump earned 2.9 million fewer votes than his Democratic rival. The Republican earned just 46.1 percent of the popular vote. Only a narrow Electoral College advantage made his president-elect.
Republican Senate candidates earned a little over 42 percent of the vote in contests across the country. Far from receiving the a full-throttle endorsement from an electorate that is enthusiastic about approving Trump’s extreme Cabinet picks and potentially even more extreme judicial nominees, the Senate Republican Caucus lost two seats.
Republican House candidates earned roughly 49 percent of the vote in contests across the country. Far from receiving a full-throttle endorsement of an electorate that is enthusiastic about dismembering Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security and redistributing wealth upward to the billionaire class, Ryan’s House caucus lost six seats.
And we close today’s roundup with Eugene Robinson:
To read Trump’s win as some kind of sweeping victory for conservatism would be absurd. Progressive voices, loud ones, will be needed to hold him accountable. One thing we learned during the campaign is that Trump’s voters — unlike many congressional Republicans — do not necessarily see big government as oppressive. They rely on its help. [...]
Remember that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote. I point that out not to delegitimize Trump’s election but to refute the notion that Trump’s America is somehow more “real” than mine or yours or anyone else’s. The America that supports progressive policies, rejects racism and sexism in all their forms, and believes that what critics call “political correctness” is actually just common courtesy — that America is real, too, and needs to make itself heard.