House GOP guts ethics panel

[Bengalzona]

(01-03-2017, 10:58 AM)michaelsean Wrote: So you all are condemning the move when you have little to no idea if the committee is effective or even fair?

With respect, I'm not sure that the "proven results" test is good at measuring government offices or agencies. For example, would we want to cut the FAA just because we haven't had an airline crash in the past few years? Sometimes, just the existence of the office or agency prevents the recurrence of the bad thing that created the situation for the formation of the office or agency. Similar to the way cops parking empty cop cars along the side of a road slows traffic down without the need for a lot of tickets. 

The point of this office, as opposed to the House Ethics Committee, was that this office is to be non-partisan. The Ethics Committee is dominated by the party in power in the House. The purpose of the office is to keep the party in power from "sweeping under the rug" ethics violations because of partisanship. At the time it was created, the House was led by Democrats and this office actually empowered the Republican minority to have an equal say on ethics issues.