House GOP guts ethics panel

[Bengalzona]

(01-04-2017, 08:48 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: I agree with your assessment of Trump's opinion, that was my take as well. It should be noted, though, that the purpose of the OCE is to investigate ethics violations without partisan witch hunts. The bill would have made the OCE a more partisan tool rather than maintaining independence. MCs dislike the OCE because it is sometimes overzealous, which some reforms could help with, but the issue isn't with it being partisan.

(01-04-2017, 03:32 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Goodlatte, and his 5th district counterpart whose name I cannot remember currently, have said the basis for the move is that every person, even MCs, are entitled to due process, which I agree with. I don't think the bill would have achieved anything other than neutering the OCE, though.

Yeah, the intent of the OCE was to create a non-partisan environment to review ethics complaints. But its other purpose is to make the information from ethics violations and complaints available to the public and to actually pursue investigation of complaints. Obviously, no one has a problem with information on a politician already convicted of an ethics violation being released to the public. The problem politicians have is with the public being notified about the complaints and investigations. Apparently, there have been some incidents where politicians were in campaign years and they have been investigated for unfounded complaints. There is a feeling that the announcements of the investigations have hurt the politician's chances of winning.