End Citizens United // Let America Vote Action Fund signed a letter along with 24 other anti-corruption organizations to members of the House of Representatives urging them not to enact proposed rules changes that would gut the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) by forcing Democratic members off the OCE’s board and making it nearly impossible for the OCE to hire staff.
“The first thing Republicans want to do after they finally elect a Speaker is gut the Office of Congressional Ethics to protect corrupt politicians, like their new colleague George Santos,” said End Citizens United // Let America Vote Action Fund President Tiffany Muller. “We urge the House not to take up these proposed rules changes and allow the Office of Congressional Ethics to hold corrupt members of Congress accountable.”
Key points from the letter:
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Sec. 4(d)(6) of the proposed rule forces three of the four Democrats who currently sit on the eight- member board to vacate their positions immediately because they would be serving beyond the newly imposed eight-year term limit. Filling these vacancies cannot be done quickly and leaving these posts empty would hamstring OCE’s ability to efficiently conduct investigations and publish reports.
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Sec. 4(d)(7) would require OCE to hire its staff for the 118th Congress within 30 days of the adoption of the rule. This provision essentially limits any hiring for the office, including investigative staffers, to an impossibly brief period that would make it difficult to rigorously assess candidates for these high-stakes jobs. Additionally, the 30-day hiring period applies to the entire 118th Congress, meaning that regardless of when a vacancy at the OCE occurs under this rule, the position cannot be filled.
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[T]hese changes weaken OCE to the point where the office would struggle to perform its core function, dismantling one of the only ways members of Congress are held accountable for ethics violations. Past attempts to gut OCE have not only been detrimental to the public’s trust in Congress, but those moves have also been politically damaging and met with widespread public backlash. There is no reason to think this time will be any different.
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We strongly urge this Congress to reverse course and remove Sec. 4(d)(6) and Sec. 4(d)(7) from the House rules proposal so that the Office of Congressional Ethics maintains its full strength.
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In addition to making these essential changes, we ask the House to take this opportunity to strengthen OCE by giving OCE the ability to issue subpoenas to 3rd parties; allowing OCE to publish a written report about a non-cooperative member as soon as it refers the investigation to the House Committee on Ethics; and requiring the Speaker to nominate OCE board members through concurrence with the minority leader, not consultation.
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