URGENT. CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS VOTE THIS AFTERNOON.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re from the Government. We\u2019re here to help.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those words are a clich\u00e9 of chilling authoritarianism precisely because we don\u2019t trust the government with oversight of their own actions. They are accountable to us, not to themselves.<\/p>\n
Well, now the Republicans would like the body which judges the ethics of members of the House of Representatives to be accountable to \u2026 The House of Representatives.<\/p>\n
As reported over at Politico<\/a>:<\/p>\n In one of their first moves of the new Congress, House Republicans have voted to gut their own independent ethics watchdog \u2014 a huge blow to cheerleaders of congressional oversight and one that dismantles major reforms adopted after the Jack Abramoff scandal.<\/p>\n Monday’s effort was led, in part, by lawmakers who have come under investigation in recent years.<\/p>\n Despite a warning from Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), House Republicans adopted a proposal by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) to put the Office of Congressional Ethics under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee.<\/p>\n The office currently has free rein, enabling investigators to pursue allegations and then recommend further action to the House Ethics Committee as they see fit.<\/p>\n Now, the office would be under the thumb of lawmakers themselves.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The vote is this afternoon<\/em>. Call your Representative.<\/p>\n I called mine. The actual call took 1 minute and 48 seconds. \u201cHello. I am calling to urge {my rep} to keep the Office of Congressional Ethics independent, and NOT to put it under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee.\u201d We had a short conversation.<\/p>\n If you value independent ethics oversight, please do the same.<\/p>\n Grace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" URGENT. CONGRESSIONAL ETHICS VOTE THIS AFTERNOON. \u201cWe\u2019re from the Government. We\u2019re here to help.\u201d Those words are a clich\u00e9 of chilling authoritarianism precisely because we don\u2019t trust the government with oversight of their own actions. They are accountable to us, … Continue reading