Republicans Heart Ethics Reform?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Setting the rules for his GOP-controlled House, incoming Speaker John Boehner has preserved the Office of Congressional Ethicsthe independent investigative panel that has been criticized for overreaching by members of both parties. Good government groups and other watchdogs had warned that the new GOP majority might try to kill off the OCE, which was created in 2008 as part of the Democrats’ sweeping ethics reforms. Though Boehner and other Republicans opposed the OCE from the start, they were joined more recently by members of the Congressional Black Caucus, who believed their members were unfairly targeted by the independent panel, which can use publiceven anonymouscomplaints to initiate investigations.

But despite the bipartisan opposition to the OCE, Republicans “found it untenable to gut an ethics office while calling for greater accountability in Congress,” writes Politico‘s Jonathan Allen, and the House GOP has preserved the rules governing the panel so far. There’s still a chance that the OCE could end up being undermined during the appropriations processlawmakers will have to approve funding for staffing the panel, and cutting off the OCE’s purse strings would be an easy way to defang the office without eliminating it entirely. But the GOP may have also decided that gutting the office isn’t worth the risk of a public backlash. Also not lost on the GOP is the fact that Democrats have been the main targets of the office’s investigations.

Boehner certainly wants to send the message that the GOP is tough on ethics: one of the new rules bars former legislators who become registered lobbyists from access to the House gym, to clamp down on informal wheeling and dealing. The party has also waged its tea party-backed war on earmarks under the auspices of cracking down on favor-trading and other blights of Beltway culture.

But though the pro-ethics rhetoric has flown freely, real solutions are much more murky, given all of the workarounds that are available: the GOP has welcomed influence-peddling through outside spending groups, incoming freshmen are bringing scores of ex-lobbyists on staff, and earmarks are a miniscule portion of government appropriations and designated spending on pet projects. Meanwhile, even if the OCE is preserved, the House Ethics Committeethe internal body that actually doles out punishmentsis in complete turmoil over the impending trial of Rep. Maxine Water (D-Calif.), and Boehner has yet to indicate whether such investigations with be conducted with the same fervor in the next Congress.

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT.

We have a considerable $390,000 gap in our online fundraising budget that we have to close by June 30. There is no wiggle room, we've already cut everything we can, and we urgently need more readers to pitch in—especially from this specific blurb you're reading right now.

We'll also be quite transparent and level-headed with you about this.

In "News Never Pays," our fearless CEO, Monika Bauerlein, connects the dots on several concerning media trends that, taken together, expose the fallacy behind the tragic state of journalism right now: That the marketplace will take care of providing the free and independent press citizens in a democracy need, and the Next New Thing to invest millions in will fix the problem. Bottom line: Journalism that serves the people needs the support of the people. That's the Next New Thing.

And it's what MoJo and our community of readers have been doing for 47 years now.

But staying afloat is harder than ever.

In "This Is Not a Crisis. It's The New Normal," we explain, as matter-of-factly as we can, what exactly our finances look like, why this moment is particularly urgent, and how we can best communicate that without screaming OMG PLEASE HELP over and over. We also touch on our history and how our nonprofit model makes Mother Jones different than most of the news out there: Letting us go deep, focus on underreported beats, and bring unique perspectives to the day's news.

You're here for reporting like that, not fundraising, but one cannot exist without the other, and it's vitally important that we hit our intimidating $390,000 number in online donations by June 30.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. It's going to be a nail-biter, and we really need to see donations from this specific ask coming in strong if we're going to get there.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate