WASHINGTON - House Republicans have dropped plans to gut the independent ethics office after widespread criticism and questions from President-elect Donald Trump about GOP priorities.

In a reversal, the House GOP decided on Tuesday to strip the provision from a package of rule changes that lawmakers will vote on later in the day.

Said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma: "People didn't want this story on opening day."

House Republicans had voted Monday night to change the rules.</s>Just hours after Republicans voted to gut the House's independent ethics office, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy’s phone started lighting up with calls and texts.

The California Republican had tried to warn his colleagues about the political risks of defanging the Office of Congressional Ethics during a closed-door, secret ballot roll call Monday night. And after that vote, a number of lawmakers who agreed with McCarthy raised serious concerns about approving the controversial pitch in a public vote the next day.

By early Tuesday morning, McCarthy, Speaker Paul Ryan and the rest of GOP leadership realized the proposal was about to tank the entire House rules package — and implode the first day of the GOP-led Congress. They convened an emergency closed-door conference meeting around noon to discuss removing the ethics provision — but it was too late. Donald Trump had tweeted his disapproval, and the public outcry had risen to such a crescendo that all anyone wanted to talk about was an obscure House office few people had ever heard of just 24 hours before.

“We shot ourselves in the foot,” said Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), who added that the ethics snafu was an unforced error. “Sometimes people have to learn the hard way.”

House Republican’s push to neuter the OCE on the first day of a new Congress turned into a major public relations fiasco after the press, the public and president-elect himself came out against the move Tuesday. Trump, after all, ran on a platform of “draining the swamp” of an all-too-cozy Washington — a pitch that didn’t mesh well with the proposal to rein in oversight of lawmakers’ ethical issues.

So the opening of the 115th Congress, which was supposed to center on Obamacare repeal and GOP unity, ended up being being overwhelmed by another issue. That Ryan was re-elected speaker on the same day with only one Republican defection — a positive sign for a GOP leader who's faced restive conservatives in the past — became a mere afterthought, for example.

Republican leaders vowed to revisit the issue over the summer, although Tuesday's problems could provide a lesson. Given that they control all of the levers of power in D.C., Democratic resistance won't provide the political cover it used to over the last eight years. Washington belongs to Republicans — the good, the bad, and the ugly.

"I think a move in that direction would be bad policy and bad politics," said Rep. Mark Sanford (R-S.C.), who blasted the refoms. "It’s probably not the way you want to start out [the new Congress]."

A number of Hill Republicans have been seeking to curb the powers of the ethics watchdog for years. Privately, they say the office is too aggressive, pursues baseless anonymous tips and has become an unfair burden, both financially and politically, on lawmakers. Each time members approached ex-Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) about the matter, he deferred, saying this is something that should be done a bipartisan basis. But bipartisan reforms never materialized.

So Goodlatte, backed by a group of lawmakers who felt they had been wrongly accused by the OCE, devised a plan to rein in the office. They worked in secret for weeks, making sure word didn’t leak out to Democrats or the media. Then, just before House Republicans met to approve their rules package for the new Congress, they unveiled their amendment to scale back the powers of the OCE and put it under the House Ethics Committee’s jurisdiction.

The gambit caught leadership flatfooted, and Goodlatte's side triumphed in the closed-door GOP meeting, but problems quickly developed. Democrats blasted Republicans for jamming through something so sensitive as their first act of the new Congress. Congress had created the office in the wake of Jack Abramoff scandal, which included the GOP lobbyist's admission that he tried to bribe lawmakers. At the time, lawmakers hoped to stop anything like that from ever happening again.

Following a barrage of negative stories on Monday night, lawmakers were bombarded by a wave of phone calls to their offices criticizing the move. Republican leadership tried to change the narrative the following morning, although they never embraced Goodlatte's proposal. Ryan put out a statement saying OCE was still independent despite the rules revisions, and McCarthy tried to argue the same during a press conference with reporters.

But that around the same time, Trump called out the proposal on Twitter.

"With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it," Trump said in one tweet, adding, "........may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS."

Those tweets, on top of the thousands of phone calls and the wave of negative press, sources said, were the nail in the coffin. Republicans who had supported the idea the night before started to second-guess themselves.

“I don’t think there was any problem with the merit of the policy that needed to be changed. I just think it was how it was done,” said longtime Trump supporter Lou Barletta (R-Pa.) “The perception is not good.”

Barletta said Trump’s tweets at Congress are going to send “some shockwaves through Congress”— and they should probably get used to it.

“It’s going to send shivers down the spines of some members,” he added.

Democrats, meanwhile, decided in a closed-door meeting that they would protest the OCE change when the rules package came to the House floor Tuesday. They were readying a plan to pull out their cell phones and start livestreaming a demonstration on the House floor — something that irked House Republicans during the June “sit in” on gun control. (Republicans also included a provision in the rules package to fine members for violating the prohibitions on photos on livestreaming specifically. )

Just after 11 a.m., GOP leadership met in the speaker’s office. By then, everyone was on the same page: It was time to strike the ethics change. Leaders convened an emergency conference, just hours before members were sworn in, to try to convince their colleagues to take out the OCE language.

McCarthy told Republicans they did not run for Congress to fight over an obscure office but to repeal Obamacare and do tax reform — and it was time to scuttle the rules change. He gave them an option: vote now to strike the Goodlatte amendment, or he would offer an amendment to do so on the floor himself, taking the fight into the public sphere.

He met some resistance. Rep. Don Young (R-Alaska), who’s been under criminal and ethical investigation for years, was irate that leadership wanted the conference to back off. Young, as well as Reps. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) and Raul Labrador (R-Utah) tried to get leadership to commit to reforming the office by a specific future date. GOP leadership would not.

Other Republicans said Trump should not have gotten involved in the matter to begin with. Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) stood up to say Trump should not be meddling in internal House matters, according to several sources in the room. Shuster’s spokeswoman Casey Contres denied that he used those words, but acknowledged that he “did express, however, the importance of separation of powers and Congress establishing these rules — not the executive branch.”

In the end, even Goodlatte backed leadership’s propose to strike his provision, blaming the press and his adversaries for “gross misrepresentation” of his proposal.

The day left some members shaking their heads. Many, including Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-Tenn.), left the chamber Tuesday night crossing their fingers that the drama of the first day would not foreshadow the next two years to come.

“I think that there is going to be a lot of tough votes we will have to take and this wasn’t one of the toughest ones, so, I think we should learn from this,” he said. “Once you launch that ship, you’ve got to keep going… We need to go forth with more sense of purpose and direction.”</s>WASHINGTON (AP) – House Republicans have dropped plans to gut the independent ethics office after widespread criticism and questions from President-elect Donald Trump about GOP priorities.

In a reversal, the House GOP decided on Tuesday to strip the provision from a package of rule changes that lawmakers will vote on later in the day.

Said Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma: “People didn’t want this story on opening day.”

House Republicans had voted Monday night to change the rules.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — The new Republican-led Congress lined up to be sworn in Tuesday, facing questions about a secretive move to gut an independent ethics board that drew criticism from President-elect Donald Trump over the priorities of GOP leaders.

Trump, who takes office later this month, challenged the decision to immediately weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics, arguing that tax reform and health care are more important.

“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,” Trump asked over Twitter the morning after the surprise move by the House GOP.

His remarks came just before members of the 115th Congress were to be sworn in, with Republicans determined to dismantle eight years of President Barack Obama’s Democratic policies.

The first and biggest target is Obama’s signature health care law, which Republicans have long sought to repeal and have blamed as a primary cause for a lackluster economic recovery. Trump encouraged a wholesale overhaul of the system, tweeting hours before the new Congress convened, “Obamacare just doesn’t work,” is unaffordable “and, it is lousy health care.”

Majority Republicans also are targeting decades-old programs that millions of Americans rely on every day, such as Social Security and Medicare as they seek to shrink both the size of the federal budget and the bureaucracy in Washington.

“We have a lot to do — and a lot to undo,” House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a letter to fellow Republicans.

There were signs of Republican-on-Republican drama even before the new Congress officially opened. House Republicans on Monday night voted to defy their leaders and gut the chamber’s independent ethics panel created in 2008 to probe charges of lawmaker misconduct after several corruption scandals sent members to prison.

Lawmakers would have the final say on their colleagues under the change approved 119-74 over arguments from House Speaker Paul Ryan, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy and other GOP leaders.

Ryan, a Wisconsin Republican, argued against the unilateral rules change Monday night, but he issued a statement Tuesday downplaying the change and insisting that the so-called OCE still would operate independently though under the oversight of the members-only House Ethics Committee.

“All members of Congress are required to earn the public’s trust every single day, and this House will hold members accountable to the people,” Ryan said.

Trump spokesman Sean Spicer suggested Tuesday that the president-elect’s concerns regarding the House action focused more on timing than substance.

“It’s not a question of strengthening or weakening, it’s a question of priorities,” Spicer told reporters. He said Vice President-elect Mike Pence “equally shares” Trump’s concerns about the House GOP prioritizing actions against the ethics office.

Democrats will try to block the far-reaching conservative agenda by swaying public opinion and using the power they have in the Senate to filibuster legislation. But that strategy has its political limitations. Twenty-three Senate Democrats are up for re-election in 2018, including 10 from states won by Trump, and they could break ranks and side with the GOP.

“What we will always do is hold the president-elect and his Republican colleagues in Congress accountable,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in prepared remarks Tuesday. “We will be a caucus that works to make sure the president-elect keeps his commitment to truly make America great, in its finest sense and tradition.”

Obama plans a rare trip to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet with congressional Democrats and discuss strategy for saving the health care law. Mike Pence will meet with Republicans.

The first week of the new Congress will be a preview of the hectic pace planned by Republicans.

The GOP’s proposal to change the ethics process is part of a rules package that also would give GOP leaders the tools to punish lawmakers if there is a repeat of the Democratic sit-in last summer over gun control.

Votes also are expected on resolutions to denounce the United Nations for condemning the construction of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Republicans blasted the Obama administration for refusing to veto the decision. Ryan pledged “to reverse the damage done by this administration, and rebuild our alliance with Israel.”

James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, is to testify Thursday before the Senate Armed Services Committee on an intelligence community assessment that Russia interfered in the U.S. election by hacking into Democratic email accounts. Allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. political process will be examined by individual congressional committees, but Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has rejected a bipartisan call for a special, high-profile select panel to investigate.</s>WASHINGTON — House Republicans on Monday voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison.

The ethics change, which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups, is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on Tuesday. The package also includes a means for Republican leaders to punish lawmakers if there is a repeat of the Democratic sit-in last summer over gun control.

Under the ethics change pushed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers. It would be known as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, and the rule change would require that “any matter that may involve a violation of criminal law must be referred to the Committee on Ethics for potential referral to law enforcement agencies after an affirmative vote by the members,” according to Goodlatte’s office.

Lawmakers would have the final say under the change. House Republicans voted 119-74 for the Goodlatte measure despite arguments from Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., against the change. They failed to sway rank-and-file Republicans, some of whom have felt unfairly targeted by the OCE.

“The amendment builds upon and strengthens the existing Office of Congressional Ethics by maintaining its primary area of focus of accepting and reviewing complaints from the public and referring them, if appropriate, to the Committee on Ethics,” Goodlatte said in a statement.

“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” the California lawmaker said in a statement. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”

Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, said Ryan should be ashamed of himself and his leadership team.

“We all know the so-called House Ethics Committee is worthless for anything other than a whitewash — sweeping corruption under the rug. That’s why the independent Office of Congressional Ethics has been so important. The OCE works to stop corruption and that’s why Speaker Ryan is cutting its authority. Speaker Ryan is giving a green light to congressional corruption.”

The OCE was created in March 2008 after the cases of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., who served more than seven years in prison on bribery and other charges; as well as cases of former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who was charged in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and pleaded guilty to corruption charges and former Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., convicted on corruption in a separate case.

The name of the office in this story has been corrected to the Office of Congressional Ethics, rather than the Office of Government Ethics.</s>(CNN) On the eve of the 115th Congress, as Republicans prepared for the first time in a decade to assume almost unfettered control of the federal government, the House GOP voted in a closed-door meeting to decimate the chamber's independent nonpartisan oversight office.

Their "reform" effort would be short-lived, as a torrent of outrage and bipartisan backlash undercut the controversial amendment, which in less than a day managed to split Republicans, fuel Democratic resistance and put an early blemish on the GOP majority.

The plan would be scrapped before noon, a pair of tweets from President-elect Donald Trump sealing its fate . The Office of Congressional Ethics was given a second life. Here's how it went down:

In a closed door, private meeting Monday night, the House Republican rank-and-file voted to cut the legs out from the ethics panel, an independent watchdog group created in 2008 under then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi following a series of high-profile, embarrassing scandals.

The new proposal would have placed the office under the heel of the House Ethics Committee, the same body to which it had delivered reports and findings for the past eight years. It would have been banned from accepting anonymous tips -- silencing many potential whistleblowers -- and been barred from communicating to the public.

The reasoning? Republicans (and some Democrats in the past) had complained that panel's reports, which usually contained allegations of ethical or criminal wrongdoing, were made public without sufficient avenues of redress for the accused.

House Democrats pounced as news organizations reported the unexpected and mysterious vote.

But the verdict was nearly uniform, even crossing traditional partisan lines.

"Republicans claim they want to 'drain the swamp,' but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions," Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said in a statement.

On the right, Judicial Watch, the conservative group that has hounded Democrats for years, weighed in with a note of disapproval earlier in the night.

The author of the proposal, Virginia Rep. Bob Goodlatte, came to its defense hours later, pushing back on reports that his amendment would undermine the ethics panel's mission.

"There should be no entity in the entire federal government that doesn't have review by some committee of the Congress so that's all it sets up is oversight," he told CNN. "It still has its designated statutory responsibilities."

Word emerged late Monday that House Speaker Paul Ryan and his top deputy, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, had urged their caucus to back down before the vote, with an aide close to Ryan familiar with the discussions telling CNN on Tuesday the speaker had been "against the amendment and opposed it throughout."

But early Tuesday morning, a top Trump adviser seemed to publicly back the move.

"If a constituent has a complaint, they can still lodge that complaint," Kellyanne Conway told NBC's "Today" show. "They just can't do it anonymously. And many of these people -- members and their staffers who have been under investigation -- they have complained about their due process rights being violated and compromised. They need protections, as well."

But, as she herself noted, Conway had not yet spoken to Trump about the issue.

At a little after 10 a.m. ET, the President-elect joined the chorus.

"With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it ... may be, their number one act and priority," he said in a pair of tweets. "Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!" -- adding #DTS, a hashtag signifying his campaign promise to "drain the swamp."

If the floor was already falling out, the Trump tweet caved in the ceilings.

Ryan sought to limit the damage while saving face with his caucus, issuing a statement shortly thereafter that sought to cast the "reform" effort in a better light.

"After eight years of operation, many members believe the Office of Congressional Ethics is in need of reform to protect due process and ensure it is operating according to its stated mission," he said in a statement. "I want to make clear that this House will hold its members to the highest ethical standards and the office will continue to operate independently to provide public accountability to Congress."

But by late morning, House Republicans were huddling in private again and a littler after noon, the reversal of the reversal was complete: The amendment had been shelved and the Office of Congressional Ethics would -- for now, at least -- carry on its mission.

As senior Republicans do their best to push ahead and leave this episode behind, Goodlatte blamed "gross misrepresentation by opponents of my amendment, and the media willing to go along with this agenda" for scuttling his efforts.

On the Democratic side, Pelosi sought to yolk the GOP to the controversy.

"House Republicans showed their true colors last night, and reversing their plans to destroy the Office of Congressional Ethics will not obscure their clear contempt for ethics in the People's House," she said in a statement, lauding "the strength of public outrage" that stoked a swift and brutal backlash.</s>Donald Trump said Tuesday that House Republicans should focus on more important policy than their surprise effort to weaken an independent ethics office.

But in his tweeted statement, Trump held back any serious criticism of their action, calling the ethics watchdog "unfair" to lawmakers.

In a closed-door meeting Monday, a day before the start of the 115th Congress, the House GOP adopted a rules package amendment to put the Office of Congressional Ethics under the jurisdiction of the House Ethics Committee. The move effectively gives the lawmakers themselves oversight over investigations into misconduct by lawmakers and staff. It will also prevent more information from being released to the public.

The plan sparked immediate outrage, with House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi calling ethics "the first casualty of the new Republican Congress." Some Democrats tied Trump to the move and said that it showed his campaign pledges to rid Washington of corruption were already getting abandoned. 



Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., who introduced the amendment, argued that it would increase due process protection for House members. The GOP will vote on the package later Tuesday.

Trump's statement also pits him against GOP lawmakers on only the first day of a new Congress.

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who helped to craft the Office of Congressional Ethics while a congressman, slammed Trump for calling it "unfair" to lawmakers.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, who initially opposed the amendment, defended it on Tuesday. He argued in a statement that "this House will hold its members to the highest ethical standards and the office will continue to operate independently to provide public accountability to Congress."

"The Office will continue to be governed by a bipartisan independent outside board with ultimate decision-making authority. The Office is still expected to take in complaints of wrongdoing from the public," Ryan said. "It will still investigate them thoroughly and independently. And the outside board will still decide whether or not evidence exists to warrant a full investigation by the House Ethics Committee."



Under the GOP move, ethics complaints from anonymous accusers would no longer be accepted. The proposed rule also says that "the office shall be subject to the authority and direction of the Committee on Ethics."

Top Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway also defended the House GOP's action. In a CNBC interview Tuesday, she said Americans should not get "the impression, somehow, that ethics is gone now."</s>By Billy House, Erik Wasson, Anna Edgerton, Ben Brody, Arit John and James Rowley, The Washington Post

President-elect Donald Trump blasted a move by House Republicans to effectively weaken the independent Office of Congressional Ethics that investigates lawmakers’ alleged misconduct.

“With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their number one act and priority,” Trump wrote on Twitter Tuesday morning. “Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!’ He closed his tweet with “#DTS,” a reference to his campaign promise to “drain the swamp” of corruption in Washington.

Trump was reacting to a move House Republicans made behind closed doors Monday night, when the caucus voted to approve an amendment to a broader House rules package that would make the office “subject to oversight” by the House Ethics Committee and significantly restrict its powers. The House will vote Tuesday on the rules package as members open the 115th Congress.

The approval of the amendment, proposed by Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte of Virginia, comes amid broader calls from Trump for steps to fight corruption in Washington, including term limits on lawmakers and restrictions on lobbyists.

“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California said in a statement. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”

House Speaker Paul Ryan defended the change in a statement Tuesday that insisted the ethics office will still “operate independently.”

“The evenly divided House Ethics Committee will now have oversight of the complaints office,” said Ryan of Wisconsin. He said the House panel would exercise that oversight only to “ensure the office is properly following its rules and laws,” and said he’s instructed the House committee not to “interfere with the office’s investigations or prevent it from doing its job.”

Kellyanne Conway, a top adviser to the president-elect, said earlier Tuesday she hadn’t discussed the vote with Trump, who used the anti-corruption slogan on the campaign trail yet has been silent so far on the House measure. But she said it could be compatible with his rhetoric.

“One thing they’re trying to curb is the abuse of the process,” Conway said on MSNBC, adding that much depends on the new ethics office that will be created. She said that constituents’ concerns could still be addressed.

The vote prompted protests from government watchdog groups, including those who had pushed for creation of the OCE in 2008. Those groups had said at the time that the Ethics Committee wasn’t diligent enough in policing and punishing member wrongdoing on its own.

Project on Government Oversight Executive Director Danielle Brian condemned the change in a statement that said, “Ethics watchdogs like OCE need to be strengthened and expanded — not taken out back and shot in the middle of the night.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, a frequent Trump critic, said on Fox News Radio that he stands “with Trump. I mean, it’s the dumbest frickin’ thing I’ve ever heard.” He added, “This is not the message the House needs to send.”

The idea behind the OCE was that an independent office could provide preliminary, independent reviews of ethics accusations against members of Congress and make recommendations about whether further investigation by the Ethics Committee was necessary.

“OCE is one of the outstanding ethics accomplishments of the House of Representatives, and it has played a critical role in seeing that the congressional ethics process is no longer viewed as merely a means to sweep problems under the rug,” said Norman Eisen and Richard Painter, the chairman and vice chairman of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, in a joint statement. “If the 115th Congress begins with rules amendments undermining OCE, it is setting itself up to be dogged by scandals and ethics issues for years and is returning the House to dark days when ethics violations were rampant and far too often tolerated.”

But the office has its detractors, including lawmakers and staffers on both sides of the aisle who claimed they have been unfairly treated. And there have been public turf wars with the Ethics Committee itself.

“There’s been numerous examples, and we heard some of them in there today, of members who have falsely been accused by this group who had to spend a fortune to have their good name restored,” said Representative Hal Rogers of Kentucky, who said he supported the measure. “I think there has been an abuse.”

Some House Republicans, including Rep. Dennis Ross of Florida, said there had been some concerns raised during the closed-door meeting Monday night of the optics of placing new limitations on a government watchdog days before Trump takes office. But he said the majority of the Republicans felt it was time to fix problems with the OCE.

Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy of California were among those who argued against the amendment, according to a lawmaker in the room who spoke on condition of anonymity. Ryan’s statement didn’t disclose his position during the private debate.

On Tuesday morning, McCarthy confirmed on MSNBC he had opposed the approval of the amendment but said he would vote for the rules package that contained it.

McCarthy told reporters later Tuesday he agreed with Trump’s tweet. Trump made “the same argument I made in conference,” McCarthy told reporters.

He said on MSNBC the changes had earlier had bipartisan support to make investigations more fair.

“One thing we firmly believe in America is due process,” he added. “People have a right to defend themselves if they’re being accused of something.”

In a statement, Goodlatte described his amendment as one that would “build” on the OCE’s strengths, while also improving upon “the due-process rights for individuals under investigation, as well as witnesses called to testify.”

“The OCE has a serious and important role in the House, and this amendment does nothing to impede their work,” he said.

Other changes would include requiring that any matter potentially involving a violation of criminal law be referred to the Ethics Committee. The OCE also would be barred from considering anonymous complaints, and its jurisdiction would be limited to the last three Congresses.</s>WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans have voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison.

The ethics change, which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups, is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on Tuesday. The package approved Monday also includes a means for Republican leaders to punish lawmakers if there is a repeat of the Democratic sit-in last summer over gun control.

Under the ethics change pushed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers. It would be known as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, and the rule change would require that “any matter that may involve a violation of criminal law must be referred to the Committee on Ethics for potential referral to law enforcement agencies after an affirmative vote by the members,” according to Goodlatte’s office.

Lawmakers would have the final say under the change. House Republicans voted 119-74 for the Goodlatte measure despite arguments from Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., against the change. They failed to sway rank-and-file Republicans, some of whom have felt unfairly targeted by the OCE.

“The amendment builds upon and strengthens the existing Office of Congressional Ethics by maintaining its primary area of focus of accepting and reviewing complaints from the public and referring them, if appropriate, to the Committee on Ethics,” Goodlatte said in a statement.

“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” the California Democrat said in a statement. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”

Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, said Ryan should be ashamed of himself and his leadership team.

“We all know the so-called House Ethics Committee is worthless for anything other than a whitewash — sweeping corruption under the rug. That’s why the independent Office of Congressional Ethics has been so important. The OCE works to stop corruption and that’s why Speaker Ryan is cutting its authority. Speaker Ryan is giving a green light to congressional corruption.”

The OCE was created in March 2008 after the cases of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., who served more than seven years in prison on bribery and other charges; as well as cases involving former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who was charged in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and pleaded guilty to corruption charges, and former Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., convicted on corruption in a separate case.

The name of the office in this story has been corrected to the Office of Congressional Ethics, rather than the Office of Government Ethics.</s>House Republicans on Monday voted to eviscerate the Office of Congressional Ethics, the independent body created in 2008 to investigate allegations of misconduct by lawmakers after several bribery and corruption scandals sent members to prison.

The ethics change, which prompted an outcry from Democrats and government watchdog groups, is part of a rules package that the full House will vote on Tuesday. The package also includes a means for Republican leaders to punish lawmakers if there is a repeat of the Democratic sit-in last summer over gun control.

Under the ethics change pushed by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the non-partisan Office of Congressional Ethics would fall under the control of the House Ethics Committee, which is run by lawmakers. It would be known as the Office of Congressional Complaint Review, and the rule change would require that “any matter that may involve a violation of criminal law must be referred to the Committee on Ethics for potential referral to law enforcement agencies after an affirmative vote by the members,” according to Goodlatte’s office.

Lawmakers would have the final say under the change. House Republicans voted 119-74 for the Goodlatte measure despite arguments from Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., against the change. They failed to sway rank-and-file Republicans, some of whom have felt unfairly targeted by the OCE.

“The amendment builds upon and strengthens the existing Office of Congressional Ethics by maintaining its primary area of focus of accepting and reviewing complaints from the public and referring them, if appropriate, to the Committee on Ethics,” Goodlatte said in a statement.

“Republicans claim they want to ‘drain the swamp,’ but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,” the California lawmaker said in a statement. “Evidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.”

Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, said Ryan should be ashamed of himself and his leadership team.

“We all know the so-called House Ethics Committee is worthless for anything other than a whitewash — sweeping corruption under the rug. That’s why the independent Office of Congressional Ethics has been so important. The OCE works to stop corruption and that’s why Speaker Ryan is cutting its authority. Speaker Ryan is giving a green light to congressional corruption.”

The OCE was created in March 2008 after the cases of former Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham, R-Calif., who served more than seven years in prison on bribery and other charges; as well as cases of former Rep. Bob Ney, R-Ohio, who was charged in the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal and pleaded guilty to corruption charges and former Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., convicted on corruption in a separate case.
The Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives cancels plans approved on Monday, following widespread criticism, including a tweet by President-elect Trump, that would have weakened the House's independent ethics watchdog, the Office of Congressional Ethics.