This was written during the 15 elections for Speaker of the House, and then I forgot to publish it. Oversights happen.
Jennifer Rubin of WaPo thinks the House GOP is nuts, and not because of the ongoing fiasco of the electing anyone to the Speaker’s chair:
The OCE [Office of Congressional Ethics], which Democrats created in 2008, was designed as an independent office with the power to investigate ethics violations among House members. (The OCE, however, can only conduct preliminary investigations and make recommendations, leaving it to the House Ethics Committee to decide whether to investigate further and enact punishment.)
Ever since the office’s conception, Republicans seeking to avoid independent scrutiny have attempted to dismantle it. So it should come as no surprise that while they cannot agree on a speaker, Republicans have apparently agreed to introduce rules changes that would hamper the OCE’s ability to do its job, including imposing term limits on its board and severely restricting its ability to hire new staff.
Yeah, that’d be the corpse of the GOP there.
When someone is a third-rater, and finds themselves in a prestigious and powerful position such as being a member of the US House of Representatives, the first thing to do is put in place safeguards against detection.
Once detection is mitigated, then taking corrupt advantage of your position can begin.
We saw this with former President Trump as he fired or otherwise muzzled a number of inspectors throughout the Executive Branch; it’s no surprise that the House, temporary home to a number of highly questionable, if deeply self-righteous, individuals with allegiances to Trump and his corrupt methods, will be seeing similar actions taking place.
After all, this is the end-phase of the GOP. Already in the process of ripping itself apart, opportunists are rampant in the Party machinery. I expect we’ll be witness to quite a lot of corruption in the next two years. Unless the corruption actually takes the GOP out of power, which, given the small GOP advantage in the chamber, could certainly happen.
