Liberal Values Defending Liberty and Enlightened Thought

Among the first actions by the House Republicans were rules changes to reduce the power of the Office of Congressional Ethics, and then reversing course. The bad news is that it highlighted their priorities. The good news is that it did show that Republican House members are susceptible to pressure. The media does tend to concentrate more on ethics than policy. An action such as this was bound to receive more scrutiny than actions such as destroying Medicare as we know it, or reducing health coverage for those who have received coverage under the Affordable Care Act.

The impact of the adverse media coverage was helped by many voters taking this seriously. Google searches for “who is my representative” surged. Republican members of Congress were flooded with phone calls.

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

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017

Donald Trump also played this well when he tweeted on the subject. If you look at the headlines alone, it appears that Donald Trump protested and the Republicans backed down. He called the Office of Congressional Ethics “unfair,” and protested more on the timing of the action than the actual rules changing. It doesn’t appear that he would object to reversing course on the principle of “draining the swamp” as long as they acted to (in his view) making America great first. Of course this doesn’t make very much sense as setting the rules for the upcoming Congress is among the first matters handled.