New Ethics?

       Yesterday I pointed out how the Republican caucus, without the approval of Paul Ryan the speaker of the House, decided to strip the "Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) of its powers to hold ethics violators to account. I had misstated the official name and so am clearing that up. A number of House Republicans stated that the new rules would not actually change anything. The OCE would still do the same job.
       In fact what the change would have done was to "prevent the OCE from investigating potentially criminal allegations" according to an editorial in the New York times, it also allowed anyone on the House Ethics Committee to shut down any investigation they wanted, and put a gag order on all members of the OCE from mentioning anything to the press. These are all ways in which they could drain the swamp and improve the OCE.
       Except I thought draining the swamp meant to cut out  the abuse of ethics that the House Ethics Committee traditionally allowed and allow the independent Office of Congressional Ethics to do its job of enforcing ethics by any of the means granted them. Its amazing how a little public shaming can change how a politician acts in private.
       Well, after some public shaming of the Republican caucus on the subject of the powers of the OCE the night before, they suddenly reversed their vote and allowed the OCE to continue unfettered, for now. Like I said, a little public shaming goes a long way and a lot of shaming works even faster. But to think the Republicans actually wanted to eliminate any real obstruction from them committing ethics violations is a moral dilemma. And I don't want you to think that some Democrats wouldn't have voted to strip the OCE also. Unethical conduct is a bi-partisan trait. There's nothing new about that.