\u201cThe 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,\u201d Goodlatte said in a statement.
Democrats, led by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, reacted angrily.
\u201cRepublicans claim they want to \u2018drain the swamp,\u2019 but the night before the new Congress gets sworn in, the House GOP has eliminated the only independent ethics oversight of their actions,\u201d the California lawmaker said in a statement. \u201cEvidently, ethics are the first casualty of the new Republican Congress.\u201d
Chris Carson, president of the League of Women Voters, said Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., should be ashamed of himself and his leadership team.
\u201cWe all know the so-called House Ethics Committee is worthless for anything other than a whitewash – sweeping corruption under the rug. That\u2019s why the independent Office of Congressional Ethics has been so important. The OCE works to stop corruption and that\u2019s why Speaker Ryan is cutting its authority. Speaker Ryan is giving a green light to congressional corruption.\u201d
The OCE was created in March 2008 after the cases of former Rep. Randy \u201cDuke\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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Sentiment rank: -2.1<\/div>\n

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