Fort Worth, Texas-area Reps. Kay Granger and Michael Burgess voted against a controversial proposal that would have allowed Congress to control its own ethics oversight.
House Republicans conducted a secret vote on Monday night, just before the 115th Congress was set to begin, that would have removed independent oversight of the Office of Congressional Ethics.
The vote, which was 119-74 in favor of the proposal introduced by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., drew sharp criticism from Democrats, government watchdog groups and some Republicans. President-elect Donald Trump criticized the decision’s timing, but not its substance, in a tweet on Tuesday morning.
“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 said in a pair of tweets. “Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance!”
A few hours after Trump’s tweets, House Republicans reconvened in the Capitol basement and reversed the decision they’d made less than 24 hours earlier.
“The headline was we were backing off ethics,” Rep. Dave Brat, R-Va., said after the meeting, implying that public pressure had played a role in reversing the decision. Brat also said revamping the Office of Congressional Ethics will likely be looked at in the future.
Before the decision’s reversal, Granger and Burgess said in an email with McClatchy that they did not vote in favor of changing Congress’ ethics watchdog, which has been criticized by both parties as politically motivated and slow-moving.
Rep. Roger Williams, a Republican from Austin, Texas, confirmed that he’d voted in favor of gutting the Office on Congressional Ethics in an interview with McClatchy.
“I voted that we need to take a look at it,” Williams said. “I don’t have any time frame, but I do want to fix it because it’s broken and you do have a lot of Democrats that will say the same thing. It’s a bipartisan situation.”
Williams supported the House Republican leadership’s decision Tuesday to abandon the amendment, saying it was badly timed, but he wants to change the agency in the future.
“I don’t know if it needs to be fixed today as opposed to later on, but it certainly needs to be fixed,” Williams said. “That’s another layer of government I don’t think we need. It’s important to get started on the things we need to do.”
Williams in particular has a vested interest in the Office of Congressional Ethics, as he is under review following a complaint with the office accusing him of a conflict of interest.