Partisanship Infiltrates the Ethics Committee

I think it comes as no surprise that President Obama has emphasized the lack of public confidence in Congress as a way to bolster his budget proposal. He summed up the situation perfectly when he said that the American people elected a divided government in November, not a dysfunctional one.

Nothing characterizes the polarization in Congress better than the partisan infiltration into the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee is made up of 5 Republicans and 5 Democrats, and is supposed to be the only non-partisan committee. It's sole purpose is internal investigation into the actions of Congressman and Congresswomen.

Rep Maxine Waters of California is being investigated over her role in bailing out a small bank that her husband had a $350,000 financial stake in. She violated the ethics code of her office, and should be investigated.

Here's where it got partisan. Staffers Morgan Kim and Stacy Sovereign were accused of having "ex parte" communications with Republican Representatives, which breaks the supposed non-partisan nature of the committee during the Charlie Rangel case. If this were to be revealed, the proceedings against Rangel would have been dropped. Hundreds of pages of documents from the Committee, given to Politico, showed petty partisan bickering amongst staff and Representatives on the secret committee. This kind of bickering has put the Waters investigation in jeopardy, as she had moved to have the charges dropped. She had been accused of two ethics violations and asked for a trial. But, the trial was postponed multiple times. These postponements were revealed to be a product of partisan wrangling.

In this era of hyper-partisanship, the Ethics Committee structure is supposed to isolate itself from the fray. Staffers on the committee (usually ethics lawyers) investigate actions by Congressmen/woman and make recommendations based on congressional ethics guidelines, not partisan inclinations.

Now, the Committee has been chosen to hire a lawyer to investigate itself. I guess we must accept a Congress where even the supposedly unbiased Ethics Committee can fall victim to partisanship.