Newburyport Daily News: Our View, Acting Together to Fight GOP Overreach
January 6th, 2017
The Democratic minority, outraged voters and the president-elect came together this week to strike a blow against congressional overreach.
A string of victories in the November elections had apparently convinced some House Republicans they could insulate themselves from ethics complaints by gutting a key watchdog agency.
Acting under the cover of the New Year’s holiday and over the objections of their own leadership, members of the GOP caucus voted 119-74 in a closed-door meeting for a plan to put the independent Office of Congressional Ethics under the very lawmakers it is supposed to police.
Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton of Salem, were outraged. Even President-elect Donald Trump tweeted that there were more important things for the 115th Congress to address as it began its new session. And most significantly, voters flooded their representatives in Washington with angry phone calls and emails.
The result? Less than 24 hours later Republicans reversed course and eliminated the proposed change from a package of rules slated to be voted on Tuesday.
This was hardly the kind of thing Americans contemplated when they voted Republicans into the White House and Republican majorities in both houses of Congress. As Moulton put it to CNN Tuesday, “Is there any American out there who thinks Congress is too ethical?”
Those in Washington may have taken their cue from Republican legislators in North Carolina who, after a Democratic governor was elected, stripped the chief executive of some key powers. (A move that was subsequently struck down, at least temporarily, in state court.)
Moulton said the fact some in the majority would even consider “crazy changes like this” at the start of a new era for Congress and the U.S. was “frightening.”
Voters can take some comfort from Trump’s swift negative reaction to the power play and Republicans’ quick reversal. But it points out the critical need for a vocal and vigilant minority on Capitol Hill and people willing to speak out when their political leaders act against the nation’s best interests.
Article here.
