Issue One joins more than 25 groups in support of strengthening and codifying the Office of Congressional Ethics into law

Issue One joined more than 25 groups this week in urging Congress to strengthen and codify the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) into law.

The letter opposes the recently passed provisions in the House rules package that attempt to weaken the OCE, stating: “Gutting the independent ethics watchdog as the first official legislative action in the 118th Congress is not what Americans voted for in last year’s midterms. Voters demanded accountability, ethics, and the rule of law, all of which the OCE works to achieve.”

The letter continues: “The OCE was created after several bribery and corruption scandals that resulted in numerous House members resigning or going to prison. In its nearly 15 years of existence, the Office of Congressional Ethics has served as an independent watchdog to provide nonpartisan oversight and accountability in the House of Representatives. It has referred for further investigation an almost equal number of Democratic and Republican Members, and the OCE helped fix a broken ethics process.”

“For far too long, the House Ethics Committee was a place where scandals were swept under the rug and ignored in a largely bipartisan way,” the letter goes on to say. “Both Republicans and Democrats would frequently look the other way and ignore transgressions from the other party with a mutual understanding that both sides would operate that way. This process created distrust for Congress among much of the public. Alternatively, the OCE increases public confidence in the House of Representatives and its members. To ensure it can fully continue to root out misconduct, the OCE should be codified into law and given full subpoena authority.”

Strengthening the OCE will ultimately increase public confidence and protect against corruption in the House of Representatives.

Read the full letter. 

The full list of signatories is as follows:

Common Cause

Accountable.US

Business for America

Campaign Legal Center

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) Clean Elections Texas

Demand Progress

Democracy 21

End Citizens United/Let America Vote Action Fund Fix Democracy First

Get Money Out–Maryland

Greenpeace USA

Indivisible International Corporate Accountability Roundtable

Issue One

League of Conservation Voters

League of Women Voters of the United States

March On

NETWORK Lobby for Catholic Social Justice

Project on Government Oversight

Protect Democracy

Public Citizen

RepresentUs

SMART Elections

The Workers Circle

20/20 Vision DC