House leaders have yet to appoint board members to an independent office designed to investigate ethics complaints against lawmakers and their staff members, leaving the entity powerless for the time being and sparking concerns among outside watchdogs.
The House rules package for the new Congress, which was approved in January along party lines, re-authorized the nonpartisan Office of Congressional Ethics and gave it a new name: the Office of Congressional Conduct.
But more than two months later, House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., who have the authority to fill the board seats, have yet to do so.
Without a board in place, professional staff members are not authorized to launch investigations. If the seats remain unfilled by Saturday, it will mark the longest the office has had a vacant board since it was formed in 2008.
A spokesman said Johnson will be “working through the appointments process.” A spokeswoman for Jeffries declined to comment.
Four of the six board members from last year are willing to be re-appointed, according to two sources familiar with the situation, while the most recent chair and co-chair do not intend to return.
Kedric Payne, the former deputy chief counsel for the congressional ethics office, said he feared the vacancies at the board could lead to its eventual demise.
“When you see that the board isn’t approved and then you add that to the fact that the Trump administration has dismantled all of the independent ethics bodies across the executive branch, it does cause concern that that may be the game plan that’s going on in Congress,” said Payne, who is now senior director of ethics for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center.
The Office of Congressional Ethics was established 15 years ago as an independent, nonpartisan entity charged with investigating allegations of ethical violations by members of the House, officers and employees. It investigates complaints, which could come from the public, the board or staff members, and when warranted it refers its findings to the House Ethics Committee, which can determine penalties or enforcement based on its review.
The office also has the ability to publish its reports to provide the public insight into the evidence it has collected.
The Office of Congressional Ethics has been a target of Republicans in the past. In January 2023, the GOP-authored House rules package included term limits and a number of changes to the office’s staffing that some Democrats warned would weaken it.
Payne argued the nonpartisan nature of the office separates it from the House Ethics Committee, which has the power to conduct its own investigations but is made up of sitting members of the House. (It also took Johnson some time to appoint members to the Ethics Committee this year, as he finalized the committee roster only last week.)
Each stage of any Office of Congressional Ethics investigation must be approved by the nonpartisan board, made up of six voting members and two alternates. Members of the board are private citizens and cannot be lobbyists or federal employees. They must also agree not to run for office.
“You can’t have the fox guarding the henhouse,” Payne said. “Everybody understands that. So the members of the House Ethics Committee are under political pressure from the speaker of the House to other members of the House, so they are not going to aggressively investigate one another.”
Payne pointed to the investigation of former Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., which the Office of Congressional Ethics was not involved with. There was intense pressure from political leaders to prevent the House Ethics Committee report from being released, but the committee ultimately relented after intense scrutiny from the public.
The episode caused a serious strain on the Ethics Committee, sparking concerns about its ability to properly function in the future.
“Matt Gaetz was not universally liked. You can imagine a situation where a more charismatic member of Congress was the subject of an investigation,” Payne said. “They could hide any wrongdoing or an embarrassing report.”
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