Three Lessons From GOP Backing Down On Gutting Ethics Oversight

After an eruption of protest and outrage, the House Republicans have decided to drop their plans to gut Congressional oversight. One Republican House member seemed surprised by the negative reaction to their plans, saying, “The calls we’ve gotten in my district office and here in Washington has surprised me, meaning the number of calls.” Apparently, House GOP members are just waking up to the fact that people will finally be paying attention to what they actually do now that Republicans control Congress and the Presidency. There really won’t be any more of those “free” votes where they can satisfy their radical base with the knowledge that what they passed would never become law or go into effect.

There are three important takeaways from this debacle. First, the House GOP caucus is still pretty fractured and Paul Ryan has very little control. Media reports say that Ryan and Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy apparently both spoke out against this move when House Republicans voted on it last night. They were ignored. It is this kind of dysfunction that meant the House could never put a budget together all last year. Despite his supposed opposition, the fact that the House’s very first move after the election has resulted in a total PR disaster for Republicans will be held against Ryan. Steve Bannon has admitted to wanting Ryan out and this kind of debacle will be just more fodder to help bring Ryan down.

Second, despite the fact that Republicans have backed down on this issue, it is important to remember that the majority of their caucus voted to go along with this as the very first act they would take in the 115th Congress. The media still seems to be unaware, but no one should be surprised by the radical nature of the Republican agenda. Despite warnings from their leaders about the optics of this move, the majority of Republicans decided to go ahead.

Which brings us to the final point and that is that the GOP would not have withdrawn this proposal without the negative reaction from the public. The shocking thing is that this proposal was made just last night and had to be withdrawn this morning. It goes to show the power and spontaneity of the backlash.There will be plenty of other items that Republicans will try to pass in the depth of night when they hope no one in looking. And they can only be blocked in the same way this was – through awareness, exposure, and reaction. It will require vigilance, organization, and making our will known.

But let’s not kid ourselves either. The only reason this failed is that there were enough Republicans who refused to go along with it. Unfortunately for all of us, that won’t always be the case.