SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A
distinct rule prohibiting it.
Franks, a prominent social
conservative, quit in disgrace
rather than facing the Ethics
Committee, acknowledging his
actions in his resignation letter.
The decision to bypass the
panel in the Gosar matter, going
straight to the House floor,
followed an early 2021 move to
go immediately to the full House
to remove Rep. Marjorie Taylor
Greene (R-Ga.) from her
assignments based on past
violent rhetoric toward
members.
Wild, the Democrat from
Pennsylvania, believes those
actions created a “media circus”
around the two Republicans —
both of whom have since worn
those punishments as badges of
political honor on the far right.
A behind-closed-doors
investigation led by the
professional ethics staff, with
the potential to reveal new
controversial actions, might
better serve the House.
“It’s exactly where we should
be dealing with people who are
engaging in threatening
behavior toward other
members, people who are using
slanderous language about
other members, and people who
are just outright lying,” Wild
said.
Womack is so outraged by
Cawthorn’s “terrible honor
violation” that he considers it
almost worthy of expulsion. “Is
an individual, who has that
predisposition,” he asked, “are
they congressional material?”
Cawthorn has had a pattern
of making false or outlandish
claims, including that he was
armed during the Capitol riot in
January 2021 and that a friend
left him for dead in the car
crash that left him paralyzed
from the waist down. He
recently referred to Ukrainian
President Volodymyr Zelensky
as a “thug.”
Deutch thinks there is room
for the Ethics Committee to take
up issues like this, if both sides
are willing to just take the first
clause of the rule book seriously.
“If members are doing things
that are abhorrent, then it
should certainly trigger a
conversation about clause one,”
Deutch said. “Again, the
broadest interpretation of that
rule is what is required.”committee, most investigations
have centered on some version
of financial impropriety, such as
using campaign money for
personal purchases, abusing
taxpayer-funded staff with
demands that they run personal
errands, or inappropriate use of
the annual funds given to each
office for official expenditures.
In August 2020, the panel
unanimously issued a letter
admonishing Rep. Matt Gaetz
(R-Fla.), citing the first clause of
the conduct code, for
threatening tweets he directed
at Michael Cohen in 2019, on the
eve of testimony by the former
lawyer for Donald Trump.
One veteran Republican
views the House as too deeply
split along party lines for the
committee to hand out any real
punishment to someone like
Cawthorn.
“I would love to be able to see
a system in place where, in an
objective way, we could deal
with members on either side of
the aisle that take a serious step
out of bounds,” said Rep. Steve
Womack (R-Ark.), who has
accused Cawthorn of making up
stories about witnessing drug
abuse. “But I’m not optimistic
we can come to something like
that because of the shirts-and-
skins nature of politics as we
know it today.”
Deutch, 55, found the
toughest, most difficult phase of
his ethics tenure a few years ago
when the panel investigated a
slew of sexual misconduct cases.
Eight House members — five
Republicans, three Democrats —
either resigned immediately or
did not seek reelection.
“You realize that, if what
you’re trying to do is uphold the
integrity of the House, and you
find at that point so much really
bad behavior, you realize how
tall an order it can sometimes
be to do that work,” Deutch said.
In those #MeToo cases, the
panel often cited that broad first
clause of the code of conduct as
grounds for its jurisdiction — an
approach that could be applied
to other cases, including
accusations that Cawthorn lied.
In one case, Rep. Trent Franks
(R-Ariz.) allegedly asked two
young female staffers to serve as
surrogate mothers for him — the
type of terrible behavior that
could never be foreseen with aon the panel. He remembers her
charging him with “upholding
the integrity of the House.”
“It’s an honor to be asked. I’m
not sure I expected it to do it for
eight years,” said Deutch, who
announced he will resign later
this year to take over the
American Jewish Committee.
Outside ethics experts often
criticize the panel for both a
lack of transparency and slow-
moving investigations that can
take years before there’s any
outcome. Its subpoenas are
issued secretly and sometimes
cases are closed with no public
reckoning. Rep. Charles B.
Rangel (D-N.Y.), in 2010, was the
last lawmaker to face a
committee censure
recommendation, and James
Traficant (D-Ohio), in 2002, was
the last member expelled
following an ethics
investigation.
The chairman cites a very
basic math problem that limits
the committee’s scope if one
party decides it doesn’t want to
investigate one of its own.
“The committee is evenly
divided, five-five. Anything that
the committee does requires a
bipartisan vote. We need six
votes,” Deutch said.
In Deutch’s time on thecommittee assignments.
Rep. Jackie Walorski (Ind.),
the top Republican on the
Ethics Committee, declined to
talk about the highly sensitive
work of the panel, but during
the debate over Gosar’s censure
she pleaded with Democrats to
refer the issue to their
committee and let them conduct
a review of Gosar’s behavior.
“The House Ethics Committee
has had no time to consider this
matter through the Ethics
Committee process,” Walorksi
said in a November speech. “And
there is a process — the
nonpartisan staff should have
the time to research and gather
information — and the
committee members should
have conversations before
making a decision.”
Deutch found public service
early in life as a Harry S.
Truman scholar at the
University of Michigan, where
he also earned his law degree.
After years as a real estate
lawyer in South Florida, he won
a state Senate seat in 2006 and
then a special election to his
House seat in 2010.
After just a couple of terms,
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-
Calif.) saw him as the type of
straight shooter who could serveseems to be over,” Rep. Susan
Wild (D-Pa.) said, noting that
mask rules were recently lifted
as coronavirus case numbers
decreased.
Now in his eighth year as the
top Democrat on the committee,
Deutch chooses his words
carefully on ethics matters. He
projects confidence that staff
are focused on the most
important investigations but
acknowledges the mask police is
not his favorite use of
committee resources.
“That was a responsibility
that was given to the Ethics
Committee,” he said. “Has it
taken a lot of time? Yes.”
If Deutch and other Ethics
Committee members had their
way, they could take up more
matters related to member
behavior, but both political
parties have to agree to initiate
a probe. And party leaders seem
to have abandoned any hope
this panel could properly police
such behavior.
Top Democrats initially called
for an ethics probe into Gosar’s
violent online behavior, but
within days they decided to skip
that process and brought a
censure resolution to the full
House floor that included a
punishment that revoked hisRep. Ted Deutch
(D-Fla.) can cite
almost verbatim
the first rule of
congressional
conduct.
“Members shall behave at all
times in a manner that reflects
creditably upon the House,” he
said, unprompted, during a
Wednesday interview, forgetting
just one extra “shall” in the
opening clause of the House’s
Code of Official Conduct.
As chairman of the House
Ethics Committee, Deutch
would like to see a bit more
vigorous policing of behavior
that doesn’t break specific rules
but clearly brings discredit to
the institution.
The past year has brought a
number of examples: Rep.
Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.)
claimed in a podcast interview
in late March that respected
Washington leaders had invited
him to an orgy and that he had
watched them do cocaine, which
House Minority Leader Kevin
McCarthy (R-Calif.) said was a
lie. Last November, Rep. Paul A.
Gosar (R-Ariz.) posted a violent
animated video depicting the
killing of Rep. Alexandria
Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and a
violent attack on President
Biden. And last April, Rep.
Maxine Waters (D-Calif.)
encouraged a crowd to “get
more confrontational” on the
street if the Minneapolis police
officer who killed George Floyd
was found not guilty.
None of these matters have
received scrutiny from the
Ethics Committee, according to
its members, as the panel has
remained focused on more
traditional corruption
allegations.
And a large chunk of their
time is being spent being the
chamber’s mask police, as the
committee has had to handle
violations of a rule requiring
lawmakers to wear a mask while
on the House floor. Over the last
three months, the committee
has issued 20 statements about
cases it was handling and 14 of
them involved doling out fines
to Republicans who refused to
wear a mask.
“Quite honestly, we have
spent way too much time over
the last year having to be the
mask police. Thankfully that
A divided House Ethics Committee struggles to crack down on bad behavior
@PKCapitol
PAUL KANE
J. LAWLER DUGGAN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST
Rep. Ted Deutch (D-Fla.), chairman of the House Ethics Committee, says its even partisan division
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