Paul Ryan re-elected House speaker; Pelosi suffers defections

Previously called the independent Office of Congressional Ethics, the office was launched in 2008 to address concerns that the lawmaker-run House Ethics Committee failed to adequately police members of Congress.

Justice Antonin Scalia died last February and Republicans refused to consider Obama’s nominee, Merrick Garland, insisting that the next president should fill the high court vacancy that’s now lasted more than 10 months.

Republicans will then begin the more complicated task of building a new system. The committees are to finish those plans no later than February 15. Would that every governmental office and agency operated under such standards.

Sessions said he would support the rule no matter which party was in the majority as a way to maintain decorum on the House floor.

This time, however, Republicans got caught with their hand in the cookie jar, but it would be a mistake to view the reversal as recognition that they made a blunder.

SECOND: How will this change how congress and the President interact?

New members of the House and Senate will be sworn in on Tuesday, the first day of the new Congress.

Republicans must also maneuver while facing slightly expanded Democratic minorities in the House and Senate, in a climate that is, in many respects, even more hostile than it was before the November elections.

You may remember Rep. Goodlatte, by the way, as the man who liked term limits so much that he promised in 1992 to limit his own service to just six terms in office. It was his suggestion, he said, to “only put it in for one year” in the rules package, which would mean it would expire in January 2018.

“I had cautioned some of my colleagues last night that that one provision would create quite a stir – and it did”, said Rep. Charlie Dent (R., Pa.), who chaired the ethics committee the past two years.

Republicans have long sought to dismantle Obamacare, insisting it was unworkable and hampered job growth.

“We are expecting a very conservative, right wing unheard of agenda from the Republicans”, said Representative Gk Butterfield/(D) 1st District. In less than three weeks, on the West Front of the Capitol, Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the presidential oath to Donald Trump, the GOP’s newfound ally.

It started with a vote taken by the Republican caucus Monday night to change ethics oversight rules, in a move that certainly gave the impression of limiting investigation of themselves.

“He’ll be the Democratic statesman in the way everyone loves Bill Clinton, but people will listen to Barack Obama’s direction”, Ferson said.

“It undermines civil service protections”. That he might use that for some horse trading back-and-forth with Congress. “Republicans have consistently made our hardworking federal employees scapegoats, in my opinion, for lack of performance of the federal government itself”.

He said, “With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it”. (They would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for the young people and their Twitter birds.) Pushing a reform through usual order-i.e., in the public spotlight-will not be a comfortable proposition, either.

But she said any changes “should be done in a more transparent and bipartisan fashion”. But changes should be done in the bright light of day with the goal of furthering transparency and accountability. Under the new House procedures, that move wouldn’t be seen as “providing new budget authority, decreasing revenues, increasing mandatory spending, or increasing outlays”. “Speaker Ryan is giving a green light to congressional corruption”.

Democrat Mark Pocan of Madison said in an interview Tuesday, “there’s an arrogance, there’s a tackiness to it that I think goes beyond any sensibilities”.