Congress

House ethics watchdog now open for business

Published

1 year ago

May 14, 2025

The House’s outside ethics watchdog will soon be able to begin investigating lawmakers after the longest period of dormancy in its 17-year history.

The Office of Congressional Conduct — which vets misconduct allegations against lawmakers then sends findings to the House Ethics Committee, which can recommend potential formal action — has been effectively shuttered since the start of the 119th Congress as it awaited the appointment of board members.

But on Tuesday afternoon, the House clerk read aloud the names of those four members from the chamber floor, permitting the office to make moves toward resuming normal operations once again.

Karen Haas, a former House clerk, will serve as board chair; ex-Minnesota Democratic Rep. Bill Luther will serve as board co-chair. Another former House clerk, Lorraine Miller, alongside former Georgia GOP Rep. Lynn Westmoreland, will also hold seats.

It follows drawn-out pleading by good government organizations and a personal appeal earlier this month from a group of House Democrats who directly asked Speaker Mike Johnson to appoint members to the board.

“Ensuring OCC can operate effectively should not be a partisan issue,” wrote Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) and seven colleagues.

It’s not currently clear what the hold-up was about, though House GOP leadership made early moves to suggest it was seeking to slow-walk the OCC’s ability to get up and running. The rules package at the start of this Congress included language that changed the name of the body and required the board to meet to formally appoint the staff, essentially stalling its ability to resume operations.

Former GOP Rep. Porter Goss, who helped create the office in 2008, said he believed the inaction in forming OCC’s board for the new Congress might have been intended to quietly kill it altogether. A spokesperson for Johnson did not respond to an inquiry about the reason for the delay.

In any event, with the board’s reappointment — all four members served last year, too — the OCC now has its work cut out for it.

Staffers will soon face a mountain of cases that have accumulated during the OCC’s months of relative inactivity. The absence of a board forced the agency to sit almost entirely idle: While it could continue to gather freely-accessible information to develop cases, it lacked the ability to open any investigations without a formal governing body.

Beyond reviewing complaints against lawmakers, the inaction from House leadership in appointing a board for the new Congress also prevented OCC from formally changing its name on some official materials — as was required in the Rules package for this Congress — and from releasing reports on its activities.

Launched in 2008 by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the OCC was a response to a series of ethics scandals roiling Capitol Hill at that time, including the high-profile bribery charges against the notorious lobbyist Jack Abramoff.

Whereas the House Ethics Committee’s operations are shrouded in secrecy, the OCC was set up to receive complaints from the outside public about any House member. The independent, nonpartisan body could then investigate the matter and turn over credible allegations to the bipartisan Ethics panel made up of House members evenly divided between the two parties.

Goss said he, Pelosi and others proponents of the OCC believed that public-shaming could compel good behavior: Whereas the OCC is governed by a board of private citizens, the House Ethics Committee is a panel of members who adjudicate cases against their peers. And while the Ethics Committee is notoriously quiet, OCC is public-facing.

“The idea was that this would take the pressure” off the Ethics Committee, Goss said.

The House also took months to reappoint members to its Ethics Committee in the longest delay in recent history. It followed the tumultuous circumstances surrounding the release of the report into former Rep. Matt Gaetz, accused of illicit drug use and paying a minor for sex.

But many lawmakers revile the OCC, regarding it as a politically-motivated operation unfit to oversee the activities of the House. Shortly after Trump’s first election, lawmakers sought to kneecap the office altogether.

Former Rep. Gregg Harper (R-Miss.), who as a member of Congress served on the Ethics Committee, has since leaving office represented people with cases pending before the OCC and said in an interview he would advise future clients to not cooperate with the office’s requests. He called it a “gotcha organization” with little usefulness to the House and said it was time to shut it down to save taxpayer dollars.

One current House member, who requested anonymity to discuss sensitive matters around Congressional ethical concerns, argued that the OCC was a partisan entity that would take up just about any complaint — and that, despite the headaches the body creates, it has no real power in how the House Ethics Committee adjudicates complaints.

In the meantime, polls have found public trust in the federal government, particularly trust in Congress, to be exceptionally low. Good governance activists argue that the OCC is a key tool in restoring that trust and bemoaned the delays in reconstituting the office.

Aaron Scherb, a lobbyist for the progressive group Common Cause, cited concerns about “misconduct just being swept under the rug” in the OCC’s absence.

“As we’ve seen, the House Ethics Committee is extremely lacking in its investigations, and so the OCC has in some cases helped spur or kind of helped catalyze the House Ethics Committee to conduct more rigorous investigations,” Scherb said.

A spokesperson for OCC declined to comment.

Congress

John Thune has money on his mind

Published

2 hours ago

October 6, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

LE SUEUR, Minnesota — The word on John Thune’s mind these days is “resources.”

In the Senate majority leader’s recollection, it was a dominant topic in his recent conversations with President Donald Trump, including at a recent visit to the White House, not to mention in his frequent conversation with Trump’s political team — and in an exclusive conversation with Blue Light News Monday during a Midwest campaign swing.

“I think the president is sincerely interested in trying to do whatever he can to help the team,” Thune said about his midterm conversations with the president and his advisers. “I also share with him, too, the importance of just the resources in some of these states. You know, some of the states have gotten very expensive.”

As Trump focuses on turning out his own voters — a message the president is taking into his own hands in a series of preelection rallies — Thune is making sure he also has money on his mind: “I … just conveyed to him the importance of ensuring that our candidates are well-resourced.”

Thune’s focus underscores the emerging question defining the 2026 midterms: Is there enough Republican money, and can it be spent fast enough, to counter surging Democratic campaigns and a lackluster national environment for the GOP?

It’s a narrative both sides largely agree on — Thune’s Democratic counterpart, Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said as much last week — even as each leader insists his side will prevail.

Thune declined Monday to put odds on the GOP’s chances of keeping control of the Senate but said repeatedly, “I think we can keep the majority.”

“I think all of these races are margin of error, at least the ones that we have to win,” he added. “And historically, at least if you look at polls, we tend to outperform them.”

Unlike Schumer, who is keeping a low profile in October and focusing on private fundraising, Thune is barnstorming the country — visiting a mix of deep-red and battleground states.

Minnesota was not expected to be in play for Republicans when Thune took over as leader nearly two years ago. Democratic incumbent Sen. Tina Smith had a clear path to reelection in a state that has not elected a GOP senator since 2002.

But Smith chose to retire, and Democrats nominated an unabashed progressive, Peggy Flanagan, who is now facing Michele Tafoya, the well-known former sportscaster, in November. Recent public polls have shown the race in single digits, and Thune was not shy about including it alongside Michigan and New Hampshire as a GOP pickup opportunity.

Mentioning Minnesota is one thing, but investing in it is another, and national groups affiliated with Thune have not made major investments in the state so far. Standing next to Thune at a news conference Monday, Tafoya made the case for that to change.

“We have had three or four straight weeks of really solid polls,” she said. “This is one worth investing in. We are right there.”

But they both kept things vague when asked about Washington Republicans’ potential commitment to the race — including how much cash would be necessary to overcome 24 years of futility and a bad political environment.

Both Thune and Tafoya used the same words to answer that question: “We haven’t had that conversation.”

Thune put the party’s spending decisions into a larger context: “If the president is looking for places where he can make a difference … we’re in touch on a daily basis with his team and hopefully they will — as they already have — continue to help us leverage the resources that we’ve got to bring to bear to get the best possible impact and outcome in these key states.”

Thune pointed to Minnesota as one possible state where Trump could choose to deploy his $400-million-plus war chest. But the tiny national footprint in the Gopher State pales next to the hundreds of millions of dollars being spent in Texas — an expensive state Thune and Trump continue to discuss as Republicans struggle to drag Senate nominee Ken Paxton over the finish line.

Asked about the super-sized investments there, Thune declined to connect the massive spending on Paxton to tough decisions elsewhere on the map. “Dedicated donors” focused on Texas, he said, have meant GOP groups haven’t yet had to siphon funding away from other key states.

But the tough decisions are nevertheless underway. As Republican candidates play defense in a growing list of red states, the Thune-aligned Senate Leadership Fund recently pulled back spending in North Carolina — essentially surrendering a GOP-held seat to Democrats — while increasing its spending in Kansas.

Thune referred to the decision as a “pause” in financial support for nominee Michael Whatley.

The reasons for the political headwinds were on display Monday at an agriculture-focused roundtable, where Thune and Tafoya heard about the impact of Trump’s trade war with Canada, the president’s decision to import foreign beef and the high diesel prices that followed his decision to attack Iran.

Thune, a South Dakotan fluent in farm-state politics, touted Tafoya as someone who could help address some of those concerns by being a “great voice on issues like agriculture” if she makes it to the Senate.

His broader message in the interview, however, was to cast the midterm election as “choice” between the two parties rather than a referendum on the Iran war and the ensuing spike in energy prices. Democrats want “more spending,” “higher costs,” and “open borders,” he said, while Republicans had put “more money in your pockets” with their 2025 tax bill.

“Iran is temporary,” he said. “It will be behind us. Gas prices are going to come down, so who do you want to invest in for the next two years, four years?”

The midterm results carry personal stakes for Thune, who is expected to run for leader again in internal Senate GOP elections that are expected to take place just days after the midterms, regardless of the outcome.

Thune remains well-liked within the Senate GOP conference, and no other senator has raised his or her hand to run against him. But some conservatives, in and out of the Senate, have privately questioned whether Trump would publicly turn on Thune if Republicans lose their majority.

Asked about that possibility, Thune said, “I can’t control that.” He added that “the Republican conference” would ultimately make the decision.

“What the president does or doesn’t do … you just move forward and let the chips fall where they may,” he said. “All I can say is, I’m with him and his team to do the things I think are good for the future of the country.”

When Blue Light News pointed out Trump defended Thune at last month’s GOP midterm convention after some in the crowd booed the mention of his name, he laughed.

“Yeah, I know,” he said. “It’s the little things, right?”

Congress

GOP committee chair rebuts Sam Altman: ‘I’m never willing to accept bad results’ from AI

Published

13 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The chair of the House Agriculture Committee said he’s not willing to “accept bad results” as a tradeoff for the benefits of advancements in artificial intelligence — a direct rebuttal to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

“As someone who practiced health care for 28 years, I’m never willing to accept bad results. I think we just need to do our best,” Rep. G.T. Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, told reporters Monday.

He was responding to Altman’s comments to Decoded by Blue Light News that people “should accept some bad things happening for the benefits of this technology and people having the agency.”

Pressed further on whether he agreed with Altman’s premise, Thompson replied, “No, I think we have to work harder to prevent any bad things from happening.”

Altman’s comments come in the wake of increased panic over the risks of catastrophic destruction from AI, with many industry leaders and experts arguing that guardrails are needed on the technology to prevent it from spinning out of human control.

Pressure is building on Congress to regulate the rapidly-advancing technology, but lawmakers are divided over whether the AI industry needs federal regulation or if it’s capable of governing itself.

The executives of major AI labs and tech companies gathered at the White House last week to discuss solutions with President Donald Trump, who believes overregulating AI will have national security repercussions. The group ended up signing a “morally binding” AI accord that critics say won’t do enough to prevent a worst-case scenario.

Thompson noted Monday he believes that AI will bring “tremendous solutions,” specifically in regards to finding cures for health issues like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. But he also said AI has to be led with “principle” — comparing it to how he addressed digital assets in a bill to regulate the cryptocurrency industry, which he worked on as chair of the Agriculture Committee.

“The first principle is ‘do no harm.’ So we need to protect consumers, and that means, I think, building some guardrails — some guidelines — to do that,” Thompson said. He added that the second principle is to “foster innovation.”

“I think AI has a lot to do with that,” he added. “I don’t think AI works without RI: Real Intelligence.”

Congress

John Thune says ‘no clear path forward’ for clock-change bill

Published

13 hours ago

October 5, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

LE SUEUR, Minnesota — Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Monday there is no “consensus” yet on advancing a bill establishing permanent daylight saving time even as President Donald Trump ramps up pressure on Republicans to pass it.

Thune addressed the matter in a Monday interview after Trump used his Truth Social account multiple times over the weekend to rail against the legislation, known as the Sunshine Protection Act — going so far as to post the personal cell phone number of one of its GOP opponents, Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas.

“The president feels strongly on it like he does a lot of issues,” he said. “It’s something we’re having conversations about but there’s no clear path forward or consensus on it yet.”

While Trump singled out Cotton for scrutiny, Thune made clear the opposition to the permanent daylight saving time proposal — which would lead to very late winter sunrises in some parts of the country — ran deeper than one senator.

Cotton has publicly voiced opposition to the proposal for year, citing, among other things, the fact that children in his state would be going to school in the dark for part of the year.

Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) voiced similar objections Monday to reporters in the Capitol, saying he was mindful of “safety concerns in the more northern and rural states where children get on the school bus in very early hours.”

Thune, who spoke during a campaign swing in Minnesota with GOP Senate nominee Michele Tafoya, has himself opposed previous daylight saving bills. He said Monday that “a lot of it depends on where you are in the country” and that “your geography probably has as much to do with your position on that as anything.”

Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who has aligned himself closely with Trump, is among the lawmakers who have been pushing to get the bill through the Senate. He recently told POLITICO, “I’m going to make sure it gets passed this year.”

Riley Rogerson contributed to this report.