Congress
Capitol agenda: Congress tries again to police itself
Reps. Kat Cammack and Teresa Leger Fernández are leading a bipartisan effort to fundamentally change how sexual misconduct and other bad behavior in Congress is investigated and eradicated.
But the goal of changing Congress’ workplace culture could hit a wall of longstanding lawmaker resistance to putting the tools in place to better police themselves.
The duo has been working on legislation for months to reform the Ethics Committee and streamline the process for staffers to report violations, aiming to unveil the framework in September as lawmakers return from recess.
It comes after multiple ethics violations and misconduct allegations have roiled Blue Light News this year.
“I am incredibly optimistic that when we get back into session that we will have a set of reforms that we can all agree on,” Leger Fernández said.
But it remains to be seen if lawmakers are prepared to make big changes that could open them up to further scrutiny amid fears the policies could stoke frivolous claims, fingerpointing and partisan witch hunts.
“Enforcement is where the difficult conversations are happening because enforcement is what makes this real. We’re working through those questions with members directly, which is how real reform gets done,” Cammack said.
Cammack added that every provision must pass the test of “does it actually hold people accountable, or does it just look like it does? Anything that can’t clear that bar isn’t reform, and I’m not interested in reform that’s just for show.”
The last major ethics overhaul happened after the #MeToo movement, with the new law holding lawmakers liable for harassment and establishing a voluntary mediation process for staffers.
But the law didn’t clear the convoluted maze of options for staffers to register their complaints, whether through the Ethics Committee, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights or the Office of Congressional Conduct. Leger Fernández said she wants their bill to establish a “one stop shop” for reporting complaints.
They’re also planning to recommend overhauling the Ethics Committee’s speed in releasing reports, prohibit all House members from having intimate relationships with any congressional staffer, not just those in their offices, and guarantee starker consequences for lawmakers.
Another hurdle: the biggest proposed changes would need buy in from the Senate. Codifying the Office of Congressional Conduct into law is among them, since the OCC currently only has authority over the House. It’s been awash with bipartisan pushback since it was created, with GOP leadership slow-walking some of its board appointments at the start of the 119th Congress.
What else we’re watching:
— PELOSI’S INFLUENCE LIVES ON IN STAFFER DIASPORA: Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be leaving Congress, but dozens of her longtime staffers are sticking around in the House’s top jobs. And several Pelosi alumni can be found in the offices of Minority Whip Katherine Clark as well as Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is likely to become speaker if Democrats take back the majority this November. The diaspora can now be found now running leadership offices, directing committees and helming new teams as chiefs of staff. The continued presence of about 50 former staffers on Capitol Hill means Pelosi’s influence could be felt inside the House Democratic Caucus pulling the levers of power for decades behind the scenes.
— BRAT SPEAKS TRUMP DOWN UNDER — Once an insurgent rabble-rouser in Congress, newly-confirmed Ambassador David Brat is now a Trump world insider sent to Australia as tariffs test the relationship. “He can speak Trump,” James Braid, President Donald Trump’s director of legislative affairs, said in a recent interview. “And I think that will really help him facilitate Aussie-United States relations.” This dynamic could be key as Brat, who represented Virginia’s 7th Congressional District from 2014-2019, gets to work in Canberra, where political leaders have been rattled by Trump’s implementation of a 12.5 percent tariff on Australian goods.
Chris Marquette, Riley Rogerson and Katherine Tully-McManus contributed to this report.
A bipartisan House effort is underway to fundamentally change how sexual misconduct and other bad behavior on Capitol Hill is identified, investigated and eradicated.
But the widely-held goal of transforming the workplace culture of Congress could quickly run up against longstanding lawmaker resistance to tools necessary to police themselves, with some worried it will turn into another avenue for partisan mudslinging.
Reps. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) and Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.), the chairs of their respective party’s women’s caucuses, have been working on legislation to change how the Ethics Committee functions and streamline the various processes by which staffers can report violations, with plans to unveil a framework in September after the summer recess.
“I am incredibly optimistic that when we get back into session that we will have a set of reforms that we can all agree on,” Leger Fernández said in an interview this past week.
“We’ve been hard at work all summer, and we’re on track to unveil our proposal next month,” Cammack said in a statement.
The rash of sexual misconduct allegations over the past year against male members of Congress that resulted in two resignations in the same week — from former Reps. Eric Swalwell of California and Tony Gonzales of Texas — has increased the urgency for action. Cammack and Leger Fernández also have support from Speaker Mike Johnson and Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, giving their effort more legitimacy.
Cammack said in an interview before the break she was in touch with Johnson’s office “every single week” on her collaboration with Leger Fernández, describing the speaker as “very aggressive in trying to get this moved along.”
Ultimately, it remains to be seen whether lawmakers are prepared to make big changes that would open themselves and their aides up to more scrutiny amid fears the policies could stoke frivolous claims, finger-pointing and partisan witch hunts.
The last major push to overhaul the congressional ethics process was in 2018, trailing the #MeToo movement a year earlier. Congress sent legislation to President Donald Trump’s desk — which he signed into law — to hold lawmakers liable for harassment and require them to reimburse the Treasury Department for settlements stemming from misconduct.
That effort also established a voluntary mediation process for congressional staffers, giving employees the option to consult with a confidential adviser from the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights to walk them through the process.
What the new law did not do was eliminate the convoluted maze of options where staffers can go to formally register their complaints: The bipartisan House Ethics Committee, the Office of Congressional Workplace Rights or the Office of Congressional Conduct — the non-partisan investigative body that vets outside referrals and makes recommendations of official action to the Ethics Committee.
Leger Fernández said she wants her bill with Cammack to establish a “one stop shop where somebody can know where to call, they’re talking to somebody who has trauma-informed training who will help them understand what the remedies and avenues are.”
“The current system failed the people it was supposed to protect, and everyone here knows it,” Cammack said. “Coming forward is extraordinarily difficult. Fear of retaliation and institutional pressure silence victims long before justice has a chance to speak.”
They also are likely to recommend overhauling how the House Ethics Committee itself functions, including by addressing the speed at which the panel releases reports.
Sometimes the panel has moved quickly. For instance, members issued a report in early August finding Rep. Chuck Edwards participated in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers” — less than five months after allegations against the North Carolina Republican surfaced.
The report recommended that Edwards be censured. While he has denied improper behavior, he also dropped his bid for reelection.
But other inquiries pending before the Ethics Committee have languished, such as the two-year-old probe into allegations that Rep. Cory Mills (R-Fla.) violated campaign finance laws and omitted information from financial disclosures.
Additional allegations involving Mills surfaced after a 2025 incident in which the Washington, D.C, Metropolitan Police Department responded to a report that Mills assaulted a woman he was in a relationship with that the House Ethics Committee is also investigating. Mills has denied the allegations and said he has confidence in the congressional ethics process.
Providing more resources to increase the number of investigative staff and setting stricter deadlines for producing reports could help speed up pending inquiries. But Cammack and Leger Fernández also want to guarantee there are sufficient consequences for lawmakers when misconduct is determined. They plan to recommend that all members of the House be prohibited from having intimate relationships with any congressional staffer, not just those who work in their offices.
The two women want to ensure punishments are meaningful and consistent across the board, too. In the case of Edwards, Leger Fernández said, “we have an incredibly damning and disturbing Ethics Committee report of years of sexual harassment and all they’re recommending is a censure. That, I do not think, is adequate.”
There is a need, she added, for a “stronger and clearer delineation of what happens when you violate the rules of Ethics.”
“Enforcement is where the difficult conversations are happening because enforcement is what makes this real. We’re working through those questions with members directly, which is how real reform gets done,” Cammack said.
Cammack added that every provision must pass the test of “does it actually hold people accountable, or does it just look like it does? Anything that can’t clear that bar isn’t reform, and I’m not interested in reform that’s just for show.”
Tom Rust, the staff director for the Ethics Committee, declined to comment.
Leger Fernández said much of the legislation she is fine-tuning with Cammack could be integrated into the House rules package, which lawmakers must adopt at the start of every Congress.
She acknowledged, however, that other proposed changes would require buy-in from the Senate. That could include codifying the Office of Congressional Conduct into law. The OCC currently only has the authority to investigate members and staff in the House and needs House lawmakers to reauthorize it every two years.
The OCC receives referrals of alleged staff and member misconduct and can then choose to begin an investigation, which requires sign-off by two board members — one chosen by the speaker and one by the minority leader. Once that investigation is complete, it triggers a countdown in which the House Ethics Committee has to either continue with its own investigation or release the OCC’s findings.
This process has spurred the House Ethics Committee to act on countless occasions, including in the cases of former Reps. Chris Collins in 2017, Duncan Hunter in 2016 and, most recently, Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick. Collins went on to plead guilty to participating in an insider trading scheme and was sentenced to over two years in federal prison, while Hunter also pleaded guilty to stealing campaign funds and was sentenced to just under a year in jail. Trump later pardoned them both.
Cherfilus-McCormick, meanwhile, was indicted on federal fraud charges and has pleaded not guilty, with her trial expected to start next year.
But the OCC has consistently been on the receiving end of bipartisan vitriol since its inception in 2008, with members deeply uncomfortable with the idea of being put under the microscope by a slate of outsiders. In 2010, Democrats were eager to gut the OCC’s authority and Republicans in 2017 moved to bulldoze its power, but reversed course after public blowback.
While it wasn’t politically viable to kill the office at the start of the 119th Congress, either, GOP leadership slow-walked appointing members to the OCC’s board, delaying the start of its work for months.
It’s far from certain the Senate would support giving the OCC the force of law or agree to come under its umbrella, primarily for the same reasons why it makes many members uneasy in the House — though momentum is growing around the idea.
Earlier this summer, the Congressional Progressive Staff Association, which represents more than 1,500 House and Senate employees, sent a letter to the leaders on the House Administration Committee and the Senate Committee on Rules, urging the OCC be expanded to the Senate and given limited subpoena authority.
One person granted anonymity to share details about ongoing negotiations over the Cammack-Leger Fernández package said there has been some outreach to Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). A spokesperson for Schiff said the senator “has been engaging with other offices about possible reforms to the Senate’s rules surrounding sexual misconduct and workplace rights.”
A spokesperson with the Senate Ethics Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
“Our focus right now is getting it right in the House first,” Cammack said.
“The leaders of both parties support it, and members on both sides are done looking the other way. Everyone who comes to work in the People’s House deserves dignity, respect, and protection from abuse,” she added.
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi may be leaving Congress, but dozens of her longtime staffers are sticking around in the House’s top jobs.
The aides who worked for the California Democrat throughout her 39-year congressional career are now running leadership offices, directing committees and helming new teams as chiefs of staff.
Their continued presence of about 50 former staffers on Capitol Hill is a sign that Pelosi’s signature brand of hard-nosed, strategic leadership will outlive her tenure.
“I do think that there is a particular ethos of a Pelosi staffer,” Pelosi’s former chief of staff Terri McCullough, who remains an adviser, said in an interview. “So many of us got from her a PhD in leadership and efficacy and public service.”
Pelosi, 86, has long faced criticism for not developing a deeper bench of Democratic leaders as she occupied the top spot in her party’s leadership structure for 20 years. But she was able to mentor and cultivate a vast network of congressional aides.
It means Pelosi’s influence could continue to be felt inside the House Democratic Caucus. While elected officials come and go thanks to a fickle electorate, staffers are forever — often outlasting their bosses and exercising influence behind the scenes as they amass institutional knowledge and learn how to operate the real levers of power.
“As Speaker, I was proud to assemble a team of some of the finest public servants the House has ever known — brilliant, dedicated, collaborative, and patriotic,” Pelosi said in a statement. “I take great comfort in knowing that many of them now serve in leadership positions, bringing that experience and commitment to the benefit of the Congress, the American people, and our nation’s future.”
Several Pelosi alumni can be found in the office of House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who is likely to become speaker if Democrats take back the majority this November.
Senior Jeffries advisers Emily Berret and George Kundanis both served as Pelosi’s deputy chiefs of staff. Wyndee Parker, Jeffries’ policy adviser, was a national security adviser for Pelosi. Jamie Fleet — who serves in dual roles as a senior adviser to Jeffries and staff director of the House Administration Committee Democrats — is a former Pelosi senior adviser.
In the office of House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.), chief speechwriter John Weber previously served as Pelosi’s deputy speechwriting director, while communications director Joy Lee was Pelosi’s national press secretary.
Pelosi’s longtime former chief of staff in her personal office, Robert Edmonson, is now working for Rep. Robert Garcia of California as staff director for Democrats on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee; Garcia, the current ranking member, will likely become the chair if Democrats win back the majority.
Several former Pelosi staffers are also now running congressional offices, including Amy Soenksen, Pelosi’s former director of intergovernmental affairs and member services senior adviser who is now chief of staff to Rep. Morgan McGarvey (D-Ky.).
Yuri Beckelman, once a Pelosi staff assistant, is now chief to Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.). Ben Burnett, previously chief of staff to disgraced ex-Rep. Eric Swalwell, continues to run the California Democrat’s vacant office that has yet to be filled in a special election; he was once a Pelosi intern in the cloakroom.
First-term Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-Ariz.) is a former Pelosi intern.
Meanwhile, dozens of Pelosi staffers not currently working in the House remain part of the broader Hill ecosystem — in the Senate and as lobbyists, lawyers, consultants and campaign officials. Pelosi’s communications director Ian Krager, for one, is currently on leave to work as a campaign spokesperson for San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan, the former speaker’s preferred successor.
Pelosi’s former political director, Mike Smith, is now the president of House Majority PAC, a Jeffries-aligned super PAC.
The Pelosi alumni network continues to meet for happy hours and communicate on text chains and share common experiences that inform how they do their jobs.
In interviews with seven former staffers, all described their time working with the lawmaker as formative to building their operational and leadership skills they say they will bring with them to run the next generation of congressional offices.
They repeatedly quoted Pelosi’s mantra — “proper preparation prevents poor performance” — and her frequent refrain that her political decisions were guided by what was best “for the children.” They recited the importance of handwritten thank you notes, a meticulous attention to detail, shrugging off haters and, of course, accurately counting votes.
They described Pelosi’s stamina for phone calls interrupted only for a brief nap — or, as Lee recalled, a stop for chocolate ice cream — before returning to the grind of wielding the gavel.
Those lessons, these staffers say, will help keep the House Democratic Caucus aligned, efficient and committed to strategically advancing priority legislation.
“What a Pelosi staffer could do better than anything is process,” former Pelosi deputy chief of staff Drew Hammill, now a consultant, said in an interview. “In terms of running an office, we have been trained on how to move the ball forward. Deadlines are deadlines.”
Edmondson, Pelosi’s former chief who now works for Garcia, recalled a “strong office culture where we had long days and difficult challenges, but really supported each other, and there was a whole lot of mentorship within the staff and support from her. Because of that, people loved the service and loved the work. … We all learned so much from her about the skills that are needed to be successful on Blue Light News.”
As chief of staff for McGarvey, said Soenksen, she often thinks of another one of Pelosi’s go-to slogans — “know your why” — as an important reminder for aides and members alike.
“It’s actually really helpful to think about that too, to know sort of what is my boss’s why, what is my team’s why, what are my colleagues’ and my staff’s why?” she said in an interview. “Because when you know your why, you can be focused and you can help motivate your team.”
Smith, the former Pelosi political director who now runs House Majority PAC, said this saying has had a similarly profound effect on his work, too.
“Every time we met with a candidate, she asked the same exact question, and the question was like, ‘What is your why?’ Like, why are you doing this? What motivates you to get out of bed and fight every day? And in part because running for Congress or any elected office, it’s just brutal.”
“It got to the point where, the second she asked it — depending on the answer — you knew whether someone was going to be successful or not,” Smith continued, adding: “Having that as your north star, I think, was a really important lesson for me.”
Fresh from defeating a 78-year-old, 14-term incumbent, 44-year-old Luke Bronin is now preparing to take his push for generational change to Capitol Hill.
“I hope that the Democratic party begins to recognize that we have to bring a whole new energy to this fight right now,” Bronin, the former mayor of Hartford, Connecticut, said in an interview Friday. “And some of the most powerful voices that I see out there in the Democratic party are coming from newer leaders.”
After besting Rep. John Larson in last week’s Democratic primary in Connecticut, Bronin is now the favorite to win in the general in a reliably blue district against Republican physician Amy Chai. Assuming things go his way, he’ll soon join the growing chorus of lawmakers eager for more generational transition.
But Bronin was careful in explaining how, exactly, he thinks House Democrats should go about enacting that change.
When asked if he supports term limits for committee chairs or similar efforts aimed at elevating newer, and often younger, members, Bronin stopped short of saying he did, but noted, “I think we would be a healthier, stronger party if we had more renewal more often.”
Bronin also said that he’s glad he has seen some “changes to the seniority system,” in which House Democrats have historically valued a member’s tenure over their talents in committee leadership races.
He said he was encouraged, for instance, by sophomore Rep. Robert Garcia of California’s ascension to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last year. When the panel’s longtime top Democrat, Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, died, Garcia ran to succeed him and defeated the more senior Rep. Stephen Lynch of Massachusetts, among others.
Reps. Jared Huffman of California and Angie Craig of Minnesota also successfully replaced the longtime top Democrats on the House Natural Resources and Agriculture Committees, respectively, to serve in the 119th Congress — further underscoring an appetite for younger committee leadership in the House.
And although Bronin did not name check any particular committee leader, Democrats atop the House’s most powerful committees are all over the age of 70. That includes Reps. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut on Appropriations, Frank Pallone of New Jersey on Energy and Commerce, Richard Neal of Massachusetts on Ways and Means and Maxine Waters of California on Financial Services.
Bronin said his campaign was successful because of his message that “we are in a moment of crisis in this country, and we need a Democratic party that recognizes that we can’t just keep doing the same thing.”
That effort, Bronin said, does not include opposing Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries’ bid for speaker, should Democrats take the majority.
He said he will vote in favor of Jeffries’ speakership and that “on Day One of a new Democratic majority, I want us to be focused on stopping [President Donald] Trump’s corruption and holding this administration accountable, not fighting over who is going to be speaker.”
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