Guest Commentary: Accountability needed at both state and national levels
Monica Beard is a member of Common Cause Delaware’s Advisory Board.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” Unfortunately, Lord Acton’s well-known statement from the 19th century still applies to politics today, whether in Washington, D.C., or Dover, Delaware.
In the nation’s capital, the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent watchdog for the U.S. House of Representatives, was created in 2008, following a series of bribery and corruption scandals that resulted in U.S. House members resigning or going to prison. Since its creation, the office has held members of Congress to basic ethical standards of conduct and referred for further investigation an almost equal number of Democratic and Republican members.
As a result, the agency has earned ire from both sides of the aisle. It has ensured that members of both parties play by the same set of rules and cannot shield themselves from scrutiny. The independent House ethics watchdog has stepped in to fill the accountability gap left by the broken House Ethics Committee process, which relies on members of Congress to serve as both judge and jury of their own wrongdoings.
But the hard truth is that accountability isn’t popular amongst those with the power to seek after it.
The Office of Congressional Ethics has faced relentless attacks in the last month by the new House majority. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., attempted to gut the office by enacting arbitrary term limits that disqualified several sitting board members and instituting impossibly tight deadlines to replace them and hire staff. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., was able to put a stop to this scheme by swiftly appointing new board members, but the office is only safe for the moment. This is not the first attempt to do away with the OCE, and it will not be the last.
Delaware is certainly familiar with this kind of hostility towards accountability. Though we have a Public Integrity Commission, it lacks the teeth to require officials to even sign conflict-of-interest disclosure forms. In 2021, our state House Ethics Committee dismissed an ethics complaint against Rep. Gerald Brady, despite evidence that he’d used racial slurs and joked about human trafficking using his state email. And, just last year, State Auditor Kathy McGuiness — the chief accountability officer for the state — resigned after being convicted of misconduct and conflicts of interest.
At both the state and national level, accountability doesn’t come easily.
But, if we, the voters, can’t ensure that our leaders are honest, who will? Last November, we voted to protect our democracy from election deniers and partisan extremists. This attempt to weaken the Office of Congressional Ethics is another attack on our democracy and in direct opposition to what we collectively supported. And, here in Delaware, allowing our leaders to skirt transparency has already proven to have serious consequences.
There are solutions within our reach. For the OCE, the answer is clear-cut and simple: It should be codified into law and given full subpoena authority. The office is one of the key safeguards against corruption in the U.S. House of Representatives. Let’s give this watchdog the tools it needs to do its crucial job.
Here, in Delaware, we’ve got several options that would help improve public trust in government and prevent future misconduct. First and foremost, we support the creation of an Office of Inspector General to strengthen ethics enforcement in the First State. Much like the OCE, it would be charged with overseeing the enforcement of ethical standards for all public officials.
To address the corrosive power of big money in politics, we need to improve our campaign finance reporting requirements. We support the addition of quarterly reporting of campaign contributions and expenditures, and believe that donors should be required to disclose their employer and occupation. We could also strengthen oversight by requiring county-level lobbyists to disclose any contributions or gifts given to lawmakers and to register with the New Castle County Ethics Commission.
Elected officials can’t be both judge and jury for their wrongdoings. Regardless of party, our lawmakers cannot be allowed to make the rules, set the agenda and drown out the voices of everyday Americans. Let’s remind our lawmakers, in both Delaware and Washington, D.C., that they work for us.
