Update: U.S. House Republicans drop plan to weaken its ethics office

U.S. Rep. Bruce Poliquin, Maine’s only House Republican, is opposing his party’s surprise vote Monday night to gut an independent ethics office.

In a closed-door vote, Republicans endorsed moving the independent Office of Congressional Ethics — established in 2008 amid concerns that lawmakers on an ethics panel weren’t rigorously policing allegations of wrongdoing against members of Congress — further under the oversight of that committee.

Critics — including President-elect Donald Trump — said the move sends the wrong message to voters as Republicans prepare to take control of both chambers of Congress and the White House.

“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 may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance,” Trump tweeted.

Poliquin expressed a similar sentiment. In a prepared statement issued Tuesday, he said, “there should be important reforms made to the Office of Congressional Ethics that both Republicans and Democrats agree on,” but such changes need to be bipartisan.

He said Americans “have spoken overwhelmingly in the last election” that they want lawmakers to fix “real problems.”

“This is not their priority,” Poliquin said.

Now, the office investigates allegations against lawmakers and makes recommendations to the committee, which examines cases further and can act on them. But the office can release reports even if the committee lets cases languish.

The amendment would bar the office from making public disclosures or referring complaints to law enforcement without committee approval, also keeping it from investigating anonymous complaints.

Republicans voted 119-74 to back the change on Monday night, with Democrats and watchdogs crying foul with the rules package set to come up for a public vote of the full House on Tuesday.

Not surprisingly, U.S. Rep. Chellie Pingree, a Democrat from Maine’s 1st District, hammered the proposed change in a statement, saying it’s “like taking the referees off the field” and that she’d vote against it when it comes up on Tuesday.