With the advent of the incoming #trump administration backed up by a Republican-led Congress in both houses, it’s become ever more important that we speak up, loudly and en masse, when actions are proposed that are contrary to what we the American people, their constituents, espouse.
We saw that at work this last week when House Republicans approved an amendment to place the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) under the oversight of the House Ethics committee, eliminating its independence and restricting its jurisdiction. The OCE currently operates as an independent congressional body that reviews conflicts of interest and other ethics requests made by any member of the public. It has jurisdiction over members of the House alone.
The Goodlatte amendment was adopted by only those in a Republican caucus meeting in the dead of night, a meeting no Democrat could attend to dissent. The amendment was quickly pulled from the rules package that was subsequently voted upon on the floor, largely in response to thousands of constituents who took time from their day to contact their lawmakers, expressing their disgust, that the 115th’s Republicans’ first action would be to gut ethics.
PEOTUS trump may have tweeted that gutting ethics isn’t the place to start (notice that he was just indicating his displeasure with their timing, not the action), but it was constituents who overloaded DC’s switchboard that got the attention of Republican Representatives in the House.
This week will bring more opportunities for advocacy.
Happening Tuesday/Wednesday, the Senate will jam through confirmation hearings for SEVEN nominees for which vetting has not been completed and for which the Senate has not received “certification” from the Office of Government Ethics.
In case you weren’t aware, the Ethics in Government Act requires that presidential nominees to be confirmed by the Senate must obtain OGE-certification of their financial disclosures prior to any congressional hearings. Some of those nominees have not yet provided their financial disclosure documentation. And, given the billionaire global stretch of their documentation, review and analysis of their documentation, certification that there are no conflicts of interest or ethical challenges is going to take a staff of analysts considerable time.
In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., released Saturday, OGE Director Walter Shaub wrote that “the announced hearing schedule for several nominees who have not completed the ethics review process is of great concern to me” and that “it has left some of the nominees with potentially unknown or unresolved ethics issues shortly before their scheduled hearings.” Shaub also noted, “I am not aware of any occasion in the four decades since OGE was established when the Senate held a confirmation hearing before the nominee had completed the ethics review process.”
Here’s that letter:
[pdfviewer width=”650px” height=”770px” beta=”true/false”]http://www.humboldtdems.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/OGE.pdf[/pdfviewer]
Republicans say they expect the missing documents to be submitted for all the nominees eventually and are pushing to confirm individuals who may not pass the test. Then what are we to do? It’s not like they can impeach or remove someone from a position to which they never should have been confirmed in the first place. And, given that they’re all supporters of trump, what’s the likelihood he’d ask them to step down. Good grief, even he hasn’t provided his own financial documents to show he has no conflicts of interest and would act in the best interests of the American people and not just in his own interests.
“This is ridiculous. @realDonaldTrump’s nominations can’t drag their feet on ethics paperwork while their Senate friends try to run out the clock. Cabinet officials must put our country’s interests before their own. No confirmation hearings should be held until we’re certain that’s the case.” — Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA)
“The Office of Government Ethics letter makes crystal-clear that the transition team’s collusion with Senate Republicans to jam through these Cabinet nominees before they’ve been thoroughly vetted is unprecedented.” Senate Minority Leader, Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Confirmation hearings will be held for the following nominees on Tuesday and Wednesday despite incomplete background checks, security checks and ethics certifications.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, for Attorney General (Tuesday/Wednesday)
As the nation’s highest-ranking law enforcement official, the attorney general is charged with protecting the rights of all Americans. Senator Sessions’s record reveals a history of racially hostile remarks, as well as positions on LGBT rights, capital punishment, abortion rights, and presidential authority in times of war that have been contested by the ACLU and other civil rights organizations.
In his confirmation hearings, senators, the media, and the American public should closely examine his stances on key issues. The American public deserves an attorney general who can uphold the Constitution on behalf of all Americans.
- Author of the “Immigration Handbook for the New Republican Majority,” which blames immigration for the loss of high-paying jobs and high “welfare dependency” in the United States. Also called for a slowdown of legal immigration. (Source)
- Once said of Dominican immigrants: “Fundamentally, almost no one coming from the Dominican Republic to the United States is coming here because they have a provable skill that would benefit us and that would indicate their likely success in our society.” (Source)
- He criticized the Obama Administration’s decision to no longer defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which was a critical step in ensuring marriage equality for all Americans. (Source)
- Defended President-Elect Trump’s proposal to ban Muslim immigrants from entering the United States. (Source)
- Referred to the Voting Rights Act, a law that simply demands that every American’s right to vote is protected, as a piece of “intrusive legislation.” (Source)
- Supports a federal prohibition on marijuana use. (Source)
- Once prosecuted civil rights activists for registering black voters. (Source)
- Allegedly labeled the ACLU and NAACP “un-American” groups who “forced civil rights down the throats of people.” (Source)
- Argued that stop-and-frisk programs are Constitutional, saying that “it’s all about how that is done.” (Source)
Votes taken by Jeff Sessions
- Supports a national 20-week abortion ban (Source), and has a 100% voting record from the National Right to Life Committee. (Source)
- Voted to defund Planned Parenthood (Source) and called for the Justice Department (which he is being nominated to lead) to investigate PPFA (Source).
- Was one of only 21 senators to oppose the McCain-Feinstein amendment on torture, which explicitly bans the CIA from using torture. (Source)
- Leading opponent of bipartisan efforts in 2007 and 2013 to pass immigration reform bills. (Source)
- Voted to reauthorize and expand provisions of the Patriot Act. (Source)
- Voted against the Violence Against Women Act. (Source)
- Opposed USA Freedom Act and other surveillance reform measures. (Source)
- As the General in charge of the Guantanamo Bay Detention facility, Kelly publicly criticized efforts to close Guantanamo (Source) and was accused by Obama Administration officials of working to undermine the President’s efforts to close the facility. (Source)
- Opposed and publicly criticized the integration of women into military ground combat units, arguing it would lead to lower standards. (Source)
- Defended the use of “enhanced interrogation techniques”, such as waterboarding and rectal feeding. Kelly went on to dismiss the criticisms of human rights groups as “foolishness”. (Source)
- Testified in support of an officer caught urinating on talibani corpses. (Source)
- Supports the imprisonment of terror suspects without trial. (Source)
- Criticised by Amnesty International for his “unsafe and inhumane” treatment (Source) of Guantanamo detainees on hunger strike to protest their imprisonment. (Source)
- Supports the war on drugs and opposes legalization or decriminalization of any drugs, including marijuana. (Source)
- A proponent of border security, Kelly believes that “no wall will work by itself” and has warned about the “existential threat” that unchecked migration poses for the nation. (Source)
- CEO of the only Fortune 500 company to have ever received a negative score on the HRC’s Equality Index. (source)
- Eliminated anti-discrimination protections for LGBT employees of ExxonMobil. (source)
- Resisted multiple attempts by shareholders to implement anti-discrimination corporate policies. (source)
- Eliminated benefits for same-sex spouses of ExxonMobil employees. (source)
- Accused of developing oil wells and pipelines on the sacred lands of Indigenous Peoples. (source)
- The government has found “substantial evidence” of anti-gay bias in ExxonMobil’s hiring practices. (source)
- Tillerson’s business relationship with Russia dates to the 1990s, when he assumed responsibility for all of ExxonMobil’s holdings there. In 2011 the company forged a deal with Russian oil company Rosneft, which at that time was 75 percent owned by the Russian government. The deal gave ExxonMobil access to Arctic oil deposits, and Putin attended the signing ceremony. In 2013 the two companies expanded their partnership. That year, Tillerson received the Order of Friendship from Putin. (Source)
- Although he’s acknowledged climate change, he rejected resolutions that would have pushed the ExxonMobil’s resources toward renewable energy
- Called for Edward Snowden’s execution. (Source)
- Criticized the Obama administration’s ban on enhanced interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding. (Source)
- Labeled Muslims who fail to condemn acts of terrorism as “potentially complicit”. (Source)
- Opposed same-sex marriage (Source)
- Spoke at a conference organized by ACT! For America, which has been designated an extremist anti-Muslim hate-group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Source)
- Supports resumption and expansion of the NSA’s data collection program. (Source)
- Called Roe v. Wade “one of the worst decisions” of the Supreme Court. (Source)
- Against the closure of the Guantanamo detention facility. (Source)
Votes taken by Rep. Pompeo
- Sponsored a bill to resume and expand the NSA’s data collection program. (Source)
- Co-sponsored a bill to defund Planned Parenthood. (S0urce)
- Defended interrogation techniques such as waterboarding and “rectal feeding” as “within the law”. (Source)
- Voted to extend the Patriot Act’s “roving wiretaps” provision. (Source)
- Co-sponsored legislation to prevent any detainees being transferred from the Guantanamo detention facility. (Source)
- No Degree in Education
- Never had a child who attended a public school
- Contributes significant funding (Source) to organizations that seek to limit women’s reproductive freedom, including:
- Americans United for Life
- Baptists for Life
- The Becket Fund
- Citizens for Traditional Values
- Foundation for Traditional Values
- Justice Foundation
- Right to Life of Michigan Education Foundation
- Texas Justice Foundation
- Thomas More Law Center
- Has been labeled the “four star general” of school vouchers (Source), which have repeatedly been challenged in the courts by the ACLU for undermining the separation between church and state, enabling discrimination, and lowering educational outcomes. (Source)
- Supports the Center for Individual Rights (Source), an organization largely concerned with overturning affirmative-action legislation. (Source)
- Contributed to the Southeastern Legal Foundation (Source), which works to overturn affirmative action and voting rights legislation. (Source)
- Established the DeVos Center for Religion and Society, which funds research and publications opposed to same-sex marriage and transgender rights. (Source)
- Financially supports (Source) a number of organizations opposed to LGBT equality, including:
- Center for Military Readiness, which opposes allowing LGBT people to serve in the armed forces (Source);
- The Family Research Council*, which lobbies against same-sex marriage, same-sex civil-unions, and LGBT adoption (Source); * This organization has been labeled an extremist anti-LGBT hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Source)
- Focus on the Family, an advocacy organization that promotes “conversion therapy” and opposes same-sex marriage and LGBT adoption (Source);
- Institute for Marriage and Public Policy, an opponent of same-sex marriage (Source);
- Towards Tradition, whose founder argued that it was “insane” that gays were not quarantined during the AIDS crisis (Source);
- Thomas More Law Center, which fought the legalization of same-sex marriage through the courts (Source).
- Crafted a state law limiting access to abortion and declaring that life begins at conception. (Source)
- Forced to settle a lawsuit alleging that a Black employee suffered retaliation for whistleblowing racist behavior by a supervisor. (Source)
- Represented, pro-bono, anti-abortion activists who physically prevented women from accessing family planning services. (Source)
- Accused of sexism for a series of fast food advertisements featuring women in bikinis. (Source)
- Charged with domestic abuse by his ex-wife while serving as Chair of the Missouri Task Force for Mothers and Unborn Children. (Source)
- Maintains a Political Action Committee which donates to the campaigns of numerous anti-choice candidates. (Source)
- His fast food franchises have repeatedly been accused of discriminatory behavior by the Equal Employment Opportunities Commission. (Source)
- Earned the nickname “King of Bankruptcy” during his time at Rothschild Inc.
- According to a 2004 New York Magazine profile of Ross, he controlled 1.2 billion tons of coal reserves at the time.
- In August 2016, WL Ross & Co. agreed to pay the Securities and Exchange Commission a $2.3 million fine because the company failed to tell investors how it calculates fees for some funds. According to Reuters, Ross agreed to “voluntarily” return the excess fees with interest to investors, in addition to the FEC fine.
- According to Reuters, Ross agreed to “voluntarily” return the excess fees with interest to investors, in addition to the FEC fine.
- In September 2011, W.L. Ross & Co. was among a group of five American and Canadian investors who purchase a 34.9% stake in the Bank of Ireland. Ross’ share is 9.3%. (He sold WL Ross & Co. to investment management firm Invesco in 2006 for about $375 million, but has remained its chairman and chief strategy officer.)
- Has been called him a “vulture investor” for preying on weak companies, sometimes slashing jobs and pensions to turn a profit.
- Has global investments that could raise questions as to conflicts of interests.