As 2023 draws to a close, the Foundation for Accountability and Civic Trust (FACT) has again delivered its list of the "top ethics violators" of the year and, hoo, boy, was it a year for mayhem and insanity on Capitol Hill that saw even the watchdog tasked with ensuring legal and ethical practices are upheld by members of Congress repeatedly fail to act.
The worst offender of 2023 according to FACT: The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE). Ironically, as FACT explained, the office came about in 2008 following the failure of the House Ethics Committee to hold members of Congress accountable for ethical and legal violations. OCE was supposed to solve the problem of the House's inability to police itself by providing independent oversight to expose violations for the House Ethics Committee to adjudicate. Instead, OCE has, according to FACT, followed in the committee's footsteps by looking the other way when members misbehave.
Pointing to the use of government resources for political purposes by members of Congress as a "major issue" in 2023, FACT noted that rules prohibiting such abuse of taxpayer resources "are quite clear, yet they are repeatedly violated by a handful of members" who use "official government resources to campaign on their political social media accounts."
It amounts to taxpayer-funded partisan political activity, and means offending members are "abusing their position of incumbency to campaign in its purest form," FACT said. Even worse, such violations "are literally published by the member" on "public-facing platforms" and are easy to prove. And while OCE has "identified these exact same ethics violations in past years, it has simply failed in 2023." This "utter failure to enforce a very basic ethics rule" is what landed OCE the "distinct dishonor" of being at the top of FACT's 2023 list of top ethics offenders.
Members of Congress who've breached such rules according to FACT include Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), Cori Bush (D-MO), Maxwell Frost (D-FL) Wiley Nickel (D-NC), Jimmy Gomez (D-CA), Jeff Jackson (D-NC), Eric Sorenson (D-IL), and Sean Casten (D-IL) — yet they've not faced consequences.
"The Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) has failed in its duty to hold Members of Congress accountable," said Kendra Arnold, Executive Director of FACT. "Its complete inaction in numerous cases of Members abusing official taxpayer-funded resources for political purposes functions as an endorsement of violating basic ethics rules — and it's simply not too much to ask for enforcement when violations openly appear in places as public as social media platforms," she underscored. "The OCE’s continued failure to act will only result in further erosion of public trust in Congress and those bodies intended to hold them accountable."
Rounding out FACT's 2023 list is a crew of usual suspects:
Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia: According to a financial disclosure report filed by Sen. Warnock, he received $154,895 from Ebenezer Baptist Church in 2022, of which $125,000 was described as “deferred compensation for services before January 20, 2021.” This was the first time the alleged deferred compensation ($125,000) had been reported by Sen. Warnock on a financial disclosure form. which he claims was earned before he was sworn in as a U.S. Senator. Ebenezer Baptist Church also reportedly failed to report the liability of $125,000 on any prior financial statements.
La Machine: Since October of 2019, campaign disclosure reports show Antonio Valdovinos (founder and CEO of the political consulting firm, La Machine) has made at least 17 monetary contributions to federal political committees. Given his status as a foreign national, these political donations would be unlawful. However, his contributions to federal elections were not limited to the strictly monetary. In 2014, Valdovinos worked as a paid campaign staffer to help elect then-state legislator Rubén Gallego to the U.S. House of Representatives. In addition to these two apparent violations, Valdovinos continues to work for multiple political parties and candidates to influence U.S. federal elections through his political consulting firm which he founded in 2016. All of the above would seem to be blatant violations of federal law.
Rep. Gwen Moore of Wisconsin and her political action committee named GWEN PAC: According to data submitted to the FEC by GWEN PAC, since its inception only a mere 22% of GWEN PAC's overall spending has gone towards political candidates and political committees, while around 78% has gone to other spending---much of which appears to have likely benefited Rep. Moore. These percentages fall in line with the common definition of a ‘scam PAC’.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York: FACT’s complaint asked the OCE to investigate Rep. Bowman’s intentional pulling of a fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building on September 30, 2023, which disrupted official House proceedings including an anticipated vote. Regardless of motive, his intentional pulling of the fire alarm, whether to explicitly delay a vote or not, is a severe violation of House Ethics Rules. FACT later submitted a supplemental complaint after Rep. Bowman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor violation of the D.C. Code and video conclusively revealed that his actions were indeed intentional.