Speaker Mike Johnson on Tuesday named his appointees to a nonpartisan, independent congressional ethics and oversight board, ending an unprecedented delay in getting the office up and running.
The Office of Congressional Conduct had gone the first four months of the 119th Congress without an appointed board, rendering it unable to initiate investigations of member misconduct, a function core to its mission. But with the picks, which were read on the House floor Tuesday afternoon, the office can get back to work.
“The OCC is now able to resume its vital operation of ensuring lawmakers abide by ethics rules, which is essential to our democracy,” Kedric Payne, vice president and general counsel at Campaign Legal Center and a former OCC employee, said in a statement.
