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The House passed a comprehensive package of reforms Tuesday to protect inspectors general from being fired or otherwise prevented from doing their jobs, a measure inspired by former president Donald Trump’s pattern of ousting the agency watchdogs who challenged him.
The 221-to-182 vote fell almost completely along party lines, heralding a long and difficult road ahead for congressional Democrats as they attempt a variety of initiatives to prevent future presidents from silencing their critics and punishing their enemies with as much impunity as Trump did.
Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney (D-N.Y.), chairwoman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, summarized the package Tuesday as an effort to “protect IGs from being fired simply for doing their jobs” and a needed antidote to how “the previous administration bullied, sidelined and retaliated against multiple IGs.”
Last spring, Trump fired four inspectors general in a span of six weeks, sparking a backlash from both Democrats and Republicans. Those actions have inspired a number of legislative responses since, including a measure to protect inspectors general that passed the House with no objections earlier this year. Improving the ability of government watchdogs to operate free from undue influence is also part of a large suite of measures to curtail presidential abuses of power that House Democrats introduced last year and are discussing with the Biden White House.
Republicans criticized the measure as well-intentioned but ill-constructed and accused Democrats of worsening the problem of IG protection they purport to correct.
“Many good provisions, mixed with a few poison pills which undermine the intent of the legislation as a whole,” is how Rep. James Comer (Ky.), the Oversight Committee’s ranking Republican, described the package during a floor speech Tuesday.
The inspectors general package lists a finite number of reasons for which watchdogs may be fired for cause and stiffens requirements that Congress be given advance notice before terminating or sidelining any inspector general. The measure also includes a direction that vacancies must be filled by professionals, not political appointees, and that employees of the inspectors general offices be given specialized training, including in how to act as whistleblowers.
Critically, the package also includes legislation to let inspectors general subpoena witnesses who no longer work for the federal government. It also gives a special nod to the Justice Department inspector general — who fielded a number of the most high-profile investigations of the Trump administration — to directly scrutinize the actions of department lawyers, instead of deferring such questions to the agency’s professional ethics outfit.
Republicans had complaints about nearly each of those measures. Comer said empowering inspectors general to subpoena former officials “lacks necessary safeguards” and could end up “being used in a politically abusive manner.” He warned that if only professionals may fill vacancies, a lesser accomplice of a rogue inspector general could easily be promoted. And he argued that the limited list of fireable offenses “would have the effect of preventing a president from removing an IG who is acting in bad faith.”
Maloney rejected his critiques, as did the House, which voted down an amendment Comer offered to make changes that she warned would “absolutely gut the bill.” That vote, and another to approve a slate of Democratic amendments to the legislation, fell largely along party lines. In the end, only three Republicans supported the final package: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), John Katko (N.Y.) and Tom Reed (N.Y.).
“Oversight and accountability should be bipartisan,” Maloney said during Tuesday’s debate, pointing out that several component parts of the package had the support of both parties.
But the bill’s ultimately partisan vote will make it difficult for the package to make it through the evenly split Senate, where several lawmakers have their own IG proposals still waiting for their day on the floor.
(THE WASHINGTON POST)
