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Shuster opposes House decision

How representative voted remains unclear

A spokesman said Rep. Bill Shuster, R-9th District, opposed a controversial decision Monday to effectively strip a congressional ethics office of its powers, although he didn’t say outright that Shuster voted against the move.

House Republicans voted behind closed doors Monday to all but eliminate the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent body established in 2008 to investigate ethics violations. The 119-74 vote would rename the office and put it under the authority of the GOP-controlled Ethics Committee made up of representatives.

After the vote’s outcome was made public, however, an outcry from voters and Democrats — coupled with a tweet from president-elect Donald Trump questioning the move’s timing — prompted the Republicans to reverse the decision.

In a written statement Wednesday, Shuster spokesman Casey Contres said the congressman agreed with Republican leaders who opposed the Monday vote. The vote was pushed in part by lower-ranking Republicans who have long questioned the ethics office, according to media accounts.

“Congressman Shuster agreed with Donald Trump’s tweet and Speaker (Paul) Ryan and Majority Leader (Kevin) McCarthy’s position that those reforms should not be included in the rules package,” Contres said.

But Contres didn’t confirm Wednesday how Shuster had voted Monday, when the decision remained secret.

Some in Congress attributed the quick shift to an outpouring of constituent phone calls after the vote was made public, with some accusing the Republican majority of trying to defang the chamber’s independent watchdog.

The effort was hit again when Trump posted on Twitter: “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 is … their number one act and priority (?)”

That combined pressure appeared to affect the Republicans, who quickly agreed to postpone the move.

Contres said Shuster’s offices received calls on the issue, but not many more than they receive on a typical day. Some Mirror readers called the newspaper to say they had called but had not received satisfactory answers.

Shuster’s involvement in the vote extended to Tuesday, when he reportedly questioned Trump’s Twitter comments to his colleagues at a second meeting. Politico, citing several sources present at the meeting, reported that Shuster “stood up to say Trump should not be meddling in internal House matters.”

Contres denied he used those words, but told the Mirror Shuster had reminded his colleagues that it’s important Congress and the presidency — or presidency-elect — keep to their own spheres.

“Congressman Shuster did speak to some of his colleagues about how he agreed with Trump’s position, and also talked about the importance of separation of powers among the legislative, executive, and judicial branches,” Contres wrote.

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