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.
The ethics watchdog was formed in 2008 and has at times been the target of political attacks.
The OCC board typically consists of six members and at least two alternates and is reconstituted anew at the beginning of each Congress. Half of those members are chosen by the speaker and half are chosen by the minority leader, each in consultation with the other.
As of April, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had already submitted his board nominations to the speaker’s office, according to a person familiar with the situation, leaving the ball in Johnson’s court.
House Republicans tried to undercut the office in 2017, and in 2023 they imposed a quick turnaround for hiring staff and reinstated term limits for board members, dislodging longtime Democratic appointees in the process. That led advocates to worry the office could stall out. Those fears did not come to fruition.
But at the start of the 119th Congress, advocates wondered whether the delay was merely an oversight or part of an assault on the office.
“This delay, which is now entering its fourth month of the 119th Congress, not only undermines the integrity of this body but threatens to erode the trust that the American people place in our capacity to hold ourselves accountable,” a group of lawmakers led by New Hampshire Democratic Rep. Chris Pappas wrote to Johnson in early May, calling on him to appoint the board.
Johnson, through a spokesperson, has declined to comment on the delay, and on Tuesday did not respond to a request for comment on the formation of the board.
The OCC board will consist of two Johnson nominees, Karen L. Haas, who will chair the board, and Lynn Westmoreland. Jeffries, meanwhile, nominated William P. Luther, who will serve as co-chair, and Lorraine C. Miller. All are returning members of the board.
With just four names and no alternates, the board is not fully stocked, but it can meet a quorum to conduct its work.
Previously known as the Office of Congressional Ethics, the office has a limited scope. It doesn’t have subpoena power, and instead of reaching final conclusions about potential wrongdoing by members of Congress and staff, it can refer what it finds to the House Ethics Committee for further review.
“It’s about time,” Pappas said of Tuesday’s appointments. “I think people have an expectation about how Congress should comport itself and it includes that we’re serving the public and not ourselves. So making sure that this board is in place, that it’s functional, is critically important.”
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