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Congress is charged with writing the laws that govern the rest of us.
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But who holds lawmakers accountable when they break the rules?
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Tonight we take a closer look at a number of sitting members of Congress facing active
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ethics investigations and the largely invisible and many argue ineffectual system that's designed
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Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins has that story.
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Let's start with Texas Congressman Tony Gonzalez.
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Late his seat at the Capitol is mostly empty.
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This after news broke of text messages showing he had a sexual relationship and seemed
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to pressure a married, younger staff member Regina Santos Aviles died by suicide last
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Gonzalez adamantly denied the affair until last week, the day after the Republican primary.
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I made a mistake and I had a lapse in judgment and there was a lack of faith.
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And I take full responsibility for those actions.
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The affair is a clear violation of House rules.
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House Republicans have just a one vote majority right now and while a handful of them called
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on Gonzalez to resign, GOP leaders pushed Gonzalez to end his re-election campaign
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but to stay in the job right now.
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Twenty Gonzalez broke House rules.
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Why not ask for him to resign?
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We put out a statement today, let's speak for itself.
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The independent body that looks into House misconduct reportedly launched an investigation
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Its report first goes to the House Ethics Committee, made of House members, which now
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is investigating too.
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All of that happens behind closed doors and often takes months or more.
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The Gonzalez case is not isolated.
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Multiple sitting members are under scrutiny.
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Florida Republican Cory Mills faces that on several fronts, an investigation into whether
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he solicited gifts and took government contracts while in office, a restraining order related
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to threats his ex-girlfriend alleges and a police investigation into a reported assault of
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Mills denies wrongdoing and charges were not brought in any of these cases.
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But the ethics process started in the fall is still unresolved.
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Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Scherfelis McCormick, also of Florida, was indicted on federal
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criminal charges that she funneled millions in COVID relief funds to her campaign.
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She pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for a rare public trial before the House Ethics
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Committee later this month.
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We need more ethics enforcement and we need more accountability when violations are found.
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Ketrick Payne worked for the House Ethics Committee and now leads the ethics program
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at the Campaign Legal Center.
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He fears ethics issues in Congress have become normalized and shrugged off.
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As he sees enforced by President Trump, the tone that set at the top with the White
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House and the entire administration is that ethics is not a priority.
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But now some House members are taking things into their own hands.
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Congresswoman Nancy Mase of South Carolina is leading a charge to reveal the names of
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members of Congress who settled past sexual misconduct accusations and used taxpayer funds
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Her bill to do that was blocked on the House floor.
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But minutes later she and others deployed an unusual workaround.
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This would be a subpoena for information on the sexual harassment slush fund pushing
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the House Oversight Committee to subpoena that information.
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I will get information on the slush fund, how it was paid out and by which members of
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Mase is both accuser and accused, currently facing an ethics investigation over whether
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she overbilled Congress for her housing allowance.
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Now what she wants to reveal could be a landmark event.
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Mase plans to release all the lawmakers' names from sexual misconduct settlements from
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before 2019 when a new system went into place.
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Ali Kahl helps shepherd the new law.
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She herself experienced harassment from a U.S. senator as a young staffer.
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While Kahl respects Mase as a survivor of sexual assault, she worries Mase's method could
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For people who were coming forward with information before 2019, they were told certain information
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about how their information would be handled.
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It can really undermine trust in employees coming forward if they feel like, you know,
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might not be true or could be changed in, you know, six or eight years from now.
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Speaking with lawmakers, we found there is concern that whatever is revealed from the past
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that the system now is still not working.
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I've learned from some staff that even when they report, their case goes up in the air
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Nothing really happens.
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The House Ethics Committee did not give an on-record response to this story, but consider
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The house process, however flawed, is far more accountable than the Senate's.
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Right now, if you look at just the data, you would think that all the problems are happening
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in one chamber in the house, but really, we don't know what we don't know in the Senate
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because there's nobody there to actually investigate in this conduct.
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The Senate does not have an independent ethics process.
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The Ethics Committee made of senators has a staff, but its findings only become public
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when senators choose to release them.
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The Committee received 181 complaints last year.
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We don't know who those are about, but it has only acknowledged four investigations into
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specific members over the last decade.
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For the Committee on Ethics to truly investigate something, it has to be egregious and on the
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headlines of almost every paper, and then they'll take action.
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And there are more issues beyond blatant law or rule-breaking.
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Case in point, Democratic Congressman Chewy Garcia, who announced his retirement after
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the deadline to run for the office, and after his chief of staff filed her paperwork, making
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her essentially the only viable Democratic candidate.
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Garcia said he made his decision late because of family concerns and followed the rules.
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But the House did vote to rebuke him, and while rare, that has nothing but symbolic
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I'm grateful to God for allowing me to serve.
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And just last week, Republican Senators Steve Daines of Montana did essentially the
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same thing, announcing retirement with no time for other candidates except his preferred
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He said the state would avoid an ugly primary.
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I'd rather take the arrows and other people if I'm happy to do it here for the sake of
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my state and country.
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Lawmakers don't look at their office as something that belongs to the public and to the voters.
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Then they can go into this area where they're just looking out for themselves or for their
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There is no effort currently to rebuke Daines.
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Reformers say blueprints for a better system already exist.
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More transparency, independent investigators, real subpoena power, and equal accountability
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in both chambers of the Capitol.
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But only Congress can decide whether to implement any of that.
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For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Lisa Desjardins.