Who holds Congress accountable? A look at the invisible ethics system for lawmakers

Congress is charged with writing the laws that govern the rest of us.

But who holds lawmakers accountable when they break the rules?

Tonight we take a closer look at a number of sitting members of Congress facing active

ethics investigations and the largely invisible and many argue ineffectual system that's designed

to police them.

Congressional correspondent Lisa Desjardins has that story.

Let's start with Texas Congressman Tony Gonzalez.

Late his seat at the Capitol is mostly empty.

This after news broke of text messages showing he had a sexual relationship and seemed

to pressure a married, younger staff member Regina Santos Aviles died by suicide last

fall.

Gonzalez adamantly denied the affair until last week, the day after the Republican primary.

I made a mistake and I had a lapse in judgment and there was a lack of faith.

And I take full responsibility for those actions.

The affair is a clear violation of House rules.

House Republicans have just a one vote majority right now and while a handful of them called

on Gonzalez to resign, GOP leaders pushed Gonzalez to end his re-election campaign

but to stay in the job right now.

Twenty Gonzalez broke House rules.

Why not ask for him to resign?

We put out a statement today, let's speak for itself.

The independent body that looks into House misconduct reportedly launched an investigation

months ago.

Its report first goes to the House Ethics Committee, made of House members, which now

is investigating too.

All of that happens behind closed doors and often takes months or more.

The Gonzalez case is not isolated.

Multiple sitting members are under scrutiny.

Florida Republican Cory Mills faces that on several fronts, an investigation into whether

he solicited gifts and took government contracts while in office, a restraining order related

to threats his ex-girlfriend alleges and a police investigation into a reported assault of

another woman.

Mills denies wrongdoing and charges were not brought in any of these cases.

But the ethics process started in the fall is still unresolved.

Democratic Congresswoman Sheila Scherfelis McCormick, also of Florida, was indicted on federal

criminal charges that she funneled millions in COVID relief funds to her campaign.

She pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for a rare public trial before the House Ethics

Committee later this month.

We need more ethics enforcement and we need more accountability when violations are found.

Ketrick Payne worked for the House Ethics Committee and now leads the ethics program

at the Campaign Legal Center.

He fears ethics issues in Congress have become normalized and shrugged off.

As he sees enforced by President Trump, the tone that set at the top with the White

House and the entire administration is that ethics is not a priority.

But now some House members are taking things into their own hands.

Congresswoman Nancy Mase of South Carolina is leading a charge to reveal the names of

members of Congress who settled past sexual misconduct accusations and used taxpayer funds

to do it.

Her bill to do that was blocked on the House floor.

But minutes later she and others deployed an unusual workaround.

This would be a subpoena for information on the sexual harassment slush fund pushing

the House Oversight Committee to subpoena that information.

I will get information on the slush fund, how it was paid out and by which members of

Congress.

Mase is both accuser and accused, currently facing an ethics investigation over whether

she overbilled Congress for her housing allowance.

Now what she wants to reveal could be a landmark event.

Mase plans to release all the lawmakers' names from sexual misconduct settlements from

before 2019 when a new system went into place.

Ali Kahl helps shepherd the new law.

She herself experienced harassment from a U.S. senator as a young staffer.

While Kahl respects Mase as a survivor of sexual assault, she worries Mase's method could

do unintended harm.

For people who were coming forward with information before 2019, they were told certain information

about how their information would be handled.

It can really undermine trust in employees coming forward if they feel like, you know,

might not be true or could be changed in, you know, six or eight years from now.

Speaking with lawmakers, we found there is concern that whatever is revealed from the past

that the system now is still not working.

I've learned from some staff that even when they report, their case goes up in the air

somewhere.

Nothing really happens.

The House Ethics Committee did not give an on-record response to this story, but consider

this.

The house process, however flawed, is far more accountable than the Senate's.

Right now, if you look at just the data, you would think that all the problems are happening

in one chamber in the house, but really, we don't know what we don't know in the Senate

because there's nobody there to actually investigate in this conduct.

The Senate does not have an independent ethics process.

The Ethics Committee made of senators has a staff, but its findings only become public

when senators choose to release them.

The Committee received 181 complaints last year.

We don't know who those are about, but it has only acknowledged four investigations into

specific members over the last decade.

For the Committee on Ethics to truly investigate something, it has to be egregious and on the

headlines of almost every paper, and then they'll take action.

And there are more issues beyond blatant law or rule-breaking.

Case in point, Democratic Congressman Chewy Garcia, who announced his retirement after

the deadline to run for the office, and after his chief of staff filed her paperwork, making

her essentially the only viable Democratic candidate.

Garcia said he made his decision late because of family concerns and followed the rules.

But the House did vote to rebuke him, and while rare, that has nothing but symbolic

effect.

I'm grateful to God for allowing me to serve.

And just last week, Republican Senators Steve Daines of Montana did essentially the

same thing, announcing retirement with no time for other candidates except his preferred

successor to file.

He said the state would avoid an ugly primary.

I'd rather take the arrows and other people if I'm happy to do it here for the sake of

my state and country.

Lawmakers don't look at their office as something that belongs to the public and to the voters.

Then they can go into this area where they're just looking out for themselves or for their

friends.

There is no effort currently to rebuke Daines.

Reformers say blueprints for a better system already exist.

More transparency, independent investigators, real subpoena power, and equal accountability

in both chambers of the Capitol.

But only Congress can decide whether to implement any of that.

For the PBS NewsHour, I'm Lisa Desjardins.