what Representative House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy and House Judicial Committee Chairman Robert Goodlatte did in the the hearing Thursday looks flat-out irresponsible. The Republican lawmakers seemed to be playing games with classified and otherwise non-public information to make the FBI look as if it is refusing reasonable congressional requests. Their bigger goal appeared to be the disruption of the Mueller investigation — or at least, constructing a counter-narrative for (and with) Republican-aligned media. House Republicans stopped benefiting from the presumption that they were acting in good faith long ago (see the never-ending Benghazi investigation or the phony controversy of the Nunes memo). Instead, they’re simply using oversight to fan the flames of implausible and illogical conspiracy theories.
Unfortunately, there is no solution to the problem of panel chairs acting irresponsibly when they have the full support of their party. Normally, the constraint on over-the-top grandstanding is that the party collectively cares about its reputation and won’t support such behavior. If a chair is acting up, the leadership might ask her to tone it down, or even in extreme cases threaten to replace her. 1
That doesn’t work with today’s Republican majority, which has convinced itself there is no such thing as neutral media or other nonpartisan institutions and only cares about party-aligned media such as Fox News or the Rush Limbaugh show. 2 And that’s part of what makes the Republicans so dysfunctional. Their incentive is to please their strongest supporters, and so the normal constraints built into the system don’t operate to push against irresponsible actions.
Chafetz suggests the cure is at the ballot box.
Bloomburg
Unfortunately, there is no solution to the problem of panel chairs acting irresponsibly when they have the full support of their party. Normally, the constraint on over-the-top grandstanding is that the party collectively cares about its reputation and won’t support such behavior. If a chair is acting up, the leadership might ask her to tone it down, or even in extreme cases threaten to replace her. 1
That doesn’t work with today’s Republican majority, which has convinced itself there is no such thing as neutral media or other nonpartisan institutions and only cares about party-aligned media such as Fox News or the Rush Limbaugh show. 2 And that’s part of what makes the Republicans so dysfunctional. Their incentive is to please their strongest supporters, and so the normal constraints built into the system don’t operate to push against irresponsible actions.
Chafetz suggests the cure is at the ballot box.
Bloomburg