House Ethics Investigates Itself

Today’s notice: What the House Ethics Committee does not want to talk about. The 2028 implications of the 2026 California gubernatorial race. War powers. Schedule F. And: How often Bruce Springsteen votes.

THE LATEST

Inside the House Ethics Committee’s boys club: After a year where bad behavior by male members of Congress has been a dominant story, some are asking: Should there be more women on the House Ethics Committee?

NOTUS’ Oriana González and Kadia Goba report on how there has never been more than four women on the 10-member committee at once and detail at least one instance when women on the panel pushed to publicly admonish Rep. Jim Costa (D-California) but the committee never disclosed its investigation. Costa denied any wrongdoing and the committee voted to dismiss the case.

“The sensitivity certainly would be there” if there were more women on the committee, said former Rep. Melissa Hart (R-Pennsylvania), who served on Ethics from 2005 to 2007.

One challenge: getting women to want to do one of the House’s most notoriously thankless jobs. Plus, women make up only around 30% of current House membership.

Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Florida) chairs the Republican conference’s Women’s Caucus and says she is pushing for major House Ethics reforms — but gender parity isn’t one of them. She told NOTUS she’s more concerned with structural reforms than “what box someone checks.”

The committee is trying to shut this kind of scrutiny down. It is sending letters to lawmakers who were members of House Ethics last Congress, inquiring whether they leaked information about that Costa investigation, which was first revealed by NOTUS last month. Oriana and Kadia report that the committee is asking members who were present during certain Costa deliberations if they disclosed any information and telling them their responses must be provided under oath.

The House Ethics Committee declined to comment.

Open tabs: Israel and Lebanon Agree to Renew Cease-Fire (NYT); Senators Privately Ask Platner Whether New Allegations Will Emerge (WSJ); U.S. Proposes New Tariffs on Countries That Use Forced Labor (NOTUS); U.S., allies warn that China is using LinkedIn to target military officers, spies for secret information (WaPo)

From the campaign trail

California’s tea just spilled all over 2028: The votes are still being counted in the state’s many elections, but one guy may have already lost: Gov. Gavin Newsom. Maeve Reston reports for NOTUS that the brutal and seemingly endless (count those votes faster, gang!) gubernatorial primary created a thick oppo book on Newsom’s record due to Democrats talking about California’s many problems (that Newsom didn’t fix) on camera, over and over. This could prove problematic if and when he officially jumps into the 2028 Democratic presidential field, Maeve writes.

Chill out, Newsom’s team says. Candidates vying to replace him advanced “a scrutiny narrative now, only so they can later take credit for what this administration had already set in motion,” a spokesperson said.

From the Hill

War powers fight is back: Fourth time was the charm for Rep. Gregory Meeks’ (D-New York) effort to curtail Donald Trump’s powers to continue the war with Iran. Republican Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Tom Barrett of Michigan and Warren Davidson of Ohio joined Democrats in voting for the bill, and Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who had previously opposed similar measures, voted “aye” yesterday as well. It passed 215-208, NOTUS’ Hamed Ahmadi reports.

What’s next? The Senate resolution is still pending, but that’s only because the math is still very tight. “If everybody’s here, we need one more vote,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Virginia), a key sponsor of the effort in the upper chamber, said Tuesday. “And so we got to work on that.”

From the White House

You’re Schedule F-ired: Trump took the final step to make it easier to remove thousands of federal workers from service. On Wednesday, he signed an executive order that shifts some nonpolitical appointees to a new job classification, stripping them of rights they’ve held for decades. Administration officials say it will affect 8,000 employees, NOTUS’ Eric Katz reports.

Critics have slammed this long-anticipated action, saying it would lead to further politicization of career civil servants. In a briefing with reporters, administration officials said there would be no political litmus test for federal employees subject to the reclassification.

“There are zero loyalty tests in this,” Scott Kupor, the director of the Office of Personnel Management, said.

NEW ON NOTUS

Bruce Springsteen’s voting record: Former Rep. Tom Davis (R-Virginia) challenged NOTUS’ Sam Fortier to check the Boss’ election-turnout stats as Sam was reporting on Springsteen’s “No Kings” tour.

“Remember: New Jersey’s got elections every year,” Davis said. “Go back on his record and look at these odd-year elections.”

What we found: Springsteen has voted in four of the last six general elections in New Jersey, but he did not vote in 2021 or 2023, including in the gubernatorial election, according to his voter-turnout record, which NOTUS obtained through a FOIA request. Springsteen has voted sporadically in odd-year elections since 2000, according to the records.

NOT US

• The Meltdown Inside ‘60 Minutes,’ by Isabella Simonetti, Joe Flint and Jessica Toonkel for The Wall Street Journal
• Cornyn, Tillis could create ‘wild card situation’ on Judiciary, by Michael Macagnone for Roll Call
• How Pakistan Is Using the Iran War to Reinvent Itself, by Sudarsan Raghavan for The New Yorker
  

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The newsletter was produced by Kelly Poe, Kate Nocera, Matt Berman and Andrew Burton. Photo by Francis Chung/POLITICO via AP Images.