Disciplining Members

Congress is legally responsible for monitoring the behavior of its members. The Constitution states that Congress may “punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.” On that authority, the House and Senate have sometimes voted to expel, censure, or reprimand an erring colleague. Other offenders have been stripped of chairmanships, rebuked, or fined.

Acting under the sweeping ethics codes Congress adopted in 1977 and enforced by law the following year, the permanent House and Senate ethics committees—formally known as the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct and the Senate Select Committee on Ethics—investigate charges made against a member and recommend penalties. In some cases, the full House or Senate will act on the recommendations. Other times the ethics committees may express disapproval of a member's behavior without recommending formal sanctions by their parent chambers. (See ethics.)

The most serious discipline, and the rarest, has been expulsion, which under the Constitution requires support from two-thirds of those voting. Only a majority is required for a vote to censure, reprimand, or fine a member. Discipline involving a loss of chairmanship or committee membership is usually handled by the caucus of party members, which is responsible for those assignments. (See caucuses, party.)

Sitting in judgment of a colleague is something most members would prefer not to do. Many of those assigned to the ethics panels are reluctant conscripts serving as a favor to their party's leaders.

Sometimes the panels are spared difficult decisions on disciplining members by the timely resignations of those under fire. In 1989, for example, House Democratic leaders Jim Wright of Texas and Tony Coelho of California resigned to avoid possible disciplinary action because of their financial activities. Wright, who was formally charged by the ethics panel with accepting [Page 164]improper gifts and using a book deal to evade House limits on outside earned income, became the first speaker forced by scandal out of office in the middle of his term. Coelho, the majority whip, resigned amid controversy over his role in a “junk bond” deal and calls by an outside government watchdog group for an investigation.