The House Ethics Committee released a new report and it dealt with two issues that show the different treatment that Democrats get. AOC attended the Met Gala in 2022, engaged counsel to determine what she should pay for the dress she wore, made what appears to be a good faith effort to get a fair value for renting the dress, and the committee dinged her, saying that she should pay an additional $2,700. AOC’s spokesman noted that she would cooperate fully and would pay what the committee said. Then, there’s Mike Kelly, a Republican from Pennsylvania:
A 2012 federal law prohibits members of Congress from trading on inside information gleaned from their jobs, including providing tips to others. Members must disclose stocks purchased by themselves or their spouses. […]
According to the report, Kelly in 2020 rallied support for Trump-era tariffs protecting the production of grain-oriented electrical steel. Around the same time, the CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., which was the sole producer in the country of that kind of steel, said without tariffs it would have to close a plant in Kelly’s district and lay off employees.
On April 28, 2020, Cleveland-Cliffs decided not to close the plant and notified the congressman’s staff, according to the ethics report. The next day, Kelly’s wife purchased 5,000 shares of Cleveland-Cliffs stock for $23,075, which was disclosed the following month.
Kelly’s wife made an additional purchase of the same stock while the investigation was ongoing, the report states. Kelly failed to disclose this trade in a timely manner and didn’t respond to questions about the purchase, the committee said.
“The Committee did not receive full cooperation from Mrs. Kelly and was therefore unable to determine whether her stock purchase was improper,” the report states.
The committee found that Kelly violated the House’s Code of Official Conduct but did not find substantial evidence that he violated conflict of interest or insider trading rules. They recommended that Kelly and his wife divest from Cleveland-Cliffs stock if he plans to take “any further official action relating to the company.”
“This investigation has unnecessarily lasted for nearly five years,” Kelly said in an emailed statement Friday, noting that he advocated during that time for the 1,400 workers at the steel plant. […]
So, AOC made a good-faith effort to follow the rules, cooperated fully, and still got some bad headlines. Kelly probably did something against the law, didn’t cooperate, was an asshole until the end and got a total slap on the wrist. Pretty much sums up the treatment that Democrats get versus Republicans.
And what does our rule following get us? Not a god damned thing:
President Donald Trump’s approval rating remains underwater. But Democrats are faring worse, according to a new poll from The Wall Street Journal released Saturday.
The new survey, conducted by Democratic pollster John Anzalone and Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, found Democrats’ popularity at its lowest point in three decades of WSJ polling, with 63 percent of voters holding an unfavorable view of the party.
Only 33 percent of voters hold a favorable view of Democrats, with a meager 8 percent holding a “very favorable” opinion, for a net negative favorability of 30 percentage points.
While voters still have significant concerns over the president’s and the Republican Party’s handling of the economy, inflation, tariffs and foreign policy, the majority of respondents nonetheless say they trust Republicans more to handle those issues in Congress.
They hate Trump’s tariffs (disapproving by 17 points), but trust Republicans to handle trade over Democrats by 7 points. Trump’s handling of inflation has an 11 point disapprove margin, but they still trust Republicans to handle inflation by a 7 point margin. The generic Congressional ballot is +3 for Democrats, which isn’t enough to flip Congress.
It’s just one poll, but it looks terrible. “Trump bad” isn’t going to translate into a Democratic win without a lot more work by Democrats.
