Christian Schneider

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

In Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner's The Gilded Age, fictional Sen. Abner Dilworthy is caught offering a $7,000 bribe to secure his re-election. An outraged Dilworthy, believing the pristine reputation of Congress to be threatened, immediately demands a Senate investigation into the attack on his character. Newspapers ridiculed the idea of senators investigating one of their own, dryly observing, "One might as well set the gentlemen detained in the public prisons to trying each other."

Of course, after a requisite show hearing, the Senate exonerates Dilworthy, instead censuring his accusers for accepting cash bribes.

The account of the preposterous hearing sings with Twain's comedic contempt of politicians. But Twain's account was almost entirely based on the 1873 investigation of Sen. Samuel Pomeroy, R-Kan., who was caught offering a $7,000 bribe in exchange for an endorsement. Just as with the fictional Dilworthy, the Senate committee charged with investigating the matter called the charges "a concerted plot to defeat Mr. Pomeroy."

Those believing such chicanery to be a thing of the past were dealt a blow this week when literally, the first action the new House of Representatives undertook was to weaken an independent ethics panel charged with investigating congressional misconduct. After near universal public rebuke, the measure was pulled Tuesday. But the credit the House gets for yanking the plan shouldn't outweigh the derision it has earned for forwarding it in the first place.

Under the changes, the Office of Congressional Ethics would have been placed under the purview of the lawmaker-controlled House Ethics Committee. Among other new limits, the new office would have been prevented from pursuing anonymous complaints against House members.

It was a move so brazen that even frequently ethically challenged President-elect Donald Trump was moved to disapprove — of the timing, at least. "With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the independent ethics watchdog, as unfair as it may be, their No. 1 act and priority," Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.

"Focus on tax reform, health care and so many other things of far greater importance!" Trump added.

Make D.C. a swamp again: Glenn Reynolds

POLICING THE USA: A look at race, justice, media

The golden era of anti-knowledge: Christian Schneider

Suffice to say, if you make Trump look like the ethical platinum standard, you have done the work that his army of phony spokesmen could never accomplish. It's the type of disrespect for the common voter that led working-class people to believe a man who rides to work in a golden elevator represented their best interests.

(In opposing the ethics rule change, Trump actually joined convicted lobbyist Jack Abramoff, whose call for more strident investigations is a bit like Wile E. Coyote calling for a ban on the sale of exploding birdseed.)

And though the proposal has been booted, even proposing a mechanism to escape investigation is detrimental to the goals of what the GOP wants to accomplish. It is as if Republicans in the House want to color everything they do with a "corruption" Snapchat filter.

Throughout the elections, Republicans went to voters and told them all the important things that had to be done right away. Voters had to send conservatives to the Capitol to reform the tax code, repeal Obamacare, and strengthen immigration limits. And yet the Republicans' first priority is to make sure they aren't investigated enough for Gilded Age-style bribery?

Republicans have a unique opportunity to forward positive bills that will alter the course of America. But now the question will always linger: "Exactly what are they doing that they didn't think merited investigation?"

Such questions could continue to impugn the public's perception of Congress and give voters the idea that 19th century-style corruption is still afoot. Twain once wrote of a fictional burglar named Murphy who complained to his local newspaper for reporting that he had "served one term in the penitentiary and also one in the U.S. Senate."

"The latter statement is untrue and does me great injustice," Murphy wrote.

Christian Schneider is a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors and a columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, where this piece first appeared. Follow him on Twitter @schneider_cm

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To submit a letter, comment or column, check our submission guidelines.