GOP Ethics rogues.jpg

Of these four, only Rep. Martha Roby, would say she voted to scuttle the Office of Congressional Ethics. The other three, (clockwise from top right) Gary Palmer, Robert Aderholt and Mike Rogers were radio silent.

What a way to start a new Congress. In the dark of night Monday, behind closed doors, the Republican House majority voted in secret to all but scuttle the Office of Congressional Ethics, an independent government watchdog that spends its time snooping between lawmakers' bedsheets to see who else is in there.

And the new members hadn't even been sworn in yet.

By lunchtime Tuesday, the scuttling had itself been scuttled after a backlash from media, from constituents and from President-elect @realdonaldtrump, himself.

"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 number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, health care and so many other things of far greater importance!" @realdonaldtrump tweeted.

When you're getting a talking-to about ethics and optics from a guy who still hasn't released his tax returns, who's an oath of office away from violating the United States Constitution's prohibition of taking things of value from foreign governments, who made a fortune "renegotiating" contracts after the work had been performed ...

Oh, forget it. You get the picture.

But even the slimiest and crimiest of the super lobbyists -- Jack Abramoff -- weighed to defend the OCE and attack the dunderheaded lawmakers.

"While there seems to be little question that some of the procedures of the Office of Congressional Ethics can and probably have created collateral political problems for innocent Members of Congress, moving to diminish oversight is exactly the opposite of what Congress should be doing," he told Politico.

And here's the thing. Abramoff, who did 43 months in prison on corruption charges, is pretty much the reason the OCE exists in the first place. Congress created the thing in reaction to Abramoff's influence peddling scandal a decade ago.

And now he's the guy defending it.

But few of Alabama's GOP lawmakers were defending their vote, even after the the rule changes to weaken the OCE had been withdrawn. Heck, half of them wouldn't say how they voted at all.

Of Alabama's six Republican lawmakers in Congress, only Rep. Bradley Byrne said he had voted against undermining the OCE.

"I voted against the amendment," Byrne tweeted Tuesday. "Not the right way to address this issue."

I voted against the amendment. Not the right way to address this issue. — Rep. Bradley Byrne (@RepByrne) January 3, 2017

Rep. Martha Roby, through a spokesman, copped to voting for scuttling the OCE.

"Concerns about disorder in the ethics complaints process are valid, which is why Rep. Roby supported a policy change to further empower the Ethics Committee to do its job," her spokesman Todd Stacy wrote in an email. "However, this was obviously not the right time or way to go about it."

Rep. Mo Brooks sent out a press release Tuesday blasting the proposed amendment to weaken the OCE, carefully omitting that he hadn't been present for the vote. Only after a request for clarification did a spokeswoman say he'd had been delayed when traveling back to Washington.

But the other three -- Rep. Gary Palmer, Rep. Robert Aderholt and Rep. Mike Rogers -- were all radio silent.

When I asked a spokeswoman for Palmer how he had voted, she replied, "The Republican Conference just overwhelmingly supported the withdrawal of this rule."

I wrote back that I had already seen that (everybody had already seen that) but I still wanted to know how Palmer voted Monday night.

You know, when it mattered.

Silence.

Aderholt's office never returned messages I left there.

Same story for Mike Rogers.

In Alabama, we know a thing or two about turning political ethics into a facade for public officials to do whatever they want. You'd hope Alabama's congressional Republicans could represent their peers here well.

It's the least they could do if they're not going to represent the rest of us.