The Senate and House Ethics Committees are bipartisan committees that evaluate potential ethics violations by senators, representatives, and their staff. The committees can find fault, for which the committee can take action, or not find fault. As a new session of Congress begins, GovTrack Insider examined all Senate and House Ethics Committee reports during the Congresses of the past 16 years.

Who did they investigate? Was fault generally found, or not? And did it ever affect a Congress member’s reelection?

Since 2001, the two ethics committees released 49 reports: 41 from the House and 9 from the Senate. Most of the reports related to individual members of Congress, though not all. Several reports jointly combined the possible ethics violations of several members who all committed the same possible infraction, such as when four House members were arrested for protesting outside the Embassy of Sudan. A few reports also relate to staff members, such as one House member’s chief of staff and another who worked on a different House member’s campaign. And one report also related to lobbying activities.

[The complete list of 21st century ethics reports, as compiled by GovTrack Insider, can be found here. We wrote about the related House Office of Congressional Ethics last week after Republicans tried to weaken the office.]

The five ethics reports in the last Congress

The 2015–16 Congress that just concluded last week issues five ethics reports, all on the House side.

Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO2) was cleared in December 2015 after a complaint that he used his official resources for the promotion of a business endeavor, when he appeared inin a video for the video game company Riot Games and an event for the men’s clothing company Ninox. The Committee found Polis did not violate any law or House rules, since both the video and events were done with the intent of constituent outreach rather than financial benefit.

The Ninox example contains almost certainly the most entertaining excerpt from an ethics committee report during the past two years. GQ Magazine wrote an article about D.C. fashion which criticized Rep. Polis as having the “worst Congressional style ever.” The founder of Ninox reached out to Polis’s office suggesting they do a makeover of Polis using Ninox’s products, which were paid for using Polis’s funds but which Ninox publicized in a way that seemingly indicated Polis’s endorsement of the company. Nine House members of both parties were jointly cleared after an official trip to Azerbaijan was discreetly funded by the nation’s state-owned oil company, which was a front created through $750,000 funnelled by the Azerbaijan government. The House members also received gifts such as ornate rugs and a six-piece crystal tea set. The investigation also attracted controversy after the Office of Congressional Ethics, a nonpartisan outside body which conducts preliminary investigations before the House Ethics Committee does, saw its findings leaked to the Washington Post prior to their official release five months later.

It remains possible that the the nine House members could still be charged by the Department of Justice. The nine House members are: Reps. Jim Bridenstine (R-OK1), Yvette Clarke (D-NY9), Danny K. Davis (D-IL7), former Rep. Rubén Hinojosa (D-TX15), Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX18), Michelle Lujan Grisham (D-NM1), Gregory Meeks (D-NY5), Leonard Lance (R-NJ7), and Ted Poe (R-TX2). Rep. David McKinley (R-WV1) was issued a “letter of reproval” in September 2016 for his apparent violation of the Ethics in Government Act (EIGA), after he didn’t change the name or sufficiently sever ties with the engineering firm McKinley & Associates which he founded in 1981. House rules prohibit any members from associating with companies that could do business with Congress or the federal government and which bear the name of a Congress member. The Committee in 2011 had previously issued a formal advisory opinion that McKinley change his company’s name, but McKinley claimed that changing the name would harm its name recognition. Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-FL16) was cleared on charges of ethics violations in June 2016. While the Committee did conclude that three car dealerships partly owned by Buchanan did illegally reimburse their employees for contributions to Buchanan’s campaigns, they found insufficient evidence that Buchanan himself was personally aware of reimbursements or had any role in approving them. Rep. Ed Whitfield (R-KY1) was rebuked in June 2016 for failing to prohibit contact between his staff and his wife, as she lobbied for the Humane Society Legislative Fund. Whitfield’s staff was found to have helped arrange more than 50 meetings for his wife, Constance Harriman Whitfield. However, the Committee found that Whitfield did not violate the rule against improperly using his position for his own self-interest, or benefit himself or his spouse, though they did find he didn’t “take sufficient care” regarding standards of conduct, which is not a punishable offense.

All five of the ethics reports in this past Congress either resulted in the charges being clear or a “letter of reproval” rebuke, the lowest form of punishment the committee can issue to a Congress member.

Office of Congressional Ethics impact on House Ethics Committee reports

Last week, House Republicans attempted to rename and significantly limit the powers of the existing Office of Congressional Ethics, which issues advisory findings without legal force for the House Ethics Committee to pursue. The move was quickly backtracked after a public outcry, but the desire of most House Republican to see the Office either curtailed or eliminated since its 2009 inception is no secret, and the move may be attempted again either later this year or within the next few years.

[Read GovTrack Insider’s article on the move and its potential policy implications here.]

According to a report from Public Citizen, 20 members of Congress were disciplined for ethics violations between 2009 when the OCE was created and 2014. That’s a substantial uptick from the 10 disciplines for ethics violations during the 11 years between 1997 and 2008.

The House Ethics Committee has held 36 investigations since OCE’s January 2009 start. According to a GovTrack Insider analysis, seven of these investigations were under 2009–10 Democratic control for an average of 3.5 per year, while the other 29 investigations have been under 2011–16 Republican control for an average of 4.8 per year. Republicans may oppose the OCE, but while helming the actual Ethics Committee which ultimately hands down decisions, they’ve been a bit more active than their Democratic counterparts. (It’s unclear whether that’s a result of the Republicans using the committee more aggressively or if there have legitimately been more apparent ethics violations in recent years.)

And lest one think the GOP misuses the committee for witch hunts against Democrats, 12 of the House Republicans’ 22 ethics investigations into individual members — as opposed to centering on a lobbyist, staff member, or group — were into fellow Republicans. Similarly, three of the four Democratic-led investigations into individual members were against fellow Democrats. (To be clear, not all of the investigations have resulted in a finding of fault or in punishment.)

Notable ethics reports from the past 16 years

The most noteworthy Ethics Committee findings are the ones that may have contributed to a member of Congress’s retirement or electoral defeat — or even imprisonment. Among those in the 21st century include:

Former Sen. Robert Torricelli (D-NJ), who dropped his November 2002 reelection bid that October after a Senate Ethics Committee report “severely admonished” him for accepting free gifts from a campaign donor and imprisoned businessman , including a bronze statues of an eagle and a bronco.

, including a bronze statues of an eagle and a bronco. Former Rep. Nick Smith (R-MI7), who had already announced he wouldn’t run for reelection in 2004 but endorsed his son Brad Smith to take his seat. The Committee found in 2004 that members of the House Republican leadership including House Majority Leader Tom DeLay tried to coerce Nick Smith by promising that certain business interest would donate to Brad Smith’s campaign only if Nick Smith voted for the Medicare Modernization Act. Brad Smith was defeated in the Republican primary by Joe Schwarz, who would later be elected

only if Nick Smith voted for the Medicare Modernization Act. Brad Smith was defeated in the Republican primary by Joe Schwarz, who would later be elected Former Rep. Earl Hilliard (D-AL7), for whom the House Ethics Committee found in a reporting totalling more than 1,000 pages had used campaign funds for purposes such as personal loans and salaries of people employed at companies run by Hilliard. He lost his reelection bid in 2002 in part due to the 2001 ethics report and scandal (though also in part due to redistricting that moved most black voters out of the African-American Hilliard’s constituency).

run by Hilliard. He lost his reelection bid in 2002 in part due to the 2001 ethics report and scandal (though also in part due to redistricting that moved most black voters out of the African-American Hilliard’s constituency). Former Sen. Larry Craig (R-ID), who was arrested in a Minneapolis airport men’s restroom for soliciting sex, then showed the arrest officer a card identifying himself as a U.S. senator and said, “What do you think about that?” Then he used more than $213,000 in campaign funds to appeal his criminal conviction. Craig declined to run for reelection in 2008 after the February 2008 ethics report.

Reports that weren’t released

The House Ethics Committee suspended its investigation against former Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-PA2) on corruption charges, which presumably would have resulted in a report and potentially sanctions, after Fattah was convicted on those same charges. Some members voluntarily take steps to prevent the release of an ethics report: former Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA9) resigned from the House in 2010 mere hours before the Ethics Committee would have released its report, which is believed to have revealed that Deal improperly used his House seat to benefit his Georgia auto business.

The Ethics Committees in the new Congress

The chairs of the two committees for the current Congress have recently been announced: Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and Rep. Susan Brooks (R-IN5). For the Congress that just ended, it was also Isakson in the Senate but Rep. Charlie Dent (R-PA15) in the House. The Senate Committee has so far announced an equal slate of three Republicans and three Democrats, while the House Committee so far has announced five Republicans and zero Democrats, though that will presumably be brought closer to parity with further appointments.

This article was written by GovTrack Insider staff writer Jesse Rifkin.