During the 2023 battle for the House Speaker, the number of ballots needed to pick a leader gathered the most attention, following by the need for concessions to win over “House rebels.”  Less attention has been paid to one of those concessions, the “gutting” of the Office of Congressional Ethics.  Yet that moment should command more of our attention than remembering exactly how many votes it took to pick Kevin McCarthy.

As the debate over the House Speaker was taking place, the most famous member of the House became a newly elected politician, George Santos.  There was an outcry over how this candidate extensively fabricated his resume, and he’s wanted abroad.  State and local officials are investigating him.

John A. Tures is a professor of political science at LaGrange College in Georgia. He can be reached at jtures@lagrange.edu. His Twitter account is @JohnTures2.