Letter to Senate Urging Confirmation of OGE Director
End the Hold on the Appointment of Huitema
By Craig Holman, Ph.D.
The Hon. Charles Schumer, Majority Leader
The Hon. Mitch McConnell, Minority Leader
United States Senate
Washington, D.C. 20510
Dear Senator:
The below civic organizations and scholars write to you out of concern that a year-long hold by Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) on the confirmation of David Huitema for Director of the Office of Government Ethics (OGE) is placing ethics compliance of the presidential transition process at risk. We encourage the Senate to lift that hold and complete the appointment of fair and impartial leadership of OGE.
Sen. Lee declared more than a year ago that he would prefer the appointment of the OGE Director be made after the inauguration of a new administration and has thus placed a Senatorial hold on the appointment of Huitema ever since.
Ethics should never be viewed as a partisan game. In fact, the Directorship is a five-year term, specifically designed to overlap administrations to minimize the influence of partisan politics. And David Huitema, much like the prior Director Emory Rounds appointed by then-President Trump, has a seasoned career of impartial ethics enforcement. Huitema has long been managing the State Department’s ethics program in a fair and prudent manner, without consideration of partisanship. Huitema is precisely suited to be the kind of balanced Director of OGE that ethics requires.
One of the most important roles of the Office of Government Ethics is to oversee and advise the presidential transition process. The selection and nomination of most new administration officials takes place during the transition, in which OGE’s vetting of pending nominees for conflicts of interest is most critical. The Office needs to be fully staffed and operational during the course of the transition period.
We strongly encourage the Senate to override the hold of David Huitema as Director of the Office of Government Ethics and allow for the proper enforcement of the ethics process without undue consideration of partisan favoritism.
Sincerely,
American Federation of Teachers
American Oversight
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW)
Colorado Black Women for Political Action
Court Accountability
Alexander B. Howard, Co-Founder, Open Government Roundtable
Freedom from Religion Foundation Action Fund
Issue One
MOVI, Money Out Voters In
Newtown Action Alliance
Norman J. Ornstein
Peoples Parity Project
People Power United
Public Citizen
Reboot Our Democracy
Reform for Illinois
Richard Painter, Law Professor, and former ethics officer in the
Bush Administration (2005-2007)
Prof. James A. Thurber
Secure Elections Network
The Workers Circle