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It's the NPR Politics podcast here with our first episode of 2017, which is off to an interesting start.

We're going to talk about House Republicans deciding then undeciding to weaken the independent

office of congressional ethics and other action from the first day of the new Congress.

I'm Tamar Keith, I cover the White House. I'm Scott Tetrou, I cover Congress,

and I'm Ron Elving Editor Correspondent. Well, happy new year, everyone,

and since I've got you here, let's talk about the new Star Wars movie.

Best droid ever. Okay, seriously though, there's a lot going on. Where to begin?

Well, today was the first day of the 115th Congress, but even before they could be sworn in,

late Monday night, news broke that House Republicans had agreed in a closed-door meeting

to embed a surprising change in the House rules. Now, we should say this happens every time there's

a new Congress. The House votes on the rules that they'll abide by for that session,

but House GOP leaders decided the new rules package would include this major change to something

called the Office of Congressional Ethics. And Scott? So you already have the House Ethics Committee,

which is the main place that investigates possible sketchiness by lawmakers. Or doesn't.

Or doesn't. And this was a separate office that did its own investigations, and these changes

would have weakened that separate office in several different ways. Okay. First of all,

they would have no longer allowed anonymous tips, which is a pretty big deal because you've

...