Legislative Program

LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM -- (House of Representatives - June 17, 2005)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, lastly, the gentleman from Texas (Leader DELAY) had to leave early right after the votes last week, and the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and I discussed that I am concerned, the gentleman is concerned, everybody is concerned and everybody is talking about it in the papers, the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is still not staffed and unable to proceed. The gentleman has expressed concern that that is the case. We have expressed concern that that is the case.

We believe, Mr. Leader, that under the rules the executive director and counsel need to be hired through agreement by both the Republican and Democratic members of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. We believe that is what the rules says.

The impediment it seems, frankly, is that the chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is still focused on having his chief of staff, who may be an outstanding individual, no aspersions whatsoever on his character or his integrity in working on the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, but he has not been selected in a bipartisan fashion.

Could the leader advise me, the Speaker indicated he thought he ought not to get involved, but we appear to have an impasse. It seems to me as one of the leaders, I would certainly be prepared to work with you, with the Speaker, I think the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) would, in trying to resolve this impasse so we could as an institution select bipartisan personnel that both sides could have confidence in that could then proceed to have an operating, effective Ethics Committee. I frankly hope we could do that. I think both of us and probably the entire institution is frustrated by the fact that we cannot get by this impasse.

It is, however, from our perspective, as the gentleman knows, a very important issue because if both sides are going to have confidence in the impartiality of investigations, of Republicans or Democrats, it will be because both sides participated in and had confidence in those who were selected to, from a staff standpoint, proceed with those investigations.

I would be glad to yield to my friend for his comments.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, the leader and I have a different perspective on this. He is correct in that observation. First of all, let me say that clearly the leadership ought to stay out of any determinations or considerations or reference to complaints raised or under investigation or determination by the Ethics Committee. I agree with the leader on that.

I do not agree with the leader on the fact that the leadership does not have a particular responsibility to ensure that the Ethics Committee is operating, is functioning, is performing the responsibilities of ensuring the public that we are maintaining the ethics of this institution and the democratic processes in a transparent and open and honest fashion. That is not any different, very frankly, than the leadership appointing the members of the Ethics Committee. It does not stay out of that. It appoints the members of the Ethics Committee on both sides of the aisle. It, in fact, removes members from the Ethics Committee. The problem has arisen here where for the first time since I can remember as a Member of this House, we have an impasse and a failure to, in a bipartisan fashion, agree on a single director.

Mr. Leader, very frankly, I will tell you that the initial problem was raised and our perspective is that the rules were changed to provide for impasse, for gridlock, where five people could not agree to proceed with the investigation, and it would not proceed. I know we differ on that perspective, but that was our perspective. Frankly, for whatever reasons, we have now gone back to the rules that we believe provide for proceeding with investigations without providing for the possibility of partisan gridlock or partisan veto. If you had codirectors, which is what has been suggested, you have one director for the Republicans, one director for the Democrats, you provide indirectly what you have now abandoned in the rule change that you made in January and gone back to the old rule. The whole purpose of having one director, selected in a bipartisan fashion, I suggest to my friend, was to provide and to have a confidence level in proceeding in a way that would provide for an effective operation of the Ethics Committee.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

http://thomas.loc.gov