Courthouse Ethics and Transparency Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. ISSA. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, H.R. 5720 is a thoughtful piece of legislation authored by my colleague, Congresswoman Ross. It does something that seems like common sense when you look at it. Senior members of the executive branch, not just Cabinet officers or sub-Cabinet officers, but all of the most highly compensated individuals in the executive branch, similarly, the highly compensated members of this branch and Members of Congress, both the House and Senate and the Delegates, all routinely make these filings so that if a vote appears to be self- serving, the public is aware of it. This is important when you are looking at elective office.

But it is even more important, Madam Speaker, when you are looking at people who have a lifetime appointment, people who do not stand for election, and cases that may involve 10s or 100s of millions of dollars of company or individual money and the outcome, if later overturned due to the potential malpractice, such as the 60 judges who actually traded while cases were in front of them, the cost can be devastating in dollars.

But as the chairman so rightfully said, the cost can be more devastating in public confidence. I want to commend, on a bipartisan and bicameral basis, the work that has been done to recognize this oversight and, quite frankly, push against the members of the court who have not yet supported this and who somehow believe that these are exceptions and that somehow those exceptions are not sufficient to create a mandate on the third branch of government that is the equivalent almost identically of the first two.

It is a small step, and it does not affect a vast amount of judges who routinely look carefully at this.

There is one more thing that I think needs to be understood that members of the committee understand, and that is the available databases for these judges to appropriately do these tests to find out whether they do have a potential conflict will need to be added.

So the legislation talks about reporting, but we will work diligently with the members of all the Federal courts to make sure the assets are available for them to quickly and routinely make these checks--the same as lawyers have had in the private sector for conflicts for many, many years now.

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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire whether the majority is prepared to close.

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Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Once again, I want to thank the chairman, Ms. Ross, and the others who worked so diligently on this legislation.

In closing, I think the judicial branch needs to take notice of the vote here today, not because we vote overwhelmingly in support of this legislation, but because we stand here today trying to vividly separate 130 judges who either didn't know or knew and did not do the right thing from 600 or so that sit on the bench today, and, over the period of this investigation, more than 1,000 Federal judges who do the right thing, who are careful in their personal life and in their disclosures, who do recuse themselves.

The confidence in the court belongs to the overwhelming majority of judges at the district court, at the appellate court, at the Federal circuit, and, yes, at the Supreme Court, who carefully maintain their personal lives, personal matters, and their family assets in a way that they can be accountable. And when in doubt, many of them recuse themselves even when it is a judgment call.

So I want to thank the many in our third branch of government who do the right thing as we bring about this new era of transparency that has become necessary because of the bad action of 130 judges.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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