Providing for Earmarking Reform in the House of Representatives

PROVIDING FOR EARMARKING REFORM IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES -- (House of Representatives - September 14, 2006)

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Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, despite the huge scandals that have worked this town, this Congress has failed to pass a lobbying reform bill, we failed to pass an ethics reform bill, we failed to deal with the gift ban, we failed to stop the flying on the corporate jets, we failed to shut the resolving door. There has been a shameful lack of accountability.

Now, I support greater transparency in the earmark process, I support greater sunshine. But we should get right at the root of the problem and eliminate the worst abuses outright. Now, Mr. Emanuel and I and others offered an amendment the other day in the Rules Committee to stop the inside dealing and to stop the sweetheart deals, and the Republican leadership said no.

What did that amendment do? It was pretty simple. It said a Member of Congress can't take Federal taxpayers' dollars and earmark them for an organization that employs their spouse or their family members. They said no to that. It says let's not take Federal taxpayer dollars and steer them to an organization that just employed one of their former staffers. They said no to that.

Mr. DREIER. Would the gentleman yield?

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Not out of my time, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DREIER. If I could yield myself 10 seconds out of my time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I would be happy to.

Mr. DREIER. I was just going to say that there was no amendment offered in the Rules Committee whatsoever, so nothing was rejected.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. There was an amendment.

Mr. DREIER. No, there wasn't. I chair the committee, and I will tell you that there was not an amendment that was offered in the Rules Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. There was a proposal.

We made some proposals to address that issue.

Mr. DREIER. It wasn't offered in the Rules Committee.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

There is a proposal also out there that we have sponsored that I hope you will address and make in order to this particular piece of legislation with respect to prohibiting funds from going to somebody who has an organization, if that person is also the head of a political action committee of a leadership PAC, some simple rules of the game that we should all therefore be able to agree to, I hope. If you didn't take it up in the Rules Committee, maybe we can take it up now today if we all agree that those are abuses that we should end.

Ms. SLAUGHTER. If the gentleman will yield, and I will give him the extra time, but let me make clear that this amendment was submitted to the Rules Committee for consideration. The fact that you would not take it up is not the fault of Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Speaker, we submitted an amendment to the Rules Committee for its consideration. I am sorry that the chairman decided not to take up the amendment, but what the amendment did was outline the very simple prohibitions that we talked about, to prohibit us from steering Federal taxpayers' dollars to organizations that employed family members, that employed former staff members, or where monies were steered through lobbyists and lobbyist organizations that employed spouses or family members or former staff members.

The key issue here is trying to end the sort of inside dealing and sweetheart deals that have rocked this town. We have not done that. What worries me about this piece of legislation is that people are going to pass it and they are going to go home to their congressional districts and they are going to tell people: We have cleaned up Washington; that we have stopped the abuses, that we have done something about the nexus between lobbying problems and the earmark process, when in fact we haven't done it.

The earmarks have skyrocketed since the Republicans took control of Congress, and yet they have also refused to adopt a rule that we proposed for a pay-as-you-go budget. The President and others complain about earmarks, but he hasn't vetoed a single bill except the stem cell bill. We keep hearing about the problems on the spending side, and yet every one of the bills that has gone through this Congress has been signed by the President. Again, the only bill he has vetoed is the bill dealing with stem cell research.

So if we are serious about fiscal accountability, let's adopt the pay-as-you-go rule that has been proposed by the Democrats, and let's adopt the measures that I talked about that we submitted to the Rules Committee that would end the worst abuses. And I still don't understand why the Rules Committee failed to take up and consider those proposals.

I thank my colleague from New York for the time. Let's send a signal to the people around this country that we recognize the abuses that have taken place, that we are going to do something real, let's not just pretend we are doing something. There is some momentum to do things here. We are not taking advantage of it. Let's do that.

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