Oversight And Accountability In Government

Floor Speech

OVERSIGHT AND ACCOUNTABILITY IN GOVERNMENT -- (House of Representatives - March 14, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ELLISON. Congresswoman Sutton, it is a great honor to be here with you tonight together with our other colleagues in the freshman class who will be speaking in just a moment because I think it is important that the American people know that the freshman members of the Democratic Caucus came to this Congress, not to occupy space, not to warm a seat, but to create positive change for the American people, to project a vision, a vision of inclusion, of a generosity of fairness, a vision that says that this economy should be one where everybody can be successful.

This government should be one where everyone has access, not just lobbyists and the privileged few, a system of government that people can feel proud of and not have to be worried that privileged individuals might be lining their pockets at the expense of the American people.

We came here on November 7. We were elected here by the American people because the American people, the finest people, have the right to feel good about their government, not cynical, not despondent, not despairing, but good and positive, who would say, Do you know what? I trust my government. I feel that my government is doing the right thing. We can do no less than to take up that charge.

We have to say the American people have a right to feel that their government is operating for the public good and in their best interests. And to that end, I am proud to be associated with this Democratic majority that from the very beginning began to signal change with the 100 hours program. The 100 hours program is not all that we are going to do, but, Mr. Speaker, we had to tell the American people that we are about business from the very beginning. We had to signal change from the very beginning.

We had to let them know that we care about the affordability of a college education by cutting student loan interest rates; we care about our seniors by making sure that we get a prescription drug benefit that actually helps our seniors by allowing Medicare to negotiate.

We did a 100 hours program that said, we are going to raise the minimum wage; we are going to stop the oil and gas subsidies and put the money into renewable energy. We had to signal change.

That is not all we are going to do. We are just getting started. But we had to do something soon, something quick, something early, in the very beginning, so that the American people will know that we are putting money on the table. This is an earnest commitment to the American people to do real government, real change that they can feel good about.

So what I want to talk about very briefly tonight is how important it is and how happy I am that the Democratic Congress has taken steps regarding this scandal about the U.S. attorneys. The United States attorneys are members of our government under the executive branch whose job it is to do good, to promote justice. They are ministers of justice. They are not just lawyers who are entitled to advocate for their clients. Their job is higher. Their job is to do the right thing. Neither fear nor favor should influence them. Neither concern about their job nor worry about who is not going to like it should influence their behavior. They should enforce the law and protect the American people.

So when it came to light that U.S. attorneys that had had good recommendations, eight of them, were summarily fired with no explanation, and then when the explanations did come, their reputations were besmirched--they said that they were not good workers, that they were not good employees of the State, not carrying out an excellent mission for the people of the districts that they were charged to represent--I think people started getting a little nervous. Wait a minute. Why besmirch these people? Why put them down? What have they done that was wrong?

And what we began to find as the common thread between these U.S. attorneys is that these individuals, though Republican appointees, took their charge to promote respect for law and took their charge to protect the American people seriously. And some of them prosecuted corruption cases, and that brought them into disfavor with the administration.

As the facts just keep on leaking out, they don't look good. They don't look good. It appears, it appears that political decisions were brought to bear in this scandal with regard to the U.S. Attorneys. In fact, one of the U.S. Attorneys was one of the people who prosecuted Mr. Duke Cunningham, and somehow ended up getting fired. My goodness. Don't we want to get rid of corruption in government? Don't we want a clean government? Why would you bring the hammer on somebody who did that, unless you didn't necessarily want the even hand of the law to be applied, you wanted it to be tilted one way or another. Justice must be blind, Mr. Speaker.

Then what else did we see? One of the calls that was made from as high as the White House was that these folks are not going after immigration cases or going after voter fraud cases enough. Wait a minute. Doesn't the prosecutor make decisions? Isn't prosecutorial discretion a hallmark of our legal system? Wait a minute. These people are charged with protecting us from drug dealers, killers, bank robbers and people who commit acts of terrorism.

These people are charged with protecting us from defrauders, stealers, thieves, embezzlers, and yet somebody on a political basis is trying to force them to focus in one area or another? They have finite resources to prosecute the cases and protect the people. They have to make a determination as to what is most important to protect our seniors from identity thieves, to protect our neighborhoods from drug dealers and meth makers. And yet they were put under scrutiny and fired, it appears, and the evidence is still coming in, because they wouldn't play ball with people in the administration.

This is scary business. This is not a good thing. And it goes to the very heart of restoring accountability to Washington. It goes to the very soul of whether we have a fair justice system and whether justice is blind.

Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned about that, and I want to urge the American people to continue to insist that all the facts come out. We have to know. Justice must be served, and it must be served with these U.S. Attorneys, because if the people whose job it is, the ministers of justice, cannot be comfortable in doing their work, then what can the rest of us who need their services expect?

Let me just make one point, and this has to do with the questions around the prosecution of Mr. Scooter Libby. He was found guilty of four out of five counts just last week, and we hear there are linkages to the Vice President. We hear many people are calling him a ``fall guy,'' signaling there may be more people involved.

I think that it is very important that if we are going to insist upon accountability in Washington, that there be no pardons. I am very concerned that there could be a pardon in this situation that would render him not willing to tell all that he knows.

We need to know how bad this thing is. In the U.S. Attorney issue we found out it was Harriet Miers, the very person the President wanted to be on the United States Supreme Court, who said fire them all.

It is very important we get to the bottom of this, because, as I started with, the American people have every right to know what their government is doing and to trust in and feel good about their government. It is not a question of public relations, it is a matter of substance.

So I will yield back to my colleague, Congresswoman Betty Sutton, who has been leading us in so many excellent ways, who has been doing such a fine job, and with whom I am so honored to be associated in this Congress. We have other excellent Members joining us tonight and they are going to tell the story. I just want to say I am proud to be associated with these majority makers, these difference makers, these people who believe that the American people have a right to believe in their government, and the only way to do it is to restore accountability to Washington.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source