Question of the Privileges of the House
Floor Speech
QUESTION OF THE PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE -- (House of Representatives - June 05, 2007)
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I intend to support this resolution, and I agree with the minority leader. The allegations that have been made are extraordinarily serious. They, if proven true, should lead to the expulsion of the Member in question. They, of course, have not been proved true. They are allegations.
Having said that, I also intend to and have called for a resolution to be considered tonight under suspension. That resolution speaks not only to the Jefferson case, to which the gentleman from Ohio limits his privileged resolution, but also speaks to any allegations of serious criminal conduct that may be made either through indictment or other charging documents; and it calls for action by the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct in any and all of those cases.
We appreciate the sensitivity of the minority leader to this issue at this time. It is, frankly, the first time I recall such a resolution being offered by the minority. For over a year, the Ethics Committee essentially didn't act, didn't operate. In fact, when it did and it held the former majority leader as having adversely affected the ethics of the House, the chairman was summarily removed from the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct; and, in fact, two of the members that had the temerity to vote to have a consequence for actions that reflected on the House were removed from that committee.
But I welcome the minority leader and the minority party's interest in pursuing this matter. I presume that the gentleman's resolution will pass unanimously. I also hope that the suspension resolution will also pass unanimously because there are, of course, unfortunately, a number of allegations being made publicly about Members of this House; and irrespective of what party they may fall into or be members of, it is critically important for us to hold accountable those Members and to assure the American public that the Ethics Committee is looking at those allegations, investigating those allegations, and making reports not only to the House of Representatives but to the people.
We swear an oath to not only defend the Constitution, but to uphold the laws of our land. As Members of this House, we have an absolute obligation to conduct ourselves in a way that does not violate the standards of official conduct or bring into disrepute the House of Representatives. Hopefully, we will agree on that proposition.
So I say to my Republican friends, we welcome them to this focus on holding accountable Members who violate the trust of the American public. We certainly intend to support it. I hope they will support the subsequently offered resolution, which says that in every case we will pursue this focus.
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Mr. HOYER. I can do it shorter than that. I just wanted to make one point, because I checked.
The important issue is going forward. We agree with that. We can argue about what happened in the past, we certainly have our perspective. Your panel was named last month, not at the beginning of the session, not in January or February or March or April, but last month. So we need to move forward on this, and we are going to. We are going to support this resolution.
I welcome your support of the suspension resolution, which will ensure that in these kinds of cases, that we go forward in every instance as we are going forward today.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Chutzpah is a wonderful word. Chutzpah is the position of a person who has been involving themselves in activities for a long period of time and then accusing somebody else of doing the same and being sanctimonious in the process.
That aside, Mr. Speaker, this House was told in November of last year by the people of this country, clean up your House, get rid of the culture of corruption. That's what they said in 2006, on November 7; and that's what we're doing. We adopted one of the strongest rules packages dealing with ethics in the history of this House, eliminating all meals and gifts from lobbyists. Arm's-length transactions. No travel. We just passed a lobbying disclosure bill 2 weeks ago, which most of us voted for because we want to be in on the effort of cleaning up this House.
My young friend from Florida apparently forgets that in January we passed a pension bill which says that if you're convicted and expelled, you won't get your pension. That was the Boyda bill, Nancy Boyda from Kansas, who came to Congress on a pledge to clean up the Congress. And she was elected to do just that.
Earmarks. Earmarks were quadrupled over the last 14 years. We have now adopted a rule that says they're going to be transparent. You're going to know who made the request for earmarks, that there is going to be some check on those earmarks.
Now, my young friend from Florida says that our resolution, which will be on suspension, was just seen. I will tell him, and there is no way he would know this, I saw the leader's resolution just minutes ago.
But that is not the issue, Mr. Speaker. The issue is the American public did indeed send us here to act ethically, honestly and openly and do the people's business, not the special interests'. And that's why they made a change in this House in November of 2006, that's why we unanimously on our side are going to support this resolution, and that's why we're going to support the suspension bill.
Because not only do we believe it ought to be done in this instance, but there are a lot of Members publicly under investigation in this House whose homes have been raided by Federal officials, but they're not in this resolution. They have not been indicted.
Mr. Speaker, we need to act. The public needs to know we're acting, and we need to hold accountable those who fail to meet their public duty and trust to the American people. This leadership is committed to making sure that we do just that.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. HOYER. Well, I don't have a specific answer for that. But let me say this. You gave your list last month. We have given our list this month. The minority leader is correct on that time frame. We heard about this indictment. We determined to take specific action. The minority leader also determined to take specific action. We believe they complement one another, but the real issue is that we need to take decisive action and we intend to do so.
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