Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007
Floor Speech
LEGISLATIVE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2007 -- (Senate - August 02, 2007)
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Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, let me first thank the members of the Rules Committee, particularly Chairman DIANNE FEINSTEIN. This is landmark legislation. We have had groups that have been watchdogs over the Congress, that have been the first to complain when there are ethical lapses, that have weighed in and said this bill can make a difference.
It was not easy, trust me. Members of the Senate and Members of the House--many of them--resisted the changes that are included in this bill. But Senator Feinstein was given the authority and the responsibility to come up with a bill that is going to literally change the climate and the way we do business here on Capitol Hill, and she did it. I thank her for her leadership.
New transparency for lobbying activities; a strong lobbyist gift ban; limits on privately funded travel; restrictions on corporate flights; strong revolving-door restrictions; expanding public disclosure of lobbyist activities; ending the infamous K Street Project, which, unfortunately, for a long time was just acceptable conduct under the previous party's control of Congress; and congressional pension accountability--all of these are dramatic changes.
The Senator from South Carolina has focused on the issue of earmarks. I have been fortunate, in the House and the Senate, to have served on appropriations committees. I chair one of those subcommittees now. I want to tell you that the Senator from South Carolina has, unfortunately, misrepresented what this bill does. The Senator from South Carolina can, undoubtedly, remember when I offered an amendment on the floor, which he supported, which said we could not even proceed to an appropriations spending bill until we had posted on the Internet, for the world to see, every single congressional earmark in the bill 48 hours in advance. That is the type of disclosure which has never occurred on Capitol Hill, and it means that not only will the members of the committee and those who bring the bill to the floor be held accountable, but every person requesting an earmark--every Senator--will have to put their name next to the earmark request. I have just gone through this again. I think it is the right thing to do--full disclosure, full transparency, nothing to hide.
The situations that led to the imprisonment of Members of the House and lobbyists were these secret earmarks that popped up in the dead of night and people did not know what they meant. Change a comma here or put a semicolon there, and all of a sudden millions of dollars were flowing to favored clients of some lobbyist. Well, there is a Congressman from California who is now in jail for that, and there is a lobbyist in jail for it as well. Let me tell you, that era of secrecy in earmarks is over. It is over. Forty-eight hours before the bill comes to the floor, the whole world can take a look at it. And if you failed to put the earmarks in that disclosure, you are subject to a point of order.
Now, who rules on a point of order here? It is the gentleman sitting in front of the Presiding Officer. He is the Parliamentarian. We turn to him and say: All right, was there full disclosure of the earmarks in the bill? And he rules one way or the other.
He doesn't have a dog in this fight. He works for both political parties. That is the way it should be. This is going to be an independent judgment as to these earmarks and whether there is full disclosure.
What about conflicts of interest between Senators and those who are requesting these disclosures? We have to file--each Senator, asking for an earmark for a project at home, has to file a statement on the record that we have no personal or pecuniary interest in this earmark we are requesting. That didn't occur before. That didn't occur before this Congressman went to jail and before this lobbyist went to jail. This is a dramatic change, and that disclosure--that denial of any kind of conflict of interest, or I should say acceptance that we won't have any conflict of interest, is public record. It is there to be seen. If someone violates it, they have made this statement to the committee, it has been disclosed to the public, and the whole earmark is there for the world to see. It is a level of transparency and disclosure which we have never had before.
What troubles me the most about the criticism of the Senator from South Carolina is that he is arguing that the writing of this bill was done ``behind closed doors, in secret.'' Well, there was an opportunity to take this bill to a conference committee. That is when House and Senate Members sit in a room at a table, work out their differences, in public, so that the press and the world can hear the deliberations and see the changes that are made. When we came to the floor and asked for that conference committee so the world could see the whole process, one Senator got up and objected. Does anyone want to guess which one? The Senator from South Carolina who just gave the speech this morning about the secrecy of this process. He can't have it both ways. He cannot object to a conference committee which is open and public, and then when the conference committee doesn't occur, object to what follows. We had no choice but to work out this bill and bring it to be considered by the House and the Senate.
So how did this bill fare on the floor of the House of Representatives that was hit so hard by this culture of corruption and ethical scandals? The final vote was 411 to 8, a bipartisan vote on the floor of the House of Representatives for this ethical reform, and now we hear from the Senator from South Carolina that somehow we have stacked the deck on the Democratic side. That wasn't reflected in the House vote.
Many of his Republican colleagues realize, as we do, that as painful as this is, it is necessary. If we don't have the trust of the American people when it comes to the business we do, then, frankly, many of us who have dedicated our lives to public service are going to be the lesser for it. For all this hard work and all the time we put in, people will always be suspicious: Is that Senator voting for that project because his brother-in-law works there or something? Well, that is going to end with this reform.
The Senator from South Carolina may have wanted more. He may have wanted to do it differently. That is his right. He is a Senator from a State, and he has that right, but he has to be honest and acknowledge that what we have done here is significant change. In the 5 years he was serving over in the House of Representatives, he didn't suggest that the Republican majority change their earmark process, ever. We can't find one single instance when he went to the floor of the House and argued for earmark reform when his party was in the majority. Now that the Democrats are in the majority, he has become outspoken on this issue. That, again, is his right to do so. I welcome it. I will say, conceding to the Senator from South Carolina, you have forced some valuable change in this process. You should take credit for that. But to stand here now and tell us this work product is not real reform flies in the face of comments made by people who have been working for reform in Congress for decades.
They believe this is landmark legislation. To put a 48-hour disclosure--48-hour disclosure--before we can even take up a bill, to put it on the Internet for everyone to see is a level of transparency never before seen in the Halls of Congress in our entire history. It never took place. That is a significant change. It is a change which I think moves us in the right direction.
Let me say a word about earmarks because there is a lot of comment about Members of Congress earmarking money on special projects. The bill I just completed, the financial services bill, we took a look at earmarks. Do you know what it turned out? It turned out the earmarks by the President of the United States were two or three times larger than any requested earmarks by Members of Congress. And there are no requirements under our rules that the administration say there is no pecuniary conflict of interest, no disclosure of 48 hours in advance. They put them in the bill.
But when it comes to Members of Congress, we have changed those rules, in my subcommittee and in other appropriations committees, and it will also apply to tax bills as well. Give me the power to change the punctuation in the Tax Code, and I can make a lot of people happy in a hurry.
So we want to get down to the real business and make sure that whether the earmark is in an appropriations bill or a tax bill, the American people see it from the start, and then they decide. When I run for reelection, my opponent--and I am certain the press--will scour through things I have asked for to see if they can be justified. If they find something they question, I am going to have to answer that question. We make that much easier for the public and for the press to get to the bottom of it.
I would say to my colleague from the State of South Carolina, by ending the K Street Project, by restricting lobbyist activities, by adding dramatic transparency to the Senate rules, we are seeing more reform in this bill than at any time in the history of the Senate or the House. How did we reach this point? Out of embarrassment--embarrassment over a culture of corruption that overtook many of the activities of Congress over the last few years. People have gone to jail. They have paid a heavy price. There have been embarrassments, and I am sure a lot of sadness in many families. But the bottom line is, we have kept our word that this bill, through real reform, and that will make a difference in the way we do business, is going to be passed.
I sincerely hope that an overwhelming, bipartisan majority will support this reform, this rules change when it comes before us today.
If one Senator or any group of Senators is successful in stopping this reform of the rules, this reform of ethics, then they better go home and answer to their constituents. When you pick up the morning paper, you know America is counting on us to do the right thing, and I encourage my colleagues to vote for this legislation.
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LIMITED TAX AND TARIFF BENEFITS
Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, I would like to ask the chairman of the Finance Committee a question regarding the implementation of the provisions of the ethics reform bill as they apply to limited tax and tariff benefits. This legislation establishes the principle that the Members of this body and the American people at large should have full disclosure of the source and beneficiaries of legislative provisions that are directed to benefit a limited number of people or entities. The disclosure requirement would apply to limited tax and tariff benefits as well as to congressionally directed appropriations.
Specifically, the new rule states that it shall not be in order to vote on a motion to proceed to consider a bill or joint resolution unless the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction or the majority leader or his or her designee certifies that each limited tax or tariff benefit, if any, has been identified; that the Senator who submitted the request for such item has been identified; and that this information has been available on a publicly accessible congressional Web site in a searchable format at least 48 hours before such vote.
For the purpose of implementing this requirement, a ``limited tax benefit'' is defined as a revenue provision that ``(A) provides a Federal tax deduction, credit, exclusion, or preference to a particular beneficiary or limited group of beneficiaries under the Internal Revenue Code of 1986; and (B) contains eligibility criteria that are not uniform in application with respect to potential beneficiaries of such provision.'' A ``limited tariff benefit'' is defined as ``a provision modifying the Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States in a manner that benefits 10 or fewer entities.''
Under the rule, a Senator who requests a limited tax or tariff benefit is required to provide a written statement to the chairman and ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction, including, among other things, the name of the Senator and ``in the case of a limited tax or tariff benefit, identification of the individual or entities reasonably anticipated to benefit, to the extent known to the Senator.'' It is the responsibility of the requesting Senator to provide such information to the chairman and ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction. The chairman will expect this information to be provided by the requesting Senator and will disclose this information to the public if a requested provision is included in a bill in the chairman's jurisdiction.
The intent of this new rule is to ensure that any Senator who requests a limited tax or tariff benefit discloses to the chairman and ranking member of the Finance Committee the identity of any individual or entities reasonably anticipated to benefit from the provision and that the identity of the Senator who requested the provision and the identity of the individual or entities reasonably anticipated to benefit are made available on a publicly accessible congressional Web site at least 48 hours before a vote on a motion to proceed to the measure that contains the provision. This disclosure applies when a limited number of taxpayers receive a benefit from a provision and the benefit is not uniformly available to other similarly situated taxpayers solely because the provision does not encompass those other similarly situated taxpayers. Does the chairman agree with this understanding of the proposed rule?
Mr. BAUCUS. Yes, the Senator from Illinois has accurately described the proposed rule and its intent.
Mr. DURBIN. If I may inquire further, I would like to have a clear understanding of how the chairman will implement this rule. Once this rule is adopted, I expect that, as bills and joint resolutions that contain tax or tariff provisions are brought to the Senate floor, the chairman will, before a vote on a motion to proceed to such a measure, publish a list of all limited tax or tariff benefits therein, identifying each of these provisions, the Senator or Senators requesting the provision, and the entities reasonably anticipated to benefit, to the extent known to the requesting Senator.
Am I correct in my understanding that the chairman will make such information public for each tax or tariff provision in the measure that provides a benefit to a limited group of beneficiaries where the provision results in those beneficiaries being treated more advantageously than entities that, in the absence of such a provision, would be considered similarly situated with regard to the portion of the Tax Code affected by the provision?
Mr. BAUCUS. Yes, I plan to provide such a list with regard to legislation in my committee's jurisdiction.
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