Permission to Resolve into Secret Session
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, at the request of, and after discussion with, the distinguished Republican whip, I ask unanimous consent that at a time designated by the Speaker on the legislative day of March 13, 2008, the House resolve itself into secret session as though pursuant to clause 8 of rule XVII; secondly, debate in such secret session proceed without intervening motion for 1 hour equally divided and controlled by the majority leader and the minority whip; and, thirdly, at the conclusion of that debate, the secret session shall be dissolved.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the gentleman from Maryland?
Mr. BLUNT. Reserving the right to object, Madam Speaker, I believe I heard the leader say clause 8.
Did you mean clause 9?
Mr. HOYER. Clause 9. Excuse me.
Mr. BLUNT. Clause 9. And this secret session would be convened at some time by the Speaker today when the room has been secured and would dissolve at the end of an hour of discussion? Is that what I understand?
Mr. HOYER. That's what the consent agreement is, pursuant to our discussions.
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Mr. KUCINICH. Can you divulge to this House what is going to be discussed, not the content of it, but the topic that's going to be discussed?
Mr. HOYER. My presumption is, and I think that's accurate because of my discussions with the Republican whip, the discussion will be with reference to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Mr. KUCINICH. And the debate that will take place regarding the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, what would conceivably be the nature of that debate?
Mr. HOYER. I can't tell you that because I don't know.
Mr. KUCINICH. Is it going to be debate over legislation?
Mr. HOYER. I presume, I tell the gentleman from Ohio, that it certainly will relate to the legislation that we will then be considering probably at this point in time tomorrow.
Mr. KUCINICH. The gentleman, in his long experience in the House, could he communicate to those who have, in my case, been in this House 12 years or less, anytime in your experience where the House has debated legislation in secret?
Mr. HOYER. My presumption is that we will not debate the legislation in secret. Not only is that my presumption, I think we will clearly have public debate tomorrow on the bill. The minority whip came to me indicating that there were things he thought the Members ought to have knowledge of that he was of the opinion could not be divulged in public debate. There is a provision under our rules to accomplish that objective. After discussion with him and limitation on the time so that we could, in fact, get to a vote on what we believe is very important legislation, we have agreed to this arrangement. Again, it's limited, but we did not want to be nor are we in the position of saying to the minority whip if he has such information that we want to preclude that from being offered, because we want no indication that any information is being withheld. That is appropriate, obviously. There are going to be restrictions, obviously, even in the context of the session.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. In responding to him, I believe, and I'm not, frankly, absolutely positive, and I am hoping that somebody perhaps on the Intelligence Committee staff or others in the House knows, but I believe that during the early 1980s, 1983, on Contragate there was such a session.
Mr. KUCINICH. When?
Mr. HOYER. In 1983.
Mr. KUCINICH. On what?
Mr. HOYER. Contragate.
Mr. KUCINICH. Iran-Contra?
Mr. HOYER. Yes.
Mr. KUCINICH. Was that before the hearings or after the hearings?
Mr. HOYER. I don't know the answer to that question.
Mr. KUCINICH. Well, I mean there's relevance here.
Mr. HOYER. If you will yield to Mr. Blunt, he may be able to offer some information.
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Mr. PASTOR. As I understand the situation, we are going to secure the Chamber, and in securing the Chamber, I think it means that from the Cloakroom, the people who work the Cloakroom who usually tell us when the Chamber will be cleared, how are they going to communicate that we can come back in for the secret session?
Mr. HOYER. The answer to the question is you will all be receiving from the leader and the whip's office on your e-mails notification of the time and you will get sufficient notice. It is contingent upon how long it takes those that have the responsibility to do so. But you will be getting your e-mails in a time frame that will allow you to get back notice.
Mr. PASTOR. The second question I have is do you expect to have further votes tonight, for those of us who will not attend this secret session and we won't know when it's finished?
Mr. HOYER. If this is approved, my expectation is there probably will be no further votes tonight.
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Mr. DOGGETT. And the minority leader has mentioned there were secret sessions in this House in 1979, in 1980, and 1983; and apparently there has not been one since 1983, to the best of your knowledge?
Mr. HOYER. I think that's accurate.
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Now, in this session, so that I understand the parameters and assure that we are not really doing the public's business in secret that ought to be done out here in public, will the session and the debate be limited to the presentation of classified material or the discussion of the significance of that classified material?
Mr. HOYER. That is my expectation.
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And that is why I am trying to be sure that if I come tonight, as I intend to do, to this session, and I hear an hour or 15 or 20 minutes of debate that has nothing to do with these classified materials, I want to know if I am going to have the right to raise a point of order that this is conducting the public's business in secret and that we have been brought here under false pretenses. I assume that won't happen, but I want to be clear before going into this session what my rights are pursuant to the unanimous consent agreement. Because if the unanimous consent agreement does not protect that, then it would be appropriate, I suppose, at this time, to ask that the agreement be amended to provide something along those lines.
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Mr. HOYER. I think the answer is that, within the framework of the unanimous consent, I've requested there is not such a limitation. I think the gentleman is correct on that. However, as I said, my expectation and my discussions with the whip ares that the purpose of the session is to offer information that might not otherwise be appropriate to disclose in public session.
My expectation is there is going to be a fulsome debate, as there has been, tomorrow on the legislation itself. So my expectation, given the shortness of the time that we are talking about, 30 minutes per side, we will have the Intelligence Committee here and the Judiciary Committee here to comment, obviously it is going to be a little difficult, because if there is information brought up that there may be comment on that information, and very frankly, the parameters of the debate tomorrow may, although not disclosing that information, may obviously be perceived by many of us as relating to whatever is discussed. It is very difficult to know specifically because I do not know the specific information that that request was made for.
Mr. DOGGETT. I understand. If there is discussion and debate of matters that do not concern classified materials, then under the terms of the unanimous consent agreement and the rules of the House, is any Member of this House who is present for that discussion free to openly discuss in public, during later debate, what was said during that session?
Mr. HOYER. I think that's a very good question. Let me tell you that we have asked. Mr. Blunt and I have discussed that. And we have asked the appropriate officials, bipartisan officials, of this House, under the rules, to give us the answer to that question and to have on paper the specific advice to every Member of the House so that we cannot have Members go out of here, put themselves at risk of violation of the rules, have clear advice and counsel as to what that is.
Now, it is my belief, this is not an opinion given to me, but it is my belief that every Member of this House that receives information from sources unrelated to this hour are certainly free, as they are right now, to discuss that information. And the fact that it is discussed in the session would not adversely affect that right. I would be shocked and not in agreement with this unanimous consent if the case were otherwise.
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Mr. DOGGETT. You are saying you were here in 1979, 1980 and 1983 for those three sessions?
Mr. DANIEL E. LUNGREN of California. Believe it or not, I was, as young as I am now.
Mr. HOYER. We are not surprised by that.
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Mr. HOYER. Madam Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. DOGGETT. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
Mr. HOYER. The contemplation of this unanimous consent is that there will be no business done in the sense of ``doing business'' as taking legislative action. Nobody contemplates that.
Mr. DOGGETT. I understand the distinction, but I think of my history with the Texas Open Meetings Act, and just the discussing of these matters is part of public business.
Mr. HOYER. If I could continue, there are some in this body who have, because of their membership on particular committees, been able to see information in secret which other Members of this body have not seen.
As the distinguished gentleman from California observed, there are still limitations notwithstanding this secret session.
We have a room that allows people to receive information in secret. They are not necessarily transacting business; although, the Intelligence Committee obviously on both Houses does, in fact, conduct its business in secret in that they vote in secret on some legislation.
All this contemplates is the offering and receiving of information that the minority has represented they believe they want to give to the Members that they ought not to give in open session. The matter that we are considering obviously is a very important, critical matter. There are substantial, as you know, differences. You and I agree on most of those. We perhaps disagree with others. It was the Speaker's and my view after discussing with Mr. Conyers and Mr. Reyes that to deny that would give Members the impression that somehow we did not believe they ought to have that information.
Now, I don't know what the information is, as I have said. But having said that, we certainly do not contemplate any business being done. Now, the fact that a Member may say something that is not secret, I would presume things are going to be said in there that are not secret. The gentleman from Ohio raised some excellent points. I share the concern of the gentleman from Texas and the concerns.
But I also understand this is a serious matter. We believe in public we will debate tomorrow a serious proposal as to how to serve our intelligence interests and our constitutional responsibilities. So I am hopeful that we will not object to this, although I think the concerns raised are absolutely legitimate, very serious, worthwhile concerns, and as the gentleman from Texas observes, which is why this is done so very infrequently. I have only been a participant in the 1983 session.
I thank the gentleman for yielding. But that is my take on what is going to transpire.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank my good friend for yielding. What I think the whip is saying, the Whip came to me earlier today, said he wanted to discuss information which the Intelligence Committee has, which the broad reach of the Members do not have, but he did not want to, he did not feel he could discuss that in open session.
The rules provide for the whip to make a motion to do that. That will then be a relatively lengthy process. The whip and I discussed this on his representation that he had information that he felt, in good conscience, he could not divulge, not because it's not in the bosom of the Intelligence Committees or, frankly, maybe the Judiciary Committee, which has been cleared, but because he felt it was information that was not releasable.
What we have done is reached an agreement that makes it very clear that there are very short parameters for this discussion and debate.
I want to say that I, generally, have not been here as long as Mr. Obey, but my experience on these kinds of sessions, whether they are briefings, has been the same as his. I have rarely learned something that I couldn't read in U.S. News & World Report or Time the day before or the day after.
But having said that, we have tried to reach an agreement with the minority that would facilitate the receiving of information which many Members, not the Intelligence members or the Judiciary members, but many Members have not had available to them and could not be discussed in open session.
I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentlelady for yielding.
For my part, I believe I will be fully engaged on this piece of legislation, on its merits, what it does to facilitate the interception of communications which may prove dangerous to our country and at the same time protect our Constitution.
I don't think I am going to be constrained in any way.
Now, what I will be constrained on saying is that, obviously, I have had the opportunity and taken the opportunity to go to the committee to review information in the bosom of the committee and to make conclusions on that. I will not discuss that specific information, but there is, most of the information that I have, having done that, is from the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, other news magazines, from articles that I have read. I frankly think that no Member is going to have to be confused about debating the merits or the demerits of the issue that will be before us tomorrow based upon this secret session.
Now, the gentleman, as I say, has made a request that he has information that he wants to discuss which he believes ought not to be discussed in public. I think everybody, not in public in the sense of depriving the American people from the information, but information that we need to hold close so that it is not used by those who would cause us harm, without speculating as to what that information may be. I frankly think that every Member will be able to make that judgment.
But, more than that, we have discussed this, and we hope to have, and I forget who it was who was mentioned, very appropriately, we hope being prepared now is directive from a nonpartisan source of security people. This is, after all, a rule of the House that is being pursued. It could be pursued by motion, but it's being pursued by unanimous consent. Doing so, we believe, sets the parameters more appropriately.
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Mr. HOYER. I don't want to go further than I am absolutely confident on the response to this. However, let me say that I believe that all the information that Members need to debate this bill tomorrow is currently in their possession and will be elicited in public debate.
The minority whip does not believe that. He believes there is additional information.
I think Members, I would not want to leave the impression with any of our Members that somebody had information that they believed was very important to the security of our country that they were precluded from giving to Members. That is why we pursued this objective.
As I say, the rules provide for that. But in terms of the debate, my suggestion is, I think, particularly the gentlewoman who serves so ably on the Judiciary Committee has all the information, and she has some information she knows she can't speak of because she has received briefings as a member of the Judiciary Committee.
But I believe there will be no constraints.
However, the constraint I think is you would not say, out of a secret session, and none of us should say out of a secret session, that X, Y and Z was said in a secret session, or that I got this information from a secret session. And if you did not have that information but for being in that session, my advice would be not to tell that information. But my view has been this has been a very wide, public debate; and I don't have any problems debating this vigorously tomorrow, as I intend to do because I think the bill is a good bill and protects both our intelligence ability and our Constitution. So I will not feel constrained at all. But I will not say I will not tell information that I received in this secret session because I don't think I am going to need to at all.
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Mr. HOYER. I think the fact of attending the session is not secret. The answer is ``yes.''
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Mr. HOYER. I think every Member will in fact say based upon the information they have, as I will say and as you will say, some of that information is held close. Some is not. And we will make our decisions based upon the information we have. So I think the gentlelady is absolutely correct.
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Mr. HOYER. There are a lot of hypotheticals, a, I believe the gentleman is correct, there is a high bar. I will tell you that as everybody in this House knows, Mr. Blunt and I are friends. I have great respect for Mr. Blunt. Mr. Blunt came to me, without denigrating any other Member, he is a leader of his party and I accord him the respect of making the judgment that in fact he is going to meet that high bar.
I have not interrogated him any more than I would want him to interrogate me on that issue. I take him at his word as a Member. Now, the consequence of not meeting that high bar is only that Members will say that a request was made that was not justified. I think that is the consequence. There is certainly no consequence in the rules. And, first of all, we would, I suppose, as a body have to judge, a, what the bar was and whether you met it.
In any event, I think the gentleman understands the answer to my question. I respect him as the leader of his party. He has made this request, and we are trying to honor it, I might say, in a way that most fashions it so that it will be as focused and as helpful as can be.
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Mr. KUCINICH. It is my understanding relative to these proceedings in a secret session that the proceedings of a secret session are not published unless the relevant Chamber votes during the meeting or at a later time to release them. Then portions can be released in the Congressional Record. Is that right, Congressman Jackson-Lee and Mr. Hoyer?
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Reclaiming my time, I yield to Mr. Hoyer.
Mr. HOYER. The gentleman is reading from the rule and he is a very bright, good friend; and I am sure he read the rule accurately. So my presumption is that he is accurate.
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Mr. HOYER. The reason I stand is because again I want to explain. The information, I don't know the information, but the information that Mr. Blunt has clearly is within the bosom of the Intelligence Committee, and I don't know, but I presume the Judiciary Committee has had access to it under the President's order. What has not been done is that information has not been shared with the Members. It's not a question of the sharing with the Intelligence Committee. I understand the gentleman's concern. What Mr. Blunt is simply saying is he wants to share with the Members. He cannot share it in open session. I don't know what the information is, but, again, as I expressed to my friend, and I would hope that we would understand that at some point in time, we need to accord to one another the credibility. Particularly I would hope that he would accord to me, as the leader, credibility, and as I accord to him credibility on his assertion that this is something he wants to share with the Members, some of whom would not have had access. They may have had access to it, but they haven't heard it. That is all I think he's saying. And in that context, we have come to this agreement which we think, as I say, focuses and serves the concerns that you have legitimately raised and focuses our efforts.
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