Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2013
Floor Speech
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ELLISON. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I'm very pleased to see that there's broad bipartisan agreement on this issue. It's always a great benefit when we can work things out--and occasionally we do, just as we've seen. So that's a good thing. But I do have an obligation to speak up for constituents of my own on this issue.
Mr. Chairman, I have to say on the record that there have been more than 17,000 people killed in Syria over the last 14 months. That's when a nonviolent uprising began in response to Bashar Al-Assad's brutal torture and murder of teenage kids in the city of Dara'a. Violence against civilians has escalated rapidly in months. There have been large massacres in the villages of Houla, Qubair, and possibly Tremseh.
The international community, including the Arab League, has overwhelmingly condemned Al-Assad's violent repression. One country--Russia--has refused to stop arming Al-Assad and his murderous campaign. In fact, a Russian cargo ship could deliver military helicopters to Syria this week. Rosoboronexport is the Russian weapons dealer arming the Al-Assad regime. There's substantial evidence Al-Assad is using weapons from Rosoboronexport against innocent civilians in Syria. I was surprised to learn that our own government is buying Russian-made helicopters from Rosoboronexport.
Put simply, our government is supporting Syria's arms dealer, which is enabling the Syrian regime's bloody crackdown. This should stop. That's why I urge all to support this amendment, which it looks like there's broad agreement on. American taxpayers should not be supporting Syria's arms dealer. If the military wants to buy helicopters, it should by American ones and create jobs at home, not in Russia. Our amendment does the right thing. It ends the U.S. purchases from Rosoboronexport. I'm proud that it has strong bipartisan support, and I urge all of my colleagues to support it.
I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Mr. ELLISON. Mr. Chairman, Representative Eshoo and I have submitted this very straightforward amendment for a very simple reason. We believe that it's simply fair and it's good for public disclosure to require defense contractors to publicly show and disclose their political contributions. Money, secret money in particular, can breed corruption. Sunlight will banish it away.
When government contractors make political contributions, there's no doubt that the officeholder knows who gave the money. The only ones in the dark are the American public. This can lead to pay-to-play corruption where contractors donate to candidates they believe will benefit them, and this would misserve our democracy. We need full disclosure so that the public can ensure that contracts are awarded based on merit rather than money.
Now, some have expressed a concerns in the past with disclosure pre-contract. A pre-contract disclosure requirement could be a problem because they fear that agencies would choose contractors for partisan reasons. While I think this is an overstated concern and I don't agree with it, our bill doesn't do that. Our amendment requires disclosure post-contract to avoid any fear of that.
So I just want to say that we are in an era where the public needs to trust Congress and government more than it does. In order to promote real trust and real confidence, we need to implement amendments that will promote transparency and that will let the public know that we are doing the right thing with the public dollar, particularly as it relates to the defense industry.
Let me close by saying I think this amendment is a first step. I'm a proud cosponsor of the DISCLOSE Act by Representative Van Hollen, which requires reporting of all corporate campaign activity.
Also, we won't be able to truly tackle money in politics until we overturn Citizens United, in my opinion. The public agrees with that as a proposition by 82 percent.
I yield back the balance of my time.
BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT
Source