[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 62 (Wednesday, May 18, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: May 18, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
               CONCERNS REGARDING THE ETHICS REFORM BILL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
February 11, 1994, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] is 
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the Minority Leader.
  Mr. BURTON of Indiana. Mr. Speaker, tonight I'm going to talk about 
something that I'm sure will appear to be an exercise in futility to 
almost all of my colleagues, because the pressure from the media and 
from special groups like Common Cause is so great that there is 
probably not much chance that we are going to be able to reverse the 
tide.
  I thought I would tonight take a little bit of time and try to 
express my concerns about the ethics reform bill that we are talking 
about, that just passed the Senate, a similar bill just passed the 
House; to tell you why I oppose many provisions in it, and why it is 
going to be bad for the institution called the Congress of the United 
States and bad for the American people.
  Right now we have a policy which demands that every time we do 
anything that costs money from a lobbyist or a person who takes us out 
to lunch or dinner or buys us any kind of a small gift, we have to 
report it on our FEC report. That is going to be changed with the new 
ethics reform bill to such a degree that many of our constituents will 
not even be able to converse with us.
  Let me just give an example. Right now if a businessman or a 
businesswoman wants to take a client out to lunch or a friend out to 
lunch, they do that and they deduct it, in many cases, from their 
taxes. Many times a constituent or a group of constituents will come to 
Washington, 10 or 15, and they will say, ``We want to sit down with our 
Congressman over lunch and talk to them about problems of our State,'' 
and because there are 10 or 15 of them, the Congressman cannot afford 
to buy everybody's lunch or dinner, so they will take him out to lunch 
or dinner so they can have the opportunity to spend a long period of 
time with him talking about their problems or their concerns.
  Under the new ethics reform law, if they go out and have lunch, a 
$2.50 sandwich, the person buying the sandwich and the Congressman or 
Congresswoman will be guilty of a crime. That is going too far. That is 
just going too far.
  If a Congressman or Congresswoman says to a friend visiting 
Washington, or maybe even back in their district, ``Would you like to 
go out and play golf?'' and the Congressman or Congresswoman pays for 
that, that is all right. If a businessman pays for that, if a friend 
pays for that, that is all right. But if a person takes a Congressman 
or Congresswoman out to play golf or tennis or something like that, 
that is going to be a crime, not only for the Congressman but for the 
person who is paying the freight.
  Charity golf events and charity events that have raised hundreds of 
thousands of dollars for different charities, cancer research, Ronald 
McDonald House and a lot of other charities like that, instead of the 
Federal Government paying for it, instead of the taxpayer paying for 
it, many of these charity events pay for it. A lot of those are going 
to be stopped completely, because Congressmen and Congresswomen will 
not be able to participate any longer. They are going to cut that out.
  I think that that is something that ought to be looked at with a 
jaundiced eye, because if these charity events are done away with 
across the country, and maybe this is a first step toward eliminating 
them altogether, I don't know, then the government is going to have to 
pay for it, and that is going to mean the taxpayer is going to pay for 
it.

  Individual citizens, individual businesspersons do not have these 
kinds of restrictions, and they should not have. I do not think we 
should have a double standard where Congress should be any better off 
or any worse off than the private sector.
  What we are going to see if we pass the Senate ethics proposal, Mr. 
Speaker, is you won't be able to have lunch with anybody if they buy 
you a sandwich, because it will be illegal. You won't be able to go to 
a sporting event with them if they buy you a ticket, because it will be 
illegal and both of you will commit a crime. You won't be able to play 
golf with anybody or tennis with anybody if they pay the fee at all, 
because it will be a crime. You won't be able to participate in any 
charity events that raise monies for charity, because it will be a 
crime.
  I just think that is going too far. It is just going too far. What is 
the answer? The answer is to let your constituents and let the people 
of America in on everything we do, report it all. If we get a small 
gift, report it; limit the gift, but report it. If we go out to lunch 
with somebody, report it, so our constituents know who is buying our 
lunch, or who is going out to be with us for a sporting event or 
whatever it may be.
  If we go too far, you may rest assured that the media that is always 
following everything that Congressmen and Congresswomen do, they will 
report it and they will report it on the front pages of the paper, and 
the political pressure will be so great that Congressmen and 
Congresswomen will have to change what they are doing. That is the way 
it should be.
  To make criminals of Congressmen and Congresswomen because they go 
out and have a sandwich with somebody is wrong. To make criminals of 
Congressmen and Congresswomen because they play golf or tennis with 
somebody, and make the person paying that a criminal as well, is wrong. 
To stop us from participating in charity events that help cancer 
research and help organizations like Ronald McDonald House and others 
like that is just dead wrong. Most of my colleagues are scared to death 
to come down here and talk about this.
  They have tried to put some loophole in the Senate provision by 
saying if you go out with a friend, that that does not qualify as 
something being purchased by somebody who may lobby you for something. 
What are we going to do?
  Are we going to have Congressmen going around with a sheaf of letters 
and when they go to have lunch with somebody say, ``I hereby say that I 
am Dan Burton's friend,'' or ``I'm the Congressman's friend,'' and you 
have them sign it, and then you have record back in your office that it 
was a friend that bought you that sandwich or that round of golf or 
whatever it might be?
  You could drive a truck through that loophole, and I guarantee it 
will be on the front page of the paper shortly after that passes, and 
it will make Congress look even worse than it has in the past.
  The way to solve the problem is to make everything clear and above 
board and reported in our FEC report, so the world knows about it, but 
do not start creating criminal penalties if somebody buys you a 
McDonald's hamburger or takes you out to play a round of golf or takes 
you to see a basketball game.
  Besides that, it is going to be very, very hard for us--they said in 
some cases that they will allow you back in your home district to have 
somebody take you to lunch or take you to dinner, or you can go out and 
play a round of golf with them. The problem with that is they may be a 
lobbyist and you will have to just carry that ethics reform law with 
you everywhere you go to make sure you do not violate it.

  There will be Members of this body and the other body that will 
inadvertently violate the law, and some of them may be subject to 
prosecution down the road, not because they intentionally violated the 
law but because they unintentionally did, because ignorance of the law 
is no excuse, as we have heard many times in the past.
  I would just like to say to my colleagues that I am confident that 
they are going to pass this bill, I am confident that it is going to 
become law, but I think it is a step in the wrong direction. A more 
realistic way to solve the problem is to report everything and let the 
people know the facts and the country will be safe, and I would like to 
add to that and say, let the people know the facts and Congressmen will 
toe the mark.

                              {time}  1930

  That is the way to do it instead of making these criminal offenses.
  I would like to say just one more thing which really galls me. There 
was a charity golf event this past Monday I believe, and there were 
about 30 or 35 Congressmen that played in it, and $35,000 was raised 
for charity, $35,000 raised for charity. I believe it was ABC that was 
out there in a plain blue van, going around the golf course, peeking 
through the trees. They had a tripod with a telephoto lens trying to 
take pictures of members of Congress with other Members of Congress and 
the people that put on the charity event, trying to make it look like 
there was something horribly wrong with that. And I want to tell 
Members that really bothers me that the media and these scandal shows 
are out there trying to make something like a charity event look like 
something that is a crime, because there was not anything wrong with 
that, and there is not anything wrong with that. For Congressmen who 
are busy 6, 7 days a week to go out and participate in a charity event 
that raises money for a good charity, to be scared to death to even go 
participate because they are afraid they are going to be on television, 
on ``Prime Time Live'' or ``60 Minutes'' or some other show.
  So I guess I have vented my spleen tonight, Mr. Speaker. I think if I 
had all of my colleagues up here speaking what is really in their 
heart, I believe the majority in both the House and the Senate would 
agree with me. The answer is not to create criminal penalties for us 
having lunch or playing golf with somebody in this Capitol or in our 
home district. The answer is to report everything.
  The answer is not to do away with charitable events that are going to 
help many worthwhile charities because Congressmen and Congresswomen 
cannot participate. The answer is for us to report when we participate 
in those events, and if we participate in too many of them, then I am 
sure that we will be taken to task by our constituents.
  With that, Mr. Speaker, I think I have said my piece.

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