[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 72 (Friday, June 10, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: June 10, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
          THE JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE ORGANIZATION OF CONGRESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. Johnson of South Dakota). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of February 11, 1994, and June 8, 1994, and 
because there is no designee of the majority leader, the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Dreier] is recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of 
the minority leader.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, on this beautiful Friday afternoon in 
Washington, as many of our colleagues have taken off for their 
districts and we honor the pages who are the future of this country, I 
am taking this time out to talk about one of the most challenging years 
of my life, and that was calendar year 1993.
  In August 1992, in the wake of the many problems that existed, and I 
hesitate to use the word ``scandals,'' because that is really a 
pejorative, but quite frankly, there were scandals that surrounded the 
House Bank, the Post Office, the restaurant, and a wide range of other 
areas, we, in a bipartisan way, reported out a resolution that called 
for the establishment of the Joint Committee on the Organization of 
Congress.
  Mr. Speaker, now, it was the first time in nearly half a century, 
since 1947, when what was known as the Monroney-LaFollette Committee 
brought about major reforms of the institution in a bipartisan, 
bicameral way that a committee such as this was put together.
  Mr. Speaker, this committee, one of the exciting things about it, was 
it was in place for 1 year and 1 year only. It went into effect on 
January 1 of 1993. It went out of existence on December 31 of 1993.
  We had a very distinguished panel of Republicans and Democrats, an 
equal number of Republicans and Democrats. The only other committee 
where that is the case is the Committee on Standards of Official 
Conduct, the ethics committee. We had an equal number of Republicans 
and an equal number of Democrats, so we could, in a bipartisan way, 
bring about reform of this institution. We had an equal number of 
Senators, an equal number of House Members, making it challenging, but 
a real opportunity to come together and deal with the difficulties that 
often exist between the House and the Senate.
  During the calendar year of 1993, we had the chance to put together 
the largest compilation of information on this body that has ever been 
gleaned. In fact, we had 37 hearings, over 240 witnesses, and a wide 
range of our colleagues, former Members of Congress, outside people, 
former Vice President Walter Mondale, Ross Perot, people from interest 
groups all over Washington, and across the country came to testify 
before this committee, and they did so because they were very 
encouraged at the fact that we were going to finally bring about the 
kinds of reforms that the American people want.
  I believe that they want a greater degree of accountability here. I 
believe truly, as I said during the special order of the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Emerson], honoring the pages, they want this truly to be 
the greatest deliberative body known to man.
  We went through a very frustrating markup following all of these 
hearings. We had a 2-day meeting in Annapolis last summer, almost a 
year ago now, and then just before we adjourned after having a conflict 
that existed between the House and the Senate, the Senators wanted to 
proceed, and unfortunately Members here in the House on the majority 
side did not want us to proceed, but finally, unfortunately, taking 
separate paths between the House and Senate, we here in the House had 
our markup.
  My colleague, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Emerson], was a very 
important part of that markup. He and I were the only two Republicans 
who, at the very end of a very unsatisfactory procedure, voted to 
report out this measure. I did so believing that it was an 
extraordinarily weak package, one that I could not support, but I did 
so based on the fact that from commitments I had from people in the 
majority leadership we would move ahead, that we would move ahead and, 
in fact, consider this measure under what has been described by my 
cochairman, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], as a very 
generous rule.
  Now, I and the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Emerson] joined in doing 
that, because when we looked at 25 amendments that had been offered on 
our side, 25 amendments that were offered, we unfortunately lost those 
amendments on a 6-6 tie vote. As I said earlier, an equal number of 
Republicans and an equal number of Democrats, but because I was not 
able to have enough input in what we called the chairman's mark that 
came about, it really was designed by the majority, we had to get at 
least one member of the majority to vote with us in support of an 
amendment that we had.
  Well, it was an interesting process, because throughout the markup we 
had just before Thanksgiving and before our adjournment, we had a wide 
range of Members who would say privately to the gentleman from Missouri 
[Mr. Emerson], to me, to the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker], 
to the gentlewoman from Washington [Ms. Dunn], to the gentleman from 
Colorado [Mr. Allard], to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Solomon] 
that ``We are not going to support you here, but these are amendments 
that we will support when they get to the floor.'' So it was based on 
that indication that the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Emerson] and I 
voted to move the process along so that we could, in fact, bring the 
issue of congressional reform to the floor of this House.
  We were told that it would first be considered on the floor of the 
House, and actually this was our markup, was supposed to have first 
taken place right in early September of last year. We were told we 
would have the reform package on the floor of the House in October of 
1993, 3 months before the Joint Committee on the Organization of 
Congress was scheduled to go out of existence, and then when we had 
that markup, the weekend before Thanksgiving, we were told by many of 
our colleagues that we would have this considered shortly after the 
first of the year, and then in January or February, we had this delay, 
and all kinds of issues that had to be addressed here, and so we were 
told it would be addressed in the spring, and we had been told then, 
because of other conflicting items and the fact there is some 
disagreement here, that it would be considered in the early summer.
  Just a few weeks ago we got an indication that there is, in fact, a 
plan brewing that would separate out one particular issue, the issue 
which Members on both sides of the aisle know is a hot button, that 
being congressional compliance, the fact that we in Congress regularly 
exempt ourselves from the laws that are imposed on the American people. 
We were told that that would be separated out and that the other 
recommendations of the Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress, 
including those 25 amendments which I stated that were defeated on a 
tie party-line vote and would, if we would have a generous rule, be 
able to be offered here on the House floor, and Members would go on 
record casting their votes for or against these, that all of that would 
be put aside, and we would simply bring up the proposal that was 
reported out in our measure on congressional compliance.
  Unfortunately, the congressional compliance provision that was 
reported out of our committee is extraordinarily weak. Now, I know that 
Members on both sides of the aisle, when they go home, they hear from 
their constituents that, unfortunately, Congress has had this pattern 
of being above the law, and I have yet to meet anyone who believes that 
Congress should continue to exempt itself from the laws that we impose 
on the American people.
  So Democrats and Republicans hear that, and the majority leadership 
knows that that is the one issue, the one issue that is a real hot 
button out there and potentially could be a real hot button as this 
coming November election approaches.
  So they want to bring out a package which would basically do the 
following, and this is what we reported out of our committee. H.R. 3801 
calls, in dealing with the issue of congressional compliance, for the 
establishment of a commission, a panel which would make recommendations 
back to us as to what regulations we might consider complying with 
ourselves.

                              {time}  1540

  I was talking about this Office of Compliance, which would be set up 
under the proposal that would move forward. The Office of Compliance, 
this commission would basically make these recommendations, they would 
look at what regulations we should consider complying with, then they 
would send those recommendations to us here in the Congress, and we 
would then make a determination as to what laws we might consider 
complying with.
  Obviously, that is an extraordinarily weak proposal. It is nothing 
more than a fig leaf and provides a tremendous loophole for this 
institution to continue to place itself above the law on such things as 
OSHA and a wide range of other items. My colleagues, Messrs. Shays and 
Swett, have been working diligently to move forward on this issue of 
compliance. My colleague on the Joint Committee on the Reorganization 
of Congress, Mr. Allard, has spent a great deal of time working on the 
issue of compliance. The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Emerson] has also 
worked hard on that issue. Unfortunately, the package coming forward is 
very, very weak.
  Just yesterday, Mr. Speaker, the Senate Committee on Rules and 
Administration began its markup on the congressional reform issue, and 
they will continue their markup until next Thursday and yet, as I said 
there really was no indication--I had an exchange earlier with the 
distinguished majority whip, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior], 
on this issue, and he said the plan is to now have this issue come up 
sometime after the 4th of July district work period. We have been told 
this before, and I will believe it when I see it. I hope very much we 
have the real bill, if it does come up at that point. Next Tuesday the 
House Administration Committee, chaired by the gentleman from North 
Carolina [Mr. Rose], is scheduled to have a hearing on one issue, the 
issue of congressional compliance, again demonstrating that the 
majority leadership wanted to move in the direction of dealing with 
nothing more than the question of congressional compliance.
  So as we look at the commitments that have been made to me and other 
on our committee, if we look at the desire of the American people which 
I believe is out there to create a more accountable and deliberative 
body, we need to do everything that we possibly can to encourage that.
  One of the hardest-working and most diligent members of the Joint 
Committee on the Reorganization of Congress who, as I said earlier, got 
his start as a page right here in this body in the early 1950's, is the 
gentleman from Cape Girardeau, Mr. Emerson. I am pleased to yield to 
him at this time.
  (Mr. EMERSON asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. EMERSON. I thank my good friend and colleague, a very valuable 
colleague, for his very kind remarks about me. I want to reciprocate by 
commending him for the outstanding leadership that he demonstrated as 
cochairman, House cochairman of the Joint Committee on the 
Reorganization of Congress, together with Mr. Lee Hamilton, of Indiana, 
who was the other cochairman. The two of them did indeed conduct the 
business of the committee in a statesmanlike manner.
  I think both of them deserve an enormous amount of credit for moving 
us along as far as we have got.
  I share the gentleman's frustration in our not having had our 
recommendations seriously considered by the House before this date. 
However, I have some optimism based on knowledge of the gentleman's 
persistence and the assurance of Mr. Hamilton, who is a statesman, a 
fair gentleman, that he would lend his efforts to seeing our 
recommendations come to the floor under a very generous rule.
  I am an optimist because I believe that the gentleman from California 
will, and the gentleman from Indiana will be persistent, will see this 
package come to the floor under a generous rule that would permit some 
additions to what our committee has recommended and consideration also 
of some other ideas for reform that could be very beneficial to this 
House.
  The gentleman from California heard me say many times in the course 
of our deliberations in the committee that one of the problems here in 
Congress is we are always dealing with perceptions, and we know that in 
politics perception has a way of becoming reality. But I believe that 
if we would in fact deal with reality, the perceptions would take care 
of themselves.
  There are some things about this place that are not all that 
complicated, that would be simple, I believe, to fix. Congressional 
compliance, to which the gentleman has referred, is a rather 
sticky wicket in a constitutional sense, but I believe there are ways 
we can address the constitutional problems. We do have to regard the 
doctrine of separation of powers, we cannot be frivolous, we do have to 
have the means of executing the law unto ourselves that for the rest of 
the population would be executed by the executive branch. We have got 
to find the means here to have enforcement of ourselves by the 
legislative branch because frankly the doctrine of separation of powers 
is very important and we would not want that doctrine to be seriously 
tampered with.

  I thank that is the biggest impediment really: How do we proceed 
without violating the doctrine of separation of powers?
  Mr. DREIER. If the gentleman would yield, in the hearings that we had 
on this issue, this question was always at the forefront. I happen to 
believe there are ways in which we could comply with more of the laws 
imposed on the American people and not violate that very important 
constitutional separation of powers.
  Mr. EMERSON. I agree with the gentleman that is doable. That is 
always raised when someone wants to tell us it cannot be done. But I 
believe it can be done.
  As the gentleman and I noted throughout the process of our 
deliberations last year, there were never-ending efforts to derail and 
to thwart the general reform thrust of what we were trying to 
accomplish. Since we made our report to the House, these efforts have 
been continued.
  There are some false starts toward reform from time to time that I 
personally believe are efforts to derail and confuse and obfuscate the 
fundamental issues at stake here. I believe that is, unfortunately, a 
practice being rather highly engaged in at the moment, else we would 
have seen our recommendations on the floor prior to this time.
  But what else are we talking about? There are a lot of things. It 
does not have to be complicated. A lot of things, in my view, that we 
could do that would help restore the confidence of the American public 
in this institution, relating to the committee structure and so forth. 
It could stand some revision. We could reduce the number of 
subcommittees. A lot of reform could be made in the budget process.
  I personally think we should go to a 2-year budget cycle. I think 
Congress needs to exercise far more diligently than it has in recent 
years its oversight function. And we have made recommendations in that 
regard.
  Mr. DREIER. If we could expand briefly on a couple of those items: My 
friend mentions the need to reduce the number of committees and 
subcommittees that exist here. I do not think there are too many 
Americans that are aware of the fact that there are, between the House 
and Senate, 266 committees and subcommittees for the 535 of us. In 
fact, I have said it a million times before, when you walk down the 
hallway and those of us in the minority who see a member of the 
majority and who may not remember the name, we say, ``How are you, Mr. 
Chairman,'' because chances are he chairs some committee or 
subcommittee here. What we have witnessed with the proliferation of 
committees in this process of building fiefdoms and jurisdictional 
overlap which has made it virtually impossible for people to move ahead 
with many very important items which should be addressed. Through the 
committee structure here, we play a role in exacerbating gridlock, 
which is a term we hear time and time again. It seems to me as we look 
at the need to bring about the reduction of committees, it would allow 
members to be more deliberative and focus their attention on more 
issues.

                              {time}  1550

  Mr. Speaker, I was on a television program with my very distinguished 
colleague, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], who, as the 
gentleman said, was cochairman of the committee, and one of the things 
that he said was that early on in his career here, about 30 years ago, 
there was not a committee in existence to deal with environmental 
issues, for example, and he listed several other issues and said we 
have seen committees established to deal with all of those, and yet 
there has been no commensurate cut in other committees, no reduction, 
and interestingly enough, in the first several decades of the existence 
of the Republic, when each census was taken every 10 years, Mr. 
Speaker, there would be a rearrangement and a restructuring of the 
committee procedure here in the House. The last time that was really 
done was, as I said, nearly five decades ago.
  Now I am one who does not believe that reform itself is going to, by 
any stretch of the imagination, be a panacea for all the ailments that 
exist out there, but I believe that there are some institutional 
reforms that we could make here that would create a great benefit, and 
this issue of the number of committees and restructuring committees is, 
I believe, one of the most important ones, and I'm happy to yield to my 
friend.
  Mr. EMERSON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would yield further, 
adding to that, and what the gentleman said is absolutely correct, but 
adding to that is the need for scheduling reforms to complement the 
committee reforms. We need to establish deadlines, particularly as it 
relates to the budget and to the authorizing and appropriations 
process, that are met, that are kept, and we need to make the system 
here more family friendly in terms of when we meet, and how late in the 
evening we meet, and we also need, I think, a master schedule to 
prevent avoidable conflicts.
  Mr. Speaker, I am on two major standing committees of the House. 
Between those two standing committees I am on 6 subcommittees. And it 
has occurred that they have all met at the same time. Now, as hard as I 
may try, I can only be at one place at one time, and I believe that 
these are simple problems that with the use of modern technology that 
we could work out, and the end result would be that we would be more 
deliberative.
  Too often, Mr. Speaker, Members are diverted and distracted. How many 
times have we been in committee, to have the bells ring, which summons 
us to the floor of the House for a vote? We have to unfocus on what we 
are doing in committee, come to focus here on the floor on what is 
going on here, unfocus here, go back to the committee, and we do that 4 
or 5 times, or 5 or 10 times in the course of a day. What we have 
really done is spend half our time running back and forth across the 
street.
  Now that just does not make sense. There is a better way than that to 
be organized around here so that our time can be spent more 
productively.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. 
Emerson] for that very helpful contribution, and I totally concur with 
him.
  I should take time here to echo one of the statements that my friend 
made throughout the hearing process, and I think it would be very 
timely to mention it now. It was a statement that was made at our first 
hearing by our Speaker, the gentleman from Washington [Mr. Foley], 
that, as we address the issue of reform, it was his hope that members 
of the majority would proceed as if they were members of the minority, 
and members of the minority would proceed as if they were members of 
the majority, and one of the reasons that it is very timely to mention 
it today is that with the victory in two special elections which took 
place within the past few weeks, and all kinds of rumors about a 
possible change in the makeup of this House and what the three of us 
certainly hope will be a change for the first time in four decades of 
the majority status of Republicans in this House, it is our quest, as 
we proceed with this, to deal with the issue of reform as if we are 
members of the majority party because unfortunately, the way the 
structure is today, Mr. Speaker, it really proves that Lord Acton was 
right on target when he said, ``Power corrupts, and absolute power 
corrupts absolutely,'' demonstrating that there is, more often than 
not, little regard for the minority and minority rights.
  And I say that from my perspective of spending a large part of my 
life just upstairs on the third floor as a member of the Rules 
Committee, and I think one of the most important things we should also 
do is work towards a greater degree of democratization within the Rules 
Committee.
  We have been joined by a very hardworking Member who is working 
diligently to ensure that the issue of congressional compliance is 
addressed. I spoke before he came about this as an item which the 
majority at this point seems to want to move ahead on, and frankly in a 
very weak manner, but I know that my colleague, along with his Democrat 
colleague, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Swett], have worked 
very diligently to ensure that we can move forward with congressional 
compliance, and I am happy to yield to the gentleman from Connecticut 
[Mr. Shays] at this time.
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I first want to thank the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier]. I 
was in my office, and I noticed that the gentleman asked the majority 
whip when we would be taking up the bipartisan bill, done by the Joint 
Committee on the Organization of Congress, and I was just struck by the 
fact that the majority whip's response to the gentleman really provides 
some doubt in my mind as to when we will----
  Mr. DREIER. I am sorry. Would the gentleman repeat that? I was 
talking.
  Mr. SHAYS. I just was making the point that I was grateful that the 
gentleman asked the majority whip, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Bonior], when the committees, the Joint Committee, on the organization 
of Congress' bill, H.R. 3801, is going to come to the floor of the 
House, and his basic response was that it will hopefully, or it is our 
intention, that it come after the July break, sometime this summer 
basically, or before, I think, maybe he said. I am not quite sure. 
Maybe the gentleman can tell me what he said.
  Mr. DREIER. If I can reclaim my time, what he said was it is his 
intention at this point to bring it up following the Independence Day 
district work period, which means following the Fourth of July up until 
we are scheduled to adjourn for the month of August, and I know the 
scheduled adjournment is somewhere around the second week in August, 
and then we know that during this time one of the big challenges we 
have is to deal with all the appropriation bills.
  Mr. SHAYS. Well, if I could ask the gentleman to yield, the reason 
why I am on the floor is, one, to thank the gentleman for asking the 
question and just to express for the Record my concern because this is 
legislation that has been worked on for over a year on a bipartisan 
basis. We were told that it would come up sometime in the late 
wintertime. Then we were told it was the intention to come up during 
the springtime. We were told that it would come up before the Memorial 
break. Now we are told it is going to come up--and then we were told 
that at least then it would come up by the July break, and now we are 
told that hopefully our intention is for it to come up before the 
August break.
  Mr. Speaker, it is getting to the point now where we are going to 
have to work very hard, I think, to have a full and open debate on this 
legislation. I think part of the challenge is there is a disagreement 
on how extensive this bill should be. I know the gentleman worked very 
hard with other Members to have it be an extensive bill. It has some 
strengths to it, but it is not strong. It is not the kind of reform 
that I thought we would see.
  We do see a number of committees, maybe, dealing with seniorities in 
committee and making sure they do not have one chairman for so long 
that they act in such an autocratic way. It was my hope that we would 
have more open rules on the floor of the House and also that we would 
deal with congressional accountability, getting Congress to address----
  Mr. DREIER. If I could reclaim my time on that point, I simply say on 
the issue of open rules that it is fascinating to observe that every 
time there has been any kind of reform proposal dealing with this 
institution brought to the floor over the past several decades, it has 
come up under an open amendment process, and while the gentleman from 
Indiana [Mr. Hamilton] has said to me that he would not request that 
our Rules Committee grant a completely open rule that would be my first 
choice.
  He did indicate that it is his hope that our Rules Committee will 
allow at least all of the items which were brought up in the 25 
amendments that have been defeated on party lines, 66 titles, to be 
considered here on the House floor, and I think that is the real point 
that my friend is making, that the bill itself, H.R. 3801, is very 
weak. Some things in it, and I have congratulated my colleagues in 
support of those good things in it, but it is still very weak and not 
what the American people want, and not, of course, including the issue 
where my friend has worked so diligently in congressional compliance, 
but unfortunately it is so weak we have to allow the Members of this 
body to work their will and cast the votes that they believe are right 
on the issue of congressional reform on an overall basis.

  I am happy to yield further to the gentleman from Connecticut.
  Mr. SHAYS. What concerns me is that not only may we not have an open 
rule, but then they are talking about dividing up what is in this bill, 
and taking it piecemeal, and maybe, for instance, taking up an issue 
that I feel very important about, concerned about, congressional 
accountability, getting Congress to live by the same laws that the 
private sector and the executive branch have to live by, which makes 
sense.

                              {time}  1600

  I am concerned that there might be an attempt to separate that from a 
total reform bill. This is just one part. As concerned as I am about 
congressional attainability, I want the record to show it has to be 
part of a whole. The part of the whole are so many other reforms to 
this House.
  Mr. DREIER. The real fear, of course, is if it is broken up, the 
majority leadership would clearly have the ability to then say we have 
addressed the issue of congressional reform, ignoring all of these very 
important items that were referred to by Mr. Emerson earlier, in which 
he mentioned the fact of reality versus perception, that if we take 
care of the real things, we will take care of the perception. Some of 
these items, which all of the people cannot necessarily relate to, are 
key to the issue of congressional reform. And if they do agree to take 
out congressional compliance and simply utilize that as an issue, 
ignoring those other very important, very real things that should be 
addressed, we would allow the majority to have cover, if you will, 
basically stating that they have dealt with the issue of congressional 
reform. And that is one of the reasons I feel so strongly, and I 
appreciate the support of my friend, in working as hard as we can to 
keep this package together and consider all of these items together.
  Mr. SHAYS. One challenge is to keep the package together. The other 
challenge is to actually have a vote on it. The next challenge is to 
make sure we are allowed to work our will and provide meaningful 
amendments to this bill. Because as the bill is now, I have a hard time 
imagining that I could support it and vote for it, because it simply 
does not do enough. It is not significant enough.
  Let us just take one part of the bill. Let us just take one part of 
this important legislation dealing with reform, that part that is 
called congressional attainability. Just in congressional 
accountability, it does not include all the laws of Congress. So we are 
going to say the Congress is going to comply with the laws the private 
sector has to live with, but a number of them have been left out, like 
OSHA, Freedom of Information, and so on, a number of other parts of it. 
It has also left out some of the parts of Congress. The Library of 
Congress would not be part of it. It leaves out the Architect's Office.
  So just within one segment of reform, congressional accountability, 
there is need to upgrade it and improve it.
  Then, as the gentleman has pointed out in the work he has done in 
other parts, there is the need to strengthen and make sure we deal with 
proxy voting and openness and so on.
  My hope was, and maybe it was a bit unrealistic, that we would 
establish a principle that we would not have as many closed rules come 
to the floor of the House. Obviously we want this particular issue to 
be dealt with in an open way, but we want other issues to be dealt with 
in an open way as well.
  If I could continue, I am struck by the fact that one of the healthy 
parts about this is, and I think it is healthy for people to make an 
assumption that Republicans or Democrats may win or lose elections, 
that they may end up controlling this House and the possibility that 
Republicans will gain control of this Chamber, if Republicans gain 
control of this Chamber, by the mere process the gentleman has been 
involved in, you have set the record pretty straight on what we would 
do if we were in the majority.
  It is very clear if we were in the majority, that we would allow for 
far more open votes in committee; that we would get rid of proxy 
voting; that we would reduce the number of committees. And I think it 
is a healthy thing we have been part of this debate, because we are on 
record, and we would have to be pretty hypocritical if we did not live 
up to that if we were in the majority. But hopefully it will not come 
to that.
  Mr. DREIER. Hopefully we will be in the majority.
  Mr. SHAYS. But hopefully it does not come to the fact it will take us 
to have this kind of reform take place.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for his very helpful contribution. I 
appreciate the fact that he wants to keep this issue together, 
recognizing that having spent 1 entire year with I think a couple of 
hearings where my friend testified, at least two occasions, we have 
received the very helpful input that has been provided.
  As I said before the gentleman came over, there were 240 witnesses 
who testified before this committee, and we have put together the 
largest compilation of information on the Congress ever assembled. And 
it seems to me that we have gotten to the point where it is very tragic 
that this issue has been, unfortunately, cast to the side, and is 
getting very little attention.
  There are some who believe that gosh, if we can have lobbying reform 
and campaign finance reform, that all of a sudden takes care of the 
problems that exist right here in the Congress. But, unfortunately, as 
we look at the low level of esteem with which the American people hold 
this institution, I believe that enhancing the level of accountability, 
dealing with reality, as Mr. Emerson said, and creating a greater 
degree of deliberation through complying with the laws, reducing the 
number of committees. There are 38,000 staff members at all levels here 
in the legislative branch. I recognize that includes the Capitol Police 
and the support agencies. But I think that 38,000 as a level of 
staffing is still probably a little higher than the Founding Fathers 
had envisaged in establishment of this, the first branch of government.
  I do believe very strongly that changes need to be made here. The 
power of incumbency itself is something else which is very great. One 
of the reasons we see such a high reelection rate among incumbents is 
we have these humongous staffs and tremendous budgets here, and a lot 
of attention has been focused on that in the past several weeks because 
of problems some of our colleagues are having. If we could have a 
greater degree of accountability there, it would also be very 
beneficial.
  More open meetings. You mentioned proxy voting. The issue of proxy 
voting is very important, because what we frankly see on a regular 
basis is a committee hearing that could have----
  Mr. SHAYS. Maybe the gentleman would define proxy voting. There are 
some people that use the term, and I am not sure everybody knows it.
  Mr. DREIER. What proxy voting consists of, we frequently have a 
committee hearing where a markup is taking place, legislation is being 
prepared to report out, and every member of the minority could be 
sitting in the room offering very thoughtful amendments, and there 
could be one majority member of the committee there, the chairman. And 
when amendments are offered by a minority member, thoughtful amendments 
designed to reduce the size and scope of government, to try and bring 
about a greater degree of fiscal responsibility, those amendments can 
be offered, the vote taken, and even though every minority member of 
the committee is there and only one majority member, the chairman can 
reach into his desk and pull out the proxy votes, casting the votes for 
members who have not even shown up to the committee to listen to the 
debate, to hear about the idea. Those proxies basically allow for 
voting without members being present.

  We cannot vote here on the House floor without being present. Members 
regularly say, gosh, I have so many committees and subcommittees that I 
can't possibly attend every markup. But that is why we need to reduce 
the number of subcommittees, the number of full committees, so that we 
can bring about a greater degree of deliberation.
  Mr. SHAYS. I would like to focus a second on that, as you mentioned 
proxy voting. When I was elected in 1974 to the State house in 
Connecticut, we eliminated proxy voting, in 1974, 20 years ago, in 
committees, because previous to that we were allowed to vote. And it 
was done on a bipartisan basis. Republicans and Democrats alike, agreed 
this was the wrong process.
  While I am on the subject of Connecticut, and I am struck by the 
whole issue of committees, Bill Simon, the Secretary of Treasury, 
pointed out that when he had to testify, he had to testify before eight 
committees on one subject, and he would spend days saying the same 
thing to different committees. In some cases it would be the same 
committee members who just served on different committees, the same 
individuals serving on different committees, that he would go before.
  In Connecticut, we do something unique to the country. House and 
Senate Members meet jointly. We have joint committees. One of the 
advantages is we do not have these conference reports at the end where 
the House passed the bill in the Senate and then you come into 
conference. Not only do we have so many committees in the House and 
Senate, but a lot of the work in Congress is decided behind closed 
doors when the House and Senate have to get their two bills to agree.
  If I could, before I leave, I just want to reiterate again the fact 
that I am pleased that you asked the question of the majority leader 
about this legislation. I think it is important that we make it very 
clear that it must come up. I am disappointed that he said it would not 
come up before the break in July. There is no need to keep postponing 
this issue. I would have liked him to say it will, you have my word on 
it, come up after.
  By the way, was it the majority leader or the whip?
  Mr. DREIER. It was the majority whip [Mr. Bonior].
  Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Bonior, making the point it would come up sometime 
after the break.

                              {time}  1610

  I want to express concern about that, and just to thank the gentleman 
again for the work he has done on this committee, and to say that today 
a number of Republicans and Democrats, because we do think this is a 
bipartisan concern, and one that should be addressed on a bipartisan 
basis, the gentleman from New Hampshire [Mr. Swett], and I, and the 
gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Torkildsen], and the gentleman from 
Arkansas [Mr. Dickey], and the gentlewoman from Florida [Mrs. Fowler], 
and the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Bartlett], and the gentleman from 
Ohio [Mr. Fingerhut], the gentleman from Tennessee [Mr. Cooper], the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Mann], the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
McHale], and the gentleman from California [Mr. McKeon], wrote to the 
Speaker and said, ``We want this bill to come up. We want to know when 
your reform package is going to come up done by the committee, this 
bipartisan committee.''
  We have asked him within the next 2 weeks to give us a date, or we 
are going to be forced to petition out one part of that legislation. 
Mr. Speaker, I want to make it clearly understood that it is our hope 
and expectation that we will get a date certain from the Speaker, and 
that we can continue to work to hold this bill together, and then amend 
it to improve it, which is clearly in the advantage of Republicans and 
Democrats alike. It is the right thing to do for our country to bring 
forward these reforms. It is the right thing politically for Democrats 
to do, the right thing for Republicans. I see no negative at all in 
moving forward.
  I am puzzled that we are seeing people drag their feet, and I just 
pledge that I am going to continue to work with the gentleman, as are 
Republicans and Democrats alike, to move this forward.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for his very helpful 
contribution, and let me simply say, Mr. Speaker, in closing, that as I 
said at the outset, we are honoring the pages today. Their graduation 
is this evening, and they are the future of this country, the young 
people who are going to be the future leaders of the United States.
  It seems to be a very sad commentary that there are so many Members 
here who thrive on the status quo that they are unfortunately blocking 
the attempt to bring about the kind of reform that will make this 
institution better and more accountable and more deliberative, not only 
for the people of today, but for future generations.
  It seems to me that as we look toward that challenge, this is the 
opportunity. After all, we sit here today with 117 new Members of this 
institution, the two most recent having been elected within the past 
few weeks. There are indications we will have another large group of 
new Members coming in.
  Now is the time to bring out major change and reform of this 
institution. It is for these young people, Mr. Speaker, that we do 
this, because unfortunately, many of the problems that lie here and 
continue to be reported in the news are due to the fact that we will 
not bring this institution into the 20th and then the 21st century.
  We are sitting here just 6 years away from the millennium. It seems 
to me that now is the most important time to do it. Let us do it now. 
We have put it off way too long. I believe this truly can once again, 
be reaffirmed as the greatest deliberative body known to man.

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