[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 97 (Friday, July 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          CONGRESSIONAL REFORM

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Moran). Under the Speaker's announced 
policy of February 11, 1994, and June 10, 1994, the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Dreier] is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I have taken out this time this afternoon to 
talk about another reform issue. Our distinguished whip has been 
talking about health care reform.
  There is another reform that has been, frankly, swept aside, 
unfortunately. It is an issue which played a key role in the election 
of nearly all of the 117 freshman Members of the House of 
Representatives and the 13 new Members of the U.S. Senate. And that is 
whether or not we can step up to bat and bring about meaningful reform 
of this institution, both houses of the U.S. Congress.
  In August 1992, by an overwhelming vote here in the House, with only 
four members in opposition, virtually unanimous, we established the 
Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress. The committee was put 
into place because, Members will recall, the scandals of the House bank 
and the post office and the restaurant, those items which led to a high 
degree of anger among the American people and, as the election in 1992 
was approaching, Members of this institution felt very strongly that we 
step forward and put into place a committee that will be able to deal 
with the kind of institutional reform that has not been addressed for 
nearly half a century. Not since 1947, as a joint bipartisan, 
bicameral, equal number of Republicans, equal number of Democrats, 
equal number of Senators, equal number of House Members, has a 
committee been established to deal with overall reform of the Congress.
  As I said, the resolution that established this joint committee 
passed nearly unanimously, with only four Members in opposition. The 
committee was put into place for only 1 year. That was something that 
was very appealing about it. The committee was established to meet for 
1 year, from January 1, 1993, and it was scheduled to go out of 
existence on December 31, 1993.
  During that year, there were many hearings held; in fact, 37 
hearings. Our committee heard from 243 witnesses: Members of Congress, 
former Members of Congress, outside groups, individuals who had been 
involved in the issue of reform. And time and time again we heard, all 
the way across the board, from many Members of this institution and 
from the outside, that we needed to bring about reform of things like 
the antiquated committee structure, which just this week played a role 
in creating a great deal of confusion over legislation that we 
addressed on the redlining question, a battle between the Banking 
Committee and the Committee on Energy and Commerce that could be 
addressed if we put into place the reforms that the joint committee 
would like us to bring forward under an open amendment process.
  And then we have seen a wide range of other things that unfortunately 
have been ignored, things that the American people would like to see us 
do. Proxy voting is one of those key items which is unfortunately 
ignored in the recommendations of our committee but could be addressed 
if we were to bring our package that was reported out under an 
amendment process that would allow that and other ideas to be 
considered.
  As I said, we had 37 hearings; 243 witnesses came before us. We had 
participation from, I should say on the minority side, almost 
unanimously. We had Members there on a regular basis. One of those was 
my very good friend, the chief deputy whip, who participated on the 
joint committee, the gentleman from East Petersburg, PA [Mr. Walker].
  Mr. WALKER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think he makes a 
very important point about the splitting up of this congressional 
reform package. It is very disturbing, given where we came from to 
where we are ending up.
  The reform committee was put together in large part because of 
problems here in the House of Representatives. They were problems that 
have led to scandal. They were management problems. They were 
functional problems in the House of Representatives.
  There was an understanding that something had to be done to correct 
that situation. When the reform committee, the Hamilton-Dreier 
committee, was put together, it was clear at that point that everybody 
was committed to the idea that we were going to do substantive reform.
  The Speaker himself testified before the committee. Nearly all the 
committee chairmen, most of the ranking Members came in before our 
committee to talk about the need for reform and to give their 
suggestions for reform. Spent literally weeks and months sorting 
through that and came up with a package that included a lot of things, 
some of which are controversial, some of which are things that most 
Members of Congress would think that we should do.
  Mr. DREIER. And many that need to be amended.
  Mr. WALKER. Yes, that really need to be done.
  Well, now the leadership, which committed itself to a reform process 
just a few months ago, has decided instead to cherry pick a few items 
out of the reform report and bring those to the floor, rather than 
doing the tough reforms. And that is what we see really happening here. 
What we see happening is a few items that they know that they have got 
to do for political saliency being brought to the floor, but the real 
reform agenda, the real need to reform the House of Representatives is 
going to be left in the lurch.
  Mr. DREIER. If I could just underscore the way it was put in a letter 
from my cochairman, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], just a 
few days ago, actually a couple of weeks ago, when he wrote the Speaker 
saying:

       If the Joint Committee's package is divided, the 
     Application of Laws section will no longer function as the 
     sweetener for reforms that are less popular but still 
     necessary. I believe that separating off the compliance 
     proposal will kill the rest of the package.

                              {time}  1530

  I am very saddened that the night before last my very good friend, 
the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton], did decide to go along with 
the Speaker's request to break off the issue of congressional 
compliance, which every Member of this House knows is a real hot button 
out there, because whenever we have town hall meetings, whenever we 
talk to constituents in any other fora, we find that when we say that 
Congress exempts itself from the laws that are imposed on the American 
people, there is real outrage. They know that we are hearing about that 
on a regular basis.
  The desire of the leadership is to break that off. I was asking the 
majority leader just a little while ago, in our exchange here on the 
floor, about their need to break it off. He likened the congressional 
reform bill to the very controversial California Wilderness bill. It 
seems to me that we are at a point where the leadership, because they 
thrive on the status quo in the majority, would just as soon cast our 
entire reform package out to the California desert and virtually ignore 
it.
  Mr. Speaker, I think that, frankly, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
Hamilton] has done a real disservice, and I told him I believe it was a 
real mistake to agree with the idea of breaking it up, because it is 
little more than a divide and conquer strategy.
  We know, as we look towards the very few weeks that we will have 
between the Labor Day district work period and the adjournment sine die 
for the election time, that it will be virtually impossible for us to 
bring up the reform issue.
  Mr. WALKER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, what disturbs me 
as well, as the gentleman knows, the reform package we reported from 
the committee was one that a number of us regarded as much too weak and 
we did not think went far enough.
  The gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] was, I think, extremely 
gracious in what he did in voting for a package that he had concerns 
about in order to move the process forward and to assure that we would 
get consideration on the floor.
  The gentleman's bipartisan spirit has been taken by the Democratic 
leadership, and basically what he did was ignored, and I find that 
disturbing, because we did not get a vote, then, on the full package 
that he agreed to move forward out of a sense of bipartisan spirit.
  Mr. DREIER. Of course, Mr. Speaker, I did that based on the 
assumption that we would have a generous rue that would allow each of 
the items that had been debated in the Joint Committee on elimination 
of proxy votes, congressional compliance, budget process reform, 
committee structure reform.
  Mr. WALKER. That is what I wanted to come to, if the gentleman will 
continue to yield. There were certain assurances made with regard to 
what was done by the gentleman from California [Mr. Dreier] in order to 
move the process forward. Now what we see is, the package is being 
split up, and it is not clear to me, Mr. Speaker, that some of the 
things that we want to do will then be in order when the reform package 
actually comes to the floor.
  As the gentleman knows, many, many substantive reforms failed in the 
committee on a 6-to-6 tie. They were absolute tie votes.
  Mr. DREIER. Twenty-five amendments.
  Mr. WALKER. Twenty-five amendments failed on a 6-to-6 tie vote. At 
the very least, the House should be given the opportunity to consider 
those issues.
  Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned that the process that is now being 
used, and particularly loading this thing into September, when we all 
know there is going to be a huge schedule, we will be told in September 
that we will get a vote up and down on the reform package that has been 
stripped down, but, ``Oh, by the way, you are not going to get a vote 
on any of those amendments, because to consider 25 amendments would 
take far too long for the House of Representatives to consider.''
  That means that substantive reforms that should be considered by this 
House will be left behind. We will not get a chance to even consider 
them, let alone vote on them. That to me, Mr. Speaker, will be a 
terrible failure of the reform process, and I hope the American people 
will hold accountable those people who took the steps that killed 
congressional reform in the House of Representatives.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend. I would say that maybe he and I and a 
number of the rest of us were rather naive, because I have been 
reminded by my staff here of a couple of the things that were said 
throughout the process and shortly after it.
  Then on the issue of proxy voting, the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. 
Obey], the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, 
said in talking about proxy voting, ``That is something that I am 
certainly willing to consider and probably swallow, but only in the 
context of your willingness to help us eliminate the Senate 
filibuster,'' which clearly was never part of the jurisdiction of the 
House committee, but in fact has been used as a way to try and defeat 
the measures here, to hold that up as really hostage.
  Then shortly after we met, this was an article in the Seattle Times. 
Our colleague, the gentleman from Seattle, WA [Mr. Swift] said, ``I 
raised the issue of establishing a basic goal for our congressional 
reform just once in our Joint Committee deliberations. It was ignored. 
Hence, the reforms we finally proposed are a conglomeration of 
suggestions for change that only by purest flattery might be called 
serious reform.'' I should add that the gentleman from Washington did 
not offer one single amendment in our joint committee markup.
  Mr. WALKER. In fact, and then voted, was part of the six votes that 
were always against the reform amendments that were being offered by 
the other side.
  Mr. DREIER. Designed to improve the measure.
  Mr. WALKER. If the gentleman will yield further, when we got to the 
question of whether or not people ought to actually show up in 
committee to cast their votes, there were six Democrats who voted to 
say no, we ought to continue proxy voting where Members of Congress do 
not have to show up to cast votes on serious issues.
  It just seems to me that we have not seen a process of good faith 
being used within this whole reform process, and that we really are 
down to the point now where we will get a vote on one feature of reform 
sometime before we break here in August, but that the real reform bill 
stands little chance of moving forward, and particularly the real 
reforms that should come in amendments stand little chance of being 
heard on the floor.
  I wonder if the gentleman from California would discuss with us what 
he thinks is going to be in the bill that we get sometime before the 
August recess.
  It is going to be called a congressional compliance bill. I think he 
shares my suspicion that we are not really going to get congressional 
compliance, that that is going to be weak as water.
  Mr. DREIER. Let us refresh our colleagues' memories on the 
congressional compliance section of H.R. 3801. The bill that we 
reported out, which especially in the area of congressional compliance 
is extraordinarily weak, calls for the establishment of a joint--of an 
Office of Compliance, and that Office of Compliance is designed to make 
recommendations back to us in the Congress as to what regulations we 
might consider complying with, and only when we make the decision that 
we should comply with those laws are they actually put into effect. So 
basically, it is riddled with loopholes which creates all kinds of 
opportunity for us to continue to exempt ourselves from the laws that 
we impose on the American people.
  Mr. WALKER. If the gentleman will continue to yield, in other words, 
if what they do is bring to the floor the congressional compliance 
section of the bill which emerged from the Hamilton-Dreier committee, 
the only thing we will determine is that at some point in the future we 
are going to determine whether or not we have to comply with laws?
  Mr. DREIER. If that is what they bring forward under suspension of 
the rules, there would be no opportunity for amendment, and virtually 
nothing could be done.
  Mr. WALKER. It will not even include any congressional compliance, 
because all we will be voting on is whether or not at some point in the 
future we may act on recommendations of someone that may require us to 
comply with some laws at some point.
  Mr. DREIER. That is what was reported out of our joint committee in 
the area of compliance, unfortunately.
  Mr. WALKER. This is what we are being told is the featured reform of 
the House of Representatives, Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will 
continue to yield. The fact is there are a number of our colleagues, 
like the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] who has in a real 
compliance bill, and one wonders whether or not the gentleman from 
Connecticut is going to be given his opportunity to offer a real 
compliance bill as a part of the process, or whether or not this is 
going to be slam-dunked in a way that says up-or-down on this phony 
compliance measure, and the real compliance measure of the gentleman 
from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] cannot be offered on the House floor.
  Mr. DREIER. Even if the proposal of the gentleman from Connecticut is 
allowed to be offered and passes here on the floor, I am convinced it 
will be used as a way to completely eliminate the other very important 
items that the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton] mentioned in the 
letter I read just a few minutes ago.
  Mr. WALKER. No doubt about it. I think the gentleman is absolutely 
correct, what they intend to do is get congressional compliance out 
here, pass that, say we have taken care of that, no one has to go back 
home now and explain why we do not live under the same laws everybody 
else does.
  We will have done something entirely phony. It will take several 
months for people to find out if we have done something totally phony. 
Meanwhile, we have a bunch of candidates running around the country 
telling people we have done something real.
  Also, it will take that item out of the congressional reform agenda, 
and it will mean there will be very little in the way of pressure to 
bring the other reforms to the floor. I think the gentleman is 
absolutely right. This is being used as a way to kill off reform. I 
have seen this too many times in the House of Representatives.
  Mr. DREIER. I was wondering if my colleague might have seen the July 
18 editorial in one of our favorite reads on Capitol Hill here, a 
publication called ``Roll Call,'' in which their editorial section 
said:

       The transparency of this reform end game doesn't make it 
     any less upsetting to watch.
       The Speaker and other Democratic leaders were clearly never 
     serious about reform. They've stalled and stalled and now 
     that stalling isn't practical for much longer. They're 
     preparing for a reform vote that will be nothing more than 
     election year window dressing. Gridlock is a nasty word to 
     many on the hill but we can't think of a better label for 
     this sorry reform process.

                              {time}  1540

  That is done by the very independent Roll Call which often criticizes 
us on our side and they have looked at this thing.
  I also should say that I have had a chance over the last few days to 
talk with more than a few very cynical reporters, some of whom have 
even admitted to me they are registered Democrats, but they are enraged 
over what has happened here on this issue because many of them spent a 
great deal of time following the process, and they believed as I did 
and as I know my friend did that we would actually have a reform 
process put into place so that we could in fact make this institution 
more accountable and deliberative.
  Mr. WALKER. And the way in which this has been done is a very, very 
artful political move. But you will remember when the House was really 
under scandal after scandal, everything from the restaurant to the post 
office, to the bank, and all of these kinds of things, the assurance of 
the Democratic leadership was, ``Oh, but we're going to reform, we're 
going to do something good. We're going to clean up our act.'' And the 
first thing that they did was create the new Director of Administrative 
Services to take care of some of these things. We only found out later 
on after we passed that so-called reform bill that the Director of 
Administrative Services did not even have all the things turned over to 
him that he was supposed to get in the bill that was passed; that 
leaders around here suggested that, ``Oh, that was a reform bill passed 
in the last Congress, it has no effect on this Congress, so we're not 
going to turn over things to him we don't like.''
  In other words, even after the reform is passed, it is not 
necessarily implemented. Then when we suggested there was something 
still wrong in the legislative process and there was an outcry amongst 
the American people to do something real on congressional reform, 
Democratic leaders once again assured us, we are going to have a reform 
process, we are going to have this Committee on Congressional Reform, 
the Hamilton-Dreier committee. Then they even strung it out further by 
coming before the committee, testifying, getting good headlines, nice 
stories on the evening news about the Speaker and majority leader and 
committee chairmen coming before us saying all these good things about 
the need for congressional reform and how we were going to be united to 
do all this. They strung us out and strung us out and the scandals 
moved further and further away. Then when it comes to really doing 
something, what happens, well, they abandon the process.
  It is the art of politics practiced the wrong way for all the wrong 
reasons. I guess I am just enough of an idealist to believe that when 
you commit to doing some of these things, that you know there is real 
wrong to be corrected, you ought to at least follow through. Perhaps 
there is not place left for that kind of idealism in the House of 
Representatives. Perhaps the House of Representatives has developed 
such cynical leadership that they believe that they can fool all of the 
people all of the time. Maybe the only correction for that is to 
replace that leadership in total by putting a new majority in charge of 
the House. I am at lease convinced at that point that I would have an 
opportunity as the gentleman would have a force a reform agenda upon 
that majority and that we really would act. As a matter of fact, some 
of the reforms that we are talking about would be enacted on the very 
first day a Republican majority took control of the House of 
Representatives.
  Mr. DREIER. What would be the opportunity to make that change? Is 
that going to be coming up sometime this fall?
  Mr. WALKER. Absolutely. If the American people were decided that they 
were disgusted enough at what went on in this body to elect some 
republicans in Congress to replace those that are consistently against 
reform.
  Mr. DREIER. When does that take place?
  Mr. WALKER. That takes place in November. It will be an amazing 
chance for the American people to replace a lot of Democrats who have 
consistently been opposed to reform. In fact, a couple of the principal 
Democratic leaders in the House have some fairly tough challenges they 
are facing. They could knock off some of the main leaders of the House 
of Representatives if they chose to do that. But the point is that this 
ought not be a partisan issue.

  Mr. DREIER. It has not been. I think my friend has pointed out very 
wisely, I stood with the Democrats along with the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Emerson], the two of us voted to report out this 
legislation so we could keep the issue of reform moving. But the 
amazingly frustrating thing now is that in my opening remarks here, I 
mentioned the 117 freshmen Members of the House and the 13 freshmen 
Members of the Senate, most of whom ran on this issue of reform and yet 
when you look at the fact that our colleague from Florida, Tillie 
Fowler, has offered legislation to move this reform package to the 
floor, she has been one of those working diligently on reform, she has 
not gotten one Democrat.
  Mr. WALKER. Not even one?
  Mr. DREIER. Not even one Democrat.
  Mr. WALKER. Not even one of the Democratic freshmen who ran on that 
issue of reform has signed on to that bill?
  Mr. DREIER. Not a single one. In fact the leadership of the 
Democratic freshmen reform group supports the idea of breaking up the 
legislation, I am told, and they are really not pursuing what they 
claim was a priority item for them in the election of 1992.
  Mr. WALKER. In other words, the reform Democrats, those reform 
freshmen that we heard about have simply bought into their entire 
leadership's strategy of delaying this bill, of then splitting it up 
and then forcing it off into oblivion?
  Mr. DREIER. They have this sense that if they do not do that, we will 
not get congressional compliance.
  Mr. WALKER. But the congressional compliance they are going to get is 
phony.
  Mr. DREIER. Right. But they believe they can get congressional 
compliance and claim victory on the issue of congressional reform when 
we are not addressing the meaningful institutional changes that the 
American people want us to bring about so that the institution can 
become more accountable and more deliberative.
  Mr. WALKER. The reform Democrats are going to go back home and 
suggest that they have won the battle of congressional reform by 
getting a compliance section adopted that forces Congress to at some 
point in the future vote on the recommendations of some commission that 
may recommend that we have to comply with some of the laws that other 
people have to comply with. Is that what I am understanding?
  Mr. DREIER. That is what was reported out of the joint committee. 
That is the package that was reported out.
  Mr. WALKER. It does not sound like they got much.
  Mr. DREIER. It certainly does not to me, either. I do not think the 
American people are getting much from those who promised to reform when 
day after day over the past few weeks whenever we have brought up items 
like the enhanced rescission measure which we already addressed last 
year and this budget control act this week, we provided every Member of 
this House a chance to move forward with the issue of congressional 
reform by defeating the previous question and making our bill, H.R. 
3801, in order. They turned it down. We had 10 Democrats who voted with 
us last week when we did it, but unfortunately this week we had very 
few.
  Mr. WALKER. They are probably under a good deal of pressure from 
their leadership.
  Mr. DREIER. They are under a great deal of pressure. In fact, one of 
the things, as we looked at the committee structure reform, we found 
that if you look at those who oppose real reform in that area, the 
committee chairmen strongly oppose any jurisdictional or procedural 
reforms.
  Mr. WALKER. These are the same committee chairmen that appeared 
before the committee and told us they were committed to reform?
  Mr. DREIER. Absolutely.
  Mr. WALKER. But just if it does not touch them.
  Mr. DREIER. Absolutely. The Committee on Appropriations Democrats 
strongly oppose the biennial budget process, one of those items we 
think is very important. The Black Caucus strongly opposes committee 
and subcommittee assignment limitations. And the Democratic Study Group 
has vowed to kill any House reform until the Senate abolishes the 
filibuster.
  It seems to me that as we look at those hurdles that have been laid 
down, it is going to be very tough to bring about meaningful reform and 
most people have predicted that with this decision that was made day 
before yesterday, that it will virtually kill the process of reform.
  Mr. WALKER. So the only thing left open to the American people, then, 
if they want real reform, is to put some new people in charge who will 
either produce reform or they can throw them out.
  One of the things, it seems to me, that can be done is that the 
American people can take a look at two different agendas and maybe 
measure what they do with regard to Congress on the basis of who is 
willing to reform. We know now that the Democrats are not willing to 
reform. That is clear. So if the Republicans offer a reform package, it 
will be a clear choice for the American people. They know one group 
that has been in charge for 40 years is not willing to reform. They 
like the way they have run the place for 40 years. They are not willing 
to change. There may be another group that will offer a reform package, 
they can measure that. In my view, I think we are going to have the 
kind of leadership in the Republican party that will not only offer a 
reform package but we will tell the American people that many large 
elements of that package we will enact on the very first day that we 
take control of the House of Representatives. Why is that important? 
Because it will allow the American people to measure our performance. 
They do not have to watch for the entire year to figure out whether or 
not we have done what we have promised They can look at the very first 
day and they can look at whether or not the reforms we promised to 
enact on that day do in fact get reformed. They can check it off, if 
you will, they can have a check list and check if off to see whether or 
not we eliminate proxy voting, whether or not we do something with 
complying with the laws of the land, whether or not we change the rules 
to allow more open debate. We can provide that to them the very first 
day if they elect a new majority to the House of Representatives.
  Mr. DREIER. I should say that it is no secret that there are a number 
of us who have been working on the plans for that very first day. The 
word is out that we are going to be ready to hit the ground running 
with a new majority here.

                              {time}  1550

  Lord Acton said it most accurately when he said power corrupts, and 
absolute power corrupts absolutely.
  As we look at four decades of one-party control, it creates a 
situation which is very corrosive. And as we said earlier, we have 
worked in a bipartisan way to try and bring about this reform package. 
We could have killed the package ourselves in the joint committee 
because there were an equal number of Republicans and Democrats on that 
committee. But we said to them we want to help you keep the process of 
reform moving, so we will vote to put it out. So with the votes of the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Emerson] and I providing the majority, 
they were able to bring this process forward. Here we are with them now 
killing what we have tried to desperately assist them in bringing 
about.
  Mr. WALKER. You kept the process moving right into the pigeon holes 
of the Democratic leadership where they are now strangling this pigeon 
to death.
  Mr. DREIER. Unfortunately, that is the case. It seems to me that it 
is a real fraud to inflict on the American people for them to claim in 
any way that we have brought about the meaningful congressional reform 
that was promised with the establishment of this.
  Mr. WALKER. I am disappointed that the process has come to this. It 
really is a sad day, because this was supposed to be the reform 
Congress. When those freshmen arrived at the beginning of this Congress 
they were heralded as the new wave that was going to force these kinds 
of reforms to take place. The Reform Committee, in fact, was supposed 
to be something that gave them their opportunity to bring their reforms 
in and, in fact, a lot of those freshmen appeared before our committee 
to talk about their reform agenda.
  But when it came to actually doing the work of enacting it, everybody 
ran away, and particularly the Democratic leadership ran away. It 
appears to me that the only way that middle-class America is going to 
get a Congress they can be proud of, and a Congress that does reform 
itself, and bring itself in line with the hopes and wishes of the 
American people is to change the leadership of the House, because this 
leadership does not appear to be willing to reform the House of 
Representatives.
  Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for his contribution.

                          ____________________