[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 5 (Tuesday, January 10, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S730-S731]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    CONGRESSIONAL ACCOUNTABILITY ACT

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.
  Mrs. HUTCHISON. Mr. President, I rise today to urge the Senate to 
take a major step toward making Congress more accountable to the people 
by passing S. 2, the bill before us, the Congressional Accountability 
Act of 1995.
  Let us face it. It is easier to make up a set of rules for someone 
else to play by than to devise guidelines for our own actions. It is 
easy to pontificate: Do as I say, not as I do.
  And that is what we have been doing right here in the U.S. Congress. 
Congress has been exempting itself from the laws and regulations that 
everybody else in America has to live with.
  Unlike their Government, the people measure such laws against a 
yardstick of common sense. If a law or regulation is a good idea for 
everybody else in America, surely the public good requires that it be 
imposed across the board right here.
  As it is, individuals find these laws and regulations more and more 
onerous. The rules have grown so cumbersome that they now hamper 
business, small and large, and make everything we buy more expensive.
  I do not know. Many of our rules make the goods we hope to export 
more expensive, threatening our ability to compete in the world 
markets.
  Until now, Congress has totally avoided any firsthand experience with 
the results of its own rulemaking. But last week the U.S. House of 
Representatives fired the first shot in what will be a real revolution 
in Government. It passed its version of the Congressional 
Accountability Act. I hope the Senate will continue the mission and put 
this bill on the President's desk.
  By making congressional accountability our very first order of 
business, the first legislation to pass this new session, with so much 
hope we will be sending a clear message to the American people. Signal 
received. Congress will comply with the same mandates it imposes on the 
rest of the country.
  Mr. President, I have owned my own small business. I know the Senator 
in the chair has as well. I know what it is like to make a payroll. I 
know what it is like to comply with Federal regulations and State 
regulations and local regulations and still try to squeeze out

[[Page S731]]

that profit in order to make my business go and to create new jobs, to 
have new markets, to do more. I have felt, personally, the effects of 
Federal laws and regulations. I did not like it when I was in business 
and I surely do not like it now. I think it is high time that the 
Congress experience firsthand the consequences of the laws it passes.
  Lincoln spoke of government of the people, by the people, for the 
people. If we in Congress continue passing laws by which we need not 
abide, we will not be living up to Lincoln's expectation nor that of 
the American people today.
  As was made clear at the polls in November of last year, the voters 
believe that Congress has given itself special treatment. Members of 
Congress seem to be insensitive to the actual impact and costs that we 
impose on the people who are trying to make this economy go.
  Mr. President, we must pass the Congressional Accountability Act. We 
must let the people know that we in Congress are their representatives. 
That we are not going to be part of a government which just extends 
privilege to a very few and rests its heavy hand on the rest.
  By applying the same rules to ourselves that we do to the rest of the 
country, Congress will better understand the pain of unfunded mandates. 
Congress will be forced to comply with the thousands of regulations 
regarding Government workplace safety and recordkeeping. Congress will 
be forced to experience the financial burden and the nuisance value of 
some of the laws that have been passed through the years in this Hall. 
Members of Congress will be made to ask themselves, how is this law 
going to affect me? Imagine what this will do to the content of the 
bills that come hereafter.
  I hope that Congress will show that we did make a difference in 
November of last year by voting for the Congressional Accountability 
Act. I am going to try to vote to reduce the number of unwanted, 
unneeded, and downright destructive laws in the future because I think 
when Congress starts thinking about what impact this is going to have 
on the way we are doing business right here, maybe we will take a 
different approach. Once we have a taste of the bitter medicine we are 
putting out, maybe we can rewrite the prescription.
  We have an opportunity to put Congress back in touch with what this 
country truly needs. Less regulation, fewer laws, and less overall 
Federal meddling.
  So I ask my colleagues in the Senate to do what I think should be the 
very first order of business when we have this breath of fresh air that 
has gone across our country, and when the people have spoken, that we 
say to the people ``message received,'' and vote for S. 2, the 
Congressional Accountability Act that will make Congress understand and 
live with the laws that everybody else in America has been living with 
for year after year, day after day, month after month, and maybe, just 
maybe, it will affect the overall output of this body.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The assistant legislative proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. PACKWOOD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________