[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 13 (Monday, January 23, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H481-H482]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


                          A CALL FOR OPENNESS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Durbin] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. Speaker, I returned to my district in Springfield, IL 
this weekend as I do virtually every weekend, and it was interesting 
that some of my friends when I came across them at a party on Saturday 
night said, ``What in the world was going on in the House of 
Representatives last week? We tuned into the news and we saw grown men 
and women shouting, red in the face, emotional. What was it all 
about?''
  What it was all about was a 1-minute speech, like those given every 
day, by the gentlewoman from Florida, Carrie Meek, in which she raised 
the question of the Speaker's book contract. It led to a ruling by the 
Chair concerning which words were appropriate to be spoken on the floor 
and a reaction from my Democratic side of the aisle where there was a 
feeling that perhaps this ruling, which relied on a precedent almost a 
century old, had perhaps gone too far.
  People in the ordinary course of life with their families may find it 
hard to imagine why grown men and women would get so exercised and so 
emotional over something which appears as inconsequential as what words 
can be spoken on the floor of this House. But frankly, ladies and 
gentlemen, I think when we take an oath of office to uphold the 
Constitution, including therein our freedom of speech, that this House 
probably as much if not more than any other place in the United States 
should be the situs where free speech is respected. As a result, our 
emotions ran high, on the Republican side in defense of their Speaker, 
on the Democratic side in defense of the concept of free speech.
  I did not come to make this comment this morning on the issue of free 
speech, but merely to let you know as previous speakers have how much 
time has been focused in the last weeks on this floor of the House of 
Representatives on Speaker Gingrich's financial dealings. I would like 
to make a suggestion this afternoon as to how we can really start 
focusing instead on some of the critical issues facing this country and 
move away from that
  Last week, of course, we were embroiled for an entire day on the 
question of what could be said on the floor of the House about the 
Speaker's multimillion-dollar book deal. Then in sequence every nightly 
news Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, all of the major 
networks were consumed with variations on that theme:
  Did in fact the Speaker meet with the lobbyist to discuss policies 
relative to telecommunications? The same lobbyist for the same magnate, 
Mr. Murdoch, who owns the publishing company the Speaker is doing 
business 
[[Page H482]] with, did in fact Mr. Murdoch come to the Capitol and so 
forth.
  In fact by Friday of last week, the Republican chairman of the House 
Banking Committee sent a letter to the administration and said that he 
was not prepared to consider the Mexican financial crisis as long as 
Mr. Gringrich's ethical problems were being discussed on the floor. He 
did not think that was a political environment that he could in good 
conscience discuss the Mexican financial crisis in.
  I think that is unfortunate and it suggests how much business on 
Capitol Hill is now being subsumed into the Speaker's financial 
situation.
  We have seen reaction across the country. In the Midwest, my hometown 
of Springfield and in Chicago,
 major newspapers have editorialized that the Speaker has to get away 
from this book deal and get back to focusing on issues important to 
America. Virtually every editorial writer with the politically 
predictable exception of Rush Limbaugh has said it is time for the 
Speaker to do something about this and get it behind him. It went to 
far this morning as to have an article in the Wall Street Journal 
questioning the members of the House Ethics Committee on the Republican 
side.

  Let me say at the outset that I know all three of the gentlemen 
referred to in the article and I have absolutely the highest confidence 
in their honesty and integrity. I would gladly have them sit in 
judgment of myself should a question ever be presented. But in this 
situation, where they have been involved with GOPAC, the Speaker's 
political action committee, there is a legitimate question about 
conflict of interest.

                              {time}  1310

  I think it goes to the point raised by the gentleman from California. 
It is time for us to take this whole swirl of controversy about GOPAC, 
the Speaker's foundations, the book deal and such, and take it off of 
the floor of this House, off of Capitol Hill and put it in the hands of 
an outside counsel, someone who is chosen on a bipartisan basis to look 
into the facts and report to this body as well as to the American 
people.
  We can then step aside from this and get down to the real business 
that is before us. It is certainly important that we be concerned about 
the ethics and integrity of the House of Representatives. I think the 
outside counsel is the best way to go. It will not be a Republican or 
Democratic choice, it will be a bipartisan choice. It has been done 
before and it should be done in this instance. We can put this behind 
us. We can stop focusing on it and move forward on important issues 
which we will continue.
  This week we are considering unfunded mandate legislation and 
tomorrow night, right here at this podium, the President of the United 
States will have the opportunity, as others have before him, to speak 
to the American people. Then we will go on to consider a balanced 
budget amendment. These are all critically important issues for the 
Nation.
  In order that we give our full attention, as we should, to them, an 
outside counsel should be called immediately to take this ethics 
question involving the Speaker off of our agenda and put it in the 
hands of a nonpartisan source that can make a decision as to whether or 
not anything has happened.


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