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


                     APPOINTMENT OF OUTSIDE COUNSEL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 4, 1995, the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller] is 
recognized during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, at the end of last week, the 
makeup of the Ethics Committee was announced by the Speaker and by the 
minority leader. We know as Members of this House that that is among 
the most difficult task Members can be called upon to perform, and, 
that is, to sit in those rare occasions when they must in judgment of 
their colleagues in this House for actions or allegations of behavior. 
The difficulty of that task was recognized by Speaker Gingrich back in 
1988 when the conduct and questions of the former Speaker was called 
into question, and he said that the Speaker of the House, a position 
which is in third line for succession to the presidency and the second 
most powerfully elected position in America, this investigation has to 
meet a higher standard of public accountability and integrity.
  I think he is probably correct. It certainly must meet the same 
standards as for Members of the House, but clearly sitting in judgment 
of the Speaker is a far more difficult task than sitting in judgment 
upon regular Members of the House because of his position of power and 
prestige and his integral being to the workings of this House and to 
the success of Members of his own party and of the House generally.
  It is for that reason that while we applaud finally that there is an 
Ethics Committee in place, that we must raise the issue of the 
appointment of an outside counsel. Serious allegations have been made 
against the Speaker in his dealings with the potential publication of 
his book, the funding of his college class, the solicitation and the 
disbursement of fundings for GOPAC, a PAC which he controls and which 
many Members of the House have benefited from or been involved in over 
the last year. It now turns out that three of the Members, or two, 
maybe three of the Members on the Republican side of the Ethics 
Committee have had dealings with GOPAC and been involved in one fashion 
or another with that.
  I think again unfortunately in this House we do not get to deal with 
simply the facts. We must also deal with the appearance when we do the 
public's business. And the appearances of a conflict within the Ethics 
Committee must be dealt with and they must be dealt with in a timely 
fashion and they must be dealt with immediately.
  As the Wall Street Journal pointed out in its discussion of the 
makeup of the Ethics Committee and about the potential conflict of the 
members of that committee, it went on to quote Senator Dole, the 
Republican leader in the Senate, who said on ``Face the Nation'' that 
``the American people want us to move forward. We are not doing that. 
All the focus is on Newt Gingrich.''
  I think that is quite clearly the mood in this body and the mood in 
the public and that is that we must move forward with the agenda, 
whether it is the contract as represented by the Republican Members of 
the House or the plight and the well-being of the American working 
family as represented by Democratic Members of the House, we must go 
forward with that agenda. We will not be able to do that until this 
issue is resolved, and this issue must be resolved in favor of the 
House of Representatives as an institution and must be resolved in 
favor of the confidence of the American people in this House and it 
must be resolved in a fair, full disclosure of these allegations and a 
fair and full investigation. That cannot be done when we have members 
of the Ethics Committee who have been involved with the organization 
called into question.
  This should be done sooner rather than later and it must be done by 
resorting to an outside counsel as Speaker Gingrich recognized when he 
was embroiled in a conflict with the previous Speaker of the House. It 
simply requires the appointment of an outside counsel so we can remove 
it from the floor of the Congress, we can remove it from our daily 
workings. We have already seen where Speaker Gingrich has suggested 
that this would be tied up in the issue of Mexico, that somehow the 
issue of the bailout or the loan guarantees to Mexico could not be 
properly considered if this issue continued to be raised.
  This issue must continue to be raised until it is settled. And the 
way you can keep it from being raised on the floor of the Congress is 
to have it put into the hands of an independent and outside counsel to 
remove it from this institution.
  This issue was raised in the telecommunications policy where we see 
the Speaker as a beneficiary of the contract with a company owned by 
Rupert Murdoch, has now met with Mr. Murdoch, with his lobbyist about 
telecommunications policy, then engaged in a private meeting for 
Republicans only on telecommunications policy, and then threatened to 
tell the owners of these companies that they ought to get their 
reporters in line. So this conflict is spilling over onto the floor of 
the Congress, onto public policy. It must be separated. The only way it 
can be separated is with the timely and immediate appointment of an 
independent and outside counsel in the matter of the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] versus the questions of his operation and GOPAC 
and in the funding of his college class and his book contract.


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