[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 123 (Thursday, July 27, 1995)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10778-S10782]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       ETHICS COMMITTEE HEARINGS

  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, on July 14, the Senate Ethics Committee 
received a letter from the junior Senator from California which 
threatened that if the committee did not take a specific procedural 
action in an ongoing case, the Senator from California would pursue a 
resolution on the floor compelling the committee to take that action. 
In fact, the letter went so far as to stipulate a deadline for the 
committee's action, saying, ``I plan to seek a vote on the resolution 
requiring public hearings unless the select committee takes such action 
by the end of next week.''
  That deadline expired last Friday, July 21. That Friday afternoon, I 
came to the floor and informed the Senate the committee would not meet 
that day, nor would it schedule a future meeting that day. I said we 
would not respond to any attempts to threaten the committee. I assured 
the Senate that everyone on the committee would like to complete work 
on the case now before it, but perhaps we needed a cooling-off period, 
and I assured the Senate that as long as the threat of the Senator from 
California remained, the cooling-off period would continue as well.
  It is now the afternoon of Thursday, July 27. Four long legislative 
days have come and gone since the artificial deadline expired. It has 
become evident that the Senator from California has elected not to 
proceed with her resolution, at least at this particular time. Although 
we were fully prepared to provide floor time and debate the matter and 
have a vote, I strongly want to commend the Senator from California for 
deciding not to move forward. I think it is the right decision for both 
the Senate and the Ethics Committee at this critical point in our 
inquiry.
  Earlier today, Senator Byrd gave us all a moving speech on the 
occasion of his 14,000th vote in the Senate. He spoke about the need 
for more civility in the Senate and less high-profile conflict. I think 
this latest development indicates that we were all listening.
  As I said last Friday, the committee could not in good conscience 
give in to an ultimatum handed to it, whether by a Senator or, frankly, 
for that matter, by anybody else. But now that plans for imminent floor 
action appear to have been suspended, I believe the Ethics Committee 
will be able to proceed with its work, independent of outside demands, 
deadlines, and divisiveness.
  There has been a lot of discussion on this floor and elsewhere in the 
past few weeks about precedent. For example, we have heard that it 
would be unprecedented for the Ethics Committee not to hold a full-
scale public hearing in the wake of a major investigation. This 
assertion is simply erroneous. In fact, the committee elected not to 
have a full-scale public hearing in the Durenberger case. What occurred 
was a staged presentation by the committee and the accused Senator 
only. There were no witnesses, no cross-examination, and no new 
testimony. In essence, it was a prescripted, prepackaged event.
  In the well-known Keating case, the Ethics Committee did hold 
extensive public hearings but as part of its preliminary fact-gathering 
process, not as a final airing of collected evidence. This is a 
critical distinction.
  In the Cranston case, in particular, Mr. President, the committee 
decided that the public proceeding should be held for the purpose of 
obtaining testimony and evidence, and it decided not to hold a public 
hearing once the investigation had been completed. In other words, the 
public phase of the Cranston case was limited to the preliminary 
inquiry stage, and deliberations over the evidence and penalties were 
conducted entirely in private.
  One can argue whether the committee should have proceeded differently 
in those cases, but that is exactly what it chose to do. I do not 
recall anyone complaining about the fact that the committee did not 
hold full-scale public hearings in the investigative phase of those 
cases.
  One thing, however, is clear: The assertion that it would be 
``unprecedented'' for the Ethics Committee not to hold full-fledged 
public hearings in the wake of a major investigation is simply contrary 
to the facts.
  Naturally, you can give whatever weight you like to precedent. You 
can ignore it, you can consider it, or you can be bound by it. A few 
Senators have argued that precedent ought to be controlling on the 
question of public hearings. But, as I have explained, there is no 
clear and consistent precedent in this matter.
  Nonetheless, there are other precedents that bear directly on the 
issue of compelling the Ethics Committee to take an action during an 
ongoing investigation through the mechanism of a floor resolution.
  Senator Byrd, just this morning, mentioned the importance of 
``knowing the precedents.'' Of course, he was speaking about 
parliamentary precedents, and no one in this body knows precedents like 
Senator Byrd. But there are other kinds of precedents that speak 
clearly to the issue of whether the Ethics Committee should properly be 
forced by a Senate resolution to do whatever the majority voting for 
that resolution desires. These precedents are the ones that ought to 
guide our response to this question, not merely because they are 
precedents, but because they speak to the integrity of the ethics 
process in the Senate and, for that matter, the viability of the Ethics 
Committee itself.
  The first precedent, in fact, is the establishment of the Senate 
Ethics Committee itself to regulate official behavior and prosecute 
official misconduct. I am personally proud to say that it was the 
distinguished Senator from Kentucky, John Sherman Cooper, who proposed 
the resolution that created the committee in 1964. A year earlier, 
right before 1964, in 1963, the Senate had been confronted with 
allegations of misconduct involving Bobby Baker, a close advisor to 
then Vice President Lyndon Johnson, and at that time secretary to the 
Senate majority. Back in those days, the Committee on Rules and 
Administration was responsible for examining charges of wrongdoing here 
in the Senate. And while the matter was taken seriously, the final 
resolution of the Baker case left the public, as well as many Members 
of the Senate, deeply dissatisfied. This created an opening for the 
Senate to reconsider how it would handle cases of official misconduct 
in the future. And that led to the establishment of the Ethics 
Committee.
  In our view, for the creation of such a committee, Senator Cooper 
persuaded his colleagues of the need to take misconduct cases out of 
the regular committee structure, where the party in power obviously has 
a built-in advantage. Instead, he argued a select committee with equal 
representation from each party would inspire the confidence of both the 
Senate and the public. Senator Cooper said right here on this floor:

       First . . . it is to give assurance that the investigation 
     would be complete and, so far as possible, would be accepted 
     by the Senate and by the public as being complete.
       Second--

  Senator Cooper said this--

     and this is important to all Members and employees of the 
     Senate--it is to provide that an investigation which could 
     touch their rights and their offices, as well as their honor, 
     would be conducted by a select committee which--by reason of 
     its experience 

[[Page S 10779]]
     and judgment--would give assurance that their rights and honor would be 
     justly considered.

  Senator Cooper went on to say:

       It would be better for such investigations to be conducted 
     by a select committee . . . a select committee of the type my 
     substitute amendment contemplates would have the prestige and 
     experience to properly exercise its great authority. . .
       The committee--

  Referring to the proposed select committee--Senator Cooper said:

     would, of course, have the authority, if it found it to be 
     necessary after conducting an investigation, to report to the 
     Senate and recommend such disciplinary action as it found to 
     be necessary.

  Now, I have quoted from Senator Cooper's floor statement because it 
underscores some important points about the precedent of establishing a 
special committee to handle cases of official misconduct. First, there 
can be no question that the Ethics Committee was specifically intended 
to function as an independent body, free from interference by the 
outside politically charged partisan forces. In fact, that was 
considered a major and positive innovation at that time.
  By design, strict partisan neutrality is preserved by two key 
features of the Ethics Committee. First, and obviously, it has an equal 
number of members from each party. Second, a majority vote of the 
committee members is required to take any affirmative step in all cases 
and complaints.
  The second point that is underscored by Senator Cooper's remarks is 
that the committee was to be completely entrusted with the authority to 
investigate cases as it saw fit--the committee--in accordance with its 
unique experience and jurisdiction.
  Third, it is clear that the committee's authority was intended to be 
exclusive and absolute throughout the investigative stage. I repeat, it 
is clear that the committee's authority was intended to be exclusive 
and absolute throughout the investigative stage.
  The only check on the committee's power was the requirement that it 
report to the Senate and submit any recommendation for disciplinary 
action to the entire body, which could then approve, disapprove, or 
amend the Ethics Committee's recommendation. Although the full Senate 
clearly had an important role to play, its work began only--I repeat 
only--after the committee's work had ended.
  Senator Cooper, and all those who voted for the creation of the 
Ethics Committee, wanted to establish an ethics process that was not 
driven by the politics of partisan advantage. And further, they wanted 
the ethics process to have only limited exposure to the pressures and 
the publicity of this Senate floor. And so they restricted the full 
Senate's role in misconduct cases to the disciplinary phase alone. That 
precedent--the creation of an independent Senate Ethics Committee--
speaks directly to the matter of the floor resolution that was to be 
offered by the Senator from California.
  Simply put, such a resolution offered at this critical juncture would 
shatter the presumption of the committee's independence and authority. 
It would reverse a 31-year precedent that the Ethics Committee, and not 
the Senate as a whole, shall conduct investigations of official 
misconduct as it sees fit.
  Such a resolution would tarnish the vision of Senator Cooper and 
others of an ethics process that could be protected from partisan 
advantage and the highly charged atmosphere of the Senate floor and the 
press gallery. A resolution directing the Ethics Committee to take a 
particular action or changing its rules or procedure in the middle of a 
case would insert the Senate into a case pending before the Ethics 
Committee while it is still in the investigative phase.
  Now, as I have previously suggested, this approach points us down a 
steep and dangerous road and disconnects the brakes. Let me just give 
you one example of what we would have to look forward to if such action 
were taken on the floor. Just before each election day, like clock 
work--like clock work--the Senate Ethics Committee receives a rash of 
complaints filed against Senators who are up for reelection. Most of 
these complaints are filed by their opponents, who then hold press 
conferences and demand that the committee take action immediately.
 The committee's current practice is to simply set those complaints 
aside until after the election, at which time they receive a full and 
fair investigation.

  Now, the reason for this policy is obvious. While we treat every 
complaint seriously, we are not about to do anything that would allow 
the Ethics Committee to become somebody's political pawn.
  Now, what would happen if the Senate had approved a resolution like 
the one proposed earlier by the Senator from California?
  If there were a close reelection battle, not only would we have the 
Senator's opponent calling for immediate action by the Ethics 
Committee, we would have a resolution out here on the floor requiring 
the committee to open preliminary inquiries on all complaints received 
just before the election--just to clear up the record, of course; just 
to clear up the record.
  After all, it would be said that the public has a right to know.
  We cannot sweep preelection complaints under the Ethics Committee's 
rug. As we have been told ad nauseam, the Senate is not a private club.
  Now, whether such a resolution actually passed or not would hardly 
matter. It would hardly matter. The accused Senator would be 
sufficiently tainted by the debate over the resolution itself. And that 
is only the beginning.
  The precedent which such a resolution would establish is that the 
Ethics Committee can be treated like a political football, propelled in 
any direction that happens to suit a majority here in the Senate, and 
kicked around by any Member who wants to serve their own political or 
personal agenda.
  Since we are concerned about precedents, let me mention another 
precedent that bears upon the proposed resolution.
  In November 1993, the Senate dealt with the very difficult issue of 
enforcing a subpoena that the Ethics Committee had issued to obtain the 
personal diaries of Senator Packwood.
  In accordance with the rules, the committee came to the full Senate 
seeking enforcement of its subpoena on the grounds that we believed 
Senator Packwood's diaries contained information relevant to our 
ongoing preliminary inquiry.
  Now, this unusual step was required by the fact that one Senator had 
challenged the investigative authority of the Ethics Committee--had 
challenged that authority.
  In that instance, the Senator happened to be the accused.
  In essence, the accused Senator wanted to dictate the terms of the 
committee's investigation to us, the members of the committee. He 
wanted to tell the committee which procedures it ought to follow with 
regard to its investigation, and he wanted to unilaterally decide what 
was relevant and irrelevant to our inquiry.
  Basically, the Ethics Committee was not interested in going along 
with that. So we went to the floor and--fortunately--our position was 
overwhelmingly sustained by a vote of 94 to 6.
  In the course of that 3-day debate, another Senator, entirely within 
his rights, offered an amendment to our resolution.
  That amendment stipulated that the Ethics Committee's factfinding 
responsibility be subcontracted out, if you will, to a neutral third 
party. There was an extensive debate over that amendment, most of it 
centered on what the proposal did to the committee's authority.
  The Senate decisively rejected the amendment by a vote of 77 to 23, 
on the grounds that the Ethics Committee, and no one else, should 
dictate the procedures and protocols the committee may follow in 
conducting its investigations.
  Although both of those votes involved going against Members of my own 
party, there was no question in my mind that I had to uphold the 
committee's prerogative.
  It was the right thing to do then, and it is the right thing to do 
now.
  While it takes a different tack, the resolution discussed earlier by 
the distinguished Senator from California is fundamentally 
indistinguishable from these previous attempts to subvert the 
committee's authority and manipulate its procedures, except in one 
important respect.
  The amendment that was offered during consideration of the diary's 
subpoena was at least part of a proceeding 

[[Page S 10780]]
in which the Senate rules required the Ethics Committee to come to the 
floor for ratification of its actions.
  In that case, the committee had to obtain the full Senate's approval 
before proceeding further.
  To pursue a floor resolution now would interrupt the committee's 
ongoing work, meddle with its operations, and dictate the terms of its 
investigation, wholly outside of what the rules allow for the Senate's 
role in ethics matters.
  For that reason, the Senate needs to do the right thing again.
  Approval of such a resolution at this point in the process would 
effectively negate the Ethics Committee's unilateral authority to 
investigate misconduct. If we change the committee's rules in the 
middle of the game, it will send an unequivocal and destructive 
message: If any Member of the Senate does not like what the committee 
is doing today, they can just offer a resolution to rewrite its rules--
on the spot.
  It is no exaggeration to say that such a measure, proposed at this 
stage of our inquiry, would destroy the independence of the Ethics 
Committee, and that is the beginning of the end of the committee 
altogether.
  Senator Byrd, whom I mentioned earlier in my remarks, is admired for 
being a distinguished historian of this body.
  He spoke eloquently on this very point during the floor debate in 
November 1993 over the Ethics Committee's subpoena of the personal 
diaries of Senator Packwood.
  Senator Byrd said:

       [L]et us not bring further dishonor to the Senate by 
     refusing to back our own Ethics Committee. . . .
       If we turn our backs on our colleagues, three Republicans 
     and three Democrats, who have so carefully investigated this 
     difficult matter, and now ask for our support, we may as well 
     disband the committee.

  Many others, from both sides of the aisle, joined Senator Byrd in 
arguing for the committee's prerogative in investigative matters.
  I will quote just one more statement made during that memorable 
debate, because it is so compelling. This Senator said:

       I am not going to substitute my judgment for [the 
     committee's], because they have sat with this day after day, 
     week after week, month after month.

  The speaker went on, strongly exhorting the Senate to ``trust this 
committee'' and ``stand united with the Ethics Committee.''
  Those are compelling words. I could not have said them better myself. 
The one who spoke those words was the Senator from California--who has 
now decided, I hope, not to offer the resolution she had planned to 
bring to the floor earlier.
  The precedent established by two overwhelming bipartisan votes on the 
subpoena matter was that the Senate should not substitute its judgment 
for the committee's judgment.
  It should not attempt to manipulate an ongoing investigation of the 
committee.
  And it should respect the 31-year-old dividing line--established by 
Senate Resolution 338, offered by Senator John Sherman Cooper, and 
adopted in 1964--a dividing line, Mr. President, between the exclusive 
authority of the Ethics Committee to conduct investigations, as it sees 
fit, and the separate power of the full Senate to take disciplinary 
action, as it sees fit.
 That was the precedent of November 2, 1993.

  Let me say clearly, in case there is any doubt: the Committee has not 
yet completed the Packwood matter.
  If my colleagues on the committee and I agree on anything, it is that 
the case has taken much longer than any of us had hoped, planned, or 
desired.
  However, we simply had no choice, given the fact that all of us were 
committed to the most thorough and fair investigation possible.
  I think it is fair to say that no case has ever been so thoroughly 
investigated in the preliminary inquiry phase than this one.
  For those of you who have forgotten--and I do not blame you if you 
have--the committee opened this case on December 1, 1992, after several 
women complained of sexual misconduct by Senator Packwood.
  We decided early on to conduct the most comprehensive inquiry we 
could. The staff was instructed to follow every lead and, as a result, 
the case took several unpredictable turns.
  Our inquiry was broadened to include a number of other allegations 
that surfaced in the course of our fact-gathering. At each stage, we 
determined to press forward and fully investigate every new indication 
of wrongdoing that we uncovered.
  When the committee issued its bill of particulars on May 17, we asked 
the staff to give us a report on all the work the committee had done on 
this one investigation thus far.
  Even we were surprised by the massive scale our inquiry had taken: 
interviews with 264 different witnesses; 111 sworn depositions; as well 
as a systematic effort to contact every former female employee of 
Senator Packwood.
  To this point, the committee has compiled and reviewed more than 
16,000 pages of evidentiary documents. It has issued 44 subpoenas for 
sworn testimony and documents, including telephone logs, schedules, 
memoranda, meeting notes, contribution records, and correspondence.
  A special investigator detailed to the committee from G.A.O. has 
logged approximately 650 hours on the Packwood matter.
  Committee members and staff have spent more than 1,000 hours of their 
time in meetings, just on this one case. The vice chairman and I, along 
with our staffs, have had more than a hundred additional meetings and 
conferences, again just on this one case.
  Given all of that it is amazing that all of us are still on speaking 
terms with each other.
  The dispute over the diary subpoena alone consumed nearly a year of 
the committee's time.
  Not only did we have to seek approval from the Senate, but we also 
had to obtain a court order to enforce our subpoena, which Senator 
Packwood--acting within his legal rights--appealed all the way to the 
Supreme Court.
  More than 700 additional hours were spent by the Senate Legal Counsel 
and Ethics Committee staff preparing and filing legal documents in 
connection with the committee's extensive diary litigation.
  After we won in court and obtained the diaries, the committee's 
special master spend another 1,000 hours, probably more, reviewing the 
diary materials and checking entries that had been masked.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, this has been the mother of all ethics 
investigations.
  It is also the first full-fledged investigation of sexual misconduct 
ever conducted in the Senate. Although allegations of sexual misconduct 
were leveled against two other Senators in the past, the committee 
dismissed both of those cases rather than proceed to an in-depth 
inquiry.
  Thus, the investigation into this case is a precedent in itself, at 
least for the Senate.
  The House, on the other hand, has dealt with a number of ethics 
matters involving sexual misconduct.
  I think it is worth reviewing some of these cases briefly, to see how 
far we have come in handling such sensitive and sensational charges.
  In 1983, for example, Representatives Gerry Studds and Daniel Crane 
were found to have engaged in sexual activity with House pages. Both 
were censured; both retained all their rights and privileges; no 
hearings were held.
  In 1989, Congressman Jim Bates was accused of sexually harassing many 
of the female members of his staff.
  I will read some excerpts from a Roll Call article on the matter, 
which appeared on October 2, 1988, because I think it demonstrates how 
differently the Packwood matter has been handled in comparison to the 
Bates case just 6 years ago. Here is what the Roll Call article said:

       The staffers knew Bates' behavior was wrong, but, they 
     said, they felt trapped. If they complained to the House 
     Ethics Committee, they said, they risked being labeled 
     traitors or liars. . . .
       Former employees who spoke to Roll Call portrayed 
     remarkably similar pictures of life in Bates' office. . . . 
     Nearly all of the women described his daily requests for 
     ``hugs'' so he ``would feel better'' and ``have more 
     energy.'' When the women embraced him, they said he often 
     patted their behinds and thanked them for being good. ``Of 
     course I was disgusted,'' said one woman. ``But it was my 
     first real job on the Hill. You either put up with it or 
     he'll run you out of town.''. . .
       One former aide remembered Bates asking her if she would 
     sleep with him if the two 

[[Page S 10781]]
     were stranded on a desert island. . . . Another detailed how, in front 
     of a male constituent, Bates embarrassed a female staffer by 
     staring at her breasts and commenting, ``Yes, they do look 
     good, don't they?''. . .
       One ex-aide recalled an encounter that still makes her 
     cringe. A female employee was seated at her desk with her 
     legs crossed. . . . In full view of the staff . . . Bates 
     approached the woman, wrapped his legs around her extended 
     leg, began to sway back and forth, grinning, while he 
     inquired about a specific legislative project.

  The Roll Call article I have just quoted from revealed multiple 
incidents of aggressive sexual harassment by Congressman Bates. You 
would surely expect them to throw the book at him for such gross and 
repeated conduct.
  But Congressman Bates got off lightly: he reveived a letter of 
``reproval'' from the House Ethics Committee and was told to 
``apologize'' to his victims. In essence, they told him, ``You've been 
a bad boy; now say you're sorry and try not to do it again.''
  The House did not take any disciplinary action; no hearings were 
held; and no one said a word.
  A year later, Congressman Gus Savage was accused of sexually 
assaulting a Peace Corps volunteer who was supposed to brief him during 
an official trip.
  The Washington Post was tipped off about the incident and interviewed 
the volunteer. The matter was reported in an article dated July 19, 
1989, from which I am going to quote:

       [The volunteer] was selected to give the briefing by a 
     supervisor who repeatedly stressed that making a good 
     impression on [Representative] Savage could help the agency 
     win additional funding in Congress. . . .
       But she never gave the briefing, which had been scheduled 
     for a few days later. After the Ambassador's dinner, she 
     agreed to accompany Savage and several others. . . .
       Savage insisted that the woman ride alone with him in a 
     chauffeur-driven car, according to a U.S. diplomat. During 
     the next two hours Savage aggressively and repeatedly fondled 
     her in the back seat of the embassy car, despite her strong 
     spoken protests and physical resistance.

  Further into the article, the Post reports some of the details of the 
assault:

       ``As soon as the cars pulled off from the Ambassador's 
     residence, he grabbed me.'' . . . ``He tried to force me to 
     have sex with him. He touched me against my will,'' she said. 
     ``He put his arms around me. He pulled me up against him. He 
     made me--I mean, he forced me, to kiss him--physically forced 
     me, pulled my mouth onto his.
      He felt my body * * * *. He was trying to lean over, get on 
     [top of] me, in the car.''
       [The Peace Corps volunteer] said she ``tried everything I 
     could think of, short of hitting him or hurting him 
     physically, to make him stop * * * *. He kept touching me, 
     after I told him to stop, many times, loudly.'' In addition 
     to pushing [Congressman] Savage's hands away from her thighs, 
     shoulders and face, the woman said, she endured his taunts 
     about her religion and her attitude toward sex * * * *.
       Finally, an information officer from the U.S. Embassy * * * 
     escorted [the woman] away from Savage and took her home.

  The Post's narrative goes on to say:

       The woman said in an interview that she considered the 
     episode an assault, but she chose not to file a formal 
     complaint because she did not want to publicize the incident 
     and risk damaging the Peace Corps * * *. About a week later, 
     she was medically evacuated back to the United States, where 
     she underwent six weeks of intensive therapy designed for 
     victims of sexual assaults, which was paid for by the Peace 
     Corps. Although she had completed less than half of her two-
     year tour, she never returned to Zaire.

  As a father of three precious daughters, I find that kind of conduct 
reprehensible beyond measure. It almost makes me physically ill to read 
it aloud. It is disgusting, and it ought to be punished.
  Yet the Home Ethics Committee decided merely to issue a report 
disapproving of Congressman Savage's grotesque actions. The full House 
did not act at all on any disciplinary measure. There were no hearings 
of course, and no one said a word.
  In each of these horrendous cases, and there are others I could cite, 
there was a conspiracy of silence accompanying the slap on the wrist 
and wink of the eye that each offending Congressman received.
  In the Washington Post account I just read, Congressman Savage was 
reported to have said to the woman he was molesting, ``That's the way 
the world works.''
  Sadly, Congressman Savage was right--at least in the House at that 
time. That was the way the world worked.
  Well, that was then--and this is now.
  The Senate Ethics Committee has conducted the toughest, most 
uncompromising investigation of sexual misconduct that has ever been 
held in the United States Congress. I do not think there is a single 
witness in this case who would say that we have tried to cover up
 anything, or that we have treated them less fairly than the accused.

  And certainly, no one can accuse the Senate Ethics Committee of the 
kind of shoddy, cavalier treatment which the House accorded to 
thoroughly despicable acts of sexual misconduct occurring in just the 
last 6 years.
  And we are not finished yet.
  It is easy to be an ethics dilettante. It is hard to serve on the 
Ethics Committee. It is hard to make the kinds of judgments that you 
know will have a lifelong impact on the lives of people, both in and 
outside of this chamber.
  But that is what we are called to do, and I know of no member of this 
Ethics Committee who takes their duty lightly.
  In fact, until an ultimatum was forced upon the Committee, it had 
operated almost entirely in a bipartisan fashion. Decisions were worked 
out together, with constructive discussions among everyone; and nearly 
every action the committee has taken in this case has had the unanimous 
support of all six members, both Democrat and Republican.
  It is deeply troubling to me that one of the effects of this highly-
publicized ultimatum is that a wedge has been driven through the 
committee for the first time in this investigation.
  I know it is not a permanent rift, because I know the members of this 
committee too well for that. Frankly, we have been through too much 
together for that to happen.
  But what has happened to the committee and the Senate in the wake of 
this incident make the argument--better than I ever could--that we 
absolutely must preserve the separateness and independence of the 
Ethics Committee.
  What has occurred as a result of the ultimatum of July 14th should 
make it clear to everyone why the Ethics Committee must operate on its 
own, as it sees fit, and out of the limelight.
  And let me just say: I appreciate the concern that has been shown for 
this case by the Senator from California and I know her motivations are 
sincere.
  Under the Senate rules, she has every right to challenge any 
recommendation the committee makes to the Senate.
  She is certainly free to disagree with our findings of fact, our 
conclusions, and any proposals we make for disciplinary action.
  What is more--and I think it is important for everyone to understand 
this--she is free to offer any motion she wants on the Senate floor to 
obtain a result that she believes is better than the one we recommend, 
if we come up short of the mark in her opinion.
  But the rules governing the ethics process authorize the full Senate 
to act upon a case only--only--when the committee has completed its 
work and made its report to the floor.
  Let me point out who that protects the most, Mr. President. That 
protects mostly the minority party, because if ethics cases are going 
to be dealt with on a bipartisan basis here on the Senate floor, I 
suspect--I could be wrong about this--there would be enormous 
temptation by the majority to take advantage of the minority.
  The Ethics Committee guarantees a bipartisan result. It was crafted 
intentionally in that way. And clearly, the principal beneficiaries of 
that are those in the minority party in the Senate who are protected 
from the potential abuse of the majority in matters of personal 
misconduct.
  Further, if my friend from California sincerely believes the Ethics 
Committee's rules of procedure--if that is the direction she may go--
ought to be changed, then certainly pursue that or any other option.
  But it would be a terrible mistake for Members who think there is 
some merit to an idea to change the rules or to give the committee 
directions or to take any floor action during the course of our 
consideration here on the floor because there will be ample 
opportunity--ample opportunity--at the end 

[[Page S 10782]]
of the process for any Senator to criticize what is proposed, and to do 
whatever any Senator may feel appropriate in this matter.
  To take a premature step before the committee's report would make a 
mockery of the committee's independence and its authority.
  Members of the committee would live in fear that any decision could 
be the pretext for a loud and nasty floor fight, for a hasty, ill-
conceived change to the committee's rules, or any other directives. I 
hope we will not allow that to happen.
  And again, the principal beneficiaries of that not happening are 
those who are in the minority.
  As a result of conversations I have had with many Members--and I must 
say on both sides of the aisle--I believe the clear majority of the 
Senate would allow the Ethics Committee to be able to complete its 
work, get a recommendation to the floor, and then give everybody an 
opportunity to say whatever they feel about the final product.
  Respecting the concern that every Member of this body has that every 
case of sexual misconduct be fully and fairly investigated, we want to 
make sure that happens.
  I hope the Senator from California will allow the committee to 
complete its work. I want to thank her for at least withholding this 
week. I think that was a gracious gesture. I am confident that if we 
can get back to work, we can finish the job.
  So what I would like to do in conclusion today is announce that the 
committee will be meeting starting next Monday. It is my intention to 
have a meeting each day--if that is necessary--each day next week, and 
each day of the next week, in the hope that we can wrap this matter up, 
make all the critical decisions that need to be made and, if possible, 
wrap this matter up before the August recess.
  I appreciate, Mr. President, the attention of the Senate. Frequently, 
when various ones of us speak, no one listens. But I hope that at least 
the staffs in the various offices who handle ethics matters will take a 
look at the speech that I have given today--it will be in the Record 
for tomorrow--to look at the history of the Ethics Committee; why it 
was set up; what it was designed to do; why it is best not to begin the 
process of criticizing its work before it is completed.
  I hope we would all proceed with a cooling-off period and let the 
committee get back to work.
  I say in conclusion, Mr. President, again that the committee will get 
back to work beginning Monday, and it would be my plan to meet each day 
next week and each day of the week after that, with the hope that we 
can make substantial progress on this case, which has taken quite some 
time to reach this stage.
  Mr. President, I thank you for the time and thank you for the 
attention.
  Mrs. BOXER addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.

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