[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 150 (Monday, September 25, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H9498-H9501]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




    THE 1-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF REPUBLICAN CONTRACT AND RELATED EVENTS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett] is recognized for 60 
minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, it is an appropriate time to focus 
America's attention on what occurred 1 year ago tomorrow, because we 
have come to the first anniversary, birthday party No. 1, so to speak, 
of the so-called Contract on America, announced on the Capitol steps 
with many smiles about this time last year.
  Certainly if one is to assess and evaluate that contract based on 
hyperbole, based on rhetoric from the floor of this Congress, it has 
been a great success. It has been something that would give cause for 
great celebration, if we were to analyze what has been said about it in 
this Chamber rather than what is actually happening out in the real 
lives of real people across America.
  If one is to evaluate this contract in terms of what legislation has 
been passed and signed into law in the law books of America that might 
have some impact on people across America, one gets a more modest 
evaluation, because in fact thus far we have had a bill passed and 
signed into law dealing with the question of unfunded mandates; a bill 
passed and signed into law that was really a Democratic idea that 
passed the last session of Congress, to require that the House and the 
Senate and all of our congressional institutions abide by and follow 
the same laws that we pass and apply to businesses across America and 
to people across America. A good idea, signed into law, should have 
been signed into law and would have been, had the will of this House 
last year been accomplished.

  So that is two bills out of many proposed and discussed from this 
microphone, not exactly revolutionary, that have been placed into law.
  There is a third measure that has passed both the House and the 
Senate, another Democratic idea. It is called the line-item veto. The 
line-item veto would be law now and would allow President Clinton to go 
in and pencil out, redline certain bits of pork barrel either in the 
Tax Code or in the appropriations bills, but for Republican objection.
  Members will recall that last year when this great Contract on 
America was unfolded here on the steps of the Capitol, with all the 
smiles and the bright lights and cameras rolling, that it included a 
line-item veto that apply not only to pork barrel spending but to tax 
loopholes. But when the bill got here to the floor of the House, a 
little surgery was performed and the tax loophole part was kept out. 
They are protected. They are preserved.
  The President, under the line-item veto as passed by the House and by 
the Senate, would be powerless to really get at the tax loopholes that 
protect the privileged few, that need attention in this country. But 
there is still some merit to the bill. We passed it in a way that the 
President would be able to do something about pork-barrel spending, and 
certainly there is too much of that.
  But again, despite the hyperbole and the announcement of the great 
revolutionaries about all they were accomplishing in this bill, and how 
they wanted to rush it over to President Clinton so he would have a 
chance to either put up or shut up in terms of line iteming some of 
these items, they decided that they really did not want that to happen. 
So they have dillydallied around and delayed and just never gotten 
around to adjusting the differences between the House and the Senate.
  In fact, we had to wait until just this past month for there even to 
be conferees appointed to adjust the differences between the House and 
the Senate, and some Members of the Senate were saying what is 
obviously true; that is, that the House leadership, which proclaimed 
itself to be so revolutionary from this and other microphones back in 
January, did not really want President Clinton to have the power to go 
in and line item out the pork barrel that they put in this set of 
appropriations bills, the few that they have gotten past the Congress, 
and those that will be dumped out in the President's lap within the 
next week or two.
  So the line-item veto, which was one of the centerpieces of this 
contract that you would expect people to be celebrating today, is not 
law today, and it is not law today because the self-proclaimed 
revolutionaries did not want the revolution to occur so early that it 
might clip a little of their pork barrel out of the appropriations 
bills.
  It is also appropriate, as we look at and evaluate what has happened 
with reference to this Contract on America, to look at what lies ahead 
in the next few days. We got an indication of how really extreme its 
proponents are in comments that were made over the last 

[[Page H 9499]]
couple of days, the incredible declaration of Speaker Gingrich, the 
contract's father, that, ``I don't care what the price is. I don't care 
if we have no executive offices and no bonds for 60 days. Not this 
time,'' in indicating in a speech in front of the Public Securities 
Association that he is ready to shut down everything if he does not get 
it exactly his way.

  Indeed, after those very inappropriate remarks, the dollar plunged as 
much as 5 percent in world markets, interest rates went up sharply, and 
we are already paying for this extremist zeal that says, ``I don't care 
what the price is as long as I get it my way.'' That is the same kind 
of approach that is really what is the cause of not passing more items 
in the contract, some of which are decent principles and could have 
been shaped in a bipartisan fashion to a point of moderation.
  But when you take such an extremist, such a zealous point of view 
that you are willing to shut down everything if you do not get it your 
way, then you often do not get it America's way. In fact, at the same 
time that this remark was being made, Americans were themselves 
speaking out.
  The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday the latest results, that 
Americans by a vote in one poll of almost 2 to 1 disapprove of the job 
that this Contract-on-America Congress is doing. I think it is because 
much of the same sense of extremism that characterizes the Speaker's 
remarks on Friday, that are reflected in the remarks of one of the 
Nation's leading Republicans in commenting on his party. Former 
Governor Kean of New Jersey, saying this was not the year for him to 
run, declared this month: ``I'm moderate. I'm in a party that's 
becoming radicalized. That creates a problem.''
  Indeed it is a problem, not just for Governor Kean. It is a problem 
for America.
  You can thumb through the TV Guide where they printed that contract 
and you can look at it inside out, upside down, backward and forward, 
and one of the things that you will not find in there is the Republican 
Medicare plan. That is, the Republican ``pay more, get less'' Medicare 
plan.
  You will not find, in your TV Guide or anywhere in the Contract on 
America, the claim that what we need to do is to cut the Medicare 
Program by $270 billion, that we need to raise the premiums for our 
seniors and our disabled people, that we need to raise the deductible 
and we need to find some way to have the largest cut in Medicare in our 
Nation's history.
  Of course, you just saw a report presented by one of our committees. 
You will not find anywhere in the contract or in the report of this 
Congress's work a copy of the piece of legislation to implement that.
  That is particularly unfortunate, because it was only a short time 
after the announcement of the contract that the Speaker was saying in 
November and actually reading from parts of the contract what seemed to 
me to be a very desirable reform.
  He said,

       We will change the rules of the House to require that all 
     documents and all conference reports and all committee 
     reports be filed electronically as well as in writing, and 
     that they cannot be filed unless they are available to any 
     American citizen who wants to pull them up. Thus information 
     will be available to any citizen in the country at the same 
     moment it is available to the highest paid Washington 
     lobbyist.

  Well, the problem that we find ourselves in on this first anniversary 
of the contract, the Washington lobbyists, some of them have the 
Medicare cut, $270 billion. No Democratic Member of Congress has it. No 
citizen anywhere in this country can go to the Internet, can go to any 
kind of system and get a copy of this bill, because it is yet to be 
presented.
  In fact, what occurred on Friday was a bit of a charade. It was a 
hearing of the Committee on Ways and Means, not on a bill the way that 
Congress would ordinarily operate, but indeed what is truly 
revolutionary. For the first time the Committee on Ways and Means 
designates one day of hearings on the future of all of our 37 million 
seniors, the cut of $270 billion, and what do they have a hearing on? 
Not a bill but a press release.
  They call in their first witness, a Republican actuary who admits 
under questioning he has never seen the bill. All he has got is the 
press release. Yet he is an expert on that press release, and he is at 
least candid enough to indicate that the Medicare trust fund would be 
secure for 10 years in the future as long as the Republicans plan to 
secure it with a change of $160 billion. That leaves $110 billion out 
of this plan, 41 percent of the cuts that do not have anything to do 
with the Medicare trust fund.
  If we Democrats and Republicans would come together and work 
together, we could resolve any of the issues concerning the Medicare 
trust fund. There is no crisis here that demands immediate cuts and 
immediate increases in the out-of-pocket cost to the Nation's seniors. 
No, as their own first witness commented, though all he had was a press 
release and not a bill, this does not have to be done.
  My concern is about the 50 percent of retirees that I was hearing 
about. Since there was only 1 day of hearings, some of us organized 
hearings here on the lawn of the Capitol and listened to real people, 
seniors, come and tell us about the problems that they would face under 
this Republican Medicare plan. We heard that over 50 percent of our 
Nation's retirees received only Social Security; that is their sole 
means of support, and half of those receive only $7,000 a year.
  When this Republican Medicare plan, pay more, get less, raise your 
premiums, raise your deductible, raise your out-of-pocket cost in order 
to cut Medicare by $270 billion, when that goes into effect, what will 
be the impact on that 50 percent of the senior retirees who get Social 
Security and only get $7,000 a year? They are going to face some tough 
choices, tough choices about health care versus food, health care 
versus heat, health care versus rent. They are choices that we ought 
not to impose on people that have helped to build this into the 
greatest country in the entire world.
  But that is not all that was omitted from the Contract on America as 
we look back on it. Indeed, at the same time that the press release was 
the subject of a hearing in the Committee on Ways and Means, we find 
that the House Committee on Commerce was attacking America's seniors 
from another direction. That is what reference to Medicaid, which in my 
State of Texas provides the funding for 3 out of every 4 people that 
are in a nursing home. They get their funding through Medicaid.
  In addition to terminating the Medicaid Program, last week the House 
Committee on Commerce, though you cannot find it anywhere in your own 
TV Guide, they came in and abolished all Federal nursing home standards 
that set the standards for nursing and nursing care for our Nation's 
seniors. That is right. They say it cannot happen but it has happened, 
that every nursing home standard is recommended for total elimination 
from the Federal level.
  Moreover, the committee even went so far as to reject an amendment 
offered by one of my Democratic colleagues that would prohibit the 
States from requiring the spouses of nursing home residents to have to 
sell their home or car to pay for a husband's or wife's care. That 
means that under the Republican Medicaid plan, that those 3 out of 4 
Texas seniors that rely on Medicaid for their nursing home care, a 
spouse, unless some other action is taken, could be compelled by a 
State to have to sell their car or their home in order to simply 
provide their spouse with long-term nursing home care when no other 
alternative is available. Omissions from the printed Contract on 
America, but what is happening in real life, not in the speeches, but 
what is happening in real life on the floors of this Congress.
  When it comes to the way that the Congress actually operates, the way 
it conducts its business, my main concern with my Republican colleagues 
is not that they have changed things in this House too much but that 
they have not changed it enough.
  In fact, we heard earlier in the year a good bit about the need to 
reform the operation of the Congress, the Congressional Accountability 
Act. But when it has come to real reform in the way the lobby 
influences the Congress, when it has come to real reform in terms of 
dealing with gifts, with free ski trips, with the golf caucus, with 
lavish lunches and dinners, nothing has been done in this Congress on 
the House 

[[Page H 9500]]
side. All that we have heard is equivocation and procrastination.
  As recently as August of this year, Speaker Gingrich has said that 
the House Calendar is too full with other items to deal with lobby 
reform and gift reform, and proposed that perhaps they would prepare a 
paper on the subject. Recently there has been speculation that when 
they finish with the Medicare plan, maybe we would get to give some 
attention to these matters. Indeed, we should, because I sense that 
between the lines of that contract was basically a dissatisfaction with 
the way that this Congress has operated in the past.
  It is time to get down to the real issues, the campaign finance issue 
on which Speaker Gingrich shook hands with the President in New 
Hampshire, long forgotten. Hardly had the smile faded than that was 
forgotten, and nothing occurred with reference to campaign finance 
reform.
  So on campaign finance reform, on lobby reform, on gift ban, these 
are issues that this Congress needs to address if we are to have a real 
revolution instead of a phony one. When we get down to that issue of 
lobby reform and gift ban reform, two issues that the Senate had failed 
to deal with are issues that my Democratic colleagues have been urging.
  On the issue of lobby reform, the Honorable George Miller of 
California has suggested that one of the most effective lobby reforms 
would be to simply require that any time an amendment or a bill is 
offered, you have to indicate any lobbyist who had a hand in writing 
it. I sat through a hearing where the committee counsel actually would 
turn around and talk to the lobbyist that helped write the bill on 
committee computers, in order to give the answers to questions that 
were being raised about the bill.
  Do the American people, in a spirit of openness, not have a right to 
know who writes the legislation here and if it is one of these special 
interest lobbyists? Let us honor them and give them the attention that 
they deserve by actually putting their name down as a part of our 
rules, as the gentleman from California [Mr. Miller ] has suggested.
  When it comes to gift ban, though I am encouraged by the progress 
that the Senate has made, as I have studied that measure, one of the 
unfortunate deficiencies in the bill is that, unlike what my Democratic 
colleagues passed before I reached the Congress during 1994, this gift 
ban legislation says absolutely nothing about books and book royalties 
and payments from the likes of Rupert Murdoch or anyone else to a 
Member of Congress in order to have a book.
  I think the American people are concerned about that issue. I see no 
reason why our gift ban and lobby legislation ought not to address the 
issue of book royalties and book payments to Members, because that is a 
way to circumvent these matters. If you have someone who can come along 
and offer a $4.5 million book contract or can offer large royalties on 
a book, certainly that can influence the legislative process.
  It is appropriate that this Congress provide meaningful gift ban and 
lobby reform, not just partial, by dealing with the gift ban issue, the 
book issue, and by dealing with the question of which lobbyists are 
writing which laws. Of course this Congress has additional need to 
approach these issues and deal with these concerns because of the 
ethical cloud that has hung over it.
  Rather than deal with that, let me go back a few years and turn to 
the speech of Speaker Gingrich when he was Congressman Gingrich, 
discussing the issue of our ethics process here in the House, which I 
think is very important to the whole way that we review the Contract on 
America and the whole way that the Congress is viewed by the American 
people.
  He said from this very place, in the well of the House, on July 27, 
1988, and I am quoting from the Congressional Record from Speaker 
Gingrich, :

       In order to conduct a thorough and credible investigation, 
     the special counsel needs unlimited subpoena power. Both 
     Common Cause and I insist that in order to carry out the 
     responsibilities of an outside counsel effectively, it is 
     necessary for the counsel's authority and independence to be 
     clearly and publicly established. The special counsel must 
     have the authority and independence necessary to conduct the 
     inquiry in an effective and credible manner.

  Speaker Gingrich, then Congressman Gingrich from Georgia, said:

       Clearly this investigation has to meet a higher standard of 
     public accountability and integrity. I think it is vital that 
     every Member reflect on the fact that the integrity of the 
     House is at stake, and that all of us have a responsibility 
     to ensure that the standards being set are those of an 
     extraordinary investigation.

  I could not have said it better. I do not know a Member of this House 
who could have spoken more eloquently on the subject of the authority 
and the direction of an independent counsel.
  Why is it that those good words of Speaker Gingrich in 1988 have been 
forgotten? It seems to me that we should, in the course of discussing 
the general issue of ethics in this House, consider having independent 
counsel available when there are questions raised about a Member's 
conduct that has this kind of broad authority. Certainly that is true 
with reference to an investigation of a Speaker.
  Indeed, at the same time Speaker Gingrich also said:

       It seems to me for this investigation to have any 
     legitimacy, it has to be allowed to follow the leads wherever 
     they lead, and it seems to me that it ought to be that the 
     independent counsel has to be truly independent. He cannot be 
     on a short leash held by the Democratic chairman of the 
     committee.

  There again is some very insightful comment that it does not pay to 
have an ethics investigation. If you are going to take your watchdog 
and you are going to keep him on such a short leash that they cannot 
watch anything, they do not have full authority, then what good is it 
to have a watchdog in the first place?
  Fortunately, we know exactly what an independent counsel for the 
Ethics Committee ought to do because in addition to these comments, Mr. 
Gingrich outlined in 1988, along with the outline from Common Cause, 
exactly what should occur.
  He issued a press release insisting that the House Ethics Committee 
give the special counsel appointed to investigate the Speaker at that 
time the independence necessary to do a thorough and complete job. He 
said he was discouraged by several news reports that the special 
counsel, Richard Phelan, would be restricted in the scope of his 
investigation, and he proceeded to write the chairman of the Ethics 
Committee a letter identifying what the authority of the special 
counsel could be.
  He was very proud of the fact that Archibald Cox, the then head of 
Common Cause, joined in the recommendations for what a special counsel 
should be permitted to do. He referenced the Common Cause letter that 
it ``commit itself,'' the Ethics Committee, ``to the following 
measures:''

       No. 1, the outside counsel should have full authority to 
     investigate and present evidence and arguments before the 
     Ethics Committee

concerning questions about the Speaker;

       No. 2, the outside counsel shall have full authority to 
     organize, select, and hire staff on a full- or part-time 
     basis in such numbers as that counsel reasonably requires, 
     and will be provided with such funds and facilities as the 
     counsel reasonably requires;
       No. 3, the outside counsel shall have full authority to 
     review all documentary evidence available from any source and 
     full cooperation of the committee in obtaining such evidence;
       No. 4, the committee shall give the outside counsel full 
     cooperation in the issuance of subpoenas;
       No. 5, the outside counsel shall be free, after discussion 
     with the committee, to make such public statements and 
     reports as the counsel deems appropriate;
       No. 6, the outside counsel shall have full authority to 
     recommend that formal charges be brought before the Ethics 
     Committee, shall be responsible for initiating and conducting 
     proceedings if formal charges have been brought, and shall 
     handle any aspects of the proceedings believed to be 
     necessary for full inquiry.
       No. 7, the committee shall not countermand or interfere 
     with the outside counsel's ability to take steps necessary to 
     conduct a full and fair investigation.
       No. 8, the outside counsel will not be removed, except for 
     good cause.

                              {time}  1230

  Those are the eight guidelines, not from me, but from Speaker 
Gingrich, endorsing a position of Common Cause in 1988, concerning the 
way to structure an independent counsel. It is time that this Congress 
adopted the same kind of approach. 

[[Page H 9501]]

  Indeed, Common Cause has not been silent to this Congress. In a 
communication this past week, the new head of Common Cause, Ann 
McBride, has said let us do the same things again. Just because it is 
1995, instead of 1988, that is no reason to forget these eight 
principles, just because we might be dealing with a Republican Speaker 
instead of a Democratic Speaker. That is no reason to set up a separate 
standard of conduct.
  Our laws are to be applied fairly, certainly our ethical precepts, 
without regard to whether we are dealing with Democrat, Republican or 
independent, because it is the people's business we are doing. And an 
ethical cloud hangs over this House when there is no true independent 
investigation or when there is any attempt to muzzle the watchdog 
independent counsel that needs to be appointed to attend to these 
matters.
  So it is that this past week the chairman of the House Committee on 
Standards of Official Conduct has received a communication from Ann 
McBride, the president of Common Cause, calling for exactly the same 
thing to occur. Referring to the 1988 letter concerning the Democratic 
Speaker at that time, and saying, as I have indicated, that at that 
time in the investigation of the Speaker it was Mr. Gingrich himself 
who stated he agreed with the points made in Common Cause's letter, 
endorsed the above measures and called for providing the outside 
counsel with true independence and full leeway in pursuing the 
investigation.
  She says:

       Common Cause has long supported an appropriate role for an 
     independent voice in dealing with congressional ethics 
     matters. Appointing an outside person with unquestioned 
     integrity, with a nonpartisan background and experience in 
     dealing with matters of this kind, will be a critical matter 
     in obtaining a publicly credible result.

  I could serve to repeat and to underline and to emphasize each of 
those phrases, because that is what we are looking for in an 
independent counsel; someone who has the power to get the job done and 
someone who has the independence, the unquestioned integrity, the 
nonpartisan background, the experience in dealing with matters of this 
kind, to achieve a publicly credible result. Not a result that helps 
Democrats; not a result that whitewashes Republicans; but a result that 
is fair and independent and thorough.
  That is what Common Cause, as of last week, said is needed. The same 
thing, the same position that they took in 1988, when the shoe was on 
the other party, on the other foot.

       The process--

  Common Cause says--

     that the Committee uses in looking into this matter involving 
     Speaker Gingrich, the most powerful Member of the House of 
     Representatives, will directly reflect on the integrity of 
     the institution. We urge the committee to retain an outside 
     counsel and to clearly and publicly establish the counsel's 
     authority and independence.

  The Hartford Current has adopted the same call and with good reason. 
They say:

       An outside counsel should not be hamstrung by a narrow 
     mandate. No questions should be left unanswered. If they are, 
     Mr. Gingrich would serve under a cloud.

  And so, as we do a full and fair evaluation of this contract, we find 
that one of the biggest questions that remains unanswered is how the 
great proponent of this contract, the person who said as recently as 
Friday that he did not care what the price is, he did not care what the 
consequences were, if it caused interest rates to go up and the dollar 
to fall, he is willing to shut the Government down, whether we will 
have a full, fair, and thorough investigation by a nonpartisan person 
of unquestioned integrity into the charges that have been made.
  Mr. Speaker, I think it is essential on this anniversary of the 
contract, that the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, which 
has delayed and delayed and delayed, get about its job, complete this 
investigation, appoint someone with credibility, and restore the 
credibility which Americans are increasingly doubting about this 
institution. Restore that credibility with a full, thorough and fair, 
nonpartisan investigation of the charges that have been made about 
Speaker Gingrich and the book deal, with GOPAC, about all these other 
ethical charges that raise such serious concerns. Let us finish this 
Contract on America anniversary party by celebrating with a fair and 
nonpartisan investigation of Speaker Gingrich who gave it to us.

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