[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 165 (Tuesday, October 24, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H10639-H10640]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   ACTIONS, NOT WORDS, ARE IMPORTANT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of May 
12, 1995, the gentlewoman from Colorado [Mrs. Schroeder] is recognized 
during morning business for 5 minutes.
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, I have come to talk a bit about words, 
words, words, words and how we often think we know what they mean, but 
they are not meaning what we think they mean so often as they are used 
by the Republicans in this time.
  First of all, the words ``family friendly.'' This was going to be a 
big ``family friendly'' Congress. Well, guess what they are selling 
first? They are selling the day care center for staff, and the day care 
center has been gagged. When you call and say, ``What's going to happen 
to you, are you going to move somewhere? '' they say, ``We have been 
ordered not to talk to anybody about it.'' That does not sound very 
family friendly to me, and so, when you hear family-friendly, just 
think of the child care center for the staff being put on the auction 
block by these guys and see if you think that is family friendly.
  Now the other thing that we hear about is independent counsel. We now 
hear that we are moving toward an independent counsel. Well, when you 
think of independent, independent means independent. But we hear the 
big hangup as to why we cannot have an independent counsel is because 
they want to find a way to leash the independent counsel, put blinders 
on the independent counsel, and keep the independent counsel in a cage. 
That is not an independent counsel. That is a lap dog, and no one wants 
a lap dog from the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct as we 
look into these issues dealing with the Speaker's ethics charges.

  We also hear the big fight about, that was in the paper today, about 
the Speaker and his bulk sales in the newest, newest charge that has 
been piled up in front of the door of the Committee on Standards of 
Official Conduct, and what does the word ``bulk'' mean? The newspapers 
today are filled with 

[[Page H 10640]]
all sorts of articles on what does the word ``bulk'' mean. Were 200 
books a bulk sale? Well, that was yesterday's news because today's news 
in the St. Petersburg Times says the 200 appears to be 400 books. Are 
400 books to Capital Formation a bulk sale? How many books does it take 
to make a bulk, and how many books does it take to really get people's 
attention? There is also they will say, well, but when you look at ex-
Speaker Wright's books, he sold a whole lot more. Yes, but he sold them 
at 5 bucks, you know. So, does the price count? Does how much comes 
back to the person count? I mean what is all of this nonsense?
  Once again what we really need here is action and not words, action, 
action, action, and I have never seen so much inaction with so much to 
act on. Maybe that is why we are seeing the inaction, and maybe that is 
why we do not want a real independent counsel who has got to be these 
huge fights as to how do we call him independent and make him something 
else?
  So I just say, as I get more and more frustrated, I keep remembering 
what my grandmother always told me: It is in the actions and not in the 
words, it is in the deeds and not in the words. It is in what people do 
and not what they say, and it is in the record and not the rhetoric 
because the rhetoric over here sounds wonderful, warm, fuzzy, family 
friendly, independent counsel, oh they are not bulk sales that the 
Speaker was selling, yatta, yatta, yatta, yatta. Well, guess what? When 
you peel away all of those wonderful, warm, fuzzy things, you find out 
they are selling the day care center, and they cannot even talk to you 
about it. Hum, makes me suspicious.
  The reason we have not had any action on the independent counsel is 
they do not really want it to be independent except in name. We will 
call them that, but we will make them something else. We will make them 
kind of a lap dog, and that when you come to the issues around the 
Speaker's different charges, of which there are more and more piled up 
at the door, they want to dismiss them away and argue about them in the 
press.
  That is not what is supposed to happen. We are supposed to have 
somebody on the outside with subpoenas and proper authority go out and 
find out what the real issues are rather than day-by-day are going 
through and finding all sorts of charges flying around in the 
newspaper, and one newspaper reporter found this, and another newspaper 
reporter found that, and another newspaper reporter found. Maybe we 
ought to hire them. I mean, if we are not going to hire anybody, maybe 
we ought to hire them; I do not know.
  But I think that it really brings more cynicism to this body, and it 
certainly does not do anything for institution-building in this body 
because people expect us to act as we speak and do as we say we are 
going to do, so all I do is take the floor today to say, ``Please, 
please, if you're going to sell the day care center, tell us how our 
staffs are going to be able to find child care here.'' Mr. Speaker, 
Members take their children to their office and let their staffs 
provide the child care. I am not sure that is quite so fair, but what 
do the staffs do, where do they go, and how do we make this family 
friendly?
  And please do not gag them, and please let us find out about that, 
and then when we come to the Committee on Standards of Official 
Conduct, let us get an independent counsel, let us get on with this, 
and let us decide, let them decide, how much bulk is bulk rather than 
this continuing day-by-day press thing.

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