[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 40 (Thursday, March 21, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H2588-H2589]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




PERMISSION FOR ALL COMMITTEES TO SIT TODAY AND THE BALANCE OF THE WEEK 
                        DURING THE 5-MINUTE RULE

  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a privileged motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHOOD). The Clerk will report the 
motion.
  The Clerk read as follows:

       Mr. Armey moves pursuant to clause 2(i) of rule XI that for 
     today and the balance of the week all committees be granted 
     special leave to sit while the House is reading a measure for 
     amendment under the 5-minute rule.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] is 
recognized for 1 hour.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, we have a good deal of important business ahead of us, 
both on the floor and in the committees, during this week and the next. 
It is, of course, out of consideration for the Members on the floor and 
in the committees relative to their pending district work period that I 
make this request. I want to appreciate for a moment the Members of the 
body on both sides of the aisle for their cooperation with me with 
respect to this request.
  Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I am happy to yield 5 
minutes to the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer].
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I first wish to thank the gentleman from 
Texas for yielding the time.
  Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California has now just arrived, and 
I was waiting until he got here.
  Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. VOLKMER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman 
from Missouri not only for yielding but for that introduction.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I will be frank about it. I really have 
nothing to say about this. We are going to let the gentleman from 
California speak for a few minutes and tell the Members about what 
happened.
  Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Speaker, would my friend from Missouri 
yield for a second?
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman all the time I 
have.
  Mr. FAZIO of California. That is what I wanted to know, how much time 
he was yielding to me.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] yields 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
California [Mr. Fazio].
  There was no objection.
  Mr. FAZIO of California. Mr. Speaker, we had an interesting session 
this morning, however brief it may have been. Interesting in the sense 
that it, I think, is perhaps too typical of the kind of hearings that 
we are seeing here in the House of Representatives. Unfortunate in that 
it did not include a balanced presentation on a very important issue to 
Members of this House.
  In fact, I think to the country at large, and that is how we deal 
with the question of voter education, how we deal with the issue of 
expenditures that are made outside the Federal election process. We had 
invited almost 25 groups from all across the spectrum, from Common 
Cause and the Sierra Club to the Christian Coalition and Citizens for a 
Sound Economy. Yet, when it came time to hold the hearing, the only 
people who were brought to the witness table, theoretically, they chose 
not to come. In my view that was the right decision, those people 
representing working men and women, organized labor.
  Mr. Speaker, now, it is easy to demonize our foes in this area, and 
both parties certainly have a preponderance of friends from one side of 
the spectrum to the other which they often like to demonize. But if we 
are going to hold hearings that really get to the root cause of how we 
can reform our political system, we cannot play favorites. We cannot 
just hold up those people representing the interest of working people 
because they have priorities and they have concerns that do not know in 
the direction the majority wants to go in.

  We have seen too much of this when the AARP was brought up before a 
Senate committee because they were standing up for Social Security, or 
critical of some of the Medicare reform proposals. I just simply wanted 
my colleagues to know, and I think I speak for every member of our 
committee, that this behavior of the Committee on House Oversight today 
is going to inflame passions here, is going to create an impossible 
environment for us to work this most important issue of campaign 
finance reform in.
  There are many, many groups spending hundreds of millions of dollars 
without limitation, without any attribution to any individual, no 
disclosure at all, who are working hand in glove with the majority in 
this House to affect its agenda. We were not willing or able to hear 
any of the testimony that might have enlightened us about that. It was 
only to go after people who in the minds of, I guess, the majority of 
that committee, were associated with the Democratic Caucus. I feel very 
much compelled to object to that process.
  Every member of our committee absented ourselves from the hearing 
today because we felt it was an inquisition. It was a kangaroo court 
designed to embarrass people who are merely spending, legally, their 
dues to put across a point of view to help educate their members and 
hopefully to impact on the Members in this body before they make a 
number of mistakes.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply close by saying this side of the aisle is 
prepared to work on these issues as long as we come to the table in a 
bipartisan manner. I am told in the aftermath of our decision to leave 
that we were told the room was not big enough, the table was not large 
enough to bring all the various interests together to discuss this. We 
only had to select one. Well, I think that is a metaphor that concerns 
me. The table ought to be big enough for all of the interest groups and 
all the points of view in this country to be heard.
  When we single out people, then we make enemies of people. Then I 
think

[[Page H2589]]

we are doing a lot of damage to this process. As long as the working 
people of this country want to be heard in this institution legally 
through their organizations that they pay dues to, we ought to listen 
to them and we ought to accommodate them. We ought not to single them 
out and take vengeance on them simply because they have another point 
of view that is unpopular with the majority.

                              {time}  1415

  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, for purposes of debate only, I yield 4 
minutes to the gentleman from California [Mr. Thomas].
  Mr. THOMAS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the majority leader for yielding me 
this time, and I want to thank my colleague from California for once 
again letting the chairman know of his interest in making sure that 
there is no hearing in which labor unions have to present any testimony 
about anything at all. Today's hearing was, in fact, the fourth hearing 
in a series of hearings, which are the most extensive in the history of 
this Congress on the campaign finance bills that were passed in the 
1970's.
  Our hearings started off in a bipartisan way. We had the Speaker of 
the House and the minority leader of the House talk about their vision 
of where they wanted to go. We also had all of the Members who have 
introduced legislation who want to see change in campaign finance laws. 
In fact, there were so many Members, we had to carry some over to the 
second hearing.
  In the second hearing we heard from corporations, we heard from 
people who believe constitutionally they have a right to form political 
action committees, we heard from labor unions about the narrow segment 
of union political activity under the Federal Election Commission.
  In our third hearing we had national chairmen of both the Democratic 
and Republican Parties talking about how the law unnecessarily 
hamstrings political parties, in their opinion, vis-a-vis labor unions 
and other groups who are able to participate in the process far beyond 
political parties, and on a bipartisan basis those leaders urged us to 
look at changing the law affecting political parties.
  This is the fourth hearing in our series of hearings. It seemed 
entirely appropriate since less than 1 week from now labor unions are 
meeting here in Washington to discuss increasing their dues to put more 
than $35 million into the political arena, which they have, and I will 
not yield at this time because I would like to finish my statement, in 
which the workers who are paying for this have no knowledge under the 
law, either under the FEC, or the Labor Department, or the NLRB, 
National Labor Relations Board, as to where and how much money is spent 
in the political process. The people who participate in elections, the 
voters, do not under the law have any understanding, or idea, of how 
much money because it simply is not required under current law to be 
reported. We invited the president of the AFL-CIO, the president of the 
Teamsters, and the secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO to provide us 
with some understanding of this involvement in the political process. 
We fully intend to go forward with additional hearings to hear from 
other groups.
  What was the response of the minority to yet one more hearing to get 
a full, complete understanding of participation in this process? Either 
within or outside the law? Either through sheer arrogance or fear the 
union leaders decided they would not show up and the Democrats would 
not participate in the hearing.
  Who did we have testifying that made it so slanted, so 
misrepresentative? We had two individuals from the Congressional 
Research Service, individuals who are pledged in their testimony to be 
fair and bipartisan; in fact, so much so that every opening statement 
of a witness from the Congressional Research Service has to state as 
much. We had professors of economics and labor to help us to understand 
that under the law, in an incomparable way, labor unions can 
participate in the political process without any, without any, 
requirement to disclose to the public when and how that money is spent, 
but, even more fundamentally, to the people who contribute the money 
themselves. That information is so shocking, so important to the 
Democrats, that they have to walk out of a committee and refuse to have 
people come to the committee so that the American people can understand 
when and how labor unions influence elections.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank the two gentlemen from California for 
that scintillating debate, and, if I might, I would like to thank the 
gentleman from Missouri for having made it possible.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. (Mr. LaHOOD). Without objection, the 
previous question is ordered.
  There was no objection.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey].
  The motion was agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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