[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 62 (Tuesday, May 7, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S4780-S4782]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                 WHITE HOUSE TRAVEL OFFICE LEGISLATION

  The Senate continued with the consideration of the bill.


                             CLOTURE MOTION

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, pursuant to rule

[[Page S4781]]

XXII, the Chair lays before the Senate the pending cloture motion, 
which the clerk will state.
  The legislative clerk read as follows:

                             Cloture Motion

       We, the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the 
     provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate, 
     hereby move to bring to a close debate on H.R. 2937, an act 
     for the reimbursement of attorney fees and costs incurred by 
     former employees of the White House Travel Office with 
     respect to the termination of their employment in that office 
     on May 19, 1993:
         Bob Dole, Orrin Hatch, Spencer Abraham, Chuck Grassley, 
           Larry Pressler, Ted Stevens, Rod Grams, Strom Thurmond, 
           Thad Cochran, Judd Gregg, Paul D. Coverdell, Connie 
           Mack, Conrad Burns, Larry E. Craig, Richard G. Lugar, 
           Frank H. Murkowski.


                            CALL OF THE ROLL

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. By unanimous consent, the quorum call has been 
waived.


                                  VOTE

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate 
that debate on H.R. 2937 shall be brought to a close?
  The yeas and nays are required. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk called the roll.
  Mr. PELL. Mr. President, on this vote, I have a live pair with the 
Senator from Vermont. If he were here, he would vote ``nay.'' If I were 
permitted to vote, I would vote ``yea.'' I therefore withhold my vote.
  Mr. LOTT. I announce that the Senator from Rhode Island [Mr. Chafee] 
is necessarily absent.
  Mr. FORD. I announce that the Senator from New Jersey [Mr. 
Lautenberg] and the Senator from Vermont [Mr. Leahy] are necessarily 
absent.
  The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 52, nays 44, as follows:

                      [Rollcall Vote No. 109 Leg.]

                                YEAS--52

     Abraham
     Ashcroft
     Bennett
     Bond
     Brown
     Burns
     Campbell
     Coats
     Cochran
     Cohen
     Coverdell
     Craig
     D'Amato
     DeWine
     Dole
     Domenici
     Faircloth
     Frist
     Gorton
     Gramm
     Grams
     Grassley
     Gregg
     Hatch
     Hatfield
     Helms
     Hutchison
     Inhofe
     Jeffords
     Kassebaum
     Kempthorne
     Kyl
     Lott
     Lugar
     Mack
     McCain
     McConnell
     Murkowski
     Nickles
     Pressler
     Roth
     Santorum
     Shelby
     Simpson
     Smith
     Snowe
     Specter
     Stevens
     Thomas
     Thompson
     Thurmond
     Warner

                                NAYS--44

     Akaka
     Baucus
     Biden
     Bingaman
     Boxer
     Bradley
     Breaux
     Bryan
     Bumpers
     Byrd
     Conrad
     Daschle
     Dodd
     Dorgan
     Exon
     Feingold
     Feinstein
     Ford
     Glenn
     Graham
     Harkin
     Heflin
     Hollings
     Inouye
     Johnston
     Kennedy
     Kerrey
     Kerry
     Kohl
     Levin
     Lieberman
     Mikulski
     Moseley-Braun
     Moynihan
     Murray
     Nunn
     Pryor
     Reid
     Robb
     Rockefeller
     Sarbanes
     Simon
     Wellstone
     Wyden

                     PRESENT AND GIVING A LIVE PAIR

       
     Pell, for
       

                             NOT VOTING--3

     Chafee
     Lautenberg
     Leahy
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. On this vote, the yeas are 52, the nays are 
44. Three-fifths of the Senators duly chosen and sworn not having voted 
in the affirmative, the motion is rejected.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Mr. BOND. Mr. President, I and many others are very disappointed we 
cannot move forward on this legislation. I believe this legislation is 
very important to provide relief for Mr. Dale and six other members of 
the White House Travel Office. I think it is the right thing to do. To 
me, the bill is a decent gesture that Congress can make to seven 
individuals who have been forced to endure a tremendous injustice. 
These people were publicly, knowingly, and wrongly accused of severe 
improprieties. They had their careers put in jeopardy, their finances 
devastated and their reputations forever stained for what appears to be 
an effort for personal gain of insiders.
  Three years ago when Billy Dale and the other members of the Travel 
Office were fired, the statement released by the White House on the 
firings was a source of immediate concern. It said:

       Within the Travel Office, we found sort of gross 
     mismanagement, if you will. There is basically very shoddy 
     accounting practices, mismanagement and a number of other 
     things. In order to correct those, we thought it advisable to 
     take immediate action.

  My concern over those firings was certainly not eased when it was 
disclosed that the Travel Office staff was fired based on an audit that 
was neither complete nor available to anyone for review. The Travel 
Office staff was fired and accused of mismanagement without being given 
the opportunity for a hearing or a chance to clear their names. 
Finally, travel business that was handled by salaried employees of the 
Federal Government previously and done on a noncommissioned basis was 
turned over to a Little Rock travel group.
  At that time, I was ranking member on the Treasury, Postal 
Appropriations Subcommittee, which has jurisdiction over the funding 
for the White House. I sent a personal letter to the President 
requesting answers to the questions and the reasoning for selecting the 
Little Rock travel agency.
  Unfortunately, like so many things from the administration, we did 
not get straight answers. There were half-truths and misleading 
statements. What the White House should have done is have the courage 
to tell the public the individuals were fired so that business could be 
given to friends of the First Family.
  But instead, the White House made the decision to question publicly 
the integrity of seven career civil servants. Unfortunately for Mr. 
Dale and his colleagues, they also launched an investigation and a 
prosecution and hid behind the accusations.
  As one commentator stated:

       The administration tried to transform a prosaic personnel 
     change into an act of moral heroism.

  The President immediately absolved himself saying:

       I had nothing to do with any decision except to save the 
     taxpayers and the press money. The only thing I know is we 
     made a decision to save taxpayers and the press money. That's 
     all I know.

  The First Lady also denied any involvement. Then an embarrassing memo 
was released from David Watkins in the White House laying the 
responsibility for the firing squarely at the feet of the First Lady. 
Despite this memo, denials continued from the White House. She 
maintains that she just ``expressed concern'' regarding mismanagement.
  The White House remained unflinching in their refusal to admit that 
the firings had anything to do with anything other than financial 
mismanagement on behalf of the Travel Office staff. It was undoubtedly 
to continue that perception that the White House pushed the Department 
of Justice on to Mr. Dale. They had a very weak case, and they went 
forward nevertheless at a tremendous personal and financial cost to Mr. 
Dale.
  Despite the White House spin and the efforts to lay the blame at the 
feet of Mr. Dale and his colleagues, the facts have come out. These are 
not pretty.
  No. 1, a cousin of the President who had worked on travel during the 
campaign wanted to head the White House Travel Office.
  No. 2, a Hollywood friend of the President had an interest in an 
airline charter company that wanted to profit from the White House 
business, and he was not happy the Travel Office was not giving him any 
opportunities.
  No. 3, the relative of the President and the Hollywood friend 
concocted stories of corruption and people on the take. The President's 
cousin even took documents and files out of the Office to try to make a 
case against the Travel Office staff.
  No. 4, according to the memo from David Watkins, the First Lady said 
we would have hell to pay if we cannot comply with the First Lady's 
wishes to fire the staff.
  Finally, the White House made a public statement accusing the staff 
of gross misconduct. The White House, despite longstanding policy to 
the contrary, without checking with the Department of Justice, 
contacted and politicized the FBI to try to back up their efforts.

[[Page S4782]]

  Unfortunately, after much personal harassment and great disruption 
and embarrassment to all of the members of the White House travel 
staff, the punishment did not end there. Mr. Dale was indicted for 
allegedly embezzling funds. But, as all of us now know the jury found 
him not guilty in less than 2 hours. As the distinguished chairman of 
our Judiciary Committee has noted yesterday, that is usually the amount 
of time it takes most juries to get organized. Talk about an open-and-
shut case. That one was clearly it.
  Mr. Dale said after his acquittal he was relieved and prepared to go 
on with his life. Unfortunately, that is not what happened. Within 
weeks the Watkins memo surfaced--and it squarely contradicted the sworn 
testimony of the First Lady before GAO investigators--and the Clinton 
damage control team went into a full-court press. The White House spin 
doctors, Anne Lewis, the Clinton campaign, and high-priced Washington 
lawyers, including Mr. Bennett, and even the First Lady herself in 
interviews, continued to make allegations that had been thrown out in 
the criminal proceedings against Mr. Dale and the White House staff.
  I think enough is enough. The dedicated public servants who worked in 
the Travel Office have suffered enough. I think that this bill is a 
small gesture which would not only offer some consolation to these 
people, but help them get out of the financial hole this whole matter 
has caused them. It was with great disappointment that we learned that 
the other side has chosen to filibuster this. My only guess is that 
this is an effort to save the President the embarrassment of having to 
sign this bill.
  I urged last week that the majority leader bring this bill to the 
floor so we could hear arguments against it on the Senate floor. I am 
still waiting to hear any compelling argument. I appreciate the 
majority leader having called it up. I hope that one of these days very 
shortly we can get on with doing a very simple act of justice by 
providing compensation for some of the expenses and costs incurred. I 
yield the floor.
  Mr. GRASSLEY addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Iowa.
  Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, I believe, considering the results of 
the last vote, where it is very clear that there is a filibuster by the 
opposition to hold this bill up, it is important that the public have a 
chance to weigh in because this is such a political issue here trying 
to avoid this bill coming to the White House to save the President the 
embarrassment of signing it. When there are this much politics in the 
issue, and the public at the grassroots weigh in, they can make a 
considerable impact on the legislative process here in the Congress of 
the United States.
  This may be one of those times when the public can make a difference, 
because this is clearly such a political move by the other side of the 
aisle. If politics wins out over right, then in the end wrong wins. It 
seems to me that the public will not want that to happen and they 
cannot allow that to stand.
  This is such a clear-cut issue. First of all, there are seven 
employees involved that were fired. We have already taken legislative 
action for the others, but for Mr. Dale, no, because at the time we 
took action for the others, his trial was pending. Mr. Dale was 
subsequently then found not guilty by the jury.
  So now we are taking action to do for Mr. Dale the same as we did for 
everybody else. There was not any debate in this body whatsoever over 
the action that we took on the others. It went through 
noncontroversial. The situation with Mr. Dale should be handled the 
same way. It should have gone through here in what we call wrapup at 
the end of the day and do it where we do all the noncontroversial 
measures.
  But what we have seen today is politics at its best--politics at its 
best in the sense that the stonewalling is at its best, to see 
something that is right not to go on, not to go through, because there 
might be some embarrassment for the President. The Democrats want to 
protect the President from that embarrassment. Today what we have seen 
is kind of a drive-by sabotage of this effort to right the wrong that 
has been conducted against Mr. Dale, because he was unfairly, 
wrongfully fired.
  Maybe there is no question he could have been fired, but the point is 
how the White House has tried to explain it and supposedly explain it 
away as a legitimate way of doing business. All the harm that has come 
to the family, not only of the employee who was fired, but the family 
because they have been wrongly treated, wrongly treated by a person who 
ought to know because he preaches the communitarian spirit that we 
ought to have one toward the other. That is what the President of the 
United States preaches.
  We ought to have charity. This does not show the charity that the 
President preaches that we all ought to have one toward the other when 
somebody is wrongfully fired, when you bring the FBI and the Justice 
Department to bring a guy to trial. Then he has gotten off, and then we 
are trying to right that wrong by covering the legal expenses of Mr. 
Dale. It is wrong for the other side, acting at the behest of the White 
House, to avoid embarrassment for  the  White  House  for  this  all  
to  go on and then at the other time preach a spirit of charity and 
communitarianism towards one another in this country.
  The whole effort is being sabotaged. Worse yet, it is being sabotaged 
without even the other side engaging in much debate on the issue. They 
have really succeeded in legislative harassment of Mr. Dale, the same 
sort of harassment, just in another environment, that has been done 
against Mr. Dale by the White House, by the Justice Department, by the 
IRS. Thus continues, as I see it, the White House campaign to avoid 
embarrassment on this issue.
  It is very clearly a clear-cut, right-versus-wrong issue. Politics 
has won out this day. The President continues to avoid responsibility 
for his actions. The victims continue to be wronged. That is why when 
it is so clear-cut, when our judicial system has cleared somebody, then 
I think it is a time for the American people to weigh in.
  I ask the American people to make their voices heard on this issue, 
to hold the President's feet to the fire. Even if you are a Democrat 
out there in Main Street America, it seems to me that you want your 
President to do what is right. What is right is to sign this 
legislation, to call off the hordes on Capitol Hill that are preventing 
this measure from coming to a vote, and have the President demonstrate 
his charitable attitude that he preaches. Tell the President of the 
United States to show moral leadership, to do the right thing, to sign 
this bill.
  Lastly, if politics wins in this instance, then it wins over right. 
When that happens, politics wins over right, then wrong wins. The 
public cannot allow this to stand.
  I yield the floor. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll. The bill clerk 
proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for 
the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

                          ____________________