[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.
____________________