[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 104 (Tuesday, July 16, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H7647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    A REVOLUTIONARY REFORM CONGRESS?

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Doggett] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. DOGGETT. Mr. Speaker, last January 1995, this House began its 
proceedings with great fanfare and with claims that this would be in 
fact a revolutionary reform Congress. In fact, things have changed 
quite a bit over the course of the last few months.
  The taxpayers have seen this House squander $1.5 billion of taxpayer 
money with costly Government shutdowns. They have seen the extremism of 
this House in one failure after another, with almost no legislative 
accomplishments to point to. And now we get to 1996, and the reform 
Congress has, by the Republican leadership, been reduced to a reform 
week. This is reform week.
  The only problem is that all the reforms that our Republican 
colleagues have come up with they now have taken their reform week, and 
I think they are reducing it to a reform hour. At the rate they are 
going, they may be down to a reform minute for this Congress.
  The strange thing about the reform of this Republican Congress is 
that not many Members, Republican or Democrat, have much motion of what 
this reform hour will actually consider. Because, Mr. Speaker, in the 
reform hour that we will now have out of this reform Congress in this 
reform year, the Committee on Rules has yet to meet to even decide what 
amendments will be in order with reference to reforming the way this 
Congress operates.
  Most people do not really realize that the Members themselves will 
not have an opportunity to vote on many of the reform ideas that people 
across America are talking about that they would like to see this 
Congress adopt. Indeed, we will consider two of the most important 
issues facing America: That of welfare reform and that of campaign 
finance reform and the way this Congress operates, without having 
adequate forewarning of what amendments will be considered in order, 
and what alternatives that people across America have advocated might 
be considered.
  But, of course, all of this is consistent with the experience that 
America had last year leading up to the costly Government shutdowns. 
Because people across America will remember that we struggled against 
the Speaker, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], to get a gift 
ban to end the ties that bind legislators and lobbyists. We finally 
were able to overcome his opposition and obtain that reform last year.

                              {time}  2130

  He held here at the desk, at his Speaker's rostrum, last year for a 
matter of months the first lobby reform bill in almost 50 years. We 
were able to build up enough public concern over lobby reform that we 
overcame the Speaker's opposition to that reform. Now we are finally to 
the most important issue, that of campaign finance reform for which 
there is some bipartisan support in this House. There are Members on 
both sides of the aisle that have come up and have spoken out in favor 
of genuine campaign finance reform. Indeed, it was the Speaker himself 
who a little over a year ago stood there in front of a crowd in New 
Hampshire with President Clinton, shook hands and said, ``We will have 
a bipartisan effort to address this issue of campaign finance reform.'' 
Yet once the smile was over and the cameras had gone away, nothing 
happened. Indeed, it took the Speaker from the summer until the end of 
October or the beginning of November to even announce his plans. Those 
plans were to appoint a commission to look at the issue. Of course, a 
commission has never been appointed in all the ensuing months. With all 
that valuable time going by, the chance that any reform, even from this 
reform hour that we have left, affecting the elections this year has 
simply gone down the drain.
  I think that is extremely unfortunate. Because there was a proposal 
out there supported by Common Cause, supported by the Reform Party, 
supported by a number of independent organizations that neither the 
Republican Party nor frankly the Democratic Party, many elements of it, 
liked all that much. I think the only kind of reform that will really 
change this system once and for all is one that hurts each side a 
little bit, that there is dissatisfaction on from each side a little 
bit. I believe we have such a proposal in the bipartisan approach that 
Members of both sides have come together on and have advocated, but it 
now appears, not through any formal action of the leadership at this 
point but my word of mouth of what they may do, that they will refuse 
to even let this House consider that proposal in the very little time 
for reform, the hour or so for reform that we will have the day after 
tomorrow, to deal with the way that campaign dollars and campaign 
financing are polluting and affecting in a most negative way the way 
that this House operates. It is wrong that we have been narrowed to 
this little time. It is time for the American people to speak out and 
demand that this system be genuinely reformed.

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