[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 124 (Wednesday, September 11, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10179-H10180]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               TIME FOR ETHICS COMMITTEE TO QUIT STALLING

  (Mrs. SCHROEDER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute, revise and extend her remarks, and include extraneous 
material.)
  Mrs. SCHROEDER. Mr. Speaker, today the New York Times lead editorial 
talks about this House and its stalling on ethics. This is shameful. 
The New York Times points out that the Committee on Standards of 
Official

[[Page H10180]]

Conduct is supposed to meet today, and it goes on to say: If after all 
this time, Mrs. Johnson and her colleagues cannot rise above 
partisanship to act promptly on Mr. Cole's findings and make them 
public, then they will demonstrate that this is little more than a 
charade and not the principled committee upholding the traditions and 
honor of this House.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope everybody looks at this and everybody in this 
body realizes we will all be tainted if we do not get this report out. 
It has taken 2 years, it has taken half a million dollars, and they are 
trying to hermetically seal it down there, say none of us can see it, 
but then pronounce that it says nothing. If it said nothing, I would 
think we would be able to see it.
  Mr. Speaker, I include the New York Times article for the Record.

               [From the New York Times, Sept. 11, 1996]

                           Stalling on Ethics

       Crowning two years of partisan gridlock, the House Ethics 
     Committee seems determined to sacrifice whatever little is 
     left of its credibility by letting Congress adjourn without 
     resolving any of the pending ethics complaints against 
     Speaker Newt Gingrich. The committee's present plans do not 
     even call for making public the lengthy report filed last 
     month by James Cole, the special counsel belatedly hired by 
     the committee to look into tax law charges against the 
     Speaker.
       By stalling so long to shield him, the committee's 
     Republican chairwoman, Nancy Johnson of Connecticut, has left 
     the panel little time to resolve all allegations against Mr. 
     Gingrich. But the two weeks or so before Congress adjourns is 
     surely ample time to bring at least this phase of the case to 
     an honorable conclusion.
       Mrs. Johnson and her G.O.P. colleagues succumbed to public 
     pressure last December and finally agreed to retain an 
     outside counsel, Mr. Cole. They gave him a limited mandate to 
     examine whether Mr. Gingrich had violated tax laws by using 
     tax-deductible donations to finance a college course he 
     taught in Georgia in 1993. It intentionally omitted a range 
     of questions involving Gopac, Mr. Gingrich's aggressively 
     partisan political action committee, which helped to develop 
     the course. These questions, which are the subject of a 
     complaint filed by the House minority whip, David Bonior, 
     also need review by an outside counsel, but Republicans on 
     the committee are resisting.
       It is not known whether the evidence gathered by Mr. Cole 
     exonerates the Speaker on the tax charges, or suggests he 
     behaved either improperly or unethically. Committee members 
     have said the report simply lays out the facts while failing 
     to make any recommendations. But the issue at this point is 
     not just Mr. Gingrich's conduct, or the thoroughness of Mr. 
     Cole's work, but the efficacy of the committee itself.
       The Ethics Committee is scheduled to meet today. If after 
     all this time Mrs. Johnson and her colleagues cannot rise 
     above partisanship to act promptly on Mr. Cole's findings and 
     make them public, they will demonstrate that this supposedly 
     principled panel is little more than a charade.

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