Congressional Record, Volume 142 Issue 130 (Thursday, September 19, 1996)

[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 130 (Thursday, September 19, 1996)]
[House]
[Pages H10646-H10647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

A HUGE CLOUD OVER THIS HOUSE

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, we have just been through a little charade
here in the House. The last two votes on motions to table were purely
what I call a charade as part of the total coverup that is going on in
the ethics investigation of our Speaker.
You know, they, majority Republicans, were advised that the minority,
the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] and the gentleman from Georgia
[Mr. Lewis], are going to be offering a resolution that would require
the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to make public, to give
all Members of the House and the public, the press, a copy of the
report that was filed back around August 12 with the Committee on
Standards of Official Conduct by the special counsel.

point of order

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I have a point of order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his point of order.
Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] is
discussing matters that are not appropriately addressed under the rules
of the House.
Mr. VOLKMER. I am just going over what was going on in the House.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will sustain the point of order
inasmuch as the gentleman may not discuss such matters not currently
pending.
Mr. VOLKMER. The Speaker, I am just talking about what went on in the
House.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman may proceed in order.
Mr. VOLKMER. That is very interesting, very, very interesting that
the majority does not even want us to talk about what we just did
earlier this afternoon.
When they heard about this resolution that is going to be offered,
the gentleman from Georgia, Mr. Linder--and according to an AP story
that was just out today--in an admitted act of retaliation Mr. Linder
introduced a resolution to force the ethics panel to hire an outside
counsel to investigate House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephart in an
ethics complaint filed 7 months ago that he concealed profits gained
through vacation home real estate deals. Linder says----

point of order

Mr. WALKER. Point of order, Mr. Speaker: The gentleman from Missouri
[Mr. Volkmer] continues to be out of order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will sustain the point of order
and share at this point the ruling of November 17, 1995:
The prohibition against references in the debate to the official
conduct of other Members where such conduct is not under consideration
in the House includes reciting the content of a resolution raising a
question of the privileges of the House which is no longer pending,
having been tabled by the House.
The gentleman may proceed in order.
Mr. VOLKMER. Now the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Linder] goes on and
says that the Lewis resolution reflected an ongoing and desperate
action with a small band of Democrats who refused the ethics process by
filing one baseless claim after another.
Now those claims are not baseless, those claims are legitimate. They
are based on acts that were performed by the Speaker and that have been
filed with complaints, and part of those complaints were investigated
by the special counsel, and the special counsel filed the report way
back over a month ago. But none of us have seen the report, none of us
can get a copy of the report, and on the tabling motion there is no
question----

point of order

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman continues to be out of order,
and it is an embarrassment to the House to have the gentleman continue
to disobey the rules knowingly and completely with malice.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair sustains the point of order and
requests that the gentleman proceed in order as indicated by the Chair
earlier.
Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, you know, there is a huge cloud over this
House, and it has been here for over a year, almost 2 years, and it is
all because of inaction of the Committee on Standards of Official
Conduct on the complaints on Newt Gingrich, and it has brought
discredit on this House.

point of order

Mr. WALKER. Point of order Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his point of order.
Mr. WALKER. The gentleman is obviously attempting to simply disobey
the rules, and the gentleman obviously has no comport to the Oath of
Office that he took earlier in this Congress and, you know, is
embarrassing the House with his present disobeying of the rules, and I
insist on my point of order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The point of order by the gentleman is
sustained, and the Chair would remind the gentleman from Missouri that
he may not speak to matters which are now under consideration by the
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct or to the motivation of
Members who bring questions before the House.
Mr. VOLKMER. I appreciate the ruling of the Chair, and it is very
apparent to me and, I hope, to Members of this House that the majority
does not want any of the minority, anybody, talking about ethics
questions on the floor of the House. They just do not want us to
discuss it. They want to keep it secret, they do not want anybody to
know anything about it, they want it all to go away until after the
election.
Well, there are those of us who feel that we in this House of
Representatives, which has been a stalwart in the world as far as
democracy is concerned, have a right to voice our opinion on the floor
of the House on this subject because we feel that this subject is one
that has to do with the image of the people, how the people look at the
United States House of Representatives.
I do not think that the public really appreciates a House of
Representatives

[[Page H10647]]

where Members cannot even discuss on the floor those things--I can walk
right out in that hall, I can go up into the press gallery, I can go up
the steps and go back in my district, I could do it in my home, I could
do it in my office, I can do it anyplace else. I can discuss all the
problems that the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has and
Newt Gingrich has and the fact that the chairman of the Committee on
Standards of Official Conduct has just stalled this whole process. I
can do it all there, but I cannot do it here.
That is the ruling of the Chair. They do not want me to say it,
folks. They do not want me to talk about it.
But guess what? We are going to continue to do it until that report
is released to the public. They paid $500,000, Mr. Speaker, for that
report, and they are keeping it quiet.

point of order

Mr. WALKER. Point of order, Mr. Speaker.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state his point of order.
Mr. WALKER. The gentleman continues to be out of order.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair sustains the point of order.
Mr. VOLKMER. Would the gentleman from Pennsylvania like to take down
my words?
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair would remind the gentleman that
Speakers in prior Congresses have also supported these rulings.
The gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Volkmer] may proceed in order.
Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to continue to say that
it is just not me that is being gagged, it is everbody out in the
public, the media, everybody else in this whole country. Nobody knows
what is in that report, and you are never going to know what is in that
report because they are not going to let you have it.

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