[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 135 (Thursday, September 26, 1996)]
[House]
[Page H11365]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE ACCOMPLISHMENTS OF THE LAST TWO YEARS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Colorado [Mr. McInnis] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. McINNIS. Mr. Speaker, I am a little concerned that some of the 
politics of a political season, and that is certainly not unusual, will 
overshadow the accomplishments of the last two years in this body. I 
think it is important this evening that we go over a few of those 
accomplishments, because in my opinion what has been done in this 
Congress, in a lot of cases on a bipartisan basis, is the most 
significant changes that we have seen in this body in a long, long 
time.
  Let me begin by addressing, first of all, the management of the House 
of Representatives. There are several critical issues that under the 
Republican leadership changed two years ago.
  First of all, the United States Congress now must live under the same 
laws that the citizens of this country have to live under. It was 
amazing that the United States Congress, in the preceding years, would 
put laws on the American people but exempt this body from those laws. 
This leadership, under the new management team, also eliminated proxy 
voting. I am from the mountains in Colorado. I could be enjoying the 
mountains of Colorado while my vote was being cast back here in this 
body. That is not right. That is why we changed it. Our opinion is that 
if you are elected to the United States House of Representatives, you 
are expected to be here and to vote in person.
  We brought about congressional gift reform. We brought about lobbying 
disclosure. I would add that while all these changes came about, mostly 
with bipartisan support, it was through the leadership of the 
Republican Party that got them here. These changes could have been made 
at any time in the last 40 years, but they were not.
  We had the first vote ever on this House floor on term limitations. 
We cut congressional staff by a third, and we eliminated and abolished 
three full committees. We have not abolished three full committees in 
one period of time, I think, this century.
  We did something else for the first time in the history of the United 
States House of Representatives, we had the books audited. As you can 
imagine, the books in this House, which have never been audited in the 
history of this House, were, in my opinion, a big financial mess. We 
now are demanding that the United States Congress run its own house, 
its own fiscal house just the same as our constituents are expected to 
run theirs.
  We opened all committee hearings to the public. Most of the States 
that we represent have sunshine laws within their State. Their 
legislators have to have their meetings in the public, not so with the 
United States Congress. We changed that. In fact, I think the only real 
closed committee hearings that we have had are, one, the Ethics 
Committee, and, two, the Select Committee on Intelligence.
  We cut spending in the United States Congress for two years in a row. 
We did a lot of this. We put in a line item veto. That was not just 
talk. I can tell you that it is not necessarily to the political 
advantage of a Republican to give a Democratic President a line item 
veto. But do you know what, it is to the benefit of this country. The 
President, regardless of his party affiliation, needs a line item veto 
in order to manage the budget of this country. We give it to him.
  Let us talk about some issues outside these halls that we changed. 
Welfare reform, it ends the entitlement status of welfare. It uses a 
four letter word called ``work.'' It establishes work requirements for 
recipients when welfare is no longer required. It provides incentives 
to reduce illegitimacy. It helps on child support, collection of child 
support, a huge problem in this country.

  We can talk about Megan's law. It was this Congress that put Megan's 
law into effect so that when a sexual abuser moves into a community, 
that community has a right to know about it.
  These are very significant changes. We have made a number of changes 
in health care legislation, and we have made a number of budgetary 
changes. What you hear about, of course, the close down or this or 
that, but through it all, once you get through all of that cloud and 
through all that smoke, you will see a Congress that finally is 
accepting fiscal responsibility, that has come a long way.
  This is a government that adds to its deficit at a rate of $30 
million an hour. It is about time that a Congress with some leadership 
stood up to this. That is exactly what has happened.
  I think that all of us, as I said, because a lot of these votes were 
taken, were passed with bipartisan support, I think a lot of us in this 
body have a lot to be proud. While we go out there in the election 
year, I do not think that election year politics should overshadow the 
accomplishments of this Congress. We have a long ways to go. The 
American people demand it. The American people are entitled to it. But 
we have done ourselves proud.

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