[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 2 (Thursday, January 9, 1997)]
[House]
[Page H80]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            THE ETHICS CASE PENDING AGAINST SPEAKER GINGRICH

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Boehner] is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from California just finished 
talking about the ethics case that is currently pending against the 
Speaker of the House.
  Over a week ago, in a bipartisan fashion, the members of the Ethics 
Committee, five Democrats and five Republicans, came to an agreement 
that this case would be completed on or before January 21st of this 
year and that the case would be brought to the floor of the House 
before then. That was an agreement made by the 10 members of the Ethics 
Committee. I think what happened earlier this week when the House 
reorganized itself is that we confirmed that agreement.
  Subsequent to then, members of half of the committee, the Democrat 
side, have decided that they need more time. We believe that that 
agreement should in fact be kept. Further, the committee agreed 
yesterday that for the first time in the history of the Congress, that 
there would be an open hearing on an ethics case, primarily because the 
Speaker of the House, the gentleman from Georgia [Mr. Gingrich], agreed 
to do that. So next week there will be up to 5 days of open hearings 
for the American people to watch on C-Span, other media outlets, to see 
the facts.
  The Ethics Committee here in the Congress, in the process that they 
follow, is really bifurcated. Over the last 6 months there has been a 
subcommittee of the Ethics Committee look at the Gingrich case, two 
Democrats and two Republicans. The Speaker has voluntarily turned over 
over 50,000 pages of information to the committee. This subcommittee 
has done its work in a bipartisan fashion. It is the subcommittee that 
is going to now report to the full committee its findings. They have 
issued a preliminary report outlining their findings to the Members and 
to the full Ethics Committee. So next week there will be ample 
opportunity for all of the Members and the American people to 
understand the facts about the case if they need to know any more than 
what they have already heard.
  I think that by January 21 the House will be in a position to make a 
decision on how to proceed from there.

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