[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 40 (Wednesday, April 1, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E546-E547]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                             ETHICS REFORM

                                 ______
                                 

                          HON. LEE H. HAMILTON

                               of indiana

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, April 1, 1998

  Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert my Washington 
Report for Wednesday, April 1, 1998 into the Congressional Record.

                          House Ethics Reform

       Many Americans believe that Members of Congress have low 
     ethics standards and that the overall level of ethics and 
     honesty in politics has been falling over the years. Although 
     most observers of Congress would say the opposite, the public 
     remains unconvinced and broadly dissatisfied with ethics 
     standards of Members.
       Congressional ethics is one area where I have seen a great 
     amount of changes since I have been in Congress. I've seen 
     periods of enormous progress, but also, in recent years, have 
     seen the entire process bog down in intense partisanship. 
     Clearly we need to give greater attention to improving House 
     ethics.


                        History of House Ethics

       The House has the responsibility under the Constitution to 
     police its membership, as Article I authorizes each house of 
     Congress to ``punish its Members for disorderly behavior and, 
     with the concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member''. This is 
     an important responsibility because our system of 
     representative democracy depends upon the confidence of the 
     people in the integrity of their elected representatives.
       The first disciplinary action against a Member was in 1798, 
     when a vote to expel a Member for spitting on another 
     narrowly failed. From then until the late 1960s, when the 
     House became more active in ethics reform, the House took 
     disciplinary action against Members only about thirty times, 
     with the offenses ranging from dueling and treason to 
     inserting obscene material into the Congressional Record. 
     Typically the House acted only on the most obvious cases of 
     official wrongdoing, leaving many other transgressions up to 
     the voters to weigh at election time.
       When I came to Congress in 1965 there was no House ethics 
     committee and no written code of conduct for Members. Members 
     could accept any gift given by special interests, receive 
     large sums of money at ``testimonial dinners'', and convert 
     campaign funds to personal use. Members were rarely punished 
     for personal corruption, and it was common for lobbyists to 
     walk around Congress with envelopes of cash in their pockets 
     to hand out to lawmakers. All that changed beginning in the 
     late 1960s, when, prompted by a series of embarrassing 
     scandals, the House created an ethics committee (the 
     Standards of Official Conduct Committee), set up a tough Code 
     of Conduct for Members, and began policing its membership in 
     a more rigorous manner. The Code set up at that time is 
     essentially the one we have today. I was pleased to have been 
     involved in those efforts to improve House ethics.
       Yet in recent years the system has fallen on harder times. 
     Starting in the late 1980s,

[[Page E547]]

     we have seen intense politicization of the ethics process, 
     with Members increasingly using ethics charges against other 
     Members as a way of waging political warfare. House 
     conservatives lodged ethics charges against then-Speaker Jim 
     Wright and pursued them doggedly, leading to his resignation. 
     Last Congress, in what many saw as ``payback time'', Speaker 
     Gingrich faced extensive legal and ethical charges from House 
     critics, resulting in a reprimand and large fine. Under the 
     intense partisanship, the entire House ethics process almost 
     broke down and a moratorium was placed on new ethics cases.


                             What's Needed

       The House has shown in the past that it is able to mount 
     serious efforts to improve its ethics system. I believe that 
     such an effort is needed now.
       First, we need to depoliticize the process. Although this 
     will be difficult to do, given the lingering hard feelings on 
     both sides of the aisle, we need clear signals from the party 
     leaders that bringing frivolous charges against another 
     Member for political purposes will not be tolerated. In 
     addition, the Standards Committee could issue a formal 
     criticism of Members who make such charges. I also believe we 
     need to involve outsiders more in the ethics process to 
     depoliticize it and defuse tensions. For example, the 
     Standards Committee could call upon a panel of private 
     citizens to help investigate charges of misconduct against a 
     Member.
       Second, we need to expand our ``preventive ethics'' 
     efforts. One of the most important roles of the Standards 
     Committee is to try to head off misconduct before it occurs, 
     by providing guidance and advisory opinions for Members about 
     which specific actions would violate House ethics rules. The 
     Committee has recently undertaken some important steps along 
     these lines, by sending ethics notices to every congressional 
     office. Such efforts need to be continued and expanded.
       Third, we should simplify and clarify the House ethics 
     rules. Recent changes, for example, have made the House gift 
     rule more than ten pages long, which no one can understand. 
     The Code of Conduct works best when it reflects broad, basic 
     standards of good conduct, with the Committee providing more 
     detailed guidance when specific questions arise. We should 
     also make it clearer that core standards, such as the duty of 
     Members to at all times reflect credit on the House, lie at 
     the heart of the Code, and that our ethics standards are 
     higher than simply whether or not some action was illegal.
       Fourth, we need to adopt some needed ethics reforms. The 
     public is rightly concerned about practices allowed under the 
     current House ethics rules which call into question the 
     integrity of the legislative process, such as Members being 
     allowed to accept expensive trips from groups with a direct 
     interest in legislation before Congress. Changes are also 
     needed in our campaign finance system, which the public 
     widely perceives as corrupting.
       Fifth, we need to broaden the conception of ethical conduct 
     for Members. Most of the rules in the Code of Conduct deal 
     with financial matters, for example, Members not accepting 
     gifts or converting campaign funds to personal use. But the 
     public is more concerned about a broader range of ethical 
     action--whether Members level with their constituents, 
     whether they keep their promises once in office, and whether 
     they keep their constituents' interests most at heart. Some 
     years ago the House passed a resolution, since technically 
     expired, called the Code of Ethics for Government Service, 
     which did contain broader standards and emphasized that 
     ``public office is a public trust.'' These standards should 
     be added to the Code of Conduct, and the Committee should 
     publicize adherence to these principles.
       Finally, we need to improve public understanding of House 
     ethics. As Congress observers note, media coverage of Members 
     is usually spotty unless there is a scandal or wrongdoing to 
     be reported. The vast majority of Members are honest, 
     conscientious, and genuinely trying to address the nation's 
     problems. But the public too often doesn't hear that side. 
     Those who care deeply about the institution of Congress need 
     to not just speak out about its problems but also speak out 
     about what's good about Congress and its Members.

     

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