[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 55 (Wednesday, May 6, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H2923-H2924]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  2320
 FAULTY PROCEDURES OF THE COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM AND OVERSIGHT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Kanjorski) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. KANJORSKI. Mr. Speaker, I know the hour is late. It is a pleasure 
to follow my good friend from Michigan (Mr. Conyers), the former 
chairman of the House Operations Committee, now the Committee on 
Government Reform and Oversight of the House of Representatives.
  On the same issue that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) 
recently addressed the House on, I would just like to spell out some of 
my thoughts in regards to the exercise of the authority of the 
committee and the chairing of the committee, particularly in the last 
several months.
  Mr. Speaker, the House of Representatives, in passing the resolution 
directing the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight to examine 
the election practices in the presidential and congressional elections 
of 1996, invested in the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight a 
very unusual power and instruction. I dare say, although this was a 
political issue from the standpoint it involved political campaigns and 
supposedly both parties that were engaged in the campaign of 1996, my 
observations were that both on the majority and the minority side, 
originally there was some expression of intent to do a serious, 
credible investigation and examination; not a persecution or a 
politically motivated investigation, but something that would give 
insight to the Members of this House and to the American people of a 
very serious problem, and that problem is the prostitution of the 
American political system and campaigns, which is fast overwhelming 
this Nation as experienced in 1996.
  As we met to organize and to identify our mission, it seemed that 
very early on many of us on the minority side of the committee were 
fast realizing that there was an extraordinary power, the power of 
subpoena that was going to be vested in the Chairman without the need 
for clearing a subpoena through the ranking member or to going to the 
full committee that would normally have some input in the exercise of 
the issuance of a subpoena. I thought that was strange, and to my own 
mind and to others I remarked at the time that as a result of this 
unusual power being vested in the chairman, he would become the most 
powerful American citizen in the United States. No other individual in 
the United States could, by merely signing a subpoena, command the 
presence, the records, the examination of all of the personal papers of 
any American citizen.
  We cautioned the chairman that it may be wise to carry on prior 
practices, both of the Committee of Oversight and Investigation, and 
the experiences of the Watergate committee, the Thompson committee in 
the Senate, and that was that when an individual is going to be issued 
a subpoena, it should come to the full committee to be disclosed, or at 
least to the ranking member so that a discussion can be had; and when 
agreement was reached, the subpoena would issue. If there was 
disagreement, it would come to the full committee and the full 
committee would cast a vote with the majority of the committee 
controlling the outcome as to whether the subpoena should issue.
  Instead of doing that, the chairman received, without limitation, by 
vote of the majority of the committee, that he in his own right, 
without consultation and without consent from the committee, and 
without contest by the rest of the committee, could issue at will 
subpoenas to many citizens in the country.
  Mr. Speaker, I think nearly 1,000 such subpoenas were issued. Some of 
them were so grossly and improperly issued that because the surname of 
the individual who was named in the subpoena was of Chinese American 
origin, there was a professor at the University of Georgetown that had 
his bank records seized, even though he had nothing to do with the 
campaign and was, in fact, an entirely different person. We called that 
very strongly to

[[Page H2924]]

the attention of the chairman and he dismissed that.
  About 5 months ago, we had a vote to immunize six witnesses before 
the committee. At that time we were assured that they would offer 
testimony that was necessary to the committee. In fact, that 
immunization of those witnesses allowed an individual to escape 
prosecution by getting immunity from that committee

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