[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 30 (Wednesday, March 10, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H1008-H1009]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                            REVOLVING DOORS

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bradley of New Hampshire). Under the 
Speaker's announced policy of January 7, 2003, the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 60 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I do not plan to use the entire hour, but I 
did want to come to the floor tonight to discuss a troubling issue that 
seems to be becoming more and more rampant within the Bush 
administration and within the back rooms of the Congressional 
Republican Caucus, and that is the revolving door of powerful lobbyists 
turning in their corporate lobbying cards in order to undermine the 
programs they are supposed to strengthen within the administration, a 
revolving door where Republican congressional staffers leave Capitol 
Hill, but continue to advertise their relationship with their former 
Republican boss, relationships they claim can get their clients 
anything they want with Republican legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, before I get into that discussion, I want to talk about 
another revolving door, this one at the White House and Camp David. 
Today the Associated Press reports that President Bush opened the White 
House and Camp David to dozens of overnight guests last year, including 
at least nine of his biggest campaign fund-raisers. According to the 
Associated Press, more than 270 people have stayed at the White House 
since President Bush took office with at least the same number spending 
the night at Camp David. The President appears to be opening the White 
House and Camp David to the highest bidders.
  Members may remember the controversy surrounding President Clinton 
and how he allowed guests to spend the night in the Lincoln bedroom. 
Republicans came to the floor and were aghast at that. At the time, 
candidate Bush also expressed his outrage over what he said was 
happening at the White House. In fact, during a debate with Al Gore in 
2000, then-candidate Bush stated, ``I believe they have moved that sign 
`The buck stops here' from the Oval Office desk to `The buck stops 
here' on the Lincoln bedroom, and that is not good for the country.''
  Today, the Associated Press article clearly shows that President Bush 
has changed his tune. The story lists nine of Bush's biggest fund-
raisers either sleeping over at the White House or at Camp David.
  First, there is Mercer Reynolds, an Ohio financier, who is leading 
Bush's campaign fund-raising effort. He stayed at both the White House 
and Camp David. Then there was Brad Freeman, a venture capitalist who 
is leading Bush's California fund-raising effort, and he has raised at 
least $200,000 for President Bush's re-election campaign. Freeman also 
stayed overnight at the White House.
  Then there is William DeWitt, who also raised at least $200,000, and 
who also spent the night at the White House. The list continues. I do 
not want to take up my whole hour, so I am not going to go over the 
whole list.
  Over the last 3 years, the President's credibility has been tested 
from creating jobs to the issue of whether or not Iraq had weapons of 
mass destruction; and now we learn that President Bush, who sharply 
criticized President Clinton's actions in allowing people to stay 
overnight in the Lincoln bedroom, is doing exactly the same thing. Nine 
of his largest contributors have spent the night at the White House or 
Camp David. As a candidate, Bush criticized these same actions.
  Mr. Speaker, the door at both Camp David and the White House 
continues revolving with President Bush's campaign contributors coming 
in and out. And as President Bush said, the buck does not stop at his 
desk. The buck stops with these campaign contributors as the President 
opens the White House and Camp David to the highest bidder.
  Mr. Speaker, since President Bush entered the White House more than 3 
years ago, the buck has also been passed to administrators who have 
acted in the best interests of the corporate interest rather than the 
best interest of the American people. On Valentine's Day, the gentleman 
from California (Mr. George Miller), who is the co-chair of the 
Democratic Policy Committee, released a 21-page report that was titled 
``How the Republicans Have Turn the Government Over to Special 
Interests.'' In the report of the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller) he stated, ``Pick almost any issue of public concern, water 
quality, food safety, defense contracts, pension security or health 
insurance, and you will find that at every level of the Bush 
administration, powerful roles and key agencies have been turned over 
to industry advocates who in many cases have long opposed the very 
programs they are now charged with implementing.''
  Imagine that, the Bush administration has appointed former industry 
officials to run national programs that they oppose. Let me give a few 
examples from the report of the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller).
  The first one I would like to mention is when President Bush 
appointed David Lauriski, the Assistant Secretary for Mine Health and 
Safety at the Department of Labor. Lauriski's background was 30 years 
in the coal industry. No wonder last June Lauriski's department issued 
controversial industry-friendly regulations that would cut down the 
amount of coal dust testing in mines. In addition to promoting 
industry-friendly regulations at the expense of miners' health, the 
report cites a whistle-blower in Lauriski's department who alleged in a 
complaint that Lauriski awarded no-bid contracts to former business 
associates and friends and that he pressured investigators to approve 
an inaccurate report on the devastating coal slurry spill in Kentucky. 
This is the guy that President Bush appointed to supposedly ensure that 
miners working in coal mines around our Nation are safe.

  Another example from the report of the gentleman from California (Mr. 
George Miller) is when President Bush appointed William Hansen as the 
Deputy Secretary of Education where he was in charge of, among other 
things, overseeing the department's direct college loan program which 
competes with private lenders. You ask where was William Hansen before 
he joined the Bush administration. Well, Hansen served as CEO of a 
trade group representing private lenders, and he founded a PAC that 
gave contributions to Federal candidates who favored private lenders 
over the department's direct loan program.

[[Page H1009]]

  Even worse, Hansen testified before Congress against the direct loan 
program; and yet somehow President Bush determined that he was the 
perfect person to run the direct loan program. Based on Hansen's past, 
we should not be surprised that on his watch the Education Department 
cut off marketing for the direct loan program and stopped competing for 
new schools to offer the direct loans. The Bush administration even 
proposed selling the direct loan portfolio to private lenders.
  After weakening the direct loan program, Hansen left the Bush 
administration last July to become the managing director of education 
services for the Affiliated Computer Services, an information 
technology business that specializes in outsourcing solutions to 
commercial and government clients. Four months later, that company was 
awarded a $2 billion contract from the Department of Education.
  Mr. Speaker, these are just two examples, not even a half page, in 
this 21-page report that the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller) put together. There are many other examples that probably will 
be brought to the floor or discussed further on other nights.
  Within the Bush administration, it is clear that a revolving door has 
been created in which corporate leaders come in and work for the 
administration for a period of time, weakening popular laws that 
benefit the American people.
  Unfortunately, this revolving door does not only exist within the 
Bush administration. It also exists here within the Republican majority 
in the House of Representatives, and it should stop. The revolving door 
within the Republican majority is becoming so widespread if you picked 
up the newspapers the last week or so, you would think that was the 
only thing going on up here on Capitol Hill.
  There was a front page story in last Thursday's Roll Call, which is 
the Capitol Hill newspaper, one of the Capitol Hill newspapers. The 
first headline in last Thursday's Roll Call read, ``Revolving Door 
Snags Hill Aide.'' There is a subheading, ``Taylor Staffer Negotiated 
Lobby Contract While on House Payroll.''
  Roll Call reports that Robert France, the former top aide to the 
gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor), negotiated a $60,000 
lobbying deal on House time. The negotiations came 2 months after the 
aide was able to secure a $750,000 appropriations projected earmarked 
to his boss.
  This revolving door, my question is, Where does it end? Ken Gross, an 
ethics and campaign finance lawyer told Roll Call, ``People are 
certainly able to seek jobs, cashing in on their background and 
experience on the Hill.'' Gross continued to say, ``If there is 
evidence of this person working as a staffer on legislation that would 
especially benefit this company while he is talking to them about going 
to work for them, that would be troubling.'' Yet that is what seems to 
go on.
  Going back to the front page of last Thursday's Roll Call, there is 
another headline that says, ``McCain Seeks Files in Abramoff Probe.'' 
This article surrounds actions first discovered by The Washington Post 
several weeks ago in which the paper discovered Jack Abramoff, a White 
House lobbyist, and Michael Scanlon, a former aide to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. DeLay), persuading several Indian tribes to pay their 
firms more than $45 million over the past 3 years. Senator McCain is 
now investigating these payments.
  The Scanlon-Abramoff investigation is a perfect example of how 
Scanlon used his relationship with his former boss, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. DeLay), the majority leader, to influence legislation. When 
Republican Leader DeLay was asked about how both men promote their ties 
to him, he stated, ``I have no idea how their operation is or what it 
is.'' DeLay continued, ``What I can tell you is that if anybody is 
trading on my name to get clients or to make money, that is wrong and 
they should stop it immediately.''
  Mr. Speaker, that is an interesting statement. I wish it were true. 
However, we have to consider that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) 
has played an instrumental role in the K Street Project, a database 
that tracks the party affiliation, Hill experience, and political 
giving of every single lobbyist here in Washington. The K Street 
Project was featured in a July 2003 edition of the Washington Monthly, 
and the article stated back in 1995 that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
DeLay) compiled a list of the 400 political action committees, along 
with the amounts and percentages of money that had recently been given 
to each party. Lobbyists were then invited into the office of the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) and shown their place in friendly or 
unfriendly columns.

                              {time}  2030

  A veteran steel lobbyist told Washington Monthly that the House 
Republican leadership ``assembled several large company CEOs and made 
it clear to them that they were expected to purge their Washington 
offices of Democrats and replace them with Republicans.'' The House 
Republican leaders also demanded more campaign money and help for the 
upcoming election. According to the article, the meeting descended into 
a shouting match and the CEOs, most of them Republicans, stormed out of 
the meeting.
  The gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) essentially is telling lobbying 
firms around Washington whom they can and cannot hire. He also has 
worked hard to place former aides in key lobbying and trade positions. 
The practice is so well known that these former aides are known as 
``graduates of the DeLay school.'' And yet, with a straight face, the 
majority leader tells reporters, ``If anybody is trading on my name to 
get clients or make money, that is wrong and they should stop 
immediately.'' Well, it does not seem to be very believable.
  Tonight, as I said, I have been talking about a revolving door, a 
door that swings for the Republican corporate interests but shuts in 
front of everyday Americans. Whether it be the President opening rooms 
in the White House and Camp David to the highest bidder, or the 
administration hiring many of its key officials to advocate on behalf 
of policies they have opposed in the past, or the questionable actions 
of former Republican staffers who are functioning in a climate created 
by the majority leader, it is just unacceptable.
  I know that the media has been paying a lot of attention to this, and 
I think it is important that we bring it out. I do not want people to 
think that this is always the case, but it certainly is a strong 
indication that the President and the Republican leadership in the 
Congress have been essentially involved with this revolving door for 
some time, and let us just hope it does not get any worse.

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