[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 49 (Thursday, April 21, 2005)]
[House]
[Page H2398]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              HOUSE ETHICS

  (Mr. PALLONE asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. PALLONE. Madam Speaker, since the beginning of the year, the 
House Republican leadership has worked to undermine the ethics process 
here in the House. First, the leadership floated an ethics proposal 
that would have allowed members of its leadership to continue to serve 
in leadership if they were indicted. Now under the weakened rules, the 
new chairman of the committee says he will conduct an investigation of 
one of the Republican leaders.
  The American people should not be fooled. The leadership rushed 
through a new rule that ends ethics complaints after 45 days. And then 
the Republican leadership purged the committee of three members who 
were not always willing to toe the party line. And then they replaced 
them with party loyalists.
  The Republican majority has weakened the ethics rules to the point 
that they are meaningless. The Republican leaders have gone to extreme 
lengths to protect one of their own. And now they are trying to deceive 
the American people into believing that a real investigation would 
actually take place.
  That is a farce.

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