[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 10 (Wednesday, February 1, 2006)]
[House]
[Pages H29-H37]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


      ELIMINATING FLOOR PRIVILEGES OF FORMER MEMBERS AND OFFICERS

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the 
resolution (H.Res. 648) to eliminate floor privileges and access to 
Member exercise facilities for registered lobbyists who are former 
Members or officers of the House.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                              H. Res. 648

       Resolved,

     SECTION 1. FLOOR PRIVILEGES OF FORMER MEMBERS AND OFFICERS.

       Clause 4 of rule IV of the Rules of the House of 
     Representatives is amended to read as follows:
       ``4. (a) A former Member, Delegate, or Resident 
     Commissioner; a former Parliamentarian of the House; or a 
     former elected officer of the House or former minority 
     employee nominated as an elected officer of the House shall 
     not be entitled to the privilege of admission to the Hall of 
     the House and rooms leading thereto if he or she--
       ``(1) is a registered lobbyist or agent of a foreign 
     principal as those terms are defined in clause 5 of rule XXV;
       ``(2) has any direct personal or pecuniary interest in any 
     legislative measure pending before the House or reported by a 
     committee; or
       ``(3) is in the employ of or represents any party or 
     organization for the purpose of influencing, directly or 
     indirectly, the passage, defeat, or amendment of any 
     legislative proposal.
       ``(b) The Speaker may promulgate regulations that exempt 
     ceremonial or educational functions from the restrictions of 
     this clause.''.

     SEC. 2. PROHIBITING ACCESS TO MEMBER EXERCISE FACILITIES FOR 
                   LOBBYISTS WHO ARE FORMER MEMBERS OR OFFICERS.

       (a) In General.--The House of Representatives may not 
     provide access to any exercise facility which is made 
     available exclusively to Members and former Members, officers 
     and former officers of the House of Representatives, and 
     their spouses to any former Member, former officer, or spouse 
     who is a lobbyist registered under the Lobbying Disclosure 
     Act of 1995 or any successor statute or agent of a foreign 
     principal as defined in clause 5 of rule XXV. For purposes of 
     this section, the term ``Member of the House of 
     Representatives'' includes a Delegate or Resident 
     Commissioner to the Congress.
       (b) Regulations.--The Committee on House Administration 
     shall promulgate regulations to carry out this section.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Dreier) and the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. 
Slaughter) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from California.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, a parliamentary inquiry, if I might. Because 
of the State of the Union last night, and we always have the tradition 
of lots of former Members, I have two or three parliamentary inquiries 
that I would like to ask about the rules of the House governing this 
debate today.
  Under rule IV, clause 4, if I might read it, because I think most 
Members may not have looked at this in a while: ``former Members, 
Delegates and Resident Commissioners; former Parliamentarians of the 
House; and former elected officers and minority employees nominated and 
elected as officers of the House shall be entitled to the privileges of 
admission to the Hall of the House and rooms leading thereto only if,
  ``(1) they do not have any direct personal or pecuniary interest in 
any legislative measure pending before the House or reported by a 
committee; and,
  ``(2) they are not in the employ of or do not represent any party or 
organization for the purpose of influencing, directly or indirectly, 
the passage, defeat or amendment of any legislative measure pending 
before the House reported by a committee or under consideration in any 
of its committees or subcommittees.''
  In Mr. Dreier's proposal today, it specifically includes all 
registered lobbyists, any former Members that are registered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. What is the gentleman's inquiry?
  Mr. SNYDER. My inquiry is this: Under the current rules that we are 
operating under today, do the rules prohibit any registered lobbyist 
who is a former Member from being on the floor of the House today or in 
the rooms adjoining thereto?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under certain circumstances, yes.
  Does the gentleman have another inquiry?
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I would like a further amplification on 
that. Clearly, a registered lobbyist, since Mr. Dreier's legislation 
specifically refers to registered lobbyists, who are former Members, 
have a direct personal interest in this legislation pending today. I am 
not sure how that application, perhaps I have not been clear in my 
question, how a registered lobbyist who is a former Member could be on 
the House floor today when Mr. Dreier's legislation specifically 
involves registered lobbyists who are former Members.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. What is the gentleman's inquiry?
  Mr. SNYDER. My inquiry is: Are those Members, former Members, who are 
registered lobbyists, are they not under current rules prohibited from 
being on the floor today because they would have, obviously, a personal 
interest in this, the intent of Mr. Dreier's bill?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Would the gentleman restate his question.
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, my question is: If a former Member, who is 
currently a registered lobbyist, may that former Member, who is 
currently a former lobbyist, be on the floor today during the 
consideration of this bill?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Such a former Member should not be on the 
floor given the pendency of this motion.
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, that is what my understanding was.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Does the gentleman have another inquiry?
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I do. Under the rules that I just read, it 
refers to the Hall of the House and rooms leading thereto. I assume 
that means the Speaker's Lobby and the two cloakrooms. Is that the 
Speaker's interpretation of that rule?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is correct. It also includes 
the Rayburn Room, just off the House floor.
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, my third parliamentary inquiry, under 
current rules, I see no exemption, under the current rule, for any kind 
of an educational function to occur during the consideration of this 
measure; is that correct?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is correct.
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, my fourth parliamentary inquiry, this bill 
is now under our suspension calendar. Is it the Speaker's ruling that 
no amendments are allowed to broaden the application of this rule?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman is correct.
  The gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) may proceed.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking my friend from Arkansas for 
pointing to some of the important aspects of this legislation.
  We are committed to bold, strong, dynamic reform for this 
institution. The Republican Party, Mr. Speaker, has stood for reform 
ever since I can remember. When I was in the minority, we had the 
privilege of working on the Joint Committee on the Organization of 
Congress, and that committee made a wide range of recommendations that 
would have focused on improving the deliberative nature of this 
institution, the transparency that is necessary, and the 
accountability. Unfortunately, when we Republicans were in the 
minority, they were not implemented. When we won the majority in 1994, 
we proceeded with very sweeping reforms which focused on lobbying and a 
wide range of other areas.
  I have always argued, Mr. Speaker, that when we are completed with 
reforms, what we should do is proceed with more reform; and it needs to 
be done in a way in which we recognize the deliberative nature of this 
institution. I love this institution, Mr. Speaker. I proudly describe 
myself as an institutionalist. But we have a problem that needs to be 
addressed.
  We have just begun this process of beginning the reforms for the 
Second Session of the 109th Congress. We have been working on reforms 
in the past session of Congress and in Congresses before that, but 
today we begin the work following the President's great State of the 
Union message on the issue of reform; and that is why this measure that 
we are moving forward with is one that we believe is very important, 
very transparent and gets at a problem that does exist.

[[Page H30]]

  The fact of the matter is, every single American has the 
constitutional right to petition their government. It is a precious 
right that we need to protect, and we need to do everything possible to 
ensure that every American can in fact come to their elected 
representative and state their opinion.
  Concern has come forward from a number of Members, and this has 
existed really since the beginning of time, or since the beginning of 
this institution, where we have now seen former Members who are 
registered lobbyists come to the House floor and engage in lobbying 
activity. It is against the rules, it is not supposed to happen, but in 
fact it has happened. That is why this resolution is designed to 
ensure, Mr. Speaker, that former Members of Congress who are registered 
lobbyists do not have any kind of advantage over the average American 
when it comes to access to Members of the United States House of 
Representatives.
  This resolution is clear. It says for the House of Representatives, 
the House floor and the gym, that former Members of Congress are not 
able, if they are registered lobbyists, to have access there. We 
believe that this is a concern that needs to be addressed; and I hope 
very much that we will be able to, as I have been very pleased in the 
past several weeks to work in a bipartisan way on the passage of this 
measure.
  Let me state, Mr. Speaker, that this is the first step in our process 
of greater reform. My friend from Arkansas has come forward with some 
very interesting ideas. He testified before the Rules Committee. I will 
say to him right now that I am very happy and pleased to look at the 
proposals that he has offered and consider them legislatively.
  This is the first day of the Second Session of the 109th Congress, 
but there are a wide range of reforms that Speaker Hastert and I and 
others have proposed. There are a wide range of reforms that have been 
proposed by our colleagues on the other side of the aisle.
  So I am convinced we can, in a bipartisan way, work to increase the 
level of transparency and make sure that there is a greater degree of 
accountability to this institution. This step is one that we can begin 
with; and it is one that should enjoy, as I said, strong bipartisan 
support.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1315

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, just over a year ago, on the very first 
day of the last session of Congress, I stood on the floor and watched 
the Republican majority force through a new set of House rules, rules 
designed to destroy the House Ethics Committee and to protect the 
leadership and their Members from any measure of real accountability.
  And ironically they called it an ethics reform package. As a result 
of that package we still do not have a working ethics committee today.
  On that day the word ``corruption'' became synonymous with Congress 
in the minds of many of the American people. 2005 went on to be a year 
defined by corruption in a way never before seen. The magnitude of the 
Republican culture of corruption overwhelming this House has only been 
exceeded by the high cost of that corruption for every man, woman and 
child in this country.
  From the Medicare legislation affecting the health of our seniors, to 
the safety of our troops in Iraq, to the energy bills that determine if 
families can afford to heat their homes during the winter and drive 
their cars, nothing has proved too precious to avoid being sold for a 
price.
  But despite this shameful record today, the Republican majority asks 
us to believe they have now seen the light and they are suddenly 
committed to producing an ethical Congress. And so we are opening this 
year with another ethics rules change.
  It is a reform that I support, because the stranglehold lobbyists 
have over our process is indeed a tremendous problem facing our Nation.
  The fact that there are 34,000 registered lobbyists in Washington 
today, 63 for each Member of Congress, demonstrates just how much power 
special interests wield in this Congress. And clearly, former Members 
of this body who lobby should not have special access to lawmakers on 
the floor or the gym.
  But let me be clear, that this rules change is so minor in relation 
to the magnitude of the problem that it does not amount to a drop in 
the ocean. In fact, I suspect it is illegal already.
  First, we know that they should not be here, but we have ignored that 
rule and done nothing to enforce it. But more importantly, shifting the 
blame for the rampant corruption in Washington only to lobbyists is 
part of an effort to avoid the central issue.
  Corrupt lobbyists like Jack Abramoff have done much harm to this 
country, but they can only be as corrupt as those in power allow them 
to be. Let me say that again. They have done a lot to harm the country, 
but they can only be as corrupt as those in power allow them to be.
  A true responsibility for corruption begins and ends here in this 
Chamber with those who pull the strings. Lobbyists are simply the 
symptom. The disease is here. Because after all, lobbyists are writing 
the bills that come out of this House because the Republican leadership 
wanted it that way. House rules are being ignored and our ethics 
process destroyed because the Republican leadership wants it that way.
  We now have a government that is too corrupt to sustain itself any 
longer, too undemocratic to even pretend to be a democracy. We simply 
cannot allow Band-aid packages like the one presented today to take the 
place of real reform. It is self-evident now that those who put America 
up for sale have neither the ability nor the credibility to lead us in 
a new direction.
  It is going to take a lot more than preventing former Members from 
going to the House gym to produce an ethical Congress. If we ever hope 
to restore true democracy to our government, it is going to take a 
fundamental change in the culture of this institution, one devoutly to 
be wished and felt and certainly a thing that we will work hard for on 
this side.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to my good friend and 
classmate, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), the distinguished 
chairman of the Committee on Financial Services.
  (Mr. OXLEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. OXLEY. Mr. Speaker, I have no particular problem with dealing 
with former Member/lobbyists on the floor of the House. This is where 
we do our business. The rule frankly has always been that there is no 
lobbying on the floor of the House. And, frankly, in 24 plus years 
here, I have never had that experience, even since I have been 
committee chairman. So to some extent we are somewhat tilting at 
windmills.
  My big concern really is what the message is in terms of Members, 
former Members who are lobbyists in the wellness center, as we call it. 
I happen to chair that, and I have been for a number of years, one of 
the last vestiges of bipartisanship and camaraderie in this institution 
that many of us share, many times with former Members who have 
continually been members of the wellness center and have come down and 
enjoyed the camaraderie, the exercise.
  Not once in that time have I been lobbied, nor have I heard any 
complaints since I have been chairman of the wellness center about 
lobbying taking place. I think it is a perhaps unwritten rule. Maybe it 
ought to be a written rule, but to ban these distinguished former 
Members that we all served with on both sides of the aisle, whether it 
is Lee Hamilton or whether it is Jack Fields or Jack Quinn or Bill 
Archer, former chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, I think really 
does a disservice to this institution, and I am really concerned about 
it.
  Let us take a look at the language of this proposal. It basically 
says if you are a former Member/lobbyist, a Bill Archer or a Jack 
Fields, you are no longer welcome in the wellness center, you can just 
go ahead and clean out your locker. But if you are a convicted felon, 
and not a former Member/lobbyist, you can participate in the wellness 
center. It seems to me rather incongruous and rather upside down 
towards trying to come to grips with some of these alleged problems 
that are out there.

[[Page H31]]

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OXLEY. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, as I said at the outset, I thank my friend 
for yielding, this is the first step in the beginning of the 109th 
Congress second session in dealing with this issue of reform, and we 
are open to making any kind of modification. I will tell you the notion 
of having convicted felons having access to the House floor obviously 
we find that abhorrent, and so I will just assure my friend that that 
is an issue that we are more than happy to address.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. OXLEY. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I do suggest a possible compromise, 
because there is a certain self-interest. Let us be honest among the 
Members. Perhaps the modification could be that any former Member using 
any piece of equipment would have to yield to a current Member.
  Mr. OXLEY. Well, I think the gentleman from Massachusetts makes a 
good point. I think once we start down this slippery slope it is really 
not in the best interests of this institution. And I think, talking to 
Members privately on both sides of the aisle, I think that we have 
clearly overreached here. I have no problem with the floor privileges, 
but the wellness center is a different animal.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan).
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge my colleagues to support 
comprehensive lobbying reform. Over the past few years special 
interests have had a larger and larger say over who gets what in 
America, and the voices of average citizens are being shut out.
  The worst excesses of the Congress of the 1980s pale in comparison 
with what is going on in Washington today. K Street has become 
Congress' back office. That is where the bills are written and the 
deals are made. Lobbyists from the energy companies wrote the energy 
bill to increase their already excessive profits, and lobbyists from 
the pharmaceutical industry wrote the prescription drug bill that 
actually makes it illegal for the Federal Government to buy drugs in 
bulk for the 40 million Americans who are on Medicare.
  Sadly, today's proposal does nothing to address the abuses of power 
that have allowed lobbyists unfettered access to government. Something 
barring former lawmakers, current lobbyists form the gym or the floor 
of the House and calling it lobbying reform is sort of like putting a 
Band-aid on a broken leg. It does not even begin to address the real 
problems that have allowed the system to get so out of control.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. MEEHAN. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I will be happy to yield the gentleman 
additional time if it is necessary. The gentleman was not here on the 
floor when I gave my opening statement, and from the private 
conversation that you and I have had, I would like to again state for 
the record, Mr. Speaker, that this is simply a first step in dealing 
with the issue of comprehensive reform of the lobbying and ethics 
process to which my friend referred.
  I would like to for the record say that. I thank my friend for 
yielding.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working on bipartisan 
lobbying reform, but it is seems to me pretty clear that we need real 
lobbying reform. There is no reason why, given the discussions we have 
been having across the Capitol over a period of 6 or 8 months now, why 
we cannot come in with a comprehensive proposal and have an opportunity 
to debate it.
  We need to make the process more transparent, through disclosure. We 
need to have tougher restrictions on gifts. We need a tougher 
enforcement program and, most importantly, we need to fix the badly 
broken ethics system. So it seems to me if we are really committed to 
reforming the House, then putting this Band-aid really does not get at 
the crux of the issue.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to 
enter into a colloquy with the gentleman.
  I want to simply say once again, Mr. Speaker, that all of the items 
that he has outlined, whether it is dealing with the issue of a gift 
ban, greater transparency and accountability, looking at the issue of 
privately funded travel, all of these are issues, as the gentleman 
knows and as others know, that Speaker Hastert is committed to 
addressing in a comprehensive way.
  And it is our intention, I hope very much that as we craft 
legislation, that we will be able to do so in a bipartisan way. We felt 
strongly, Mr. Speaker, that at the outset here, as we begin the second 
session of the 109th Congress, that this issue which falls within the 
jurisdiction of the Rules Committee, which I am privileged to chair, 
could be addressed on the opening day to make it clear that we are 
committed to comprehensive reform.
  And so anyone who would lead someone to believe otherwise is just 
plain wrong. So I would simply say to my colleague that I do look 
forward to working. He has very, very creative, good, interesting and 
important ideas in the legislative package that he has put forward, and 
I am committed to looking at every single one of those as we craft our 
legislation.
  I am happy to yield to my friend.
  Mr. MEEHAN. Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear all of that, but the crux 
of the issue here is that there is no way that not allowing former 
Members, for example, to be in the gym and to be on the floor would 
have undone what was done in the energy bill, for example. There is no 
way that that would stop the $8 billion of tax credits for the oil 
industry. There is no way that we would not have passed a Medicare 
prescription drug bill that actually makes it illegal to buy 
prescriptions in bulk if somehow former Members were not allowed to 
come to the floor.
  All I am saying is, while I recognize the fact that this is one of 
the ideas that is out there, we really need to, and I am willing to sit 
down, I would love to work with the majority on this, but we need to 
have comprehensive reform.
  Mr. Speaker, I am worried that by taking little pieces here that 
sound like could be, might be some kind of reform, we miss the crux of 
the issue, which is changing that system that allows legislation at 3 
o'clock in the morning and a vote is left open.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I would simply say that the Republican Party has been 
and continues to be the party of reform. We are committed with this 
first step that we are taking today, with this package, that addresses 
something that is just not right.
  Former Members of Congress, who are registered lobbyists should not 
have access to the floor of the House of Representatives, and that is 
something that we are going to do. It is not a Band-aid. No one is 
arguing that this is comprehensive reform. This is a first step towards 
the large process which will allow us to address the concerns that have 
come forward.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank).
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the problem that we are 
dealing with is exemplified by what we are dealing with today, a bill 
that comes to the floor under suspension of the rules. I do not think 
the party of reform distinguishes itself by bringing up this issue in a 
way that does not allow amendment. Why not bring this to the floor in 
an open rule?
  The fact is that we have had in this House for years now, under 
Republican rule, a suppression of democracy, a failure to throw things 
open. Why was there a necessity to have this under a suspension? Why 
should not this be open?
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, let me just state that the process of suspension of 
rules is a time honored structure that has existed here which requires 
a super majority. This measure will not pass unless two-thirds of the 
Members, a bipartisan coalition of Members, vote in support of it.
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the 
gentleman misses the point entirely. The

[[Page H32]]

question is not whether we pass something, which frankly seems to me 
rather trivial. I am going to vote for it, I think it is better than 
not. It is interesting it took the party of reform, what, 11 years to 
stumble across it.
  But what is important is what is not here. The gentleman 
misunderstands the legislative process if he thinks that he satisfies 
it by saying, okay, we will take one piece of this and we will bring it 
up and we will decide what is up and what is not, and we will open it 
up to debate.
  It is the lack of debate that has been a problem. It is also the 
case, of course, that the corruption we are dealing with goes very 
deep. And I have to say that the suggestion that the Republican Party, 
the assertion, is a party of reform simply does not square with the 
facts.
  Let us talk about some of the legislation. The problem frankly has 
not been former Members. When you came to prescription drugs and 
dealing with the pharmaceutical industry in general, it has been future 
former Members.

                              {time}  1330

  That is current Members who plan to be former Members in the arms of 
the industry that they were voting to regulate.
  Frankly, Mr. Speaker, we have got a serious systemic problem of 
corruption that I am prepared at this point to correct myself. I am one 
of those who talks about in Washington a vast right-wing conspiracy. It 
now seems clear to me that we instead have had a vast right-wing 
kleptocracy, and putting people out of the gym is not a beginning of 
dealing seriously with that problem.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart), the distinguished 
vice chairman of the Committee on Rules, my friend from Miami.
  Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the 
distinguished chairman for the time. I was walking by here and then 
stumbled here on this interesting debate.
  I think our friends have to decide which of two arguments that have 
been propounded is really the argument they have to come down upon in 
support of.
  One is, we have heard, that we offer lack of democracy. We just heard 
that. I guess that means insufficient input, ability for Members, et 
cetera. Another debate we just heard is that the legislation that we 
brought forth should do more.
  We have presented this resolution the first day that we are back to 
do what we are able to do on the first day we are back, having done it 
through regular order. In other words, the Rules Committee had a 
hearing on this resolution and brought it forth yesterday for the 
consideration of the floor today.
  With regard to the other aspects that have been mentioned here, it is 
precisely because of our offer of full democracy, regular order, the 
committee process that the Speaker has instructed that this legislation 
go through, the ethics reform go through, that it is not before us in 
its completion today. In other words, with regard to all these other 
ideas that have been mentioned, precisely they are going to be 
considered, not only under regular order by the appropriate committees, 
but the Speaker has asked that all of those committees act with great 
promptness; in other words, that they report back within 4 to 6 weeks.
  So we are offering what we are offering today, which is important, 
which I am glad as my friend from Massachusetts says he is going to 
vote for and I will join with him in voting for. In addition, we are 
offering so much democracy that we are submitting to the regular order 
the consideration of all of these ideas that have been mentioned by the 
distinguished Member from Massachusetts (Mr. Meehan) and others.
  So substantive ideas of importance, the first day we are back we have 
brought forth to the floor, due to the leadership and instruction of 
the Speaker, who has demanded that we act immediately, and with regard 
to input ability, ability for discussion, for thought, et cetera; in 
other words, plenty of democracy, we are also offering that, Mr. 
Speaker, with regard to all of these other important ideas which our 
friends on the other side of the aisle have mentioned. They have 
mentioned some of them.
  So in summary, Mr. Speaker, this is an important piece of legislation 
that I am glad we are bringing forth today. It shows the seriousness of 
the Speaker of the House, of the chairman of the Rules Committee, of 
the Committee of Rules generally and the leadership to consider this 
important issue. So I am glad we are considering it the first day we 
are back.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire of the Chair how much time is 
remaining on both sides?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The gentleman from California 
(Mr. Dreier) has 6 minutes remaining. The gentlewoman from New York 
(Ms. Slaughter) has 12 minutes remaining.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to 
the gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Price).
  (Mr. PRICE of North Carolina asked and was given permission to revise 
and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. PRICE of North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, I first want to commend my 
colleague from California, Mr. Dreier, for introducing what he rightly 
says is a first step toward reining in the culture of abuse and 
corruption that has been laid bare by the various scandals currently 
surrounding this institution.
  I know that broader lobbying reform is on the way, but I want to 
suggest that lobbying abuses are only part of a more comprehensive 
problem that is going to require a more comprehensive solution.
  Congressional scholars Norman Ornstein and Tom Mann put it this way 
in a recent article: ``This is not simply a problem of a rogue lobbyist 
or a pack of them. Nor is it a matter of a handful of disconnected, 
corrupt lawmakers taking favors in return for official actions.
  ``The problem starts not with lobbyists but inside Congress. Over the 
past 5 years, the rules and norms that govern congressional 
deliberation, debate and voting have routinely been violated, 
especially in the House of Representatives, in ways that mark a 
dramatic break from custom.''
  Lobbying reform alone is not going to right this ship. We need a 
comprehensive plan that gets to the root of the problem, the 
deterioration and mismanagement of our institutions of governance, 
particularly this institution.
  Congressional Democrats have offered such a plan in the Honest 
Leadership and Open Government Act, introduced today. Yesterday I 
joined my colleagues Mr. Obey, Mr. Frank and Mr. Allen, along with 127 
other original cosponsors, in introducing H. Res. 659, a 14-point plan 
that would address many of the abuses of power that we have witnessed 
in recent years. Among many other things, our plan would reform the 
earmarking process, end protracted rollcalls, require House-Senate 
conference committees to actually meet and vote, and ensure Members 
that they have time to read and understand what they are voting on.
  I will gladly support the first step that we are taking today, but 
unless we enact meaningful and comprehensive reforms of the way this 
Chamber conducts its business, Jack Abramoff will be the least of our 
concerns.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, may I inquire if my colleague has more 
speakers.
  Mr. DREIER. I do not have any more speakers on this side. We are 
expecting no requests.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Snyder).
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Snyder).
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from New York (Ms. 
Slaughter) for the time. I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. 
Dreier) for his courtesy yesterday in letting me testify before his 
committee and then this discussion today.
  Unfortunately, this has been a rushed process. Our first day back in 
the new session and we start out with a bill being presented without 
amendment, with very little understanding of it. As the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Dreier) pointed out, it already is against the rules of 
lobbying that we have been hearing about on the House floor, as he 
indicated in his floor comments just a short time ago, is already

[[Page H33]]

against the rules. The problem on the House floor is enforcement, and 
so any changes we are making about lobbying on the House floor is 
essentially just a repeat of what is already the rule.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SNYDER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I will just clarify again. If former Members 
of Congress, who are registered lobbyists, being paid to represent 
interests, are not allowed to even enter the Chamber when we are doing 
our work here on the House floor, it is very clear there will not be a 
problem. I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, as you pointed out, you indicated, under the 
current rules the activities you have heard about are already not 
allowed under our current rules.
  Mr. DREIER. Right, but the best way to enforce this, of course, is 
just to ensure that those who are paid lobbyists do not even get to 
come on to the House floor.
  Mr. SNYDER. Well, that is what the current rule is. It is not just 
about lobbying on the floor. It is privilege. This is the current rule, 
the privilege of admission to the hall of the House. That is the 
current rule.
  Let me continue with my comments.
  To me I agree with the gentleman from Massachusetts' (Mr. Meehan) 
comment. This is probably not the greatest place to start but it is a 
place to start, but our goal ought to be this. Our goal ought to be for 
Joe Q. Arkansas back home, that wants to come to the Nation's capital 
and lobby, how can he be treated fairly and equally alongside everyone 
else. We have a situation now where former Members, who are well sought 
after when they leave this body or the Senate to be lobbyists, they 
have privileges that Joe Q. and Jane Q. Arkansas do not have.
  What are some of those? First of all, when they pull their car into 
one of the House parking lots, they show their former Member's ID, they 
are waved right in. They get a parking place. They do not have to stand 
in the security lines. They can just walk. They are bypassed on around. 
They can roam all through the halls of the Capitol or any of the office 
buildings in the House or the Senate side. They have access to the 
Members' dining room where only Members, and I have been lobbied at the 
Members' dining room. They have access to memorial services. I have 
been actually lobbied at the memorial service for a former Member that 
had passed away. They can roam the halls at all hours, day or night. 
They can go to the rooms behind the committees that Joe Q. Arkansas 
cannot do.
  So our goal ought to be to provide equality with people from back 
home.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. SNYDER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, just a quick comment. I will say that every 
single one of those items that my friend from Arkansas has mentioned, 
Mr. Speaker, we are more than willing to look at and consider as we 
work on this issue of comprehensive reform. I thank my friend for 
yielding.
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, based on that comment, I am going to vote 
for the gentleman's bill today. I am very disappointed if we come to 
the end of this year and I do not have an opportunity to present these 
ideas on the floor of the House for debate.
  I have an alternative I filed yesterday, and I encourage Members to 
take a look at, H. Res. 663, and it says if you register as a former 
Member to be a registered lobbyist, you do not get the former Members' 
privileges. Once you no longer are a registered lobbyist you get them 
back. It seems to be very, very clear, and we do not have to get into 
this mumbo-jumbo about the gym versus not the gym and all those kinds 
of things.
  There is also a section of the bill being proposed today that I think 
may be a weakening of current law. Under current law, this is what it 
says currently: The Speaker shall promulgate such regulations as may be 
necessary to implement this rule and to ensure its enforcement. That 
language is being changed under the proposal by Mr. Dreier, and it 
says, ``The Speaker may promulgate regulations that exempt ceremonial 
or educational functions from the restrictions of this clause.''
  First of all, we will not have the opportunity, I do not believe, to 
vote on whatever regulation the Speaker puts out. Educational function 
can be all kinds of things in this body. For example, my fear is that 
it could be interpreted to be, during the heat of a close vote on a 
Medicare prescription drug bill, that very well respected former Member 
Billy Tauzin could be brought over here to meet with 12 undecided 
Members, not to lobby, but to educate these undecided Members on what 
this bill means. Somebody is going to have to explain to me, it is very 
clear from the way of the language of this bill is written, that the 
intent is that former Members who are registered lobbyists who have a 
personal or pecuniary interest or are lobbying on behalf of whatever is 
on the floor of the House would be allowed, under the Speaker's 
exemption to come and perform an educational function in one of these 
rooms back here.
  I do not think that Joe Q. Arkansas is going to have that 
opportunity. Jane Q. Arkansas is not going to have that opportunity. 
That is the problem when we pick on one little portion about this. We 
do not have hearings, we do not have discussion, we do not get people 
like Thomas Mann and Norm Ornstein and the Heritage Foundation to 
really thrash this stuff through and have the Members thrash it 
through.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would further yield, I am 
just reading from the committee report here, Mr. Speaker, and it is 
very specific in saying that you referred to ``educational functions 
from the restrictions of this clause, such as a joint meeting to 
receive a message from a foreign head of state,'' and last night the 
State of the Union message would have obviously been an exemption; ``a 
tour when the House is not in session'' when no Members of Congress are 
on the House floor. I suppose they could be conceivably when the House 
is not in session but I do not know when they have ever been. Or for 
Former Member's Day, when there is a conclave of former Members of the 
House and Senate who come here to the House floor for the former 
Members' meeting.
  So we are very specific and I thank my friend for yielding.
  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, the language of the bill 
says educational functions. There are already exemptions for ceremonial 
events, but you are still going to have to explain to me when we have a 
vote on whatever regulation the Speaker comes out on this, and why 
Billy Tauzin, coming over here during the heat of a close vote on 
Medicare, would not be able to have scheduled for him in the cloakroom 
an educational function to educate undecided Members at 2 a.m. on what 
a bill means, not to lobby.
  So I think that is one of the things that people have not talked 
about, are not aware it is in the bill. I am going to support this 
bill, but I think this is a very, very poor way, in a rushed manner, in 
a nontransparent manner to begin this discussion of reform of this 
body.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, let me yield myself such time as I may 
consume to respond to the gentleman by simply saying we all know what 
it is that we are trying to do here, and I believe that we are in a 
position where we will address those things.
  The prospect of the kind of gathering taking place in the cloakroom, 
which my friend just outlined, is obviously outrageous, and I will say 
that I am determined to make sure that it does not happen. I will say 
that, again, all of the issues that my friend has brought forward we 
look forward to addressing in comprehensive legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

                              {time}  1345

  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Washington (Mr. McDermott).
  Mr. McDERMOTT. Mr. Speaker, this bill is the fox adjusting the lock 
on the hen house door. I intend to submit for the record before the end 
of the day an article from 1995 when the then Speaker of the House set 
up the K Street Project. K stands for kleptomania or kleptocracy. I'm 
not sure exactly what the K stands for, but this project was set up in 
1995; and what is going on today is an absolutely predictable result of 
what was done in 1995 when the

[[Page H34]]

lobbyists were told, Don't hire any Democrats. You only hire 
Republicans. You only give to Republicans. You don't give to Democrats.
  For us to come out here today and put a bill up here as though it 
were going to do anything, when it is proposed by the people who put 
the K Street Project together in the first place, is absolutely 
unbelievable. This House is in a delusional state that anything is 
changing on behalf of the people.
  The fact is that this is what you get when you have a K Street 
Project in place. And they are not fixing it this way, and they want to 
wrap us all around it and say, well, you'll help us fix it this way by 
keeping some old Member out of the gym from playing basketball with me. 
Come on, they have all got my phone number. They have got everybody's 
phone number in this whole building. And for you to think that this 
silly little piece of legislation is going to do one thing about 
cleaning up this town is simply nonsense.
  We ought to be talking about public funding of elections. Then we 
would be talking about reform. But you are not going to reform it by 
keeping a couple of guys off the floor or a couple of guys out of the 
gym or whatever. That is simply not going to work, and it is foolish. 
Everyone should vote ``no'' on this rule.

               [From the Washington Post, Nov. 27, 1995]

           Speaker and His Directors Make the Cash Flow Right

               (By David Maraniss and Michael Weisskopf)

       In the annals of the House Republican revolution, a pivotal 
     moment came last April when an unsuspecting corporate 
     lobbyist entered the inner chamber of Majority Whip Tom 
     DeLay, whose aggressive style has earned him the nickname 
     ``the Hammer.'' The Texas congressman was standing at his 
     desk that afternoon, examining a document that listed the 
     amounts and percentages of money that the 400 largest 
     political action committees had contributed to Republicans 
     and Democrats over the last two years. Those who gave heavily 
     to the GOP were labeled ``Friendly,'' the others 
     ``Unfriendly.''
       ``See, you're in the book,'' DeLay said to his visitor, 
     leafing through the list. At first the lobbyist was not sure 
     where his group stood, but DeLay helped clear up his 
     confusion. By the time the lobbyist left the congressman's 
     office, he knew that to be a friend of the Republican 
     leadership his group would have to give the party a lot more 
     money.
       It didn't take long for the word to spread around town 
     about the Hammer and his book. By some accounts--apocryphal 
     as it turns out--DeLay even made lobbyists turn to their 
     contribution totals and initial them, like a report card. 
     Such stories actually make DeLay's job easier. When an aide 
     once asked whether efforts should be made to quell the 
     legend, DeLay leaned back in his chair and said, ``No, let it 
     get bigger.''
       Inside the House Republican leadership, the former pest 
     exterminator from Houston is the enforcer. His mission is to 
     ensure that money flows along the same stream as policy, that 
     the probusiness deregulatory agenda of the House Republicans 
     receives the undivided financial support of the corporate 
     interests that benefit from it. His motto is an unabashedly 
     blunt interpretation of the dictums of Speaker Newt Gingrich: 
     ``If you want to play in our revolution, you have to live by 
     our rules.''
       The role of money in the revolution has been obscured by 
     the titanic clash with President Clinton and the Democrats 
     over balanced budgets and the reshaping of the federal 
     government, but it is part of that larger struggle. Money is 
     at the center of Gingrich's transformation of the House. With 
     the new alignment of ideological allies in the business and 
     political worlds, there are unparalleled opportunities for 
     both the people who give the money and the people who receive 
     it.
       It is such an obvious quid pro quo that it goes almost 
     unnoticed. From House Republicans come measures that gratify 
     industry: weakening environmental standards, loosening 
     workplace safety rules, limiting the legal liability of 
     corporations, defunding nonprofit groups that present an 
     opposing view. From the beneficiaries of that legislation 
     come millions of dollars in campaign contributions.
       ``The Republicans have a wonderful situation,'' said one 
     trade association president, a longtime Democrat. ``They 
     don't have to prostitute themselves. They are ideologically 
     in sync'' with the corporate PACs. ``Every politician dreams 
     of being able to meet your conscience and raise money at the 
     same time.''
       Yet money is also the source of increasing tension among 
     House Republicans that could ultimately weaken them, if not 
     tear them apart. The conflict, in essence, is between 
     ideology and populist reform. One wing wants to collect as 
     much corporate money as possible to sustain and expand the 
     revolution. Another wing fears that this will disillusion 
     voters who brought the Republicans to power to change the 
     traditional ways of doing business in Washington. Gingrich 
     stands in the middle aware, people around him say, that his 
     tenure could depend in part on his ability to resolve the 
     conflict.
       Gingrich, DeLay and their comrades have set in motion a 
     historic shift in campaign giving. As recently as 1993 the 
     National Republican Congressional Committee, the main vehicle 
     for fundraising for House GOP candidates, was millions of 
     dollars in debt. But by soliciting contributions from the 
     corporate world through a combination of tenacity, 
     cheerleading and intimidation--``playing offense'' all the 
     time, as DeLay describes it--the revolution has established a 
     formidable money machine. The turnaround has been dramatic. 
     House Republicans received 58 percent of the money from the 
     top 400 PACs during the first six months this year and their 
     numbers are rising every month. Last year two of every three 
     PAC dollars went to the ruling Democrats. The trend is 
     evident in all industries, including those with traditional 
     Democratic ties.
       The Transportation Political Education League, for example, 
     gave only 3 percent to the Republicans last year but 42 
     percent this year. The No. 1 corporate contributor to the GOP 
     in 1995, United Parcel Service, which worked closely with 
     DeLay and the leadership in fighting federal workplace safety 
     regulations, also made a decisive partisan transformation, 
     its contributions going from 53 percent Democratic to 71 
     percent Republican in one year.
       The once-threadbare NRCC raised a record $18.7 million from 
     January through June, four times as much as its Democratic 
     counterpart. Its two elite organizations, which offer private 
     sessions with House leaders at the Capitol Hill Club, are 
     suddenly fat and happy: 225 corporations and political action 
     committees have joined the House Council at $5,000 apiece, 
     and 150 are enrolled in the Congressional Forum for $15,000 
     to $20,000 each. Rep. Bill Paxon of New York, the NRCC's 
     chairman, estimates that he has met privately with ``200 to 
     300'' chief executive officers of Fortune 500 companies to 
     make his pitch.
       ``If you believe in the revolution and what's happening, 
     then it's time to follow common sense,'' Paxon tells them. 
     ``Why do you support the enemy? Why do you give money to 
     people who are out there consciously every day trying to 
     undermine what's good for you?'' He often leaves, Paxon says, 
     with a financial pledge.
       Another $20 million, double the Democratic number, has come 
     to the party in unrestricted contributions known as soft 
     money, used for party rebuilding efforts, voter drives and 
     policy initiatives. Leading the way in the soft money realm 
     this year have been tobacco companies that, concerned about 
     regulation by the Food and Drug Administration, gave a record 
     $1.5 million to the Republicans during the first six months, 
     tenfold what they gave two years ago.
       Gingrich, DeLay, Majority Leader Dick Armey of Texas and 
     Republican Conference Chairman John Boehner of Ohio all have 
     established separate PACs this year with goals of raising 
     millions of dollars more. Gingrich's new PAC, dubbed ``Monday 
     Morning'' in honor of a refrain from his swearing-in speech, 
     has already raised more than $330,000, with pledges of an 
     additional $60,000 since its inception a few months ago.
       Advised by kitchen cabinets of industry lobbyists, these 
     leadership fund-raising operations will distribute money to 
     Republican congressional candidates, strengthening the bond 
     between the revolution and industry while reinforcing the 
     loyalty of House colleagues to Gingrich and his lieutenants.
       The freshman class, 73 Republican newcomers who consider 
     themselves the vanguard of the revolution, has proved as 
     ambitious in the fund-raising realm as elsewhere. They have 
     bumped up the average price of a fund-raising ticket fourfold 
     from the previous term to $1,000, hired professional 
     consultants to run their events and solicit contributions, 
     and formed steering committees of lobbyists to advise them. 
     Almost all have liquidated their campaign debts in the first 
     10 months of their first term, and more than half belong to 
     the NRCC's $100,000 Club, having at least that much cash 
     ready for next year. The average Republican freshman raised 
     $123,000 in the first six months, nearly double the amount of 
     their Democratic colleagues.
       Even reform-minded freshmen who oppose PACs have pursued 
     them aggressively. Sam Brownback of Kansas solicited 
     Washington lobbyists to contribute to a fund-raising event 
     for him soon after he had returned from Ross Perot's United 
     We Stand convention in August. There he had given a speech 
     denouncing the Washington lobbying scene as ``a domestication 
     process where you bring in new, fresh legislators and then 
     you start to try to tame them and assist them with gifts and 
     meals and trips almost like you would a horse with a sugar 
     cube.'' Several lobbyists who received Brownback's fund-
     raising invitation angrily turned him down.
       A few days after the House Republicans took power last 
     January, DeLay turned to one of his most trusted allies in 
     the lobbying community, David Rehr of the National Beer 
     Wholesalers Association, and said, ``I want you to do 
     something with the freshmen just to get them on the right 
     course.'' Rehr was a member of a small group of Washington 
     lobbyists who had remained loyal to the Republicans 
     throughout the long period of Democratic control. His 
     informal duties now included serving as a PAC adviser to both 
     DeLay and the NRCC.

[[Page H35]]

       Rehr set up a seminar at NRCC headquarters entitled ``Seven 
     Steps in Liquidating Your Debt and Building for the Future,'' 
     and more than a quarter of the freshman class attended. Rehr 
     instructed them to set up steering committees of PAC 
     supporters to be their ``eyes and ears'' in the Washington 
     community. He suggested that they contact the NRCC and House 
     committee chairmen for a list of PACs relevant to their 
     committee assignments.
       Make contacts personally, Rehr, whose own PAC contributed 
     $144,492 to the House Republicans in the first six months 
     this year, advised the freshmen. If a PAC opposed them during 
     the campaign, they should not take it personally. Those PACs, 
     he said, should now be considered ``additional prospects.''
       Rehr is among a new breed of Capitol Hill operators on the 
     rise, fortyish, ideological and fervently committed to the 
     House revolution and its two primary bankers, DeLay and 
     Paxon. The lobbyists span the corporate world, commanding 
     networks of business allies along with large PACs of their 
     own organizations. Dan Mattoon of BellSouth, another lecturer 
     at the NRCC seminar, is the leadership's main link to local 
     telephone companies. Bob Rusbuldt, a top insurance lobbyist, 
     taps the financial resources of the related fields of 
     mortgage banking and real estate. Jim Boland of Philip Morris 
     draws from the tobacco industry and its food subsidiaries. 
     Freelance lobbyists such as former Bush White House aide 
     Gary Andres bring lists of diverse clients and the ability 
     to penetrate new fund-raising channels.
       The Republican takeover has been a time for ``cashing in,'' 
     as a PAC director close to Gingrich put it, and also a time 
     for ``getting right.'' Lobbyists whose PACs or clients once 
     gave heavily to Democrats have been eager to show they found 
     religion, leading to such scenes as the one late one recent 
     night at one of the steak and cigar restaurants fashionable 
     along Pennsylvania Avenue.
       ``Man,'' said a lobbyist approaching a GOP leadership aide 
     and pleading to be restored to good graces, ``just want to 
     tell you, we've given like 70 percent to you guys now.''
       DeLay, for his part, has launched what has come to be known 
     as the ``K Street Strategy,'' named for the downtown 
     Washington avenue lined with lobbying headquarters, law firms 
     and trade associations. The strategy is to pressure those 
     firms to remove Democrats from top jobs and replace them with 
     Republicans.
       Headhunters now call DeLay's office in search of 
     recommendations. When one corporation lobbyist sought a 
     meeting with the whip, DeLay telephoned the firm's CEO and 
     complained that his agent in Washington was ``a hard-core 
     libera1.'' If the company wanted to get in to see him, DeLay 
     added, ``you need to hire a Republican.'' The hard-core 
     liberal lobbyist was soon transferred to London.
       One drug company hired a Democrat to head its office, but 
     after he was unmasked at a DeLay fund-raiser, he called the 
     whip's office the next day to plead that his firm not be 
     scorned by the House Republicans. His position was only 
     temporary, he said, and he would soon be replaced by someone 
     more aligned with the revolution.
       ``There are just a lot of people down on K Street who 
     gained their prominence by being Democrat and supporting the 
     Democrat cause, and they can't regain their prominence unless 
     they get us out of here,'' said DeLay. ``We're just following 
     the old adage of punish your enemies and reward your friends. 
     We don't like to deal with people who are trying to kill the 
     revolution. We know who they are. The word is out.''
       At times, Republican leaders have had to choose between 
     friends, and money may have been a factor. When the Commerce 
     Committee voted on a sweeping telecommunications deregulation 
     bill in May, for example, its legislation appeared to favor 
     AT&T and other long-distance firms over the regional Bell 
     companies. A last-minute amendment by Chairman Thomas Bliley 
     would have complicated entry of the seven regional Bells into 
     the long-distance market. AT&T has a plant in Bliley's 
     Richmond district and a new PAC profile: reversing a past 
     preference for Democrats, it has given 58 percent to GOP 
     lawmakers this year.
       But the baby Bells, with combined PAC donations double 
     those of AT&T and with influential lobbyists such as Mattoon, 
     appealed the decision. Help came from Paxon and deputy whip 
     Denny Hastert of Illinois, both Commerce Committee members 
     who had voted for the Bliley provision as part of the May 
     bill. But after hearing from Bell lobbyists, they argued for 
     change at a Speaker's Advisory Group meeting in early July, 
     contending that the Bells would be prevented from competing, 
     a participant said. Gingrich directed Bliley to ``rescrub'' 
     the bill, and by mid-July the Bliley provision was deleted. 
     Two weeks before the new bill passed the House, Pacific 
     Telesis Group's chief executive hosted a fund-raiser for 
     Gingrich at his San Francisco home, raising $20,000.
       Paxon said he was guided by his ``driving passion'' for 
     deregulation, not fund-raising calculations, in siding with 
     the Bells. ``I haven't sat down with a legislative 
     calendar,'' he said, ``and said this is the time to go after 
     this industry group.''
       But some fund-raising efforts have been less than subtle. 
     Ways and Means Committee Chairman Bill Archer lectured 
     corporate leaders not to give to Democrats. In an Oct. 23 
     letter, signed by the Oklahoma GOP delegation, corporate 
     lobbyists were told that they were expected to support 
     freshman Tom Coburn in his tough reelection race.
       ``As you are courted by others to get involved in this 
     race, we want to make our position clear,'' the letter read. 
     ``We strongly support our good friend and colleague, Tom 
     Coburn, and we will be unified as we work on his behalf. We 
     trust you will join us in our effort and certainly not oppose 
     us.''
       That letter was mild compared with a similar dispatch 
     earlier in the year from DeLay, a no-nonsense missive that 
     helped establish his reputation as ``the Hammer.'' Days 
     before freshman Randy Tate of Washington state was to hold a 
     fund-raiser in Washington, DeLay sent out a letter listing 
     the exact sum each PAC had given to the losing cause of 
     Tate's Democratic opponent in 1994, Mike Kreidler.
       While he was ``surprised to see you opposed Randy Tate,'' 
     DeLay wrote, ``you now have the opportunity to work toward a 
     positive future relationship.'' The note got more demanding--
     ``your immediate support for Randy Tate is personally 
     important to me and the House Republican leadership team''--
     before closing with an offer of redemption: ``I hope I can 
     count on you being on the winning team. ``
       The aftermath of that letter captures DeLay's unapologetic 
     mode of operation. A reporter received a copy of it and 
     called DeLay's PAC director, Karl Gallant. Gallant asked 
     the reporter how he obtained the letter. When he was told 
     it came from a lobbyist, Gallant responded, ``That tells 
     me it's effective. They want you to write a negative story 
     so we'll back off. You just made my day.''
       DeLay agreed, distributing the article to his colleagues. 
     ``It had great impact,'' DeLay said later. ``It raised him 
     (Tate) a bunch of money. We know who we sent the letters to 
     and who we got checks from.''
       One other result: Kreidler recently decided not to 
     challenge Tate in 1996, citing as one factor his difficulty 
     in raising PAC money.
       For Gingrich, learning the value of fund-raising has been a 
     gradual process. Staffers at the NRCC in the 1970s and early 
     1980s would roll their eyes when the small-college history 
     professor with mutton-chop sideburns strolled through the 
     door, knowing they were in for a long day of lectures on the 
     Ming dynasty and a barrage of expensive ideas for promoting 
     his conservative opportunity society. ``In those early days 
     Newt was very naive about money,'' said Steve Stockmeyer, 
     then the executive director of the NRCC. ``He was always 
     coming up with ideas on how to spend it, not raise it.''
       But despite his early naivete about the ways of money, 
     Gingrich, more than DeLay or any other figure, was most 
     responsible for turning the revolution into a money machine.
       Two years ago the financial situation for the Republicans 
     seemed bleak. They were ``walking in the valley of the shadow 
     of death,'' as Paxon, installed by Gingrich as chairman of 
     the NRCC, put it.
       They were the minority party in the House and Senate and 
     without the White House. Their fund-raising relied largely on 
     a direct-mail list that had become utterly obsolete. Of the 
     more than 1 million names on it, only one in 10 had given to 
     the party in recent years. Many were in nursing homes or 
     dead. But by April 1994 Gingrich had become convinced that 
     the Republicans would seize control of the House that year. 
     He went over to the NRCC and wrote personal appeals for funds 
     claiming that the Republicans would soon be in the majority.
       ``Gingrich was for my purposes the whole ballgame when we 
     wanted to raise money,'' said Grace Wiegers, then director of 
     fund-raising for the NRCC and now the head of Gingrich's 
     leadership PAC, Monday Morning.
       In August and September he met individually with more than 
     150 Republican members, assigning fund-raising tasks and 
     goals to each. Incumbents from safe seats were asked to raise 
     $50,000 for Republican challengers or vulnerable colleagues. 
     Ranking minority members of House committees made pledges to 
     Gingrich to raise even larger amounts traveling for other 
     candidates on the road.
       When the revolution arrived, Gingrich had a system already 
     in place for maintaining and expanding the money operation. 
     DeLay would be his hammer. Paxon would serve as cheerleader. 
     Majority Leader Armey would position himself as ideological 
     arbiter, attacking corporations for funding nonprofit 
     agencies that opposed the revolution. Conference Chairman 
     Boehner would nourish business coalitions, bringing them in 
     for regular Thursday sessions to plan how the corporate world 
     could advance conservative policy. Committee chairmen Bliley 
     of Commerce, Archer of Ways and Means and Bud Shuster of 
     Transportation would cultivate industries in their turfs.
       The lines between elected revolutionaries and their 
     business cohorts occasionally blurred. Lobbyists helped DeLay 
     write his regulatory moratorium bill. Shuster raised money 
     for the revolution with the assistance of his former 
     political aide, Ann Eppard, a lobbyist whose clients included 
     Amtrak, Conrail, Federal Express and the Pennsylvania 
     Turnpike Authority, all of whom had issues pending before 
     Shuster's committee.
       Eppard maintains a close relationship with her old boss. At 
     the same time that she was soliciting money from industry for 
     the ``Bud Shuster Portrait Committee'' which commissioned a 
     painting of the chairman in his committee room, she was also 
     sending out fundraising letters for Republican candidates. 
     One to industry colleagues on behalf of a Virginia candidate 
     ended with the boldfaced assertion: ``This dinner is of 
     personal importance to Chairman Shuster.''

[[Page H36]]

       Given the place Gingrich assigned to fund-raising, his 
     handshake agreement with President Clinton in June to form a 
     bipartisan commission on campaign finance reform took his 
     allies by surprise. More than any other act, it revealed the 
     tensions within his revolution.
       At the next meeting of the House leadership, the tone, said 
     one participant, was, ``Why the hell did you go and do 
     that?''
       Armey, responsible for scheduling the revolution's 
     legislative agenda, worried about how he would be able to fit 
     the issue into an already packed calendar. DeLay, and to a 
     lesser degree Paxon, questioned whether the timing was right 
     and whether the Republicans should cede anything to Clinton 
     and the Democrats now that the revolution's money machine was 
     operating so effectively. Gingrich's response was that the 
     handshake ``buys us time.'' He needed to think the issue 
     through, he said.
       Another wing of Gingrich's House, represented by populist 
     freshmen Brownback and Linda Smith of Washington, along with 
     veteran moderate Christopher Shays of Connecticut, was 
     pushing Gingrich from the other side. If the Republicans did 
     not clean up Washington and prove that they were not 
     continuing business as usual, they said, the revolution would 
     collapse from a fatal flaw of political hubris. If reform did 
     not happen on the Republican watch, said Shays, it would 
     become ``our Achilles'' heel'' While Shays and Brownback took 
     Gingrich's handshake with Clinton as a sign that he supported 
     reform, Smith was skeptical. She said she thought he was just 
     stalling.
       Gingrich found himself in a familiar position: on both 
     sides of a debate and looking for another way entirely. He 
     understood the call for reform and had a lingering resentment 
     toward PACs for funding the Democrats when they controlled 
     Congress. But he also, he and his aides say, felt equally 
     strongly that the revolutionaries should not unilaterally 
     disarm themselves while they were engaged in a more profound 
     struggle of what he called the ``Information Age.''
       The real fight, Gingrich told his aides, was not over money 
     but information and how it is disseminated. Money was one 
     weapon in that struggle and important to the movement as a 
     way to counter the American mass media, which the speaker 
     considered largely hostile to the revolution.
       Gingrich said as little as possible about the issue after 
     the handshake, promising that at some point he would deliver 
     a white paper on the subject. As months went by, the 
     reformers grew increasingly agitated. At Shays's request, 
     Gingrich met with the reformers in his office late on the 
     afternoon of Sept. 29 just before the Columbus Day break. 
     While Shays hoped to discuss another reform issue involving a 
     gift ban, the meeting devolved into a tense confrontation 
     over campaign finance reform between Gingrich and Smith, who 
     had just planted a story with conservative columnist Robert 
     Novak in which she said that the leadership was not telling 
     the truth about their intentions on reform.
       ``He got so mad. He kicked the staff out and yelled at 
     them, he was so unhappy,'' Smith recalled. The session was 
     ``testy and pointed,'' according to Brownback. Gingrich was 
     overwhelmed by other concerns that day, including Medicare 
     and Bosnia. He was late for a meeting at the White House, and 
     freshman Smith kept jabbing at him.
       Noting that Smith was working with Common Cause and United 
     We Stand in pushing campaign reform, Gingrich told her that 
     she had to decide whether she wanted to be an outsider or 
     work with the House leadership. ``Whatever you decide is okay 
     with me,'' he said. ``We just have to know.''
       Smith wanted to know why Gingrich needed a time-consuming 
     commission, why he could not just support legislation 
     eliminating PACs, as he had when he was in the minority. She 
     told the speaker that he tried to carry too much of the 
     burden himself and that he should let others take the load on 
     this issue.
       Then, according to Smith's recollection of the scene, 
     corroborated by others in the room, ``Newt looked at me and 
     said, Nobody can do it but me! I have the most experience. 
     I'm the only one who can do this. I'll just have to take some 
     time this week and write a paper on it.' ``
       Shortly after that meeting the leadership announced that 
     the Oversight Committee would hold hearings on campaign 
     finance reform starting Nov. 2 and that Gingrich would be the 
     first to testify. One aide took memos from a group of 
     informal advisers, including Stockmeyer, the former NRCC 
     director who now ran the National Association of Business 
     PACs. PACs were invented as a reform in the 1970s, he noted, 
     and another round of reforms doing away with them would 
     probably create a system that was worse.
       Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky sent a letter over to the 
     House noting that the Republicans had killed campaign finance 
     reform before the 1994 elections--``proof positive that this 
     issue is not a hindrance to us at the polls.'' In a 
     handwritten P.S., McConnell added: ``We'd be foolish to 
     throwaway our ability to compete.''
       Another Gingrich aide began piecing together his speech. He 
     plunged into a long assigned reading list and followed up on 
     the speaker's request to compare the amount of money spent in 
     political campaigns with what is spent in advertising 
     products. Companies spent $100 million selling two stomach 
     acid pills recently, he discovered, one-sixth of the total 
     amount spent on all congressional campaigns last year. One of 
     the great myths of American politics, Gingrich concluded, was 
     that campaigns are too expensive. He believed that most of 
     the criticism of the campaign system came from ``nonsensical 
     socialist analysis based on hatred of the free enterprise 
     system.''
       Smith was sitting one row behind Gingrich and off to his 
     right when he delivered those conclusions at the hearing. She 
     wanted to watch his eyes and his facial expressions as a 
     means of gauging his earnestness, she said, but as he 
     continued to attack the reformers, including some of the 
     groups she had been working with, she became increasingly 
     distraught.
       ``His anger at the media drove what he said,'' she 
     concluded. She retreated to her office, where she reached a 
     final decision on Gingrich's earlier ultimatum to her. She 
     would work from the outside.
       Gingrich's lieutenants expressed satisfaction with his 
     speech. If reform is inevitable, they say, it will not 
     involve the elimination of PACs and it will not diminish the 
     role of money in the revolution. DeLay said he would work the 
     system until PACs gave an appropriate amount to the 
     Republicans. ``Ninety percent would be about right,'' he 
     declared. DeLay has a running competition with Gingrich over 
     who can raise more money. There are scores of revolutionaries 
     doing the same thing, but he is not worried that they might 
     trip over each other.
       ``It's a big country,'' said the Hammer.


                         Parliamentary Inquiry

  Mr. SNYDER. Mr. Speaker, under the rules of the House, this is a 
proposal to change the rules, when a provision says the Speaker may 
promulgate regulations, under the rules of the House, will there or 
will there not be a vote of approval of those promulgated regulations 
by the Speaker on the definition of educational functions?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. LaHood). The Chair will read this.
  Mr. SNYDER. You're a great reader, Mr. Speaker.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The degree to which the pending proposal 
changes the status quo is a matter for the House to debate. It is not 
the function of the Chair to interpret a legislative proposal while it 
is under debate.
  Mr. SNYDER. I am sorry, when the Speaker promulgates regulations, 
regardless of a minor change or a major change, my inquiry is: Does 
that or does that not require a vote of the body?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. I will stand by what I said. The terms of 
the resolution must speak for themselves.
  Mr. SNYDER. I will stand with you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
  Ms. SLAUGHTER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.
  Mr. Speaker, I want to close this debate by saying again that we do 
have a problem that exists, and we are committed to bringing about 
major institutional reform. Increasing the level of transparency and 
disclosure is a high priority. We have seen guilty pleas from lobbyists 
who have done things that are absolutely reprehensible, and we want to 
do everything that we can, in a bipartisan way, to ensure that those 
things never happen again.
  Every American has the right to petition their government. Every 
single American has the right to petition their government. We do not 
believe that anyone should have an unfair advantage over any other 
American when it comes to that. That is why what we are doing here 
today is the right thing to do. Former Members of Congress who are 
registered lobbyists should not be on the House floor when the House of 
Representatives is doing its business.
  Today, we begin the work of the Second Session of the 109th Congress, 
and it is very apparent that we will be able to enjoy strong bipartisan 
support for this first step on the road to reform. There are many other 
things that need to be addressed. The Speaker of the House has been 
working on this. I have been working with him on this issue, and he is 
committed to getting input from Members on both sides of the aisle and 
to work in a bicameral way with our colleagues who serve in the other 
body.
  I have had countless meetings with Democrats and Republicans. I have 
been listening to proposals, and I believe that we are going to have an 
opportunity to address those understandable concerns so that the 
American people will once again be able to hold this institution in 
high regard. It is a challenge. This is the greatest deliberative body 
known to man, but I believe that it is our responsibility to do what it 
is that we are going to do here today.
  Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. 
Res. 648, Mr.

[[Page H37]]

Dreier's provision to eliminate floor privileges and access to Member 
exercise facilities for registered lobbyists who are former Members or 
officers of the House.
  Since the founding of our country, interest groups, or ``factions,'' 
as Madison called them in 1787, were seen as both a boon and a bane to 
giving the American people fair representation. Fully 90 years before 
votes were finally given to African Americans and former slaves, and 
150 years before universal suffrage, our Founding Fathers understood 
the dangers of interest groups and the biased effect they can have on 
policy and law.
  Unfortunately, in 2006, the interest groups now have the higher hand 
at the expense of our citizens and constituents. The pockets of 
powerful Members of Congress, and the unequal access former Members of 
Congress have, supercede their responsibility to their constituents. 
This is unequal access to democracy.
  Reforms are desperately needed, and for once, we have bipartisan 
agreement. The difficulty now, is determining where reform is needed 
urgently and unequivocally, and seeing it through to established law.
  As a co-sponsor for the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 
2006, which we will all be considering soon enough, I can say that 
today's bill should be the beginning of many reforms.
  The Honest Leadership and Open Government Act of 2006:
  Limits gifts and travel: Bans gifts, including meals, tickets, 
entertainment and travel, from lobbyists and non-governmental 
organizations that retain or employ lobbyists, prohibits lobbyists from 
funding, arranging, planning or participating in congressional travel.
  Regulates Member travel on private jets: Requires Members to pay full 
charter costs when using corporate jets for official travel and to 
disclose relevant information in the Congressional Record, including 
the owner or lessee of the aircraft and the other passengers on the 
flight.
  Shuts down the K Street Project: Makes it a criminal offense and a 
violation of the House Rules for Members to take or withhold official 
action, or threaten to do so, with the intent to influence private 
employment decisions.
  Slows the revolving door: Prohibits former Members, executive branch 
officials and senior staff from lobbying their former colleagues for 2 
years; eliminates floor and gym privileges for former Members and 
officers who are lobbyists; and requires Members and senior staff to 
disclose outside job negotiations.
  Ends the practice of adding special interest provisions in the dead 
of the night: Prohibits consideration of conference reports and other 
legislation not available in printed form and on the Internet for at 
least 24 hours; requires full and open debate in conference and a vote 
by the conferees on the final version of the legislation; prohibits 
consideration of a conference report that contains matters different 
from what the conferees voted on.
  Toughens public disclosure of lobbying activities: Requires lobbyists 
to file quarterly reports with more information, including campaign 
contributions, fundraisers and other events that honor Members, and the 
name of each Member contacted. Report must be in electronic format, 
searchable on the Internet; increases civil and criminal penalties for 
lobbyists who violate the rules.
  The most obvious place to begin these reforms is here, where we 
conduct business every day. It is unconscionable that we would allow 
this access to special interest groups in a place where citizens of 
this country are not allowed to step. The House has played favorites, 
against the people we took an oath to protect and serve.
  Lobbyists should not be allowed on the floor, or in exercise rooms 
maintained for the well-being and personal use of congressional 
Members, staff, and employees.
  I am ashamed that we have to urge my Republican colleagues to adopt 
more effective measures. It should be a no-brainer. Let's start with 
this simple reform and keep it going until we succeed in delivering the 
government ``of the people, by the people, and for the people,'' back 
to the people.
  It is for these reasons that I vigorously support drawing a clear 
ethical line at that door and preventing unjust and unethical influence 
in our place of business. I urge my colleagues to also extend their 
support for H. Res. 648 and renew our dedication to our constituencies 
and ethical principles.
  Mr. PAUL. Mr. Speaker, anyone who doubts that symbols often take 
priority over substance in Washington only needs to consider that among 
our first items of business the House of Representatives is considering 
this year is a measure banning from the House gym former members of 
Congress who are now lobbyists. This bill is being rushed to the floor 
in order to assure the American people that Congress is ``cracking 
down'' on lobbying practices in response to recent scandals.
  This measure does nothing to address the root cause of the scandals--
the ever-growing size and power of the Federal Government. As long the 
Federal Government continues to regulate, tax, and subsidize the 
American people, there will be attempts to influence those who write 
the laws and regulations under which the people must live. Human nature 
being what it is, there will also be those lobbyists and policymakers 
who will manipulate the power of the regulatory state to enrich 
themselves. As I have said before, and I fear I will have plenty of 
opportunity to say again, the only way to get special interest money 
and influence out of politics is to get the money and power out of 
Washington. Instead of passing new regulations and laws regulating the 
people's right to petition their government, my colleagues should 
refuse to vote for any legislation that violates the constitutional 
limits on Federal power or enriches a special interest at the expense 
of American taxpayers. Returning to constitutional government is the 
only way to ensure that our republican institutions will not be 
corrupted by powerful interests seeking special privileges.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier) that the House suspend the rules 
and agree to the resolution, H. Res. 648.
  The question was taken.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of 
those present have voted in the affirmative.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this question will 
be postponed.

                          ____________________