[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 28, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2437-S2438]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       OFFICE OF PUBLIC INTEGRITY

  Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I do not anticipate taking the full 15 
minutes,

[[Page S2438]]

but I did want to alert my colleagues to an amendment that I believe 
will be coming up this afternoon, or perhaps even later this morning. 
In any event, later today Senators McCain, Lieberman, and I will be 
offering an amendment to the ethics bill before us to create an Office 
of Public Integrity.
  The American people view the way that we enforce ethics requirements 
on each other and on our staff as an inherently conflicted process. We 
set our own rules, we are our own advisers, we are our own 
investigators, we are our own prosecutors, we are our own judges, and 
we are our own juries. Even though we have some of our finest Members 
serving on the Ethics Committee, they cannot escape the perception that 
the process is plagued by conflict of interest. We do have 
extraordinary capable, ethical individuals serving on the Ethics 
Committee in the Senate. We are very fortunate to have a committee that 
works in harmony and that takes its job very seriously.
  I believe we can preserve the important role of the Ethics 
Committee--and it is a vital role because the Constitution requires 
each House of Congress to discipline its own Members, if necessary, and 
we are going to preserve that absolutely critical role--but that we can 
make an improvement in the process by creating a congressional office, 
the Office of Public Integrity.
  I emphasize this is part of the legislative branch. We are not 
talking, as some have, about creating an outside commission of judges 
and former Members of Congress and ethics experts. We are talking about 
recognizing that the Constitution clearly places responsibility within 
the legislative branch for taking actions, if necessary, against its 
own Members who violate the House or Senate rules. But we believe that 
process would be enhanced if we create an office of public integrity. 
It would be headed by a director who would be appointed by the majority 
and minority leaders of the Senate. That office would conduct 
investigations of possible ethics violations independent of any direct 
supervision by the Senate. So we would be assured that the public would 
perceive the process--the investigation--as more credible than now 
occurs when the Ethics Committee is investigating allegations against 
their colleagues.
  I wish to point out, however, this is not the Shays-Meehan bill in 
the House, whatever the merits of that approach. This is a different 
approach from that taken by the Senator from Illinois, Senator Obama, 
and it is even different from the proposal Senator Lieberman and I 
advanced in the Homeland Security markup. We have refined it still 
further. We narrowed the authority of the Office of Public Integrity, 
and I think we struck exactly the right balance between the duties of 
this office and the duties of the Ethics Committee. This office would 
conduct impartial, independent, thorough investigations and report its 
findings to the Ethics Committee which then would retain authority to 
rule on the cases and allegations and decide what action, if any, is 
taken. This would enhance the public confidence that this investigation 
would be an independent one.
  It is very difficult for us to investigate ourselves. There are 
friendships, there are inherent conflicts of interest. The Ethics 
Committee does a terrific job in the Senate. It has wonderful members 
serving on it, individuals of the highest integrity. But the public 
perception is always going to be that this is an inherently conflicted 
process because we are investigating ourselves. We are playing every 
role in the process. What we are trying to do is create an office that 
would conduct the investigation.
  I know many of our colleagues are not comfortable with this concept. 
Some of them have compared it to the old special prosecutor laws. But 
that is not what we are doing. We are very carefully setting up a 
system of checks and balances with the Ethics Committee retaining all 
of the final authority to decide how to proceed, to decide whether 
subpoenas should be employed, to decide whether an investigation should 
go forward in the first place, and to decide the ultimate disposition 
of the case. The investigation would be done by this independent 
office.

  I point out to my colleagues one of the advantages of having an 
independent Office of Public Integrity conduct the investigation. The 
public now is often skeptical of the findings and actions taken by the 
Ethics Committee. If the Office of Public Integrity comes to the Ethics 
Committee and says these allegations have been thoroughly investigated, 
we, an independent entity, have investigated these allegations and we 
find there is no truth to them, that finding is much more likely to be 
accepted by the public if the investigation is done by this independent 
office. It would have complete credibility. That would be a great 
advantage. It would remove the cloud of doubt and suspicion that often 
hangs over Members of Congress unfairly when allegations are made 
against them.
  The reason the public often has those doubts is they know we are 
investigating ourselves. They know our colleagues are investigating 
allegations against their colleagues.
  If we insert this Office of Public Integrity into the process, public 
confidence in the thoroughness, independence, and credibility of the 
investigations would be enhanced. It would in no way diminish the 
authority of the Ethics Committee to take the action, make the final 
judgments, and indeed judgments all along the way, on this case.
  I reserve the remainder of my time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to speak for up to 
15 minutes as in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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