[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 36 (Tuesday, March 28, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2441-S2461]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
LEGISLATIVE TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY ACT OF 2006--Continued
Amendment No. 3176
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, would the Presiding Officer review the
time agreement that we are about to embark on for consideration of the
Collins-Lieberman-McCain amendment?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 2 hours evenly divided between the
Senator from Maine and the Presiding Officer.
Ms. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. President. I was aware that was the case,
but I thought it would be helpful to our colleagues to better
understand the state of play.
Mr. President, I made some preliminary comments this morning. I do
want to explain further the concept of the Office of Public Integrity,
but I know the Senator from Illinois had asked that I yield to him some
time. In the interests of accommodating his schedule, I yield 10
minutes to the Senator from Illinois to speak in support of the
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I thank Senator Collins, not only for her
accommodation but also for her leadership on this issue. I also thank
Senator Lieberman for his outstanding work on this issue.
I rise today to speak about the importance of improving the ethics
enforcement process that we currently
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have. Last month I introduced legislation to create an outside
congressional ethics enforcement commission that would be staffed by
former judges and former Members of Congress from both parties. Under
my proposal, any citizen could report a possible ethics violation by
lawmakers, staff, or lobbyists. My commission would have had the
authority to conduct investigations, issue subpoenas, gather records,
call witnesses, and provide its full public report to the Department of
Justice or the House-Senate ethics committees.
I knew this proposal would not be the most popular one that I
introduced in Congress, but I didn't anticipate the deafening silence
that greeted it. Change is difficult and Members of Congress are
understandably concerned about delegating investigations of their own
conduct to an outside body, but I hope, when my colleagues learn a
little more about the amendment I am offering with Senators Collins,
Lieberman, and McCain, that they will understand an independent ethics
factfinding body is not only a good idea but a necessary idea.
Earlier this year, I was asked by the Minority Leader to take a lead
role in crafting ethics legislation. I was glad to assume that role
because I believe that the foundation of our democracy is the
credibility that the American people have in the legitimacy of their
Government. Unfortunately, over the past few years, that legitimacy has
been questioned because of the scandals we have here in Washington.
But one of the greatest travesties of these scandals is not what
Congress did, but what it didn't do.
Because for all the noise we have heard from the media about the
bribes accepted by Congressman Duke Cunningham, the thousands of
dollars in free meals accepted by other Congressmen, and the ``K Street
Project'' that filled lobbying firms with former staffers, we have
heard only silence from the very place that should have caught these
ethics violations in the first place, the House Ethics Committee.
For years now, it's been common knowledge that this committee has
largely failed in its responsibility to investigate and bring to light
the kind of wrongdoing between Members of Congress and lobbyists that
we are now seeing splashed across the front pages. And the sad truth is
that the House ethics process does not inspire public confidence that
Congress can serve as an effective watchdog over its own Members.
Time and time again over the past few years, the House Ethics
Committee has looked the other way in the face of seemingly obvious
wrongdoing, which has the effect of encouraging more wrongdoing. In
those few instances when the committee has taken action, its leadership
was punished, and it ceased to become an effective body. Coupled with a
Federal Election Commission that was deliberately structured to produce
deadlock, this has produced a dangerous outcome
In the words of one outside observer:
When everyone in Washington knows the agency that is
supposed to enforce campaign finance laws is not going to do
it and the ethics committees are moribund, you create a
situation where there is no sheriff. You end up in the Wild
West, and that's the context we've been operating under in
recent years.
Without question, the Senate ethics process is far superior, and I
commend my colleagues who have served--and continue to serve--
selflessly and tirelessly on the Senate Ethics Committee. Indeed, I
have the greatest respect for Senator Voinovich and Senator Johnson.
They have done an outstanding job in a difficult task. They are two of
the finest people I have had the pleasure to serve with since I arrived
in the Senate.
But here's the sad reality. No matter how well our process works here
in the Senate, it doesn't really matter since the American people
perceive the entire ethics system--House and Senate--to be broken. Our
constituents, unfortunately, do not distinguish between the bodies in
their opinion of Congress. And as long as our credibility is stained by
the actions--and inactions--of the other body, then the legitimacy of
what we do is also called into question.
With all due respect to my colleagues on the Senate Ethics Committee,
there's some good reason for the American people to be skeptical of our
enforcement system. After all, we in the Senate are our own judge,
jury, and prosecutor. Under the current system, Members investigating
their colleagues are caught in a bind. Either they investigate and
become vulnerable to the allegation that they are prosecuting a Member
for political reasons or they do not investigate and it looks like they
are just covering up for a colleague. That investigation trigger has to
be depoliticized for the good of Members and the integrity of the
process.
And so, we can pass all the ethics reforms we want--gift bans, travel
bans, lobbying restrictions--but none of them will make a difference if
there isn't a nonpartisan, independent body that will help us enforce
those laws.
That's why I come to the floor today to support this amendment for an
Office of Public Integrity. The office is the next critical step in the
evolution of ethics enforcement in the Senate and vital to restoring
the American people's faith in Congress.
This amendment doesn't have quite the same level of independence as
the outside commission that I proposed setting up. But it does have
much more independence than the current system, and for that reason I
wholeheartedly endorse it and am proud to be a cosponsor.
The Office of Public Integrity established in this amendment would
provide a voice that cannot be silenced by political pressures. It
would have the power to initiate independent investigations and bring
its findings to the Ethics Committees in a transparent manner. Final
authority to act on these findings would remain with the members of the
Ethics Committees, which would satisfy constitutional concerns.
Currently, in both the House and the Senate, the initial
determination of whether to open an investigation has often resulted in
a game of mutually assured destruction--you don't investigate Members
of my party, and I won't investigate Members of your party.
But what's interesting is that while there is often great
disagreement and sometimes even deadlock in the decision to open an
investigation, there's usually general agreement on what the final
judgment and punishment should be. That's because the development of a
full factual record can convince even the most ardent partisan that a
Member of his own party should be disciplined.
In this sense, the OPI proposal is an admirable attempt to reform the
most troublesome aspect of the current ethics process while still
retaining what works about it. Under this proposal, Ethics Committee
members would be relieved of the most difficult part of their duties,
which will make it easier for members to serve on the Ethics Committees
and easier for them to carry out their responsibilities.
Most importantly, it would add much-needed credibility to the outcome
of the process itself. By having the courage to delegate the
investigative function to an Office of Public Integrity, the U.S.
Senate would be sending the message that we have confidence in
ourselves and our ability to abide by the rules. That would be an
important signal to send to the American people.
To put this in some historical context, a similar approach was
endorsed by a Joint Committee on the Organization of Congress that was
cochaired by Congressmen Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, and David Dreier, a
Repulblican, in 1997. Representatives Hamilton and Dreier recommended
the establishment of an independent body to supplement ethics
investigations through fact finding. Had that recommendation been
embraced by the House then, it is possible that the recent House
scandals could have been averted.
In the Senate, similar proposals have been suggested over the years
by Senators Bond, Grassley, and Lott, as well as former Senator Helms.
And state legislatures in Kentucky, Tennessee, and Florida, among
others, have established mechanisms to allow for independent input into
ethics enforcement.
Today, it's time for the Senate to take the lead, the same way it
took the lead in creating the first congressional Ethics Committee in
the 1960s.
In the end, the true test of ethics reform is not whether we pass a
set of laws that appeal to a lowest common
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denominator that we can all agree on, it's whether we pass the
strongest bill with the strongest reforms possible that can truly
change the way we do business in Washington. That's what the American
people will be watching for, and that's what we owe them.
Enforcing the laws we pass is a crucial step toward reaching this
goal and restoring the public's faith in a government that stands up
for their interests and respects their values.
I commend, once again, Senators Collins and Lieberman for their
outstanding work in the committee. I strongly urge my colleagues to
support their amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Illinois for his
support. He has worked very hard on these issues. I appreciate his
comments.
Mr. President, I yield to my partner and colleague from Connecticut,
the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security, Senator
Lieberman, for 15 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Connecticut.
Mr. LIEBERMAN. Mr. President, I thank the chairman of the committee,
the Senator from Maine, for her leadership generally on this bill and
to say and it may be repetitious, what a pleasure it is to work with
her and how proud I am of what our committee has accomplished in a
thoroughly nonpartisan way under her leadership.
In that spirit, I am proud to join with Senator Collins as a
cosponsor of this amendment and also pleased that Senators McCain and
Obama have joined us as cosponsors of this amendment. Senator McCain
deserves credit for having led, along with Senator Dorgan, the tough,
independent investigation of the Abramoff scandal that led to the
action that I hope Congress will now take to reform our lobbying laws.
Senator McCain introduced a very strong lobbying reform bill of which I
am pleased to be the cosponsor.
Senator Obama has played a very important role in this debate on
ethics reform, introduced a very strong enforcement proposal of his
own, and his support of this amendment is very important to Senator
Collins and me.
The bottom line is the proposals that are in the Senate now that came
out of the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs and
the Rules Committee do represent significant reform of our existing
lobbying regulations and laws.
But there is a missing piece. The missing piece is enforcement,
taking steps to make sure that strong rules will be accompanied by
strong enforcement. That is exactly what this amendment does.
When our committee considered this subject; that is, the Committee on
Homeland Security, Senator Collins and I put down a bipartisan mark
that would have created an Office of Public Integrity, a bipartisan,
bicameral Office of Public Integrity, empowered to receive and oversee
reports filed under the ethics rules in the Lobbyist Disclosure Act.
The Office of Public Integrity also would have had the authority to
give advice on compliance with ethics rules, the Lobby Disclosure Act,
and the investigative violations of the ethics rules.
We were very anxious to respond to concerns that somehow this
independent Office of Public Integrity would become, as someone said, a
rogue entity or violate the Constitution's mandate that each House of
Congress determine its own rules and sanction its own Members when the
facts justify that, so we included a number of protections to ensure
that the office would be under the control of the Ethics Committee and
that the Ethics Committee would have final say on interpretation of the
rules and on the question of whether the rules had been violated.
Some felt our proposal was meant to imply dissatisfaction with the
Senate Ethics Committee and the job it has done. That was decidedly not
the case. The opposite is true. Rather, it reflected our decision that
if we are aspiring to genuinely elevate, improve, and strengthen not
just our lobbying regulations but the credibility and legitimacy they
have with the American people, whose faith has been undercut by so many
recent events in the processes here in Washington, including the
Abramoff scandal and the conviction of a Member of the other body,
rather, it reflects that belief that we have to act in a way to restore
that confidence.
One way to do that is to say not only are we adopting tough new
lobbying laws, but we are prepared to create an independent office to
enforce them.
That provision that was in the mark Senator Collins and I put before
our committee was, in fact, removed by a majority vote of the
committee. We have taken to heart the comments offered by our
colleagues. Today we offer this amendment in a form that we think
addresses the most serious and frankly realistic and accurate concerns
of our colleagues--not the speculative fears or truly rank
misunderstandings of what our intentions of the provision's unfortunate
amendment were, and it still provides the element of independence that
we need for ethics enforcement.
First, here are some of the questions. A number of people raised
questions about whether a bicameral Office of Public Integrity would be
constitutional. I believe strongly that our original proposal was
consistent with the Constitution's mandate that each House set and
enforce its own rules. Nevertheless, in the spirit of accommodation, we
have changed our original amendment to make the Office of Public
Integrity a Senate-only office. That is what this amendment before the
Senate today provides.
Second, we have responded to concerns expressed about the authority
of the Office of Public Integrity as Senator Collins and I initially
proposed it, to give advice and opinions on the ethics rules. Some of
our colleagues in committee worried that the Office of Public Integrity
and the Ethics Committee might give conflicting advice. Although we
always intended the Ethics Committee to retain ultimate interpretive
authority, the amendment we offer today eliminates the advice-giving
function of the Office of Public Integrity, leaving it with the Senate
Ethics Committee.
Third, our original committee proposal assigned to the Office of
Public Integrity the responsibility for receiving, monitoring, and
auditing filings under the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Improved compliance
with that act should be one of the goals of the reform package that is
before the Senate. However, I know there has been objection to that,
and at some point we may offer that as an independent amendment--in
fact, one I think for which there will be less objection.
Fourth, we have left the responsibility of receiving and reviewing
Member and staff financial disclosure statements with the Ethics
Committee. Under the proposal we offer today, the duties of the Office
of Public Integrity will center on the initial review of ethics
complaints.
These are good changes that respond to concerns expressed and still
preserve the integrity and strength and independence of the Office of
Public Integrity. It would remain a nonpartisan, independent, and
professional office headed by a full-time executive Director who would
serve for a 5-year term. The Director would be appointed by the
President pro tempore of the Senate, upon the joint recommendation of
the majority and minority leaders of the Senate.
The selection and appointment of the Director would be made without
regard to political affiliation and solely on the basis of fitness to
perform the duties of the office.
I have every confidence that, as called for by our proposal--this
amendment--the Director will be a person of integrity, independence,
and public credibility who will have experience in law enforcement, the
judiciary, civil or criminal litigation, or has served as a member of a
Federal, State, or local ethics enforcement agency.
Our proposal will provide an important element of independence to the
initial stages of an ethics complaint, while still retaining the full
authority of the Ethics Committee. Let me walk through the process that
we propose.
Under our proposal, an ethics complaint may be filed with the office
by a Member or an outside complainant, or may be initiated by the
office on its own initiative. Within 30 days of the filing of the
complaint, the Director of the Office will make an initial
determination as to whether the complaint should be dismissed or
whether there
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are sufficient grounds to conduct an investigation. The subject of the
complaint is provided the opportunity during that period to respond to
the complaint.
The Director may dismiss a complaint if he or she determines that the
complaint fails to state a violation, lacks credible evidence of a
violation, or is inadvertent, technical, or otherwise de minimis in
nature. In any case where the Director decides to dismiss the
complaint, the Director may refer the case to the Senate Ethics
Committee so that the Ethics Committee may decide if the complaint is
frivolous.
On the subject of frivolous complaints, let me assure my colleagues
that we have provided strong safeguards. If the Ethics Committee
determines that a complaint is frivolous, it may notify the Director of
the Office of Public Integrity not to accept any future complaint filed
by that same person, and the person who filed the frivolous complaint
may be required to pay the costs of processing the complaint. Also, the
Director will not be allowed to accept any complaint concerning a
Member within 60 days of an election. This so-called cooling-off period
before an election will ensure that we do not attract politically
motivated complaints in the midst of competitive campaigns. Also, let
me note that any member of the public can already file an ethics
complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee, so in that respect our
proposal continues current practice.
If during the 30 days the Director determines that there are
sufficient grounds to conduct an investigation, the Director must
notify the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee may then overrule the
decision by a two-thirds, public rollcall vote of the committee, and
the committee must issue a public report. Thus, we preserve the
ultimate authority of the Ethics Committee even at this early stage
while providing a greater measure of both independence and
transparency.
If the Ethics Committee does not overrule the decision of the
Director, the Director then conducts an investigation to determine if
probable cause exists that a violation occurred. If the Director
determines that probable cause exists that an ethics violation has
occurred, the Director must then inform the Ethics Committee, and,
again, the Ethics Committee may overrule the decision with a two-
thirds, public rollcall vote of the committee which must be accompanied
by a public report.
If the committee does not overturn the Director's decision, the
Director then presents the case to the Ethics Committee, and the Ethics
Committee makes the final decision as to whether a violation has
occurred by a rollcall vote and a report that includes the vote of each
member.
If the Ethics Committee decides that a violation has occurred, the
Director will recommend appropriate sanctions to the committee. The
Ethics Committee, though, retains the final decision on whether
sanctions will be imposed, what those sanctions will be, and whether to
take action itself or recommend sanctions to the full Senate for
consideration.
Our proposal does preserve the ultimate authority of the Ethics
Committee at every stage of the process while providing a much greater
measure of both independence and transparency along the way. This is a
way to give the American people confidence that we will have an
independent entity, watchdog, assisting Senators preparing the case
before the Ethics Committee.
Finally, I note that, at the suggestion of Senator McCain, we are
assigning to the Office of Public Integrity the role of recommending
approval or disapproval of privately funded travel by Members and
staff. The reform legislation that is before the Senate, reported out
of the Rules Committee, contains a new preapproval process for
privately funded travel. Giving this responsibility to the Office of
Public Integrity will, here again, assure the American public that
travel requests by Members of the Senate will be scrutinized by an
independent office. This proposal, in sum, will add staff and support
to the Ethics Committee process and will add greater independence and
greater transparency. It is a sensible, sound, strong effort to assure
the American people we are not only adopting reforms in our lobbying
regulations and laws, we are taking action to make sure those reforms
are enforced.
I urge my colleagues to support our amendment.
Mr. President, I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, how much time is remaining on the side of
the proponents?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 38 minutes.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I expect Senator McCain will be on the
floor very shortly to speak in favor of the amendment. While we are
waiting for his arrival, let me make a few more comments on the purpose
of this amendment.
Even though we are so fortunate to have the Presiding Officer as the
chairman of the Ethics Committee and some of our finest Members serving
on the Ethics Committee, the fact is, that does not change the public's
frustration or doubt about the process. The public views the process as
inherently conflicted. The public believes that investigations of our
colleagues by our colleagues raise obvious conflicts of interests.
No matter the incredible integrity of the Members who serve on the
Ethics Committee, they simply cannot escape that problem of public
perception. That is why Senator Lieberman, Senator McCain, and I have
attempted to come up with a new approach in our amendment that is
designed to restore the public's confidence in the ethics system. We do
so by creating the new Senate Office of Public Integrity. This office
would be headed by a Director, appointed by the President pro tempore
of the Senate upon the joint recommendation of the majority and
minority leaders of the Senate. This individual would have a 5-year
term and could be reappointed. This is not a lifetime appointment of
someone who could somehow get out of control. This person would have to
have a background suitable for the position, and it would take a joint
agreement of the majority and minority leaders to appoint the person to
the 5-year term.
I pointed out in my comments this morning that our proposal is not
the same as the proposal advanced in the House by Congressmen Shays and
Meehan, regardless of the merits of that proposal. It is not the
version created or proposed by Senators Obama and Reid earlier. In
fact, we have refined it from the proposal offered during the Homeland
Security Committee's markup to try to accommodate some concerns that
were raised by the Presiding Officer. But what this proposal does is
recognize that the public does not have confidence in the current
system.
We do not undermine the authority of the Ethics Committee. We
recognize and appreciate the hard work of the Ethics Committee, and we
realize the Ethics Committee alone should retain the ability to decide
what sanctions may be appropriate for a Member who has been shown to
have committed some misconduct. The Ethics Committee is involved every
step of the way, as a safeguard, as a check or balance.
But I would ask my colleagues to consider allegations that may be
raised against a Member and that are investigated by an independent
Office of Public Integrity. Now, that office comes back and says: There
is no merit to these allegations. That judgment is going to be readily
accepted by the public because it has been rendered not by a group of
us sitting in judgment of our colleague but, rather, by an independent
Office of Public Integrity.
Again, if the Office of Public Integrity found grounds to continue
the investigation, found probable cause, conducted an investigation and
came to the Ethics Committee with its findings, it is the Ethics
Committee and not the Office of Public Integrity that has the decision
to make on what sanctions, if any, are appropriate.
I think we have struck the right balance. I think we have sustained
the authority of the Ethics Committee, but we have also ensured that
the investigations will be carried out by an independent Office of
Public Integrity that would have the credibility to carry out this kind
of sensitive investigation. After all, it is very difficult to
investigate one of our colleagues.
We are fortunate because we know each other in this body. We have a
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great deal of regard for one another. We are friends with the people
with whom we serve. All of that helps make the Senate a more collegial
body, helps us to get our work done. But it also raises questions in
the mind of the public about whether serious allegations are
independently and thoroughly investigated. I believe that is the
advantage of the approach we put forward.
This is a modest proposal. We are not suggesting the Office of Public
Integrity should provide rulings on ethics matters, providing advice.
We are not suggesting the Office of Public Integrity would decide
sanctions to be imposed on Members. We build in that that is the job of
the Ethics Committee. We do not change that. But we do try to deal with
the perception that the current process is inherently conflicted.
Let me run through how the process would work. Essentially, the
office would do much of the investigative work that is now conducted by
the staff of the Ethics Committee, with the notable exception, which
Senator Lieberman mentioned, of ruling on requests for privately funded
travel. The office would not provide advice or counsel. It would not
issue advisory opinions. It would not have the power to enforce
subpoenas. It could not make public the product of its investigations.
And it could not directly refer matters to Federal or State
authorities, such as the Department of Justice. All of those
authorities would remain with the Ethics Committee.
I make that point because, perhaps due to the many different versions
of this concept, as advanced in the House or by outside groups or by
other Members, there is a lot of confusion over the duties and
responsibilities of the Office of Public Integrity. So I want to make
clear what the powers of this office would be.
What the office would do is accept complaints, and within 30 days of
receiving a complaint would make an initial determination as to whether
the complaint should be dismissed or whether an investigation is
warranted. If the office dismisses a complaint, it may refer the case
to the Ethics Committee to determine if the complaint is frivolous and
whether sanctions should be imposed on the individual or the outside
group filing the complaint. I think that is a big improvement on the
current system.
If, after the initial inquiry, the office finds sufficient grounds to
open an investigation, it would provide notice to the Ethics Committee.
The Ethics Committee would then have 10 days to overrule that
determination.
I want to make that point very clear, that the Ethics Committee can
decide to overrule the decision of the Office of Public Integrity to
pursue the investigation further or the Ethics Committee could decide
to take no action at all, in which case the Office of Public Integrity,
having found sufficient grounds to open an investigation, would
proceed. If the office finds probable cause that a violation has
occurred, the Ethics Committee would then have up to 30 days in which
to overrule that determination or let it stand. If not overruled, the
office then presents the case and the evidence to the Ethics Committee
to vote on whether any rules or any other standards of conduct have
been violated.
Again, you see that the Ethics Committee is involved at every single
stage. There is a report from the Office of Public Integrity and an
opportunity for the committee to overrule the Office of Public
Integrity. That opportunity is always available.
Mr. President, I do expect Senator McCain will be joining us shortly.
In the meantime, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous
consent that it be charged to both sides.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coleman). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I rise to, first, commend Senators Lott
and Collins for bringing the underlying bill to the floor of the
Senate. I know both worked extremely hard to pass their respective
pieces from the Rules Committee and the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee.
Second, I want to make one thing clear: I strongly support lobbying
reforms that protect the integrity of our legislative process, close
loopholes, promote moral/ethical behavior, and enforce our Senate
rules. Any reforms that make sense that are not cosmetic should be
given the strongest consideration by this body. I am particularly
pleased that this bill requires the completion of an ethics training
program conducted by the Ethics Committee within 120 days of enactment
for current Members of the Senate and staff as well as requiring
training for incoming Members and staff. It is not mandatory today. It
is voluntary. This makes it mandatory, which is an improvement.
The Senate Ethics Committee professional nonpartisan staff already
conduct numerous ethics lectures and seminars for the Senate community.
The Ethics Committee staff also regularly conducts training for
individual Member's offices upon request. In addition, the Ethics
Committee staff receives and responds to over 200 calls per week asking
specific questions about rules compliance. While I applaud the many
positive aspects of the proposed lobbying reform bill, this amendment
to create an Office of Public Integrity is off target and unnecessary.
As a member of the Ethics Committee for 8 years and chairman for the
past 3, I oppose the proposed OPI because it will harm the Senate
ethics process rather than improve it.
If adopted, the OPI will introduce partisan politics into a process
that has been bipartisan. It is interesting to note that none of the
sponsors of this OPI has served on the Ethics Committee, and all
Members of the Ethics Committee currently, and others, are opposed to
it. By its very design, the OPI will simply replicate the tasks the
Ethics Committee does every day, including receiving complaints against
Members and staff and investigating allegations of misconduct. Given
all the other duties of the Ethics Committee staff and the need for the
Ethics Committee to have its own counsel when reviewing the Director's
recommendation, there would not be any reduction in the staff of the
Ethics Committee. More importantly, the OPI would add a duplicate
investigative stage because the Ethics Committee will need to conduct
its own investigation to verify the merits of any complaint it receives
from the Director of the OPI; otherwise, the Ethics Committee would be
acting irresponsibly.
Some proponents of the OPI have argued that the Ethics Committee
cannot or does not get the job done. They believe that a third party
must be appointed to ensure that nefarious acts are not committed
within these walls. The fact that the Ethics Committee has an excellent
track record of enforcement seems to have been forgotten by those who
have taken this position, although I must say that the Senator from
Maine has been very complimentary to the chairman of the Ethics
Committee and the work we are doing. I am appreciative of that.
Other OPI proponents argue that despite the great work of the Ethics
Committee, the appearance of Senators enforcing our rules on other
Senators is a problem that OPI will fix. Some of this criticism appears
to be based on the fact that Members of the Ethics Committee and its
staff are obligated to keep matters confidential. We can't talk to
people about things. It is easy for critics to point and sneer when the
committee and its members are obliged to confidentiality and are
prohibited from responding to questions and criticism. Frankly, I
believe it is the Ethics Committee's commitment to keep matters
confidential that causes some to question the effectiveness and values
of the Ethics Committee. However, it is this confidentiality that
provides due process protection for Members and staff and keeps
partisan politics out of the ethics process. These confidentiality
provisions provide due process protection for Members while keeping
partisan politics out of the ethics process.
Nevertheless, if a colleague acts in a way that is contrary to the
rules of conduct of the Senate, the Ethics Committee has the ability
and the duty to investigate the allegation, and it does
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so. Right now we have a right to initiate investigations without a
complaint. In terms of reading something in the newspaper, something
brought to our attention and it seems like it casts a bad reflection
upon the Members of the Senate, we have often sent letters off to
Senators saying: We have seen this. We want you to respond to it.
Frankly, that is why the proposed OPI is somewhat offensive. It
suggests that Members lack the moral conviction to make difficult
decisions when a fellow Member has acted in violation of the Senate
rules.
While sitting in judgment of one's peers is never easy, the Ethics
Committee conducts itself with a sense that the reputation of the
Senate is above any individual Member. In my opinion--I hope my
colleagues will agree with me after considering this amendment--the OPI
and its independent counsel is more cosmetic and, frankly, problematic.
It seems as if proponents of the measure understand that as well. In
fact, proponents of the OPI offered a much more robust proposal during
the markup of the lobbying reform bill in the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee. The proposal was soundly defeated in a
bipartisan manner. Recognizing all of the other flaws in the earlier
proposal, this amendment strips away all of the other elements of the
earlier proposal to offer nothing more than the creation of an
independent counsel within the Senate.
Frankly, I am confused. On the one hand, one would believe that in
offering this amendment, faith in the Senate Ethics Committee would be
low. However, the scaled-back version of the OPI suggests that the
proponents recognize the Senate Ethics Committee is doing its job but
still want to force this independent counsel on the Senate for no
reason than to appease the media, frankly, and some of the watchdog
groups. I keep hearing the public doesn't have any confidence in the
process. There have been complaints about what has happened over in the
other House. But the fact is, to my knowledge, we have not had
complaints about the work of the Senate Ethics Committee. Certainly, I
haven't heard any complaints from any of my constituents about this
work, and I am chairman of the committee.
Despite the misunderstandings and commentary by various groups, the
Ethics Committee is already a vigorous enforcer of Senate rules. The
Ethics Committee and its 11 professional, nonpartisan staff, including
5 nonpartisan attorneys with many years of prosecutorial and
investigative experience, are there to initiate investigations based on
complaints from Members and staff, outside individuals and groups, as
well as on its own initiative. What I am saying is, if this stuff comes
to the attention of the staff, they go out and do the investigation.
They look into the matter. They bring it to us and ask us: Do you think
we should go forward. It is not as though we are controlling what they
can do. That is one of the things the proposal for the independent
counsel doesn't recognize. They are already in a position to do that.
We are proposing to do what we are already doing.
With the assistance of this professional nonpartisan staff, the
Senate Ethics Committee is doing exactly what our colleagues and the
American people should expect of us--protecting the integrity of the
Senate and vigorously pursuing and sanctioning Senators and staff who
violate the rules of the Senate. I have not heard any evidence to the
contrary.
The tradition of the Ethics Committee doing its job is a long one.
For over 40 years, the Ethics Committee has operated in a way to meet
the constitutional mandate that each body establish rules, investigate
its Members for disorderly behavior, and hand out appropriate
punishment. The Ethics Committee continues to meet this mandate today,
and it does so in a bipartisan manner. In fact, published accounts
reveal that the Ethics Committee has considered allegations involving
some 35 Senators, all but 3 of which occurred after 1977.
While these Members include only public allegations, frankly, this
reveals that the Senate Ethics Committee has not had the problem of
partisan gridlock that has affected the House ethics process. If we
create a Senate OPI, however, I can almost guarantee the Ethics
Committee will become partisan and gridlocked, especially in the
present political environment.
This is also why all six members of the Ethics Committee, three
Republicans and three Democrats, oppose creation of the OPI. Over the
years, the Ethics Committee has benefited from a bipartisan working
relationship. This positive working relationship could be quickly lost
under this new independent counsel. Moreover, the OPI appears designed
to result in conflict and disagreement between the Ethics Committee and
the Director of the OPI.
First, Members should understand the three-stage process that has
been proposed under the OPI and understand why this proposal would ruin
the bipartisan nature of the system as well as creating an adversarial
relationship between the Ethics Committee and the Director.
At each stage of the OPI process, if the Director, prosecutor,
independent counsel, or whatever you want to call him or her,
determines that he or she believes there are sufficient grounds to
conduct or proceed with an investigation, then the Director would
notify the Ethics Committee. The Ethics Committee then has the
opportunity to overrule the determination by a two-thirds vote. But if
the Ethics Committee disagrees with the Director and votes to overrule,
the Ethics Committee is required to issue a public report which would
include a record of how each Member voted. While this OPI amendment
does not specify what should be included in these public reports, as a
practical matter, these public reports will include the Member's name,
facts about the alleged misconduct, and the rationale for rejecting the
Director's recommendations. By requiring the public report, a Member's
name will be disclosed even if the Ethics Committee determines there is
no violation of the rules.
I think this new public reporting process will turn the existing
Senate ethics process into a political public relations battle rather
than a determination on the merits of each matter. What's more, the
Director is not likely to be happy that the Ethics Committee disagreed
with his or her conclusions.
If you bring it in, talk about it, and then if you disagree with
independent counsel and you have a vote, this will go back and forth.
Then Members will start worrying about how they are voting in terms of
the fact that they disagreed with the independent counsel's decision.
Then we get into the issue of your votes in terms of various Members
who are before the committee and having Members in your own caucus
coming up to you and saying: Why did you vote that way or why didn't
you vote this way? These considerations are not part of our
decisionmaking today. This is a nuance that I think many people don't
understand. That is how we keep this.
People ask me about cases, and I say ``no comment.'' The media asks,
and I say ``no comment.'' Once the name is out there, Katey, bar the
door--especially today, unfortunately, in this partisan, political
environment.
I want to take a second to point out something that is obvious but
may be overlooked in this debate. Issuing a subpoena to a Member of the
Senate is a very serious matter, and Members know it. The heart of the
subpoena power is a big stick that the Ethics Committee must
occasionally use to enforce information requests during an
investigation. The subpoena power is used judiciously. This power
should not be delegated lightly as the OPI proposes to do.
Proponents of the OPI also suggest that the Director of the OPI will
be responsible and answerable to the Ethics Committee throughout the
process. In fact, this Director would not be answerable and responsible
throughout the process. After the Ethics Committee approves the
Director's initial decision to begin an investigation, the Director
would have the unchecked power to investigate. These investigations may
go on as long as the Director, in his or her sole discretion, sees fit.
We all know that independent of any power to sanction, the power to
investigate is itself an awesome power and may itself impose on the
subject of the investigation a heavy burden to his or her resources, to
his or her reputation, to his or her ability to represent and serve
constituents fully and effectively. The OPI amendment would resurrect
the independent counsel in the
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institution of the Senate. This would serve neither the interests of
this institution nor the public.
Finally, inherent conflict between the Ethics Committee and the
Director, as I mentioned, is built into the way this determination is
made.
Advocates of the OPI state that the process would remove politics
from the ethics process. I can guarantee you that by creating this
independent counsel, politics would not only play a part in the ethics
process but would be a decisive factor to every inquiry. Members of the
Ethics Committee would have to explain why they voted the way they did
to the media, their colleagues, and party members. Partisan
considerations will transform a now bipartisan decisionmaking process
into another partisan battle. The Senate has had enough of some of
these partisan problems.
I also find it troubling that Members believe it is better policy to
turn over the investigative process to an unelected and unaccountable
individual rather than leaving such an important responsibility with
Members who respect the Senate as an institution and are accountable to
the voters every 6 years.
I also want to take a step back and discuss another reason proponents
of the OPI claim it is necessary. Throughout the entirety of the recent
scandals, reports appear that cast doubts upon the integrity of
everybody on Capitol Hill. There is a belief that the Senate Ethics
Committee was asleep at the wheel--or even worse, indifferent to the
allegations in the Abramoff-related matter. As detailed in the
committee response to Democracy 21, which is posted on the Ethics
Committee Web site, the committee voted to follow its general practice
of not initiating an investigation that might interfere with an ongoing
Department of Justice criminal investigation. We keep hearing
complaints from Democracy 21 and others that ``you guys should be
involved in the Abramoff case.'' We discussed it and decided to follow
the procedure we followed in the past. The Justice Department said:
Keep your nose out of this. Let us do our work. When we are done, we
will come to you.
We had the same case in terms of Senator Torricelli. He was under
investigation--this is public knowledge--by the Justice Department and,
for some reason, they decided not to prosecute him. They sent the stuff
to us after they did their investigation. By the way, it was helpful to
us because we had the Justice Department investigation before us. As a
result of that, we censured as a public admonition of Senator
Torricelli. He decided not to seek reelection to the Senate. So I just
want you to know that the opposition to this is a bipartisan
opposition. People who have been around here and have been through the
process understand that we are getting the job done.
One other thing that I think will help is annual reports. As you
know, right now we don't have to report what we do. People at home come
up to me and say: What are you doing?
I say: I am chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee.
They say: What about it?
I cannot talk about it.
What do you do?
I cannot talk about it. There is no record on this, and I put out an
annual report every year and cannot talk about what we have
accomplished.
We have an amendment that we got in the committee, when it was marked
up, that says we will report each year everything that we do. Members'
names will not be mentioned, but at least the public will know that we
are doing our work and we are not just sitting there letting everything
pass us by. I am not sure that is going to satisfy some of the public
interest groups, or that it will satisfy some of the media who have
taken shots at me editorially because they think we are trying to hide
something.
But the fact is, we are trying to get the job done. We must preserve
the reputation of this Senate. So I want to say that I think the
creation of the OPI is not a positive step forward and, in fact, it
would diminish the job that is being done in the Senate to enforce our
ethics laws and rules.
Mr. President, I reserve my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine is recognized.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I yield up to 10 minutes to the Senator
from Arizona, who is a key supporter of the amendment.
Mr. McCAIN. I thank the Senator from Maine. I will not take all of
the 10 minutes. I would like to begin by thanking her and Senator
Lieberman for their very hard work and their dedication to trying to
fix a problem that perhaps some of my colleagues may not be aware of,
and that is our reputation as a body is suffering rather significantly
in the view of the American people.
I view this amendment by the Senator from Maine as a way to help the
Ethics Committee do its job because the questioning has been: Why
haven't people been investigated? If you had a body that would help
them determine whether a case is worthy of further investigation and
pursuit or not, it seems to me it would relieve the Ethics Committee of
some of the onus of making tough decisions when we are talking about
our colleagues.
I was interested in the comment by the Senator from Ohio that he
won't investigate until after the Abramoff thing is done by the Justice
Department. The Abramoff thing would not have been investigated by the
Justice Department if it had not been for the Indian Affairs
investigation; and while the Justice Department began and continued the
investigations, we continued our hearings on the Abramoff case. If I
may say, with a bit of ego, the Indian Affairs Committee contributed
quite a bit to the information they needed in order to pursue this not
unprecedented but egregious case of corruption of the system, staff,
and Members. Really remarkable things happened under Mr. Abramoff. So
somehow we on the Indian Affairs Committee were able to have an
investigation--the little, obscure Indian Affairs Committee.
But the fundamental point is that we need to restore the confidence
of the American people in the way we do business. Hardly a day goes by,
or at least a week, that there is not a major story about influence of
special interests, wrongdoing, or certainly ethical questions that are
raised. That is the kindest way that I can describe it. We need to fix
the problem. So why not give this to the body of the Senate that is
charged with these onerous obligations.
I sympathize with anybody who is a member of the Ethics Committee
because tough decisions have to be made and most of us are friends
here. That is very tough.
So why would it be harmful? And why would it not be helpful to have
an Office of Public Integrity with a mission that would be carefully
circumscribed, which, if they made a decision, could be overruled by a
vote of the Senate, and would be helpful in clearing up sometimes a
cloud of investigations such as those that characterized the 1980s and
1990s, particularly in the other body where there were charges launched
and there were partisan vendettas which many people called ``the
criminalization of partisan differences.''
Mr. President, I hope my colleagues recognize that when our approval
ratings are down around 25, 26 percent, and there are people who
continue to be deeply disturbed about the way we do business--whether
or not it is legitimate, the perception is out there; you can look at
any public opinion poll--should we not do what we can to help fix
either a real or imagined problem that we have with the people we
serve?
It seems to me that an Office of Public Integrity that would
recommend appropriate action taken by the Ethics Committee, not by the
Office of Public Integrity such as has been recommended by this
amendment, would be helpful to the Ethics Committee process, helpful in
carrying out and determining whether these are partisan, unwarranted
charges, or whether those are legitimate.
I want to point out again that this is a legitimate difference of
opinion. The Senator from Maine and I, and others, including Senator
Lieberman, have a view that this is necessary. Others think it is not.
Can we calm down a little bit? This is a legitimate subject of debate
on whether we need it. I hope we can discuss this, but I also believe
that if you don't do this, what are we going to do? What are we going
to do to try to restore some of the confidence that the American people
have clearly lost in us?
Obviously, a functioning Ethics Committee, with a level of
credibility with
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the American people, is something I think would contribute to healing
this breach that has developed between us and the people we represent.
I thank the Senator from Maine and Senator Lieberman and others for
this bipartisan effort. I would like to say a word about the so-called
watchdog groups. I think they do a lot of good. They have done a lot of
good for this body and for this Nation. There are people who are
concerned about public integrity. There are people who bring issues
before us and the American people. They are legitimate. I may not agree
with them all the time, but I think to view them as adversaries,
frankly, in my dealings with them they have been helpful. They
certainly were in various investigations in which I and my committee
have been involved, and also with reform efforts in which I have been
involved. I, for one, appreciate their work and the dedication they
have to giving a better Government to the American people.
Again, I thank Senator Collins for her hard work, and I appreciate
her efforts. I appreciate her and Senator Lieberman's bipartisan
stewardship of one of the most important committees in the Senate.
I yield the floor.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from
South Dakota.
Mr. JOHNSON. Mr. President, I rise to discuss the pending McCain-
Collins-Lieberman amendment to create an Office of Public Integrity. I
thank my colleague from Ohio, Senator Voinovich, who serves as chairman
of the Senate Ethics Committee. I serve as vice chair. This is a
committee that has three Republicans and three Democrats, and it has a
history of close bipartisan cooperation.
I applaud Senator Voinovich's observations about the Abramoff scandal
and the fact that the Department of Justice has an investigation that
is ongoing. The Department of Justice actually has requested the Ethics
Committee not to begin its own investigation for fear of jeopardizing
criminal charges that may or may not be brought by DOJ, and we also
recognize a much greater investigative capability and the importance of
not duplicating efforts. So I appreciate Chairman Voinovich's
observations in that regard.
I thank Senators Collins, Lieberman, Lott, and Dodd for their efforts
to bring to the floor this bipartisan lobbying reform legislation and
their ongoing work to complete this important bill. I support the bill,
and I believe many of the reforms we are debating are long overdue.
As vice chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee, I am hopeful we can
continue to work in a bipartisan manner to pass this legislation,
conference the bill with the House, and enact these much needed
reforms.
I must say as an aside, while these reforms are much needed, the
underlying truth is, I believe the greatest share of problems this body
faces is due to a separate issue, that of campaign finance, but that
will have to be taken up in a different context and different
legislation.
Unfortunately, I rise today to oppose the pending amendment. I know
my colleagues have offered this amendment in an attempt to improve the
ethics process and because they believe in good faith that the creation
of a new Office of Public Integrity, or OPI, will address perceived
shortcomings in the operations of the Ethics Committee. However, I am
concerned this amendment attempts to fix something that, frankly, is
not broken and will, in fact, have a detrimental impact on the Senate.
As a relatively new member of the Ethics Committee, I do not have an
entrenched loyalty to that committee. If I believed the committee was
not taking its duties seriously or was acting in an irresponsible
manner, I would be the first to call for a new approach. The truth is,
I believe the Senate Ethics Committee operates effectively and in a
bipartisan fashion. However, the members of the committee and its staff
are obligated to operate under strict confidentiality, which I believe
some of our colleagues and certain outside groups equate with inaction.
This simply is not the case. To the contrary, the committee serves
Senate offices in an advisory role, investigates matters of concern,
and enforces the rules of the Senate on a daily basis. But to provide
due process protections and to ensure professionalism, most of the
committee's actions are confidential.
I believe the Members who have had interactions with the Ethics
Committee appreciate this professional approach which further
encourages Members and their staff to seek the prior advice of the
committee and avoids many potential problems.
I recognize this perception of inaction must be addressed in order to
restore public confidence in the ethics process. I thank the chairman
of the Ethics Committee, Senator Voinovich, for offering an amendment
during the markup of this bill that will allow the Ethics Committee to
publish annually on a no-name basis a report detailing the activities
of the committee. I believe this is an important step and will give our
colleagues and the public a better idea of the committee's operations.
I wish to spend a few minutes discussing my concerns about the
amendment itself.
First, I believe there are significant constitutional issues
surrounding the creation of an independent Office of Public Integrity.
The Constitution gives the Senate the authority to establish its own
rules and to punish its own Members. An Office of Public Integrity that
is outside the Senate would violate this section of the Constitution,
as well as the speech and debate clause. As a consequence, such an
office would never be able to acquire the information or compel the
necessary testimony to investigate rules violations, keeping in mind
that each Member of the Senate is subject to the same criminal laws as
every other citizen of America but beyond those laws also must comply
with the ethics rules we have internally in the U.S. Senate.
An Office of Public Integrity that is set up within the Senate to
avoid these constitutional issues, as I understand the current
amendment as drafted, would merely duplicate the Senate Ethics
Committee, would be a waste of resources, and would not solve the
problems the sponsors perceive to exist. The two-tiered ethics process
that would be created by this amendment would undoubtedly slow
consideration of ethics complaints, create more doubt about the
process, and make our colleagues and the public less confident in our
ability to address these issues.
I am also concerned about the practical operations of an Office of
Public Integrity. As I understand the amendment under consideration,
the Office of Public Integrity would take over most of the
investigatory functions of the Senate Ethics Committee. When an ethics
complaint is received, the Office of Public Integrity would
preliminarily investigate the matter, and if grounds for further
investigation are found, the matter would then be sent to the Senate
Ethics Committee for approval. The decision to continue the
investigation could be overridden by a public two-thirds vote of the
Ethics Committee with a required public report on the matter. If
approved, the matter would be referred back to the Office of Public
Integrity for further investigation.
At the conclusion of the investigation, if the Director of the Office
of Public Integrity determines that there is probable cause that an
ethics violation has occurred, the Director would, once again, send the
matter to the Ethics Committee and, once again, this determination
could be overridden by a public two-thirds vote of the Ethics Committee
with a mandatory public report. Assuming the Ethics Committee did not
override the Director's determination, the Office of Public Integrity
would then present the case to the committee for a final ruling and
implement any sanctions. Regardless of the committee's decision on the
case, the amendment would require the committee to issue a public
report at this stage of the process.
I fail to see how this process of ethics cases bouncing back and
forth between the Office of Public Integrity and the Ethics Committee
will improve in any way the way ethics complaints are handled. Instead,
the amendment would create more bureaucracy and a more belabored
process.
In addition, it is not clear if the underlying ethics complaint would
remain confidential during this process. The amendment contains a
provision prohibiting the Director or the staff of
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the Office of Public Integrity from disclosing any information about a
case unless authorized by the Senate Ethics Committee. However, I do
not know how information will remain confidential when cases are being
referred back and forth between the Office of Public Integrity and the
Ethics Committee, especially when the amendment specifically requires
the committee to issue public reports. This leaves open the possibility
that Members will be forced to live under the cloud of an investigation
as a result of every accusation brought before the Office of Public
Integrity, regardless of its merit--regardless of its merit. Such a
situation would only interject more partisanship into the ethics
process and create a blunt tool for extreme partisan groups to make
politically based attacks.
I have no doubt that my colleagues have offered this amendment with
the best of intentions and based on their belief that this Office of
Public Integrity would improve how we do our business in the Senate.
Once again, if I believed the Ethics Committee process was broken or
that the proposed Office of Public Integrity would, in fact, improve
the mechanism for considering ethics complaints in the Senate, I would
support that amendment. However, I know the ethics process is working
in the Senate.
To address the perception of inactivity which is the result of the
Senate's confidentiality rules, the bill does contain important
language to mandate that the committee report in broad terms its
activities, which will provide greater transparency to the committee's
action.
It is my hope that my colleagues will listen to the concerns about
this amendment expressed by the current and past members of the Ethics
Committee who best understand the committee operations and will join us
in a bipartisan fashion opposing the McCain-Collins-Lieberman
amendment.
I yield back my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. VOINOVICH. I yield up to 5 minutes to Senator Stevens.
Mr. President, how much time remains?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty-one minutes.
Mr. VOINOVICH. How much time does the Senator need?
Mr. STEVENS. How much time is left?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Thirty-one minutes.
Mr. STEVENS. Ten minutes.
Mr. VOINOVICH. I yield 10 minutes to the Senator from Alaska.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alaska is recognized.
Mr. STEVENS. Mr. President, I want to express my concerns regarding
the creation of the Office of Public Integrity. We discussed this
proposal in committee, and I joined a bipartisan group of Senators in
defeating it, and rightly so.
The proposed Office of Public Integrity would duplicate the efforts
of the Senate Ethics Committee. Our Ethics Committee was established
pursuant to the Constitution, which states each body of Congress must
make its own rules. This office would, in effect, replace--or
duplicate--the current rule of the Senate.
The implication the sponsors here make is that in order to restore
public confidence, we have to create something new. I do not think we
should replace the Senate Ethics Committee, nor do I think we should
imply that our current system is not working.
I happen to have been the target of complaints to the Ethics
Committee, and I can tell you it has a qualified staff headed by a very
capable chairman and ranking member who have the public's trust.
As a matter of fact, I once chaired this committee, and believe me,
it is a difficult and thankless job, but one Chairman Voinovich is
doing very well. If the Ethics Committee process is broken, we should
fix, it. We should not create another layer of bureaucratic red tape
and ask American taxpayers to pay $2 million a year to fund it.
What's more, I am concerned that the Office of Public Integrity could
be used as a partisan, political tool. The climate in Washington today
is the most partisan I have experienced in my 37 years in the Senate,
and we should think carefully about offering up another tool for
partisan critics of either party to abuse. Under this proposal,
accusations don't have to be verified, those making accusations are not
under oath. This proposal will add another layer to what is already a
very expensive process. Who will pay those costs? A Senator could face
multiple accusations presented to this OPI--and the Senate Ethics
Committee. The costs of legal assistance in such instances will be
doubled.
In my judgment, this proposal points us in the wrong direction, and
it's a slap in the face to Chairman Voinovich and Senator Johnson, and
all past chairmen for that matter.
I have some concern about this amendment. I can state, as President
pro tempore of the Senate, I would have a series of duties under this
amendment subject to being told exactly what to do by the two leaders
of the Senate. However, as I view this amendment, it does not create an
entity that makes any decisions.
I think the Senator from South Dakota is absolutely correct. The
impact of this amendment would be that the Director of this office
would become the investigatory arm of the Senate Ethics Committee. As a
matter of fact, once the Director gets a complaint, he then has to make
recommendations to the Senate Ethics Committee. The Senate Ethics
Committee either approves or denies the recommendation. In terms of the
investigation concept, the complaint with the Office of Public
Integrity is not made under oath, it is not made under normal
procedures.
I agree with the Senator from South Dakota, I don't know how the
Senate has the authority to create an independent body that is spending
taxpayers' money that has the job of duplicating the investigatory arm
in the Senate Ethics Committee. We have a Senate Ethics Committee
investigating group, and it does a very good job.
I happen to have been chairman of the Ethics Committee in the past,
and I have also have been the subject of investigation by the Ethics
Committee. I can assure my colleagues they do a good job. I can also
assure my colleagues that it costs a considerable amount of money to
comply with the inquiries of an ethics complaint. All this does is set
up another entity that also will cause more attorney's fees and more
time of the Senator to deal with the problem of someone having
presented a complaint against him.
If the Director decides to dismiss a complaint, it goes back to the
Senate Ethics Committee. They decide whether it is frivolous. The
Director doesn't make that decision. Again, it is back to the
committee.
I don't understand the Senator from Arizona saying this is supposed
to take the workload off the Senate Ethics Committee. To the contrary.
I agree with the assertion that has been made that I don't know of any
Senator who would serve the Ethics Committee under this rule. I
certainly would not. Whenever the Director determines there are
sufficient grounds to conduct an investigation, he notifies the Senate
Committee on Ethics, and the committee may overrule that. In other
words, there is nothing this Director does without going back to the
Ethics Committee and burdening the Ethics Committee. Under current
Senate rules, the Ethics Committee can continue to investigate
complaints presented to it. They have the procedures and they have the
rules. They would have to follow them if the complaint was directed to
that committee. There is nothing in here saying you can only present a
complaint to the Director of this Office of Public Integrity.
If the Director determines there is cause to proceed further, what
does he do? He goes back to the Senate Ethics Committee and says that
is his determination. The Ethics Committee then has the right to vote
on that. I don't know how we are restoring public confidence in the
system if we create an investigatory arm that comes back to the Senate
Ethics Committee every time it wants to do something. They are the
people who make the decisions now, and the process is working.
I don't understand because of some complaints from public interest
groups that the process is not working, mainly because--I applaud the
initiative of Senator Voinovich and Senator Johnson and the decision by
the committee to publish a report. I think that is a good one. That is
a complaint that was heard back in the days when I was chairman of the
committee. We, by nature, kept those decisions within the
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Senate, except when there was a final decision made. I was here when
one Senator was censored and one other expelled from the Senate because
of a Senate Ethics Committee investigation.
Whatever decision is made, whether the office is going to refer
something to the Department of Justice, what do they do? The Director
comes back to the committee and tells them the Director thinks it
should be referred to the Department of Justice, and then the Senate
committee votes on whether it should go to the Department of Justice.
I tell the Senate, from my point of view, the Constitution gave us
not only the right but the duty to create our own rules, and the rules
we have--and they are very important--are the rules concerning our
ethics. They are enforced internally by the Senate itself.
The decisions made under this amendment would be no different than
right now. The final decision will be made by the Senate Ethics
Committee. All this really does is find a way to further publicize that
complaints have been made.
I know it says if there is a frivolous complaint made, then this
Director can say you cannot present the complaint any longer to the
Office of Public Integrity. There is nothing barring them from
complaining to the Senate Ethics Committee again. The Senate rules are
there. Anybody can file a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee,
and they are reviewed by very fine staff.
I have to tell my colleagues, if we take the action to create
something in the public--call it Office of Public Integrity--and it has
no teeth, how have we restored confidence in the system? This is not a
way to restore confidence in the system. The way to restore confidence
in the system is for Senators to stop repeating rumors about the
Senate, to stand up and say: The Senate has integrity and the Senate is
doing its job.
The Senators who serve on this Ethics Committee--and believe me, I
remember trying to get someone to take my place. It took a long time to
find someone to take my place because we had just gone through a long
investigation of a Senator, and it was really a bitter period of time
for the Senate Ethics Committee. No one wanted to serve on it anymore.
This is going to present a situation where no one will serve on this
committee. Why would they do it? They have someone, a director, who
comes to them and tells them the director thinks some Senator has done
something wrong. The Senate votes. Then what do they do? If he
disagrees, then they publish it. What good does that do? The problem is
the integrity of the rules. And I think, serving on both this
committee--and I have been the chairman of this committee also, and the
Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee--these are heavy
burdens, to carry out these responsibilities.
The Senate Ethics Committee is a heavy burden. It takes more time
than any Senator who hasn't served on the committee can possibly
determine. Talk about reading. You have to read depositions, go through
files; enormous time is put into this. What are we going to do now if
we create this Office of Public Integrity? Someone else is going to do
the investigations and bring it to the committee and say: What do you
think about this? Guess what. In the final analysis, there is one
section that says, in any event, the committee will comply with the
Senate rules. So the whole body of Senate rules and the precedent
behind Senate rules are still in place, but we create a new Office of
Public Integrity on top of it to start the investigations. The
investigatory process of the Senate Ethics Committee is a very unique
one, and I urge the Senators to at some time read that rule and read
the precedents under that rule which are set forth in the publication
the Senate Ethics Committee has made.
I agree we have to restore public confidence, but this is one aspect
that destroys public confidence because it says you cannot have
confidence in the investigatory side of the ethics process. There is
nothing that says you can't have confidence in the committee itself
because every final decision in this process is still made by the
Senate Ethics Committee. That, to me, is not an improvement at all of
the process.
Furthermore, we ought to take into account the situation that exists
right here in Washington, DC, now. In the 37 years I have been in the
Senate, I have never seen such partisan people outside of the Senate on
both sides accusing Members of the Senate. It is part of the political
process now, it is not part of the ethics process. We have people
accusing us almost daily of having done something wrong and publishing
it through blogs and all that. I think we should be very careful in
setting up another tool for these bloggers and these people to use to
create more news, to create more charges against the Senate. So I urge
the Senate to vote against this amendment and keep confidence in our
own rules and our own procedure.
It is my hope the Senate will follow the example of the Majority of
the Rules Committee and the Governmental Affairs Committee. We will
closely scrutinize this and other amendments before us.
I cannot support an amendment that either replaces the Senate Ethics
Committee or adds another layer to our already expensive and time-
consuming process. I urge the Senate to defeat this provision.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I yield time to the Senator from Utah.
How much time do I have remaining?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Twenty-one minutes.
Mr. VOINOVICH. I yield 7 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Utah is recognized.
Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I have heard the arguments, and I agree
with most of them. I simply want to put it all in perspective.
Let us remember that the Senate Ethics Committee, under the man who
is currently the assistant majority leader, the majority whip, Senator
McConnell, censured the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, a
member of Senator McConnell's own party. The Senate Ethics Committee is
not a namby-pamby, rollover, protect-the-party kind of institution. Let
us remember that the current Democratic leader, the Senator from
Nevada, was on the Ethics Committee when it censured a member of his
own party with sufficient strength to cause that Member to recognize
that he could not possibly seek reelection.
There would be those who would say: Oh, Senator Reid will protect the
Democrat. Senator Reid will see to it that the decision of the Justice
Department, which said he had not violated a law, would be sufficient
and would give him appropriate political cover. Senator Reid did not do
that. Instead, the Ethics Committee came out with a statement so strong
that the Senator in question withdrew himself from the election.
Again, the Senator from Kentucky, when he was chairman of the Ethics
Committee, came out with statements so strong that the chairman of the
Senate Finance Committee--in some people's view, the most significant
committee assignment anyone could have in this body--was forced to
resign.
Let us not listen to those who say the Senate Ethics Committee does
not do its job and needs some kind of a watchdog--some kind of a
gatekeeper, if you will--that will go out and gather those accusations
which the Ethics Committee has not properly examined. Let's create the
Senate version of the independent counsel.
The Independent Counsel Act came after Watergate, as people reacted
to the Watergate scandal and said: We need a counsel who is independent
of all politics. They don't recognize that the people who ended up with
the prosecutions and the convictions that sent members of the Nixon
administration to prison were not people connected with an independent
counsel; they were people out of the Justice Department. Let us
remember that when the President tried to do things with the Justice
Department that were viewed as being protective of him, there were
individuals who refused to accept appointment, who resigned from the
Justice Department rather than carry out a partisan agenda. We are
getting the independent counsel mentality here of the same kind. There
has been a scandal. Jack Abramoff has broken the law.
I agree with the comment made by the Senator from Nebraska, Mr.
Nelson, who said: Washington is the only place I know where, when
people break
[[Page S2451]]
the law, our reaction is, change the law, make the law tougher.
Jack Abramoff is going to go to prison, and he is going to go to
prison under the old rules. He is going to go to prison under the
existing laws. That doesn't say to me that the existing rules and the
existing laws somehow failed. What failed is that Jack Abramoff failed
his moral and integrity responsibility to abide by the law, not that
there was something wrong with the law.
So we had the Independent Counsel Act after Watergate, and we saw
what happened. When the impeachment trial here in this Chamber was
over, Senator McConnell and Senator Dodd, the chairman and ranking
member respectively of the Senate Rules Committee, both went upstairs
to the press gallery and both said: It is time to kill the independent
counsel statute. The independent counsel statute has gone too far, it
has created too much partisanship, it has created too much difficulty.
A bipartisan call, and this body agreed, and the independent counsel
statute lapsed, with no tears being shed for it in this body.
Now there is a sense that somehow, in response to the Abramoff
scandal, we must do the same thing that was done in response to the
Watergate scandal. If we do this, at some future point, the future
counterparts of Senator McConnell and Senator Dodd will go to the
gallery and say it is time to kill the Office of Public Integrity.
Let's go back to the way things make sense. We have heard all of the
examples from all of the Senators as to the way this would work and the
way it would make sense. I oppose this amendment, and I hope all of the
Members of the Senate will do so as well.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Again, the time remaining, Mr. President?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Fifteen minutes.
Mr. VOINOVICH. I yield the Senator from Arkansas up to 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas is recognized.
Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I commend Senators Collins and Lieberman on
their great work on this underlying bill. I am on the Homeland Security
Committee with them, and it is always great to work with them. They
work in a very nonpartisan and bipartisan fashion.
Also, I wish to thank Senator Voinovich and Senator Johnson for their
leadership on the Ethics Committee on which I also serve. They have
demonstrated what being real Senators is all about because they take
their responsibility on ethics very seriously, and I am here today to
support their position on this amendment and to oppose this amendment.
The Ethics Committee works with diligence and without politics. I
have only been on this committee for a little more than a year, and I
will be the first to tell you that there is a problem with the House
Ethics Committee. I think everybody agrees on that. But also, I am
adamant to say that there is really not a problem at all on the Senate
Ethics Committee because we take our responsibilities very seriously.
We are there to protect the Senate, the integrity of this institution,
and, just as the Constitution says, we are there to oversee the
behavior of our colleagues. We do that in a very confidential manner.
I must say that it is sometimes frustrating to outside forces who
look and see us, and they may file something and they may not get an
immediate response.
I remember when I was starting out practicing law in Arkansas, a
lawyer told me: Never try your case in the newspaper. I think that is
very true when it comes to the world of ethics inside the Senate. If we
allow the confidentiality to go away, then, in my view, we would be
opening a Pandora's box. I can just imagine--again, in today's
realistic political world--I can just imagine what it would be like if
someone were to file a complaint and the next thing you know, there
would be radio ads, television ads, Internet ads, blogs, et cetera, out
there saying that so-and-so has ethics charges pending against him.
The Senate Ethics Committee, although not perfect, is a much better
option than the Office of Public Integrity. Again, I believe that is
one of the reasons this amendment or something very similar to this was
defeated in the committee on a bipartisan basis.
I also notice that there are groups around Washington, DC, who are
very supportive of the Office of Public Integrity. Basically, one of
their complaints is that when they file a complaint with the Senate
Ethics Committee, the complaint seems to go in a black hole. In fact, I
have an e-mail that says we--the Ethics Committee--ignore outside
complaints. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am here to tell
you, nothing could be further from the truth. We consider all the
complaints, wherever they come from, very seriously. We look at them,
and we act on outside complaints, complaints that come from outside
this body. We have spent a lot of time--hours and hours, in fact--on
complaints that originated outside this body.
Also, I think some of these groups say they acknowledge that the
House has a problem with their Ethics Committee, but they say that both
committees are in need of repair. Really, they can't point to anything
in the Senate Ethics Committee that has gone wrong or any way that we
failed on the Senate Ethics Committee. There is a reason for that. You
can look back over the last 20 years, and you will see a number of high
profile, very difficult, very tough, and oftentimes very complicated
investigations the Senate Ethics Committee has undertaken which have
led to some sort of admonishment of their own Members in the Senate.
The last thing I wanted to say, is this: Being on the Ethics
Committee, every day when I walk in that room, I ask myself, what did I
do to make Harry Reid mad? Why did he put me on this committee? Because
I will tell you, as the chairman will or as the cochairman will tell
you, it is not an easy assignment. In fact, it is grueling.
One thing we need to understand is that oftentimes, to get down to
the facts and to get down to the truth, it takes time. It takes a lot
of time. Sometimes you have witnesses who are no longer here. Some of
these witnesses live in other parts of the country and even, in some
cases, other parts of the world.
There are meetings and meetings and meetings on these allegations.
One thing I love about the Senate Ethics Committee is the high level of
trust among the members in that committee. There is a culture of
integrity in that committee. As I said, even though it is no fun to sit
in judgment of our colleagues, it has worked very well.
Because of the committee's policy of keeping its meetings closed and
confidential, it allows a freedom within the Ethics Committee to really
drill down and get into details and ask hard questions, questions that
you might be afraid to ask in a public forum because you may not know
the answer, and that answer may be very embarrassing and just by asking
the question, it could turn into an allegation.
The process we have right now--although it is closed, although it is
confidential--works very well. In a lot of ways it is similar to
turning the case over to the jury, where you allow the jury to go back
into deliberations and hash it out however they want to do it. In the
end, they come back and they do justice. I think our Founding Fathers
got it right in article I, section 5, paragraph 2 when they said that:
Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings,
punish its Members for disorderly Behavior, and with the
Concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.
I think our Founding Fathers expected us to do this and not set up a
third party office to do this.
Again, I rise to join my two chairmen, the chairman and cochairman on
the Ethics Committee, in opposing this amendment, and I encourage all
my colleagues to do the same.
Mr. SPECTER. Mr. President, I am voting against the Collins amendment
because it is unconstitutional. Article I, section 5, provides:
Each House may determine the Rules of its' Proceedings,
punish its Members for disorderly behaviour, and, with the
concurrence of two-thirds, expel a Member.
The Senate has determined the rules for punishing its Members which
carries out the constitutional mandate. That constitutional procedure
does not permit delegation of that responsibility.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
[[Page S2452]]
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I found this debate to be both
interesting and ironic. We have heard the proposed Office of Public
Integrity described on the one hand as being a potentially out-of-
control, independent counsel/special prosecutor. Then we have heard it
described as a toothless entity that simply duplicates the work of the
Ethics Committee and would have to check with the Ethics Committee at
its every stage of the investigation.
In fact, neither characterization is an accurate one. Perhaps the
best way to think of the proposed Office of Public Integrity is that it
would be the investigative arm of the Ethics Committee. It would be an
entity that would conduct a thorough, impartial, credible investigation
of allegations and then report back to the Ethics Committee. It is
essentially controlled by the Ethics Committee but has the ability to
do independent investigations.
It is neither an out-of-control special prosecutor nor is it a
powerless office that simply duplicates the work being done and that
would be done by the Ethics Committee anyway. In fact, one of the
opponents of this amendment said that they would create a duplicate
investigation. I don't understand how that conclusion can be reached.
There is nothing in this amendment that would require the Ethics
Committee to conduct a parallel investigation, and why would they? We
have already heard the Chairman of the Ethics Committee say that they
do not do an investigation when there is a parallel Justice Department
investigation going on. Why would the Ethics Committee choose to
duplicate the work of the Office of Public Integrity? This bill does
not mandate that the Ethics Committee throw all common sense overboard.
So that argument simply does not hold water.
We have also heard it alleged that the Office of Public Integrity
would make public information that is now confidential. But look at the
plain language of the amendment. I am going to read it into the Record
because this information to the contrary has been advanced on the
Senate floor. Here is what it says: ``Disclosure.'' It is on page 11 of
the amendment.
Information or testimony received, or the contents of a
complaint or the fact of its filing, or recommendations made
by the Director to the committee, may be publicly disclosed
by the Director or the staff of the Office only--
I am going to underscore that, Mr. President.
--only if authorized by the Select Committee on Ethics of the
Senate.
I don't know how it could be more clear, that the decision on
disclosing information on the investigation cannot be made unilaterally
by the Office of Public Integrity. Under our amendment, the Ethics
Committee, not the Office of Public Integrity, has the sole authority
to determine what parts of an investigation, if any, become a matter of
public record. The OPI has no such authority. The language could not be
more clear on that point.
Second, although a vote of the Ethics Committee to overrule the
Office of Public Integrity would be made public, that is because such a
vote would end the case. In other words, the Ethics Committee would not
be voting publicly multiple times on a particular investigation at
every stage--contrary to the information, or the argument that was
advanced earlier by the distinguished chairman of the Ethics Committee.
This is how it would work. The Ethics Committee would vote only once,
either to overrule the Office of Public Integrity, which it can do at
any stage of the investigation, or at the end of the investigation the
committee would vote on a final determination of whether a violation
has occurred.
I realize that Members have very strong views on this issue. I
realize there are legitimate differences of opinion. I recognize that
this is a difficult issue. But I hope that Members will look at the
actual language of the amendment that Senator Lieberman, Senator
McCain, and I have advanced. I recognize that there is a reason there
is considerable confusion. There are all different versions of entities
similar to the Office of Public Integrity that we are proposing. But we
have drafted our proposal very carefully not to undermine the good work
of the Ethics Committee, not to take away the final decisionmaking from
the Ethics Committee but to promote public confidence in the integrity
and the credibility of investigations by having this office, the Office
of Public Integrity, conduct the investigation.
Will the Presiding Officer inform me how much time is remaining on
the proponents' side.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 12 minutes remaining.
Ms. COLLINS. I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. VOINOVICH. How much time do I have?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator has 8 minutes.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, I yield 3 minutes to the Senator from
Kentucky.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Kentucky is recognized.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I thank my friend from Ohio. I
congratulate the Senator from Maine for her extraordinary work on the
underlying lobby reform bill but respectfully disagree as to the
appropriateness of adopting the Lieberman-Collins amendment.
This amendment creates a new Senate Office of Public Integrity with a
Director, appointed for a 5-year term, by the President Pro Tempore
upon the joint recommendation of the majority leader and minority
leader. He or she would literally be ``an investigation czar.'' Let me
just highlight a few of the most problematic aspects of this proposal.
No. 1 on the list of the ``Duties'' of the Director is, and I quote
from page 3, ``(1) to investigate . . .''. At its core the OPI is
really the ``SBI''--``Senate Bureau of Integrity''--not even of
intelligence.
To get the ball rolling, investigations by the Director are initiated
by a complaint filed by anyone--a complaint without any requirements.
In comparison, FEC complaints must be in ``in writing, signed and sworn
to by the person filing such complaint, shall be notarized and shall be
made under penalty of perjury and subject to the provisions of the
criminal code.'' The complaint this integrity czar investigates doesn't
have to meet any of those requirements--it could be filed via anonymous
voicemail or on a beverage coaster--the name and address of the
complainant isn't even required.
The only restriction on the complaint is that a complaint against a
Member can't be ``accepted'' within 60 days of an election involving
such Member. Thus, complaints can be filed against a Member's staff,
and on the flip side, complaints made, maybe not accepted, but made
during that 60-day period against a Member gives that Member no way to
clear their name until after that election.
Making matters even more grim, these complaints are only against
incumbents or their staff--so challengers can go hog wild in filing
complaints and keeping their opponents under a cloud of suspicion--no
matter how baseless. The only penalty for a frivolous complaint is they
might not accept another one from that person, to the extent their
identity is even known, and may incur costs resulting from the
complaint. A very small price to pay for what would smear the good name
of Members.
The Director is required to go to the Ethics Committee before getting
his full blown power to ``administer oaths, issue subpoenas, compel
attendance and production of documents and take depositions.'' However,
it takes a roll call vote of \2/3\ of the full committee to stop the
Director's full blown investigation and the vesting of his full
prosecutorial powers.
This amendment strips the bipartisan 6-member Ethics Committee of one
of its core functions--enforcement--arguably its most important--and
vests it all in one unelected individual. I urge my colleagues to
oppose this amendment.
Let me say I know there are many watchers of the Senate, as an
institution, who may well believe that the Ethics Committee is a body
constituted to go easy on Senators. I must respectfully suggest to the
public and to our colleagues that the facts are otherwise.
I was vice chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee and then
subsequently chairman of the Senate Ethics Committee during a time when
my
[[Page S2453]]
party was in the majority in the Senate and had to, based on the facts
in a particular case, offer a resolution to expel the chairman of the
Finance Committee of the Senate from the Senate. That Member of the
Senate subsequently resigned. But the vote in the Senate Ethics
Committee was 6 to 0, on a bipartisan basis, to expel the chairman of
the Finance Committee from the Senate. Surely, no one would consider
that a slap on the wrist.
I cite another example. When the current Senate Democratic leader was
chairman of the Ethics Committee, it issued such a scathing report on a
bipartisan basis that a Member of his party chose to discontinue his
effort to be reelected in the fall of 2002. The Senate Ethics Committee
respects, first and foremost, this institution and its reputation. I
think it has undertaken extraordinary efforts over the years in
protecting Members from spurious complaints and being able to sort out
a genuine wrongdoing and, when genuine wrongdoing appears, go after it
and not tolerate it.
I particularly compliment the current chairman of the Ethics
Committee, the Senator from Ohio, Mr. Voinovich, who has done an
extraordinary job in this regard as well.
So I hope our colleagues, on a bipartisan basis, will not support the
Collins-Lieberman amendment. I think the Senate Ethics Committee can
handle this job quite well in the future, as it has in the past.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The time of the Senator has expired.
The Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, we are faced with a choice. We have the
opportunity to pass significant legislation to strengthen our lobbying
disclosure laws to ban practices that raise questions about undue
influence of special interests and to strengthen the enforcement of
those laws. Even without the Office of Public Integrity, I believe we
have produced a good bill. But I believe that our legislation will be
incomplete if we do not act to strengthen the enforcement process. I
believe, after much study, that the best way to do this is to create an
Office of Public Integrity.
That is not in any way to indicate a lack of appreciation for the
hard work of the fine members of our Senate Ethics Committee under the
leadership of two individuals with great integrity. I understand that
it is a thankless job to serve on the Ethics Committee, and contrary to
the comment that was made earlier in the debate, I believe that this
office, by conducting the investigative portion, by assisting the
Ethics Committee in investigating allegations, would actually be of
great assistance to the Ethics Committee.
The chairman of the Ethics Committee has expressed, time and again,
his frustration that the public does not know of the work the Ethics
Committee does. It doesn't realize how seriously the investigations and
allegations are treated; that it doesn't appreciate how difficult it is
to pursue allegations against Members with whom one serves. I suggest
that this amendment offers great assistance to the Ethics Committee. If
there is an Office of Public Integrity which is conducting independent
investigations and reporting its findings to the Ethics Committee, I
think that enhances the public's understanding of the process, the
public's acceptance of the process, and the credibility of the
investigations.
We are dealing with a reality that public confidence in Congress is
very low. It is perilously low. It makes it difficult for us to pass
legislation because the public believes that oftentimes our decisions
are not in the public interest but, rather, beholden to some private
interest. That saddens me because I know the people I serve with are
individuals of great integrity, and the vast majority of elected
officials in Washington and elsewhere are in public service for all the
right reasons. But that perception is a reality we need to deal with.
The best way to deal with it, in my judgment, is to pass strong,
comprehensive legislation which will help repair the frayed bonds
between the public and those who serve the public.
The Office of Public Integrity is an integral part of achieving that
goal. There is a lot of opposition to this amendment. I don't delude
myself to the contrary. I have learned organizational change in
Washington is the hardest kind of change to accomplish. I learned that
when Senator Lieberman and I led the legislation restructuring and
reforming our intelligence community, the most sweeping reforms in 50
years. I have learned trying to change the organization of Congress or
the way Congress works makes that reorganization of our intelligence
community look easy.
I recognize this is an uphill fight, but I believe it is the right
thing to do. I hope our colleagues, before casting their vote today,
will take the time to read the actual language of the amendment and to
think about what we need to do to repair the breach between those who
are elected and the people we serve, to promote and strengthen public
confidence in the political process. I believe if our colleagues do
that and if they care about restoring public confidence in Congress,
they will support the amendment we have offered.
I reserve the remainder of my time.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Martinez). The Senator from Ohio.
Mr. VOINOVICH. Mr. President, first, I again compliment the chairman
of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee for the
good job she and the committee have done in proposing legislation that
will make a difference in the Senate and in the Congress. I respect
everything the Senator has done. Some of the amendments making
mandatory some of the things we are doing voluntarily I welcome. I
thank the Senator.
One thing I have tried to do is to inform Members about what the
rules are so they do not get in trouble. I point out that even though
the amendment is well motivated and meant to help the Ethics Committee,
all six members of the Ethics Committee on a bipartisan basis oppose
it. The Ethics Committee is the investigative arm of the Senate. It is
a nonpartisan investigator of all matters brought before the Ethics
Committee and, something some Members are not happy about, matters that
are not brought before us, on the complaint of some, that we recognize,
through the media, there is a problem with one of the Members, and we
get involved in it. We do not have to wait for someone to file a
complaint. We are the watchdog of the Senate. We want to protect the
Senate's reputation. We admonish, we censor and, in some cases, eject
Members of this Senate for not upholding the high standards all Members
are expected to uphold after being elected to this Senate.
I do not believe this is going to mend the problem in terms of public
confidence. As I have mentioned, except for recently some criticisms,
we did not get involved in the Abramoff investigation. Overall, in
terms of the public, the Senate Ethics Committee has been doing the job
they are supposed to do under the Constitution. Again, I underscore in
terms of Abramoff, we did not get involved because of the fact that the
Justice Department asked us not to get involved. They thought it would
interfere with their investigation. I assure Members of the Senate and
I assure the public and other groups that are looking in on us, once
that investigation is finished and the information is sent here, if one
of our Members or several Members are involved, we will fully
investigate that. If those individuals have violated the rules of the
Senate, they will be properly dealt with by the Ethics Committee.
In terms of the specific parts of this legislation, I bring up
something that has a problem, and that is that every time the Ethics
Committee disagrees with the Office of Public Integrity, we have to
have a published vote of the committee. As a result of that, what will
happen, in my opinion, is that after a while, where the Ethics
Committee does not agree with the Office of Public Integrity, you will
build up an adversarial type of relationship. Members, in terms of how
they vote, will start taking into consideration, gee, it is going to be
public that we disagreed with this guy and people will ask, why did you
disagree with that, and we get into that whole area of questioning
people's motivation.
It also gets us involved in partisanship, Members asking, why did you
vote that particular way? You had a chance maybe to harm some other
Member because of political reasons. Or why did you pick on one of our
Members?
This job is a very tough job. It is not a job that makes one popular
with his
[[Page S2454]]
colleagues in this Senate. I believe rather than helping the situation,
in spite of the fine motivation of the people sponsoring this
amendment, rather than helping, it is going to hurt the situation and
also make it very difficult in the future to have Members being willing
to serve as a member of the Senate Ethics Committee.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I have been allocated 10 minutes to
speak on the Wyden amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. SESSIONS. I seek to use that time.
Mr. INHOFE. Will the Senator yield for an inquiry?
Is there a unanimous consent in terms of Members speaking?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Yes, the time is controlled by the Senator
from Alabama and the Senator from Maine.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, to clarify our situation, if I may, if
the Presiding Officer would tell me if I am correct that there is still
an amount of time remaining to the proponents of the Collins-Lieberman-
McCain amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. There is 6 minutes remaining.
Ms. COLLINS. And I believe the time of the opponents has expired, the
time that was controlled by Senator Voinovich; am I correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Ms. COLLINS. And I believe there is a parallel time agreement for
further debate on the Wyden amendment; am I correct?
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator is correct.
Mr. INHOFE. My request would be that I be acknowledged to speak on
the Wyden-Grassley-Inhofe amendment in whatever order you are prepared
to give me.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I am going to reserve my 6 minutes for
right before the vote for some concluding comments. I probably will not
use all 6 minutes. I have no objection to turning now to the debate on
the Wyden amendment.
Amendment No. 2944
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.
Mr. SESSIONS. I assume Senator Inhofe will have time after I conclude
my 10 minutes and I ask unanimous consent to that effect. He is on the
other side of this issue.
The Wyden amendment provides a new advantage for those who want
bigger and more expensive Government. Senators who want time to study a
bill before granting consent would have to put their names in the
Record as objecting to it even though they may quickly decide they do
not have an objection to the bill.
First, the Senator from Oregon stated that this amendment--and this
is a good example of what happens in the Senate--that this amendment
was being blocked by a secret hold. But there was no secret hold. The
leadership of the Senate knew that I had an interest in participating
in the debate, but I had a meeting at the White House this morning and
so I asked if they could accommodate that and set the debate at a time
I could participate. That apparently was worked out.
Under the Senator from Oregon's amendment, I would have had to submit
a written request to the majority leader in order to participate in the
debate, but I was at the White House and that was not very practical.
Is telling my leader I would like an opportunity to be in the Senate to
debate this issue now an unreasonable request? The Senator from Oregon
has also stated that the intelligence authorization bill is being held
up based on a secret hold. In truth, it is not a secret. I will tell
the Senator who is holding that important intelligence bill: It is the
two Senators from Massachusetts. Senators Kennedy and Kerry have
objected to considering the bill because they want to offer amendments.
Some say they are poison-pill amendments, but they are amendments they
want to offer. So if the Senator has a problem about that, he should
talk to his colleagues. The Senators may say this only applies to
proceeding to a bill. This is an important thing, because in 99 percent
of the cases, proceedings of the bill and passage of the bill happen at
the same time. The bill is called up and asked to be passed by
unanimous consent. It is all the same request. Frankly, the problem
with this bill goes further than the mechanical application. It makes a
statement. It basically says that passing bills is inherently a good
thing, and we should assume any Senator who has never heard of a bill
should consent to it. Anyone who dares not to grant promptly and
immediately any such consent is some scoundrel who needs to be exposed
to misdeeds.
Senator Coburn has offered an amendment that says if we are going to
have this hold amendment, he would offer one that says if you want to
pass a bill and there is no quorum present, and you want to ram it
through with no quorum present, you need to have a petition signed by
100 Senators saying they are prepared to let the bill go through.
Why not? It is not practical, perhaps, but the system is not designed
to be practical. Frankly, it is too easy to pass bills. Bills flow
through this body like water.
I want the American people to know how bills are passed in this
Senate. We were talking about some sunshine here. Let's talk about it.
There is a system we have called a hotline. What is a hotline? In each
Senate office there are three telephones with hotline buttons on them.
Most evenings, sometimes after business hours, these phones begin to
ring. The calls are from the Republican and the Democratic leaders to
each of their Members, asking consent to pass this or that bill--not
consider the bill or have debate on the bill but to pass it. Those
calls will normally give a deadline. If the staff do not call back in
30 minutes, the bill passes. Boom. It can be 500 pages. In many
offices, when staffers do not know anything about the bill, they
usually ignore the hotline and let the bill pass without even informing
their Senators. If the staff miss the hotline, or do not know about it
or were not around, the Senator is deemed to have consented to the
passage of some bill which might be quite an important piece of
information.
So that is the real issue here. The issue is not about holds. The
rules say nothing about holds. Holds do not exist. The issue is
consent. Nobody has a right to have an individual Senator's consent to
pass a bill. They act as though you have a right to get it. You would
expect if you are going to say you have unanimous consent, you have
consent. But that is not always the case.
If staff do not have time to read the bill--some of these bills are
hundreds of pages long--they frequently assume someone else has read
it. Staff in the Senate offices do not read all these bills, and they
go back to whatever they were doing before the hotline phone rang.
Presumably, some committee staffer has read the bill at some point
along the way, but in almost no case have actual Members of the Senate
granted their intentional consent to the bills that pass during the
day's wrapup that we often see late into the night on C-SPAN.
In many cases, even Senators sponsoring the bill have never read it,
unfortunately. Committee reports are filed on bills. Very few staff
have read the committee reports. How do I know about this? I have the
thankless task of chairing the Senate Steering Committee. One of our
commitments is to review every bill that is hotlined in the Senate. My
staff actually reads them. It is a service to my colleagues, I suggest.
They read the CBO scores which tell how much the bill costs the
taxpayers. A lot of times they do not want you to know that. Some
committee, group, or someone has moved a bill on the floor--they move
it along--and nobody has read the score. Many contain massive, new
spending programs. Some bust the budget. We think Senators who are
looking out for the taxpayers and taking the time to study bills should
have the same rights as Senators who are willing to let big spending
bills pass without reading them. This amendment is not good government.
It will make it more likely that bills will pass in the middle of the
night filled with pork and who knows what else.
The current process established by the two leaders provides for 72
hours for Senators to withhold consent and to read a bill. Beyond that,
the objections become public. Under this amendment, if a Senator in an
offhand conversation with the leader says, ``I
[[Page S2455]]
think we ought to take a hard look at this bill,'' does that mean his
name should be printed in the Record? That is not workable. If I am on
the floor, and the leader asks me if we ought to go to such and such a
bill, and I say, ``No, don't do that, I think something else should go
first,'' do I then immediately have to go to the floor and publish that
in the Record?
According to this resolution, any communication with the leader
suggesting we not proceed to a bill would need to be printed in the
Record and submitted to the leader in writing. However, if I
communicate to the leader that we should proceed to some big spending
bill, I can do that in secret. This gives a new advantage to those who
want to pass legislation without review.
Now, I take very seriously holding up a bill. We stay on our team,
and we look at the matter promptly and try to give an honest response.
And if we have a problem with a clause or two in a piece of
legislation, we share that with the Senators who are promoting the
legislation. Usually an agreement can be reached, and usually the
legislation is cleared, anyway, without any significant delay.
Line 4 of the Wyden amendment says:
The majority and minority leaders of the Senate or their
designees shall recognize a notice of intent of a Senator who
is a member of their caucus to object to proceeding to a
measure or matter only if the Senator
(1) submits the notice of intent in writing to the
appropriate leader or their designee; and
(2) within 3 session days after the submission under
paragraph (1) submits for inclusion in the Congressional
Record and in the applicable calendar section described in
subsection (b) the following notice:
``I, Senator [blank], intend to object to proceeding to
[blank], dated [blank].''
If a Senator tells their leader on the phone they have concern with a
bill that was offered that night, must they quickly run down to his
office and hand the leader a piece of paper? This says it must be
submitted in writing; otherwise, the leader cannot recognize it.
If the leader decides against proceeding to the bill, does that mean
he has violated the rule?
How can we prove that the leader did not simply change his mind, but
rather that he illegally recognized an oral hold, which was not
submitted in writing?
Who is to make such a determination?
Is the Parliamentarian going to be put in the uncomfortable position
of trying to divine the motivations of a party leader?
I am not sure what the purpose of the 3 days is, but here is what its
effect is:
If a bill is hotlined at 7:30 at night, and the leaders say it will
be passed at 7:45 unless there is an objection, and my staff calls them
to say please do not proceed, we would like to review the bill, rather
than reading the bill, they would have to run to the leader's office
with a piece of paper saying we object to the bill.
Then, let's say they run back to the office, start reading, and after
review, the bill looks fine. Let's say they even call back within the
15-minute window that was given. The bill passes that night. The next
day it passes the House, and is signed by the President. It is now law.
On the third day, I would still need to insert a statement in the
Congressional Record saying ``I, Senator Jeff Sessions, intend to
object to proceeding [blank], dated [blank].''
I intend to object to a bill that has already been signed into law?
The amendment has been so poorly drafted that it is not even clear
what it does. This is what we are dealing with.
This poorly drafted amendment is intended to stack the deck, in favor
of other poorly drafted legislation passing in the middle of the night
with little or no review.
Let's look at section (c) line 18:
A Senator may have an item with respect to the Senator
removed from a calendar to which it was added under
subsection (b) by submitting for inclusion in the
Congressional Record the following notice:
I, Senator [blank], do not object to proceeding to [blank],
dated [blank].
This is the flip side: Maybe you looked at the bill and do not like
it, but are willing to let it pass by a voice vote.
Now, to get the ``scarlet letter'' I removed, you need to put a
statement into the Record saying you do not object to the bill, which
may not be altogether true.
Further, what if you simply want to offer an amendment, or debate,
but the leadership wants to pass the bill clean. How does this bill
apply?
I suppose one interpretation is it would not apply at all, because it
only purports to apply to ``proceeding to a bill.''
What if you want to offer a thousand amendments? What then? What if
you prefer to proceed to a different version of the bill?
What if you would simply like a rollcall vote on the motion to
proceed, or would like time to debate, but the leadership does not want
to grant you that. Technically, you are objecting to proceeding under
those circumstances.
I could stand here for hours discussing all the many ways this
amendment is going to damage the Senate, and the many ways this
amendment is absolutely worthless as a tool to prevent blocking of
legislation in secret.
But what I object to most is that this amendment says passing
legislation is always preferable to slowing it down, that letting a
bill pass is good no matter how poorly drafted, how costly, how late in
the evening, or how few Senators have studied or even heard of the
bill.
How much pork is there? Passing bills is good: In many cases, that is
not correct.
There is a widely quoted story about the ``coolness'' of the Senate
involving George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson was in
France during the Constitutional Convention.
Upon his return, Jefferson visited Washington and asked why the
Convention delegates had created a Senate. ``Why did you pour that
coffee into your saucer?'' asked Washington. ``To cool it, `` said
Jefferson. ``Even so,'' responded Washington, ``we pour legislation
into the senatorial saucer to cool it.''
The Framers intended the Senate to deliberate, to thoughtfully review
legislation, not be a rubber stamp.
This amendment says those Senators who are willing to grant consent
to legislation they have never read or have perhaps never even heard
of--those are the good Senators.
But those Senators who dare to say: I would like time to read this
legislation, to see how much it costs, to see whether it is within the
national interests--they are the troublemakers. These scoundrels need
to be exposed to the public.
So, in summary, here is where we are.
Passing midnight spending boondoggles with two Senators in the
Chamber: Good. Reviewing legislation: Bad. Objecting to big spending
legislation: Really bad.
Lobbyists must be thrilled with this. Lobbyists who are pushing
special-interest legislation will now have a ready-made target list.
All they need to do is get the leadership to hotline the legislation,
and within 3 days they will know who they need to talk to or jump on or
``sick the dogs on.''
I believe we need to return to the ``cooling'' Senate, not a
``freezing'' Senate, where obstruction is the rule, nominees are
blocked endlessly; not a ``greased'' Senate, where bad legislation
passes at lightning speed late at night with no time for review, but a
Senate where Senators are encouraged to take the time to pick up a bill
and read it, to weigh the consequences for the American taxpayers.
This amendment runs directly contrary to the spirit of reform this
bill purports to address.
I urge my colleagues to oppose the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. President, I see several of the sponsors of the
amendment here. Probably they disagree with some of my views, but I
think they are worthy of their consideration.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, parliamentary inquiry: How much time is
available on my side? My understanding is we have 10 minutes.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon controls 10 minutes.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, it is my desire to yield the first 3
minutes to Senator Inhofe, the next 3 minutes to Senator Grassley, and
then I will
[[Page S2456]]
speak. I thank my friend from Oklahoma.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oklahoma.
Mr. INHOFE. Mr. President, first, let me say to my friend from
Alabama, I do not think we have ever been in disagreement on anything.
I have a little different take on this issue than he does and a little
different background because of an experience I had when I served in
the other body.
First, I think realistically, looking at this, you may say ``in
writing,'' but if you call your leader and tell him, ``I plan to go
ahead and object to this,'' and he knows it is going to come in
writing, unless you don't get along with the leader very well, I don't
think that would be a real serious problem. But I do agree with the
Senator from Alabama that passing laws is not necessarily a good thing.
My feeling is we have too many laws, not too few laws. I have said that
many times.
But let me share with you an experience I had in the other body. When
I was first elected in 1986 to the House of Representatives, I found
there was a process used to keep the signatures of a discharge petition
from being open to the public. So there could be something very
popular. For example, a gun control bill might not be popular in West
Texas, but there might be a West Texas Democrat whose party tells him
for the national scene, ``We want lots of gun controls, and I know it
is not popular in the State, but there is a way you can go home and say
you opposed gun controls and at the same time you can get by with
appeasing the leadership.''
That is what they did. They would put the discharge petition in the
drawer of the Speaker's desk, and you could not get it out unless a
majority of people signed the discharge petition. Consequently, they
would go ahead and tell people they had signed it when, in fact, they
had not.
I had a one-sentence bill that totally reformed that. It stated that
all signatures on a discharge petition shall become public record. We
actually had seven editorials by the Wall Street Journal. We had all
these things saying: Finally, there is light.
All I want--all I want--is to be able to have everyone being
accountable for what they are saying. I have two holds right now, and I
have said publicly that I am the one who has the holds. I have never,
in the 12 years I have been here in this body, not specifically stated
that I had holds when I did. So I think that is the main thing. There
are similarities between the situation that occurred in the House, and
I agree with Reader's Digest, the Wall Street Journal. They said that
was the greatest single reform in the last 60 years.
So when I first came to this body, I made this statement: that it
appeared to me that being able to put on holds without being
accountable is a very similar practice to the inability of knowing what
the signatures were on discharge petitions. Consequently, I started
back 12 years ago working on this issue. I am very happy to join
Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley in what I consider to be a reform
that is badly needed in the Senate.
Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that a November 1994 article
in Reader's Digest by Daniel Levine be printed in the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Reader's Digest, November 1994]
How the Trial Lawyers Finally Met Defeat
A story of democracy and Capitol Hill
(By Daniel R. Levine)
When a twin-engine Cessna airplane crashed near Fallon,
Nev., four years ago, the National Transportation Safety
Board (NTSB) ruled pilot error was the cause. But that didn't
stop lawyers for two of the injured passengers from suing
Cessna on the grounds that the seats on the 25-year-old plane
did not provide adequate support. The seats had been ripped
out without Cessna's knowledge and rearranged to face each
other. But the lawyers claimed that Cessna should have warned
against removing the seats. A jury awarded the two plaintiffs
more than $2 million.
In Compton, Calf., a single-engine airplane nearly stalled
on the runway and sputtered loudly during take-off. Less than
a minute into the air it crashed, killing two of the three
people on board. On July 18, 1989, two days before the one-
year statute of limitations would expire, the survivor and
relatives of the deceased passengers filed a $2.5 million
lawsuit naming the plane's manufacturer, Piper Aircraft
Corp., as a defendant. Not mentioned in the suit was the fact
that the plane, built in 1956, had been sitting at the
airport unused and uninspected for 2\1/2\ years. The case,
awaiting trial, has already cost Piper $50,000.
The NTSB found that 203 crashes of Beech aircraft between
1989 and 1992 were caused by weather, faulty maintenance,
pilot error or air control mishaps. But trial lawyers blamed
the manufacturer and sued each time. Beech was forced to
spend an average of $530,000 defending itself in each case
and up to $200,000 simply preparing for those that were
dismissed.
Such product-liability lawsuits have forced small-plane
makers such as Cessna to carry $25 million a year in
liability insurance. In fact, Cessna stopped producing
piston-powered planes primarily because of high cost of
defending liability lawsuits. Thus, an American industry that
15 years ago ruled the world's skies has lost more than
100,000 jobs and has seen the number of small planes it
manufactured plummet from over 17,000 in 1978 to under 600
last year.
That may all change. Bucking years of intense lobbying by
trial lawyers, Congress voted last summer to bar lawsuits
against small-plane manufacturers after a plane and its parts
have been in service 18 years. The legislation will create an
estimated 25,000 aviation jobs within five years as
manufacturers retool and increase production.
This was the first time that Congress has reformed a
product liability law against the wishes of the lawyers who
make millions from these cases. And the dramatic victory was
made possible because of the efforts of a little-known
Congressman from Oklahoma who challenged Capitol Hill's
establishment.
On his first day in 1987 as a member of the U.S. House of
Representatives, Jim Inhofe (R., Okla.) asked colleague Mike
Synar (D., Okla.) how he had compiled such a liberal voting
record while winning reelection in a conservative district.
Overhearing the question, another longtime Democratic
Congressman interjected: ``It's easy. Vote liberal, press-
release conservative.''
This was a revealing lesson in Congressional ethics, the
first of many that would open Inhofe's eyes to the way
Congress really ran. He soon realized that an archaic set of
rules enabled members to deceive constituents and avoid
accountability.
When a Congressman introduced a bill, the Speaker of the
House refers it to the appropriate committee. Once there,
however, the bill is at the mercy of the committee chairman,
who represents the views of the Congressional leadership. If
he supports the legislation, he can speed it through hearings
to the House floor for a vote. Or he can simply ``bury'' it
beneath another committee business.
This arrangement is tailor-made for special-interest
lobbies like the Association of Trial Lawyers of America
(ATLA). For eight years, bills to limit the legal liability
of small-aircraft manufacturers had been referred to the
House Judiciary Committee, only to be buried. Little wonder.
One of the ATLA's most reliable supporters on Capital Hill
has been Rep. Jack Brooks (D., Texas), powerful chairman of
that committee and recipient of regular campaign
contributions from ATLA.
The only way for Congressmen to free bills that chairmen
such as Brooks wanted to kill was a procedure called the
discharge petition. Under it, a Congressman could dislodge a
buried bill if a House majority, 218 members, signed a
petition bringing it directly to the floor for a vote. But
discharge petitions virtually never succeeded because, since
1931, signatures were kept secret from public. This allowed
Congressmen to posture publicly in favor of an issue, then
thwart passage of the bill by refusing to sign the discharge
petition. At the same time, House leaders could view the
petitions, enabling them to pressure signers to remove their
names. Of 493 discharge petitions ever filed, only 45 got the
numbers of signatures required for a House vote. And only two
of those bills became law.
Inhofe saw the proposals overwhelmingly favored by the
American People--the 1990 balanced-budget amendment, school
prayer, Congressional term limits, the line-item veto--were
bottled up in committee by the House leadership. When
discharge petitions to free some of the bills were initiated,
they were locked in a drawer in the Clerk's desk on the House
floor. The official rules warned that disclosing names ``is
strictly prohibited under the precedents of the House.''
In March 1993, Inhofe filed a one-sentence bill on the
House floor challenging the secrecy: ``Once a motion to
discharge has been filed the Clerk shall make the signatures
a matter of public record.''
The bill was assigned to the Rules Committee, where it was
buried. Three months later, on May 27, Inhofe started a
discharge petition to bring the bill to a floor vote. Among
those signing was Tim Penny (D., Minn.), a lawmaker who after
ten years in the House had grown so disgusted that he had
decided not to run for re-election. ``Discharge petitions
procedures are symbolic of the manipulative and secretive way
decisions are made here,'' said Penny. ``It's just one more
example of how House leaders rig the rules to make sure they
aren't challenged on the floor.''
Inhofe, though, was badly outnumbered. The Democrats 82-
seat majority controlled the flow of legislation. But he was
not cowed. From his first years in politics Inhofe had shown
an independent streak--and it had paid off. After initially
losing elections for governor and Congress. He was elected to
three consecutive terms as mayor of Tulsa,
[[Page S2457]]
beginning in 1977. In 1986, he ran again for the Congress and
won. Four years later, he bucked his own President, George
Bush, by voting against a 1991 budget ``compromise'' that
included a $156-billion tax hike.
By August 4, two months after filing his discharge
petition, Inhofe had 200 signatures, just 18 shy of the 218
needed to force his bill to the floor. But the House
leadership was using all its muscle to thwart him. On the
House floor, Inhofe announced: ``I am disclosing to The Wall
Street Journal the names of all members who have not signed
the discharge petition. People deserve to know what is going
on in this place.''
It was a risk. House leaders could make him pay for this
deed. But by making public the names of non-signers, he would
avoid a direct violation of House rules. Inhofe collected the
names by asking every member who signed the petition to
memorize as many other signatures as possible.
The next day, The Wall Street Journal ran the first of six
editorials on the subject. Titled ``Congress's Secret
Drawer,'' it accused Congressional leaders of using
discharge-petition secrecy to ``protect each other and keep
constituents in the dark.''
On the morning of August 6, Inhofe was within a handful of
the 218 signatures. As the day wore on, more members came
forward to sign. With two hours to go before the August
recess, the magic number of 218 was within his grasp.
What happened next stunned Inhofe. Two of the most powerful
members of Congress--Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman
John Dingell (D., Mich.) and Rules Committee Chairman Joseph
Moakley (D., Mass.)--moved next to him at the discharge
petition desk. In a display one witness described as
political ``trench warfare,'' the two began ``convincing''
members to remove their names from the petition.
Standing near the desk was Rep. James Moran (D., Va.).
Moakley warned him that if Inhofe succeeded, members would be
forced to vote on controversial bills. ``Jim,'' he said
sternly, ``I don't have to tell you how dangerous that would
be.'' When the dust settled, Moran and five colleagues--
Robert Borski (D., Pa.), Bill Brewster (D., Okla.), Bob
Clement (D., Tenn.), Glenn English (D., Okla.) and Tony Hall
(D., Ohio)--had erased their names.
Still refusing to quit, Inhofe faxed the first Wall Street
Journal editorial to hundreds of radio stations. Before long,
he found himself on call-in programs virtually every day of
the week.
When The Wall Street Journal printed the names of the
nonsigners on August 17, House members home for the summer
recess could not avoid the public outcry Inhofe had
generated. With scandals in the House bank, post office and
restaurant still fresh in their minds, voters were
demanding openness.
Feeling outgunned, Moakley allowed his Democratic
colleagues to sign the discharge petition. When Rep. Marjorie
Margolies-Mezvinsky (D., Pa.) affixed her name to the
petition on September 8, she became the 218th Signatory.
Inhofe's bill won overwhelming approval on the final vote,
384-40. Even though most Democrats had not supported him, 209
now voted with Inhofe. Groused Dingell: ``I think the whole
thing stinks.''
The first real test of Inhofe's change came last May when
Representatives Dan Glickman (D., Kan.) and James Hansen (R.,
Utah) filed a discharge petition to free their bill limiting
small-plane manufacturer liability. Even though it was co-
sponsored by 305 members, the bill had been bottled up in the
Judiciary Committee for nine months. But because members'
signatures would now be public, voters would finally know who
truly stood for product-liability reform and who did not.
Meanwhile, the Association of Trial Lawyers of America was
pulling out all the stops to kill the bill. Members
personally lobbied Congressmen and orchestrated a ``grass-
roots'' letter-writing campaign in which prominent trial
attorneys urged their Representatives not to support the
bill. ATLA even fired off a maximum-allowable contribution of
$5,000 to Representative Hansen's opponent in the November
election.
The pressure didn't work. Within two weeks 185 members had
signed, and House leaders realized it would be impossible to
stop the petition. Their only way was to offer a compromise
version. In mid-June, Brooks reported out of committee a bill
that differed only slightly from the original. On August 2,
the Senate approved similar legislation. The next day the
bill cleared the House without dissent. On August 17,
President Clinton signed it into law.
Glickman, whose Wichita district is home to Cessna and
Beech aircraft companies, said the procedural change
spearheaded by Inhofe was crucial to victory. ``A lot of
forces did not want this bill to go forward,'' he continued,
``and it would not have succeeded without the discharge
petition.''
The success of this legislation is proof that when Congress
is required to do the people's business in the open, the
people--rather than special interests--win. The high cost of
product-liability lawsuits, to manufacturers as well as
consumers, will require far more sweeping reform of the tort
system. But the passage of this one bill is an important
first step in the right direction. And it took a little-known
Representative from Oklahoma to point the way.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
The Senator from Iowa.
Mr. GRASSLEY. Mr. President, thank you. And I thank Senator Wyden for
his leadership and the time.
Everything this body has heard the Senator from Alabama say about
what is wrong with this piece of legislation is entirely inaccurate.
Everything he said we need to do to study bills--to hold them up until
we get a feel about everything in a bill before enactment by this
body--this amendment, which brings transparency to holds, does not in
any way prevent any of that from happening. All it simply says is, if
you are going to put a hold on legislation, you ought to have guts
enough, not be a sissy that the public might find out who you are, why
you are holding something up. State for the entire country why you
think this person or this bill ought to be held up in the Senate. You
can hold it up for a year. You can hold it up for 1 day.
I have been putting things in the Record of why I put holds on bills,
just as this amendment requires, for several years. And I can assure
you, not one of my colleagues has beaten me up because they knew who I
was. Not one of my colleagues has bloodied my nose. Not one of my
colleagues has given me a black eye. Not one of my colleagues has done
anything. It does not hurt. You can be a Senator. You can be out in the
open. You can be transparent and still do the job you need to do.
But after all, this is the Senate. The public's business ought to be
public. That is what this legislation is all about. But it also has
something to do with the practical workings of the Senate. If somebody
does not like a bill you propose, and they want to slow it up, you can
sit down and talk to them. Now you do not even know who they are, in
many instances. If you are going to do business, you have to know who
to talk to. Being a part of a collegial body, as we are, talking to
each other is how you get things done and move the ball along.
It is about open government. It is about reducing cynicism and
distrust of public officials. It is about public accountability. It is
about building public confidence. It is about making sure that as to
what is being done here, the public knows who is doing it and why they
are doing it. I do not see why there can be any opposition to this
amendment.
A hold is a very powerful tool and must be used with transparency. I
believe in the principle of open government. Lack of transparency in
the public policy process leads to cynicism and distrust of public
officials.
There is no good reason why a Senator should be able to
singlehandedly block the Senate's business without any public
accountability. The use of secret holds damages public confidence in
the institution of the Senate.
Our amendment would establish a standing order of the Senate
requiring Members to publicly disclose when they place a hold on a bill
or nominee. For several years now, I have made it my practice to insert
a notice in the Congressional Record whenever I place a hold.
Under our proposal, disclosing holds will be as simple as filling out
a cosponsor sheet and Senators will have 3 days to do it.
This proposal was drafted with the help of Senators Lott and Byrd,
who as former majority leaders know how this body operates and how
disruptive secret holds can be to the Senate's business. Senator
Stevens has expressed his concerns about the use of secret holds. It
says a lot that the longest-serving Members of this body oppose the use
of secret holds and see them as a real problem.
If Senators support the goal of the underlying bill to increase
legislative transparency and accountability, then they should support
this amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I yield to Senator Lott.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Mississippi.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, very briefly, I rise in support of this
amendment. I think the misuse of the hold in the Senate has become a
fundamental problem. I do not see how anybody could support the concept
of secret holds.
Now, this may drive holds into some other category, but I think it is
a step
[[Page S2458]]
in the right direction. I commend Senator Wyden and Senator Grassley
for offering it.
This proposal is an experiment in making the Senate and Senators more
accountable to their colleagues and to the American people. This
proposal addresses the issue of anonymous holds that Senators use to
prevent consideration of legislation and nominations. This amendment
would place a greater responsibility on Senators to make their holds
public.
It requires that the majority and minority leaders can only recognize
a hold that is provided in writing. Moreover, for the hold to be
honored, the Senator objecting would have to publish his objection in
the Congressional Record, 3 days after the notice is provided to a
leader.
I believe that holds, whether anonymous or publicly announced, are an
affront to the Senate, the leadership, the committees, and to the
individual Members of this institution.
This amendment does not eliminate the right of a Senator to place a
hold. Some day, the Senate may decide that holds, in and of themselves,
are an undemocratic practice that should no longer be recognized.
Secret holds have no place in a publicly accountable institution. A
measure that is important to a majority of the American public and a
majority of Senators should not be stopped dead in it's tracks by a
single Senator. And when that Senator can hide behind the anonymous
hold, democracy itself is damaged.
How do you tell your constituents that legislation they have an
interest in, legislation that has been approved by the majority of a
committee, is stalled and you don't know who is holding it up? What
does that say about this institution?
I think the secret hold should have no place in this institution, and
I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.
Mr. DODD. Mr. President, I understand this amendment requires public
disclosure of certain holds--namely, those that rise to the level of
expressing an intent to object to proceeding to a measure or matter.
Any such objection would have to be submitted in writing and
disclosed in the Congressional Record and printed in the Senate
calendar of business. Quite frankly, if a Member's objection rises to
that level, it is probably appropriate to publicly disclose such.
But the term ``hold'' is used to apply to a much broader form of
communication between Members and the leader. A hold is generally
considered to be any communication in which a Member expresses an
interest in specific legislation and requests that the Member be
consulted or advised before any agreement is entered with regard to the
issue.
In that sense, a hold is a Senate mode of communication, rather than
a procedural prerogative, and when used to communicate a Member's
interest in a matter, it is more of an informal bargaining tactic, not
an intent to derail or delay consideration of a measure.
Such informal communication is not only important to the workings of
this body, but it facilitates the development of unanimous consent
requests and facilitates the consideration of legislation.
In some respects, such informal holds act much like the Rules
Committee proceedings in the House whereby Members present their
position with regard to offering amendments to legislation.
There is no such process in the Senate and often times informal
holds, or consent letters, are the only means by which the leadership
knows who has an interest in an issue and needs to be consulted in
order to craft a unanimous consent agreement.
This amendment does not affect such informal consultation and so will
not impede the ability of the leadership to move the business of the
Senate. However, when the communication rises to the level that a
Member will object to proceeding, it is appropriate that it be
disclosed.
Consequently, consistent with the purpose of the bill before us, this
amendment would provide greater transparency of the legislative process
and increase public confidence in the outcome.
I urge adoption of the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I think Senator Lott, Senator Inhofe, and
Senator Grassley have said it very well. This amendment is about a
simple proposition; and that is, the Senate ought to do its most
important business in public, where every Senator can be held
accountable. We have offered this bipartisan amendment to eliminate
secret holds on the lobbying reform legislation for the same reason
Willy Sutton robbed banks: Banks are where the money is. And secret
holds are where the power is.
Secret holds are one of the most powerful weapons available to
lobbyists. I expect that each of our offices has gotten at least one
call asking if the office would put a secret hold on a bill or nominee
in order to kill it without any public debate, and without a lobbyist's
fingerprints anywhere.
Getting a Senator to put a secret hold on a bill is like hitting the
lobbyist jackpot. Not only is the Senator's identity protected, but so
is the lobbyist's. A secret hold lets a lobbyist play both sides of the
street and gives lobbyists a victory for their clients without
alienating potential or future clients.
In my view, secret holds are a stealth extension of the lobbying
world. It would be particularly ironic if the Senate were to claim it
was adopting lobbying reform legislation without doing away with what
is one of the most powerful tools available to a lobbyist.
This has been a bipartisan effort. It has gone on for literally a
decade. Senator Lott, to his credit, tried a voluntary approach with
Senator Daschle. We want to emphasize--for example, the Senator from
Maine, Ms. Collins, was involved in this--that this in no way
eliminates the right of a Senator to have a consult, to have the
opportunity to look at legislation, to review it when it comes out of
committee. A Senator can seek that. In my mind, a consult is similar to
a yellow light that says proceed with caution. A hold, on the other
hand, is similar to a red light, a stop light. It is when a Senator
digs in and says they are going to do everything they possibly can to
block a piece of legislation from going forward.
I want to protect Senators' rights, but Senators' rights need to be
accompanied by responsibilities. We are talking about legislation that
can involve billions of dollars, millions of our citizens, and the
public's business ought to be done in public.
What this amendment does is ban a staff hold, the so-called rolling
hold where the hold is passed secretly from Senator to Senator. And
when a Senator exercises the power of a hold to deal with an issue that
is important to them, in the future, they will be held publicly
accountable.
This is long overdue. Senator Dole, when he was majority leader,
spoke out on this, more eloquently than perhaps any of us are doing
today. Senator Grassley, myself, Senator Inhofe, Senator Lott believe
that it is time to bring sunshine to the Senate and for the Senate to
do the people's business in public. I can't think of a more appropriate
place to do it than on the lobbying reform bill we are working on
today.
I urge my colleagues to pass the amendment and to bring some sunshine
to the Senate.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired.
Mr. WYDEN. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. COLLINS. Mr. President, shortly we will vote on the Wyden-
Grassley amendment. First, we will vote on the Collins-Lieberman-McCain
amendment which is the second-degree amendment. I applaud the
initiative of Senators Wyden and Grassley. When this amendment first
came up, I spoke in favor of it. I believe we do need to end the
practice of secret holds.
I ask unanimous consent to be added as a cosponsor to the Wyden-
Grassley amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Ms. COLLINS. Let me say a few final words about the amendment
Senators
[[Page S2459]]
McCain, Lieberman, and I have proposed to create an office of public
integrity. We are about to vote on that amendment, and then we will
proceed to vote on Senator Wyden's amendment.
I believe our proposal has struck the right balance. I draw this
conclusion, in part, because my colleagues who are opposed to the
amendment are arguing two conflicting extremes, and both obviously
cannot be right. On the one hand, some of my colleagues are disparaging
the Office of Public Integrity by calling it an independent counsel, by
implying that it would be a too powerful, out-of-control entity that
would conduct unfair investigations and put Members in peril.
On the other hand, we have also heard colleagues during this debate
say that the Office of Public Integrity would not have enough power
because it can be overruled by the Ethics Committee. These two
conflicting and inconsistent positions suggest that, in fact, we have
struck the right balance. We have respected the role and the authority
of the Ethics Committee, but we have strengthened the credibility of
the investigative part of an inquiry into allegations of wrongdoing.
At the end of the day, the debate and vote on our proposal comes down
to a simple question. That is, what are we going to do to strengthen
public confidence in the integrity of this institution? Regardless of
how fine a job the Ethics Committee has done--and it has performed
well--the fact remains that public confidence in Congress is near an
all-time low. I believe the legislation that we have brought forth to
strengthen our lobbying disclosure laws, to prohibit practices that
raise conflicts of interest and, with our amendment, to strengthen the
enforcement mechanism is critical to strengthening the bond between the
people we serve and those of us privileged to be elected to public
office.
I urge my colleagues to support the modest proposal for a well
balanced Office of Public Integrity.
I yield the floor.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. All time has expired. The question is on
agreeing to the Collins amendment.
Ms. COLLINS. I ask for the yeas and nays.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there a sufficient second?
There appears to be a sufficient second.
Ms. COLLINS. I also ask for the yeas and nays on the Wyden-Grassley
amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The yeas and nays have already been ordered on
the Wyden amendment.
The question is on agreeing to amendment No. 3176 to amendment No.
2944.
The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the
Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr.
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent on official business.
I also announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd) is
absent due to a death in the family.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Alexander). Are there any other Senators
in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 30, nays 67, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 77 Leg.]
YEAS--30
Baucus
Bayh
Biden
Bingaman
Burns
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Collins
Durbin
Feingold
Grassley
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Levin
Lieberman
McCain
Menendez
Nelson (FL)
Obama
Reed
Sarbanes
Snowe
Stabenow
Talent
Vitter
Wyden
NAYS--67
Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Bennett
Bond
Boxer
Brownback
Bunning
Burr
Chambliss
Clinton
Coburn
Cochran
Coleman
Conrad
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
Dayton
DeMint
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Ensign
Enzi
Feinstein
Frist
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Isakson
Jeffords
Johnson
Kyl
Leahy
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McConnell
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Reid
Roberts
Salazar
Santorum
Schumer
Sessions
Shelby
Smith
Specter
Stevens
Sununu
Thomas
Thune
Voinovich
Warner
NOT VOTING--3
Byrd
Graham
Rockefeller
The amendment (No. 3176) was rejected.
Vote on Amendment No. 2944
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is now on agreeing to the Wyden
amendment No. 2944. The yeas and nays have been ordered. The clerk will
call the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the
Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr.
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
I also announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd) is
absent due to death in the family.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Are there any other Senators in the Chamber
desiring to vote?
The result was announced--yeas 84, nays 13, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 78 Leg.]
YEAS--84
Akaka
Alexander
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Brownback
Burns
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Clinton
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
Dayton
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Enzi
Feingold
Feinstein
Grassley
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Isakson
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Kerry
Kohl
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lieberman
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McCain
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Obama
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Salazar
Santorum
Sarbanes
Schumer
Shelby
Smith
Snowe
Specter
Stabenow
Stevens
Talent
Thomas
Vitter
Voinovich
Warner
Wyden
NAYS--13
Allard
Bunning
Burr
Coburn
DeMint
Ensign
Frist
Gregg
Kyl
McConnell
Sessions
Sununu
Thune
NOT VOTING--3
Byrd
Graham
Rockefeller
The amendment (No. 2944) was agreed to.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I move to reconsider the vote.
Mr. FRIST. I move to lay that motion on the table.
The motion to lay on the table was agreed to.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The majority leader.
Cloture Motion
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, we have made progress today on a very
important bill, a bill that we brought to the floor now several weeks
ago. It is an important bill that reflects upon this institution in
terms of respect, in terms of integrity, and a bill on which we have
made huge progress. Yet it is a bill about which it has come time, I
think, really, now, to establish a glidepath to continue debate, allow
germane amendments but recognize we want to keep those amendments on
the bill itself.
I had hoped we would have been able to reach an agreement to sequence
a large number of amendments, but the amendments keep coming. And after
talking to both sides of the aisle, I understand that we are not going
to be able to get time agreements on those amendments. Therefore, my
only option at this juncture is to bring this bill to a close with a
cloture unanimous consent request.
Therefore, I ask unanimous consent that the motion to proceed to the
motion to reconsider the failed cloture vote be agreed to, the motion
to reconsider be agreed to, and the Senate now proceed to a vote on
invoking cloture on the underlying bill.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Democratic leader.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, the legislation now before this body is
imperfect, but it is sure good. I said before, and I say again, the
work done by the Rules Committee and the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee is exemplary. It was bipartisan. They
[[Page S2460]]
brought pieces of legislation to the floor. It was melded into one, and
this is what is now before this body.
We have had amendments offered. Some have passed; some have not. As
the majority leader has indicated, we tried to get the list of
amendments agreed to. This would go on for weeks. We have immigration.
I want to get to immigration. I want to come out of here with a good
lobbying reform bill.
As I said, this bill is not perfect, but it contains important
reforms to strengthen both lobbying disclosure requirements and our own
internal efforts in some very significant ways. No one needs to hang
their head in shame about what we have done. It extends and strengthens
a cooling off period for Members and staff, ends gifts and meals for
lobbyists, requires preapproval and more disclosure for all trips,
requires disclosure of job negotiations, prohibits the K-Street Project
under Senate rules, eliminates floor privileges for former Members who
become lobbyists, requires more disclosure by lobbyists--and that is an
understatement--requires new disclosure of grassroots lobbying and
stealth coalitions by business groups, reforms rules regarding
earmarks, scope of conference and availability of conference reports to
eliminate dead-of-night legislating.
This is a good piece of legislation. I would like a lot more, but I
don't believe the perfect should get in the way of the good. This is
good.
I urge my colleagues to vote for cloture so we can complete action on
this bill quickly.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection? Without objection----
Mr. McCAIN. Reserving the right to object.
Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I understand there was no objection.
Mr. McCAIN. I reserve the right to object.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arizona.
Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, if we vote cloture, there will be several
important amendments that will fall, including use of corporate jets,
including earmarking, which is the reason we have the abuses that we
have today. I will not support cloture, and I will tell my colleagues
if we do have cloture, we will revisit those issues.
There is no reason any Member of this body should pay only first-
class airfare for riding a corporate jet. Earmarking is out of control,
and it has become a problem with all Americans, and we need to address
at least those two issues.
I hope my colleagues understand if we do invoke cloture, we will be
revisiting those issues one way or another. I am disappointed that we
could not address those very important aspects.
I will not object to the unanimous consent request.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
By unanimous consent, pursuant to rule XXII, the Chair lays before
the Senate the pending cloture motion, which the clerk will state.
The legislative clerk read as follows:
Cloture Motion
We the undersigned Senators, in accordance with the
provisions of rule XXII of the Standing Rules of the Senate,
do hereby move to bring to a close debate on S. 2349: an
original bill to provide greater transparency in the
legislative process.
Bill Frist, Mitch McConnell, Rick Santorum, Mel Martinez,
James Inhofe, Susan Collins, Trent Lott, John E.
Sununu, John McCain, Judd Gregg, Norm Coleman, Michael
B. Enzi, Wayne Allard, R.F. Bennett, Craig Thomas,
Larry E. Craig, George Voinovich, and Christopher Bond.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is, Is it the sense of the Senate
that debate on S. 2349, the Legislative Transparency and Accountability
Act of 2006, shall be brought to a close?
The yeas and nays are mandatory under the rule. The clerk will call
the roll.
The legislative clerk called the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. The following Senator was necessarily absent: the
Senator from South Carolina (Mr. Graham).
Mr. DURBIN. I announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr.
Rockefeller) is necessarily absent.
I also announce that the Senator from West Virginia (Mr. Byrd) is
absent due to a death in the family.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Chambliss). Are there any other Senators
in the Chamber desiring to vote?
The yeas and nays resulted--yeas 81, nays 16, as follows:
[Rollcall Vote No. 79 Leg.]
YEAS--81
Akaka
Alexander
Allard
Allen
Baucus
Bayh
Bennett
Biden
Bingaman
Bond
Boxer
Brownback
Burns
Burr
Cantwell
Carper
Chafee
Chambliss
Clinton
Cochran
Coleman
Collins
Conrad
Cornyn
Craig
Crapo
DeMint
DeWine
Dodd
Dole
Domenici
Dorgan
Durbin
Enzi
Feinstein
Frist
Grassley
Gregg
Hagel
Harkin
Hatch
Hutchison
Inhofe
Inouye
Isakson
Jeffords
Johnson
Kennedy
Landrieu
Lautenberg
Leahy
Levin
Lincoln
Lott
Lugar
Martinez
McConnell
Menendez
Mikulski
Murkowski
Murray
Nelson (FL)
Nelson (NE)
Pryor
Reed
Reid
Roberts
Salazar
Sarbanes
Schumer
Shelby
Smith
Specter
Stabenow
Stevens
Talent
Thomas
Thune
Voinovich
Warner
Wyden
NAYS--16
Bunning
Coburn
Dayton
Ensign
Feingold
Kerry
Kohl
Kyl
Lieberman
McCain
Obama
Santorum
Sessions
Snowe
Sununu
Vitter
NOT VOTING--3
Byrd
Graham
Rockefeller
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Upon reconsideration, on this vote, the yeas
are 81, the nays are 16. Two-thirds of the Senators voting, a quorum
being present, having voted in the affirmative, the motion is agreed
to.
The Senator from California is recognized.
Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, I wish to take a couple of moments here to
pay tribute to Erma Ora Byrd, the beloved wife of our good friend and
colleague, Senator Robert Byrd. I will be a very few minutes.
I thank Senator Lott because I know he has business he wants to
attend to, and he is very supportive of my making a statement.
(The remarks of Mrs. Boxer are printed in today's Record under
``Morning Business.'')
Mrs. BOXER. I yield the floor.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. LOTT. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
(The remarks of Mr. Lott are printed in today's Record under
``Morning Business.'')
Mr. LOTT. I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. REID. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order for
the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Immigration
Mr. REID. Mr. President, sometime tomorrow, hopefully, or the next
day, we are going to move to immigration. There is widespread
acknowledgment that our immigration system is badly broken. There is a
crisis at our borders, and we need a comprehensive strategy to address
it.
Just yesterday, the Senate Judiciary Committee reported a bill with
strong bipartisan support which would do much that is necessary to
restore order to our immigration system. The committee bill offers real
solutions with tough, effective enforcement and smart reforms. The bill
is not perfect, but it is certainly a good bill. This legislation would
secure our borders, crack down on employers who hire illegally, and
bring undocumented immigrants out of the shadows. I commend Chairman
Specter, Ranking Member Leahy, and Senator Kennedy, who has worked on
these issues for more than 30 years, and the rest of the committee for
their hard work in completing this bill.
I have received assurances from the majority leader that it will be
in order for Senator Specter to offer the committee-reported bill as
the first amendment to Senator Frist's border security bill. That
amendment will be a complete substitute, so if it is adopted by the
full Senate, it will completely supersede the Frist bill.
[[Page S2461]]
This is no different than we handle all other pieces of legislation.
Based on those assurances, we have consented to vitiate the cloture
vote--that happened earlier today--and allow the debate to move
forward.
Under the process we have agreed upon, the foundation of the Senate's
upcoming debate on immigration policy will be the bipartisan committee
bill.
I will have more to say about immigration policy in the coming days.
For now, I want to express my satisfaction that the full Senate will be
allowed to debate the comprehensive, bipartisan immigration bill that
the Senate Judiciary Committee reported yesterday. I welcome that
debate.
Mr. LEAHY, Mr. President, I filed an enforcement amendment to the
bill on March 7 and look forward to an opportunity to offer that
amendment and have it considered by the Senate. My amendment is the
``Honest Services Amendment,'' No. 2924.
The purpose of my amendment is to articulate more clearly the line
that cannot be crossed without incurring criminal liability. If we are
serious about lobbying reform, the Senate will adopt this amendment. It
was only with the indictments of Abramoff, Scanlon, and Cunningham that
Congress took note of the scandal that has grown over the last years.
If we are to restore public confidence, we need to provide better
tools for Federal prosecutors to combat public corruption in our
Government. I explained this amendment back on March 9, and a copy of
it is included in the Congressional Record of that day.
This amendment creates a better legal framework for combating public
corruption than currently exists under our criminal laws. It specifies
the crime of Honest Services Fraud Involving Members of Congress and
prohibits defrauding or depriving the American people of the honest
services of their elected representatives.
Under this amendment, lobbyists who improperly seek to influence
legislation and other official matters by giving expensive gifts,
lavish entertainment and travel and inside advice on investments to
Members of Congress and their staff would be held criminally liable for
their actions.
The law also prohibits Members of Congress and their staff from
accepting these types of gifts and favors or holding hidden financial
interests in return for being influenced in carrying out their official
duties. Violators are subject to a criminal fine and up to 20 years
imprisonment, or both.
This legislation strengthens the tools available to Federal
prosecutors to combat public corruption in our Government. The
amendment makes it possible for Federal prosecutors to bring public
corruption cases without all of the hurdles of having to prove bribery
or of working with the limited and nonspecific honest services fraud
language in current Federal law.
The amendment also provides lobbyists, Members of Congress, and other
individuals with much needed notice and clarification as to what kind
of conduct triggers this criminal offense.
In addition, my amendment authorizes $25 million in additional
Federal funds over each of the next 4 years, to give Federal
prosecutors needed resources to investigate corruption and to hold
lobbyists and other individuals accountable for improperly seeking to
influence legislation and other official matters.
The unfolding public corruption investigations involving lobbyist
Jack Abramoff and MZM demonstrate that unethical conduct by public
officials has broad-ranging impact. These scandals undermine the
public's confidence in our Government. Earlier this month, the
Washington Post reported that as an outgrowth of the Cunningham
investigation, Federal investigators are now looking into contracts
awarded by the Pentagon's new intelligence agency, the
Counterintelligence Field Activity, to MZM, Inc., a company run by
Mitchell J. Wade who recently pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe Mr.
Cunningham.
The American people expect, and deserve, to be confident that their
representatives in Congress perform their legislative duties in a
manner that is beyond reproach and that is in the public interest.
Because I strongly believe that public service is a public trust, I
urge all Senators to support this amendment. If we are serious about
reform and cleaning up this scandal we will do so. I hope the
Republican leadership and the managers of the bill will accord me the
opportunity to offer the amendment and improve the underlying measure.
Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
The assistant legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order
for the quorum call be rescinded.
The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Isakson). Without objection, it is so
ordered.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that when the
Senate resumes consideration of the bill tomorrow morning, Senator
Feingold be recognized to offer his amendment No. 2962 relating to the
definition of ``lobbyist'' for purposes of gifts; provided further that
there be 40 minutes equally divided for debate prior to a vote in
relation to the amendment, with no second-degree amendments in order to
the amendment.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that
notwithstanding the adjournment of the Senate, all time until we resume
the bill tomorrow count against the time limit under the provisions of
rule XXII. I further ask unanimous consent that all first-degree
amendments that qualify under rule XXII be offered no later than 11
a.m. on Wednesday, other than a managers' amendment to be cleared by
the managers and the two leaders.
The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
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