[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 76 (Monday, May 18, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H5700-H5706]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                        INEQUITIES IN THE RULES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 6, 2009, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Carter) is recognized 
for 60 minutes as the designee of the minority leader.
  Mr. CARTER. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
  If you read this statement right here, Speaker of the House Nancy 
Pelosi on

[[Page H5701]]

November 8, 2006 made this statement, which has been quoted quite a 
bit, ``The American people voted to restore integrity and honesty in 
Washington, D.C., and Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most 
open, and most ethical Congress in history,'' November 8, 2006. That's 
a very, very noble goal, a noble goal that unfortunately doesn't seem 
to be being met by the majority.
  I've been here on the floor of the House talking about ethics now and 
talking about basically right and wrong, stuff that anybody can 
understand, I think; that there are just certain things that really 
just by their very nature just don't seem right.
  I credit the American people with an awful lot of common sense, and I 
think that common sense leads them to look at some of the things that 
go on in Washington and say, You know what, that doesn't make sense. 
That's just not right. Something's wrong here.
  Generally when the American people are saying to themselves, That 
doesn't sound right, something's wrong, that's just not the way it 
ought to be, generally they've got a pretty good judgment of what 
they're looking at and what they're hearing.
  It's been my--I wouldn't say duty--but the goal that I've taken on to 
try to point out some of these things. And I started off with a good 
friend, a gentleman named Charlie Rangel.
  Charlie is the chairman of one of the most important committees in 
the House of Representatives, the Ways and Means Committee, the 
taxation committee of the House of Representatives. I actually 
discovered when Mr. Rangel spoke on the floor of the House about the 
fact that he hadn't paid taxes on a piece of Caribbean real estate that 
he owned for a long period of time because he just misunderstood that 
that was income to him and that he had submitted the unpaid past-due 
taxes and would pay any penalties and interest that might be assessed. 
But none had been assessed.
  It just struck me, having been a small-town lawyer and a judge in a 
medium-sized suburban county, that that didn't sound like the IRS that 
most of my friends and neighbors were familiar with. Because most of my 
friends and neighbors were familiar with the IRS that when they just 
didn't pay on April 15 but paid on October 15 of the same year, they 
looked at their tax bill, and along with the taxes was interest and 
sometimes penalties. If they went longer than that, there was even more 
interest and even larger penalties.
  It seemed to me when you're talking about something like 10 years I 
believe, but don't hold me to that--it was in double figures anyway--
when you're talking about the years that Mr. Rangel didn't pay his 
taxes, and it was in the sum of, as I recall, it was about $10,000 or 
$12,000 that he had to pay. I don't remember the exact number on that 
either. But for there to be no penalties and interest, when somebody 
who pays their tax bill 6 months late, and they only owe maybe $400, 
$500, and they look down there and there's penalties and interest. I 
thought--and I think people listening to that would have thought the 
same thing--Well, that's not right. If everybody else is paying 
penalties and interest, why isn't the chairman of the Ways and Means 
Committee paying penalties and interest? Surely it's not because he's 
the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee and is in charge of 
overseeing taxation for the House of Representatives. Surely that is 
not the case. But if it is the case, then the rest of the world is 
being treated differently than Mr. Rangel.
  So I introduced a bill to this august body to create the Rangel Rule. 
The Rangel Rule is very simple. If you fail to pay taxes for whatever 
reason, and you're willing to pay those past-due taxes, but you don't 
want to pay penalties and interest--even if it's been 10 or 20 years 
that you haven't paid the taxes--just like Mr. Rangel, you can claim 
the Rangel Rule, and you won't have to pay penalties and interest.
  All you basically do is write on your taxes when you pay your taxes, 
``exercising the Rangel Rule,'' and then you will be treated the same 
as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and your penalties and 
interest should be excused.

                              {time}  2100

  Now, a lot of people thought that was funny. And a lot of people 
caught on to it and thought it was a good idea. And it is still here 
looking for signatures on a discharge petition which is growing which 
would allow us to bring this to the floor of the House. But its real 
purpose was to have people who use common sense apply common sense to 
this issue and say, That is not right. That is not fair. And it put a 
spotlight on one particular incident that is not fair. But I have got 
three pages here of various people that have issues.
  And then of course, in our current news, we have issues with the 
Speaker. So, we will get to all that as we go through this evening. But 
right now, I don't want everybody to think I'm just picking on Mr. 
Rangel because quite frankly, there is a lot of other issues here.
  And to start off with, we have the Secretary of the Treasury. Do you 
know that guy? That is the guy that has told us we need to spend these 
trillions of dollars to save the world. Well, the man who has spent us 
into the poorhouse almost didn't pay his taxes. Now, the difference 
between Mr. Geithner and Mr. Rangel, in Mr. Rangel's defense, is what 
we call the ``Geithner rule precedent.'' Even with solid evidence that 
a taxpayer was aware of their self-employment tax liability, was given 
funds specifically to pay their obligation and still consciously failed 
to pay, only interest should be assessed. Because Mr. Geithner failed 
to pay his self-employment tax, even though the people who paid him 
sent him the money in a check, $30,000 worth, and said, Here it is. 
This is to pay yourself employment tax. And he didn't pay it. Now, I 
assume he kept the money. But he didn't pay it. And when he then was at 
that time being offered up as the nominee for the job of the Treasurer 
of the United States, he did rush down and pay that amount of money. 
But he didn't have any penalties assessed against him, even though, 
arguably, it is an intentional act, because he was specifically told, 
Here is the check to pay your taxes, and he didn't pay them. And it 
took the fact that the President of the United States chose him to be 
Treasurer to get him to pay those taxes. We don't know if he ever would 
have paid them if he hadn't come under the spotlight of this 
government. But when he did, he paid them.
  And if anybody intentionally did something like that, you would think 
that there would be some kind of penalties about it. And yet all he had 
to do was, he did have to pay some interest, so that is why it is not 
exactly a Rangel Rule. But he didn't have to pay any penalties. And my 
gosh, if the ordinary citizen from Toledo, Ohio, just doesn't pay on 
the 15th of April and pays on the 15th of October, he will pay some 
penalties. It may not be a lot, but he will pay some penalties, and 
he'll pay some interest.
  The question you have to ask yourself is, what makes Mr. Geithner so 
special that he doesn't have to pay penalties for intentionally not 
paying his taxes? And I guess the answer is it is because he was the 
second highest man in the Treasury, and now he is the Treasurer of the 
United States, and he is the man who is advising us on this massive 
spending program that this House has set forward before it in the last 
100 days. More money has been spent by this House in the last 100 days 
than all the Congresses and all the Presidencies that have ever gone 
before put together on the advice of the man who was aware that he had 
to pay his self-employment tax because he got a letter telling him that 
which he had in his possession and he didn't pay it.
  I think almost everybody thinks it is not right for somebody, because 
they have a government position, to be treated differently from 
somebody else. I think common sense in America tells us that is the 
right thing to do. The right thing to do is treat everybody the same. 
And just because you're a big shot doesn't mean that you don't have to 
pay your fair share and you shouldn't be treated exactly like anybody 
else in this country. And that is what we have been talking about. So 
that is just an extension of the Rangel Rule.
  We could stop there because I talked about this before. But there are 
others that need to be mentioned.
  This is an article from The Washington Post, Federal funding funneled 
to Representative Murtha's supporters. A Pennsylvania defense research 
center regularly consulted with

[[Page H5702]]

two handlers close to Representative John Murtha, a Democrat from 
Pennsylvania, as it collected nearly $250 million in Federal funding 
through the lawmaker, according to documents obtained by The Washington 
Post and sources familiar with the funding request. The center then 
channeled a significant portion of the funding to companies that were 
among Murtha's campaign supporters.
  This brought to attention another issue. This issue has to do with 
the fact that Representative Murtha has steered millions of dollars to 
a group of people, contracts, to a group headed by a man named Bill 
Kuchera, who is a government contractor. And these offices of this 
firm, PMA, were raided by Federal officers on January 3 of this year. 
It says, this contact has very close ties to John Murtha. The agents 
were from the FBI, IRS and the Defense Criminal Investigative Service. 
They searched the offices of Kuchera Industries and Kuchera Defense 
Systems in three different locations in Pennsylvania. This is the same 
group that has contributed thousands of dollars to Mr. Murtha's 
campaign.
  Now, this is something that, at a very minimum, should be talked 
about by the Ethics Committee. I didn't mention that in the ethics 
report on Charlie Rangel we were promised by the Speaker of the House, 
Nancy Pelosi, back when this all broke last fall, that the Ethics 
Committee would have concluded the investigation and cleared up the 
Rangel situation by the beginning of this Congress. So we all waited in 
anticipation of finding out if there was a solution to this issue 
concerning Mr. Rangel. Nothing has come. And we have heard nothing, 
absolutely nothing, from the Ethics Committee.
  The same thing, Nancy Pelosi has actively blocked seven resolutions 
that would require the Ethics Committee to form an investigative 
subcommittee that would look into the relationship between PMA-awarded 
earmarks and campaign donations with Mr. Murtha. Why does she feel the 
need to protect PMA? Well, we have a body here called the Ethics 
Committee. And that Ethics Committee's job is to go look into these 
allegations against our Members and come up with solutions to that 
problem. Either they have violated the rules of this House or they 
haven't violated the rules of this House. Either they have violated, 
more importantly, rules of the laws of the land or they haven't 
violated the law of the land. And if that is the case, the Justice 
Department should, I assume by this search that they had, be looking 
into this issue.

  These issues need to be resolved. These issues prevent us from having 
the most open, ethical Congress in history and caused that rule to rest 
in peace. So that statement is now resting in peace in those two cases 
because nothing has been done.
  And there is more. An organization got earmarks from Representative 
Alan Mollohan that gave free rent to a family charity. Mollohan 
provided millions of dollars in earmarks to a group he helped to start, 
and that group gave the Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation $75,000 
in free rent, according to Roll Call newspaper on the Hill. The West 
Virginia High Technology Consortium has provided more than $75,000 in 
free rent and administrative services to the Robert H. Mollohan Family 
Charitable Foundation according to the tax records while receiving 
millions of dollars' worth of earmarks from Alan Mollohan, Democrat 
from West Virginia, who serves as the family charitable foundation's 
secretary.
  Here is a copy of The Washington Post article, upon taking control of 
the Congress in November of midterm elections, Democrats vowed to 
require lawmakers to disclose their requests and to certify that money 
they are requesting does not benefit them. Another key Democratic 
reform requires House Members seeking earmarks to certify that neither 
they nor their spouses have any financial interest in the project. In 
the Democratic Congress, pork is still getting served. That is from The 
Washington Post, May 24, 2007.
  And then, West Virginia charity got rent deal, Roll Call, March 10, 
2009. The West Virginia High Technology Consortium has provided more 
than $75,000 in free rent and administrative services to the Robert H. 
Mollohan Family Charitable Foundation while receiving millions of 
dollars of earmarks from Alan Mollohan.
  Now Mr. Mollohan says that this is perfectly legitimate. And do you 
know what? It might be. It might be. But that is not for us to judge.
  Once again, if you are trying to have the most open, ethical and 
honest Congress in the history of the Republic, then when you have 
questions raised like this, there should be a place you go to resolve 
those questions. To me, at least the starting place is the Ethics 
Commission and the Ethics Committee. And yet here we are. There has 
been no ethics investigations that we know of launched to look at these 
allegations.
  I think the American citizens ought to look at this and say, well, 
why not? If in reality this is innocent and there is nothing wrong with 
it, then why couldn't it be brought before the Ethics Committee and 
they can tell us this is perfectly all right, normal behavior to give 
large amounts of earmarks to a company and then get free rent for your 
charitable foundation. Maybe it is perfectly legitimate. I don't know. 
But if you listen to that, and you think of the most honest, open, 
ethical Congress in the history of the Republic, then you would say, 
something needs to be resolved about this issue.
  And really that is what we are about here. We are saying we want 
resolution. We want someone to look into these matters, and let's be 
what Nancy Pelosi has promised us we would be.
  I would like to say that was all. But there was also this issue 
recently. Representative Maxine Waters pushed for a $12 million TARP 
giveaway to One United Bank. Waters' husband is a stockholder and 
member of the board of directors of that bank. Daughter Karen Waters 
and her firm have made over $450,000 charging candidates and ballot 
measures sponsors for endorsements for Ms. Waters. And L.A. County 
supervisor, Yvonne Burke, supported a measure to lease the Chester 
Washington Golf Course to American Golf, owned partly by Representative 
Waters' husband and son after Waters supported Burke in her campaign. 
All these allegations came out in the Los Angeles newspapers.
  Now, there may be absolutely nothing to this. We don't know. But you 
ask yourself, does it sound like there is nothing to it? Because what I 
failed to say was part of that article was that it is a clear 
indication that Ms. Waters used influence to get them to look at giving 
TARP money to One United Bank. And doesn't that talk about benefits to 
House Members or their spouses, any financial interest in the project?
  I would argue if that is the rule passed by the Democratic Congress, 
the ethics rule for this Congress, imposed upon themselves and others, 
shouldn't we follow that rule?

                              {time}  2115

  Doesn't it make sense? Doesn't it make sense to say let's get answers 
to that question? I don't understand why that also is not something for 
the Ethics Committee to report on.
  Rahm Emanuel, a former Member of this body, now the, some would 
argue, the number two man in the White House, the man who has President 
Obama's ear, he got free rent from Rosa DeLauro, who is also a Member 
of this body, by living in her basement in an apartment. I mean, you 
know, I am sure it was a nice place, for 5 years. Rent free.
  Now, you say to yourself, Well, isn't it all right for one Member of 
this Congress to allow another Member of this Congress to stay in their 
place if they want to and not charge them any rent?
  I would say, yeah, I don't really see anything wrong with that. But 
then, if you knew that Ms. DeLauro's husband was a lobbyist who 
regularly lobbied this Congress, then all of a sudden you have got to 
say, wait a minute. Now we're talking about this rule right here, these 
requests, and spouses and Members and financial interests and interest 
in lobby events in this Congress.
  And, you know, the lobby right now, they are the enemy of the state 
as far as we hear around this place all the time. These are the most 
horrible people on Earth we hear from people around here. I don't agree 
with that. They're human beings just like anybody else and they're 
doing a job, but those who aren't doing it properly are

[[Page H5703]]

an issue for this Congress. And I would argue that that ought to at 
least be looked into.
  No action has been taken by the Ethics Committee, and when Rahm 
Emanuel was put on as Chief of Staff to the President, the Ethics 
Committee said it now has no jurisdiction over him. So I guess if there 
is an issue there, it's gone away by moving from the legislative branch 
to the executive branch. But just because you move doesn't make it 
right. It's an issue that ought to be answered to.
  And it may be absolutely positively nothing there, but what do you 
think? What do the Members of this body think? Does it sound like it 
ought to be looked into? Does it sound like it ought to be questioned? 
Does it sound like something you would like to know the answer to? 
Because, let me tell you, I can almost take judicial notice of the fact 
that rent in Washington, D.C., it's not cheap. And so if he's getting 
rent every month for 5 years, I would say, I don't know what the place 
looks like, but I've shopped around for those basement apartments. I 
rented a room with a microwave for a thousand dollars a month. Others 
rent those apartments down in the basement of people's townhouses 
around here for anywhere from $1,500 to $1,800 a month, times 5 years. 
That's a pretty decent gift. That's a pretty decent reward.
  And it wouldn't be bad if it was just a Member of this Congress, but 
it is the lobbyist spouse who also is giving that gift, and it ought to 
be talked about. It ought to be looked into.
  We say that we don't want to have conflicts of interest in this 
House. We want to disclose those conflicts of interest. Anyway, you are 
supposed to disclose what you're doing. Here. Disclose the requests and 
the money being certified and what you do.
  Now, Hilda Solis served, who has now been appointed to the Labor 
Department, Secretary of Labor. She was the treasurer with fiduciary 
duties for a labor organization, in direct violation of House Ethics 
Rules. Her group lobbied Congress and took direct action in elections 
under all her fiscal approval while serving in Congress.
  Her husband failed to pay taxes, even after the IRS liens, for 16 
years. And I guess the shift to the executive branch is the solution to 
that problem, but it really ought to be the Ethics Committee's job. But 
once again, now that she's Secretary of Labor, the Ethics Committee has 
no jurisdiction over here. But does that make it right? Does that make 
it not--does that make it okay to do that? Is that the kind of 
government that our President promised us he wanted to have? He was 
going to have the kind of a government that we could be proud of; and 
yet this lady, in violation of House rules, represented a labor group 
that lobbied this Congress, and she was part of their executive 
committee and didn't report it, and now she's Secretary of Labor and 
all is forgiven. And yet she's right where the conflict was, if there 
was a conflict. I mean, doesn't that make sense to anybody that that 
ought to be looked into by somebody?
  We had an ethics issue down in Florida, and it caused one of the 
Members of this House, rightfully, for other reasons also, to lose the 
election. Tim Mahoney, the Democrat, we learned through the press and 
from his own lips, paid off a mistress that he had with Federal funds 
so that she'd keep quiet. He is accused of using these taxpayer Federal 
funds to pay a former staffer and his mistress. The Speaker of the 
House refused to take action. Florida voters told her she was wrong and 
kicked him out.

  Compare that to the pledge. The Ethics Committee took no action. He 
was voted out of office after one term. The people took some action. So 
maybe that's where we are today. Maybe that's the only place we get 
recourse is from the people of the United States. They have to step up.
  You know, we took a big battering as a party. I was very offended, as 
were many Members, when we were accused of all being part of a culture 
of corruption. You don't hear me accusing every Democrat in this House, 
because of these people on this list, being part of a culture of 
corruption. There are good-hearted people on that side of the aisle who 
are doing the right thing, and I don't think it's fair for anybody to 
step up and classify a whole party because of the issues of some.
  But I do think that when those issues come up, it's the duty and 
responsibility of that party to make sure those issues are resolved. We 
resolved ours. Many people resigned. Many people didn't run for 
reelection because of issues that came up, and here we are with these 
issues.
  And then finally, once again, resting in peace is the most open, 
ethical, honest Congress in history, and that very noble phrase 
basically died between January 4, 2007, and February 10, 2009. And it 
died because of all these issues not resolved by this House, not 
resolved by its Ethics Committee, not resolved by the Justice 
Department if it is applicable. And when you come out of a world of 
right and wrong and you try, to the best you can--and people make 
mistakes. You know, some of these things could be mistakes. I want to 
make that very clear.
  But these are the kinds of things that others have been accused of 
being part of a culture of corruption, and those issues were resolved. 
These issues go unresolved, and the leader who set the standard, who 
has told us that these things would be resolved, has not only not 
resolved them, she has been a stumbling block for resolving these 
issues.
  And now, that brings us to an issue that we have with the Speaker. 
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is having an ongoing war with the CIA. I think 
most of the country is aware of that, and it has to do with accusations 
and allegations concerning what some call torture and others call 
interrogation practices with those people who are, have been held in 
Guantanamo or other places as potential terrorist enemies of our state. 
And the issue, of course, that makes the front page is waterboarding. 
Whether it's good or evil, whether it's torture or not torture is not 
what we are talking about today. That's for--I think each of us has our 
own opinion about that.
  I think the real issue here, the issue we have to resolve, is that 
the Speaker of the House has attacked unmercifully this entire 
operation and all of these things to do with the--who got told what 
about this interrogation practice. And she denied vehemently that she 
had ever gotten any knowledge of these extensive interrogation tactics. 
And she's just really stood up and in no uncertain words said, I never 
knew about it.
  Well, the current CIA director, the current Democrat CIA director who 
was appointed by President Obama, has released information to the fact 
that Ms. Pelosi was, when she was the minority leader and in the 
minority, she was in the room when these interrogation methods were 
discussed and that there are notes to show she was there. And she has 
said--she's basically taking the position that the CIA is not telling 
the truth. Some say either Ms. Pelosi's not telling the truth or the 
CIA is not telling the truth. That's kind of where we are.
  But truthfulness, public statement truthfulness is what we would 
expect from a Speaker who tells us this is going to be the most open, 
ethical, and honest Congress in history.
  I don't know. I think most everybody comes from a part of the world 
sort of like mine, honesty means telling the truth. And I think at your 
parents' or your grandparents' knee, they would tell you, You be 
honest. You tell the truth.
  I have told my children, when something was broken or something 
happened, Now, you be honest and you tell me the truth, because if you 
don't, it will be worse on you than if you did tell the truth. And I 
believe they will testify to that fact. Because the truth is just, 
that's something we instill in our children. We hopefully all do that 
because, quite frankly, truth and honesty is a goal we set for 
ourselves as Americans. We set the goal for ourselves as a Nation to be 
an open, honest Nation. And we do that by raising the next generation, 
hopefully, to understand the difference between telling the truth and 
not telling the truth.

                              {time}  2130

  I don't like the word ``lie'' or ``liar,'' and I'm not going to use 
it. Others might, but I'm not. I will tell you that you are not honest 
if you are not telling the truth. It comes down to: Is this CIA telling 
the truth or is the Speaker of the House telling the truth?
  Now, why would somebody go off on this in such a big way? Well, I 
don't

[[Page H5704]]

think I'm going off on it in nearly as big a way as are some of the 
people in the press right now. Let's wake up, folks. The reality is 
we're talking about a person who, through a series of horrible 
disasters, might end up being the President of the United States, an 
unelected President of the United States, because if something should 
happen to the President or to the Vice President, God forbid, the 
Speaker of the House stands in line to be the President of these United 
States. The Speaker of the House of Representatives is an important, 
important position.
  This issue of truth plays on how we want this place to operate and 
who we want to be. Do we want to talk to each other straight, tell each 
other the truth, look each other in the eye, give our word, and keep 
it? When something happens, do we want to tell them, yes, it happened 
or, no, it didn't happen, and it's the truth? How do 400-plus people 
get together and try to work things out and keep saying, let's all work 
together, if we don't talk honestly to each other?
  So it's either the CIA--the agency that is in charge of intelligence 
for this Nation--or it's the Speaker of the House. They're both 
important. I would allege the Speaker is more important even though the 
duty of protecting this Nation by National Intelligence is really what 
has kept us safe for these last 8 years since the attack on 9/11. Even 
so, as for the Speaker of the House, who is standing in line to be 
President should a disaster strike this Nation, I think the truth 
should be part of what comes from her lips.
  So this needs to be resolved. The American people have a right to 
know. This Congress has a right to know. We have a right to know all 
that we can about those meetings where enhanced interrogation was 
discussed, whether it was at one or whether it was at 50. I don't know 
how many it was discussed at, but I know it has been clearly stated by 
the head of the CIA that at one Ms. Pelosi was present, and it was 
clearly stated that enhanced interrogation was being used.
  So I guess the best, real title to this discussion we are having 
these days is: Let's get to the bottom of it. Let's get to the bottom 
of this stuff. Let's get through it and find out what the truth is. 
Let's lay it out before the American people, and let's let the cards 
fall where they may. That's what I think ought to happen.
  As a solution finder for 20 years, everybody who comes into the 
courthouse is looking for a solution to their problems. You hope most 
of the time you're right, and sometimes you might not be right, but 
your job that day is to try to solve that problem to the best of your 
ability under the law.
  We owe a duty to this wonderful body, to the greatest legislative 
body ever created on the face of the Earth. We owe a duty to this great 
bunch of folks out there--we call them Americans of all sorts--that 
this government speaks the truth.
  I am really pleased to see my friend Mark Kirk join me. I am going to 
yield such time as he would like to use. He is a very intelligent man 
about the military in general, so I would like to hear his comments.
  Mr. KIRK. I would just like to raise this point:
  As you well know from criminal law--and I think the code is section 
5, U.S.C. 1001--lying to Congress is a felony. So the question will be: 
Will criminal charges be brought by congressional officials against CIA 
briefers for lying, as they've said, which is a felony--then we can 
expose that record, have a criminal investigation and possibly a 
trial--or are these empty charges and no criminal process will be put 
forward because there were no crimes, and the Speaker will not be able 
to back up what she said on national television, and will not come 
forward with any potential felony accusations? It seems clear to us 
that she won't, and that puts quite a light on the statements that she 
made before the country.
  I yield back to the gentleman.
  Mr. CARTER. The gentleman raises an excellent point, and that's just 
what we've been talking about here. I thank the gentleman for reminding 
me of that fact. In reality, that testimony is treated under oath, and 
lying to Congress carries penalties. If the CIA is lying, as Ms. Pelosi 
seems to be alleging, then, quite frankly, we ought to look into it. I 
mean, the one thing this body should do is enforce the laws of this 
land. So I thank the gentleman for reminding me of that.
  As we've been talking here today about solutions, that would be one 
solution, to bring this to light. It's all about sunlight. You know, 
sunlight is purifying, and if you put the light of day on things, we 
generally get the answers to questions we have. All of the things I've 
talked about today, all of them, just need sunlight on them. Maybe 
they'll all clear up, but we've got to have somebody asking for it, and 
that's what I've been doing these last 6 or 8 weeks.
  I see my good friend from Texas, a fellow judge and fellow 
Congressman is here, Louie Gohmert. He is one of my very dearest 
friends. I yield such time as he would choose to consume.
  Mr. GOHMERT. Well, I appreciate both of my friends' comments here 
tonight. As always, they are very thoughtful.
  These are serious issues. As a former judge, like my friend from 
Texas, when you hear serious issues and serious allegations, you know 
that somebody lying, it's a serious allegation. So you look for 
evidence. Is there evidence to show maybe so? As my friend from Texas 
knows, as a judge, the rules of evidence don't allow prior activity to 
be introduced as evidence of what happened in a later activity unless 
it rises to the level in some cases of habit where it's sufficient to 
possibly avoid that rule. So, anyway, I've been looking for indications 
that, maybe, you know, it's something else.
  We had the printout from some of the information on the Speaker's Web 
site in the last Congress, and the statement was made that our goal is 
to restore accountability, honesty and openness--very much like the 
2006 statement--at all levels of government, and to do so, we will 
create and enforce rules that demand the highest ethics.
  Of course, my friends have pointed out situations that didn't 
necessarily meet that test where, clearly, there were ethical 
violations that were alleged that needed to be investigated. Each time 
those were brought up, they were tabled. They were not allowed to go 
forward. So do you think this was a lie--and I ask rhetorically--when 
it says that we're going to enforce the rules that demand the highest 
ethics from everybody here? I would pose the possibility that maybe she 
forgot that this was the promise originally.
  If you look at another statement, it says that bills should be 
developed following full hearings and open subcommittee and committee 
markups with appropriate referrals to other committees. Well, I mean, 
you can look at so many of the bills in the last Congress. In fact, 
most of the biggest bills, when they involved money, didn't go through 
full committee markup in the regular order of things.
  Look at the stimulus package: $800 billion. It was the biggest 
spending stimulus bill of any kind that just dwarfed by 500 percent the 
one that I was against that President Bush did. I mean, it's 
incredible. There were no subcommittee or committee markups. There were 
no amendments that were allowed, but it says here that bills were 
supposed to be developed with full hearings, with open subcommittee and 
committee markups and with referrals to other committees.
  Then it went on to say that there should be at least 24 hours to 
examine a bill prior to consideration at even the subcommittee level. 
Well, there wasn't even a subcommittee level. They rammed that right 
through the floor and down everybody's throats. So you could say, well, 
was this a lie then? I don't think so. I think they forgot that this 
was what they promised. I think this was just a mistake. They forgot.
  Then it goes on to say that bills should generally come to the floor 
under a procedure that allows open, full, fair debate, consisting of a 
full amendment process. Now, like the stimulus package, it didn't come 
to the floor with any chance of amendments on the stimulus package. It 
was take it or leave it. It got rammed down our throats.
  You say: So was this a lie? Not if they forgot that they made these 
promises. I pose that as another possibility. Maybe they just forgot 
that they kept making these promises, including right up to the 
election in November of 2006 and again in 2008. There

[[Page H5705]]

was no full amendment process as promised here.
  Then it goes on to say, though, that the minority would be granted 
``the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.'' Well, 
there was the biggest spending bill in history like this, and there was 
no opportunity for a substitute. There was no opportunity for 
alternatives. So would you say they were lying? I think you could say 
they forgot that they had made those promises.
  Then it goes on to say that Members should have at least 24 hours to 
examine the bill. As we'll recall, it was put on the Internet at around 
midnight, and the next morning we were voting on it. We were debating 
and voting. There was no alternative. There was no substitute. We just 
had to go with that bill. We could fuss about it, but the bottom line 
was it was going to be rammed down our throats. I think maybe they had 
forgotten that they had promised that we would have 24 hours.
  The President made promises about how many days the people would have 
to review this on his Web site. I don't necessarily think he was lying. 
I just think he forgot that he promised. With the stimulus, we were 
told that it had to be signed immediately. We didn't have time to have 
24 hours. It had to be done. People were losing jobs every day. It 
passed the House over much of our fussing about it, and then it went to 
la-la land for 4 days because the President wasn't going to sign it 
until he had an adequate photo-op in Colorado 4 days later. According 
to what we were told, people were losing jobs every day, and it had to 
be passed immediately. I think, during those 4 days, they forgot that 
people were losing jobs every day, and they forgot that they told us 
they had to pass it immediately. That's why they took so long to do 
that.
  It goes on to say, too, that conference report text prior to floor 
consideration would be provided. Well, as my friends know, in the last 
Congress, they came up with a way to go around conference committee 
reports where, if the Senate has one version and the House has another 
version, then under the rules, you have to go to a conference--to a 
bipartisan, bicameral committee. They didn't want the Republicans in 
the House to have any say in that, so they secretly met and worked out 
a compromise without having a conference as the rules required. Then 
they rammed that down our throats but not as a conference report. I 
think they forgot that they made that promise as well.
  Rules governing floor debate must be reported before 10 p.m. for a 
bill to be considered the following day. With the biggest bills, that's 
not done. I think they forgot. I think they forgot.
  We were also told on the current Web site of the Speaker's of honest 
leadership and open government. The culture of corruption practice 
under the Republican-controlled Congress was an affront to the idea of 
a representative democracy, and its consequences were devastating. See, 
we'd been told about all of the bipartisanship that was going to be 
taking effect once the Speaker was in power. This is on the official 
Web site. It's just a slam at the Republican-controlled Congress. I 
think they forgot they were in the majority. I think they forgot, and 
that's why they're still making political statements. This isn't 
bipartisanship. These are mean, partisan statements here. I think they 
forgot. They're in control, and there's no reason to be partisan when 
you're in control.
  Another statement: The American people demanded not just high ethical 
standards but also transparency. Well, there have been requests to come 
forward and to disclose everything, and things have come out. They 
aren't transparent. We've asked the administration: Tell us what were 
the benefits of the waterboarding. There has been no transparency 
there. There has been no request from the Speaker to have that kind of 
transparency. I think they forgot that this was a promise that there 
would be this kind of transparency and disclosure and accountability.

                              {time}  2145

  That is also promised on the Web site. I think they forgot. They made 
those. So it may not be lies that some would assert--and I'm certainly 
not willing to assert that. I think they forgot. And this final 
statement--and I appreciate the yielding--but on the Speaker's Web site 
it says, Led by our newest Members, House Democrats have acted to make 
this Congress the most honest and open Congress in history.
  I think they forgot they made that promise.
  So I think by my friend from Texas taking the Special Order time to 
remind us of the promises that were made, perhaps that will jog the 
memory and we'll be able to get back to complete some of these promises 
that were made. So maybe it's just a memory problem. Memories. How 
about that?
  Mr. CARTER. Reclaiming my time.
  I'm reminded of when I was in law school. It's a beautiful spring day 
and the baseball team was playing off in the distance. And the 
professor called on every member in the back row to respond to a case, 
and every one of them stood up and said, I'm unprepared, Mr. Fritz. And 
when he finally went all the way across the back row of the auditorium, 
he said, Everyone stand and look around. You're seeing the greatest 
concentration of ignorance in the history of man.
  Maybe we're witnessing the greatest lapse of memory in the history of 
this Congress, because if you give them credit for forgetting, they 
sure have forgotten a lot. And I thank the gentleman for pointing that 
out.
  There are those that say that the way politics should work is you 
tell people what you're going to do in the campaign, and then you do 
it, and then you tell them what you did to get elected the next time. 
Of course, the new modern world is you tell them over and over and over 
what you're going to do, you don't do it, and you tell them over and 
over and over that you didn't. Maybe that is where we are. All of these 
things are curious, but the reality is, we raised enough issues here 
tonight that we don't meet anywhere close to this standard.
  I want to ask the Speaker how much time we have left.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Minnick). Six minutes.
  Mr. CARTER. Thank you.
  I thank my friend from Texas, a wise counsel, to look at that and 
decide maybe it's not that we're not having any untruths here; maybe 
we're just having a gigantic lapse of memory by the leadership of this 
House, the Democratic leadership of this House and possibly some of its 
participants. But I don't think all of the participants. There are 
open, honest, ethical men and women in this House. I think their voices 
all should be heard on both sides of the aisle.
  Resolve these issues, Madam Speaker. Make the Ethics Committee work. 
Make your office work. Follow the rules and procedures. As Mr. Kirk 
says, if we have the top leader of the House of Representatives saying 
a Federal agency has lied to Members of Congress and to its leadership, 
then file charges and let's go take them to task on this and find out 
if they did lie, and then let's open the pages of the books and let's 
look at the events and let's decide.
  The burden of proof will be on the state. That is fair. Our Founding 
Fathers created that. They don't have to defend themselves other than 
sit there if they want to. But the state has to prove that they are 
lying. But if someone is accusing them of untruth--because I just used 
a word I swore I wouldn't use--then the law says telling a falsehood to 
Congress is an actionable offense, as Mr. Kirk pointed out. Let's take 
that action. If the CIA has been lying to this body, let's take them to 
court. Let's find out. Let's have a hearing before this body. Let's 
find out and let the sunlight, the purifying sunlight of day shine upon 
this issue between the Speaker of the House and the CIA.
  And by the way, the CIA director appointed by President Obama 
confirms what other CIA directors and other Members of this Congress 
who were present said, that there was a briefing. Maybe it's part of 
Mr. Gohmert's famous memory lapse or just forgotten. Maybe that is the 
defense to all of this we've talked about. Maybe all of these issues we 
raised, the solution is, I forgot. Maybe with all of the ethics issues 
that have been raised before this Congress, someone would think could 
be

[[Page H5706]]

resolved by, I forgot that was a rule. It's not the way it works, and 
that's not the way it should work.
  We've got issues before this Congress that are issues that divide 
this Nation. We are about putting back this Nation together, not 
dividing it. That is what our President has told us. We, in this body, 
are about putting this body back together in a healthy way. The noble 
statements made by the Speaker are only noble if they're carried out. 
But if they're only words--we hear lots of words around this place. 
There is more than just words involved in everything we do. There is 
action. Let's resolve these issues. That is all I ask. That is all the 
Members of Congress ask. And I think that is all that the American 
people ask. Let's resolve these issues.
  I guess the ultimate resolution will be at the polling place, but 
that is not really the solution we should have. There should be more 
pride in this institution than having to settle it at the ballot box. 
That is kind of like settle it out in the street in Gunsmoke. That is 
not the law we want to have in this country. Let's settle these issues.
  I thank the Speaker for his patience, and I yield back the balance of 
my time.

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