[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 12578-12579]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1030
                        CORPORATE RESPONSIBILITY

  (Mr. HINOJOSA asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HINOJOSA. Mr. Speaker, recent corporate scandals, including 
Enron, WorldCom, Tyco, Merck, Rite-Aid, Xerox, and so many other 
corporations have demonstrated the need for our government to take 
action and bring order, justice, and trust back to our Nation's 
corporate infrastructure. Criminal practices put in place by high-paid 
executives demonstrate irresponsibility, hurt investors and employees, 
jeopardize innocent rank-and-file-worker pensions and retirement 
systems, and must come to an end.
  We need to send strong legislation from this House that will make 
crooked accounting, cooked financial records, and careless corporate 
executives a thing of the past.
  To do this effectively, we must craft legislation that puts fear in 
would-be corporate criminals. Stiff prison sentences for white collar 
criminals are a must and not an option.
  High-level executives who have defrauded investors, misled employees, 
and mismanaged company pension funds must be held accountable.
  I support legislation that requires honest accounting, independent 
investment advice, sensible regulation, and criminal penalties for 
those guilty of wrongdoing. We cannot have economic growth without 
eliminating corporate crime.

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