[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13516]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




REPUBLICAN ABUSES OF POWER: REPUBLICANS DO NOT WANT ETHICS COMMITTEE TO 
                                  MEET

  (Mr. BUTTERFIELD asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BUTTERFIELD. Mr. Speaker, last week the gentleman from Texas (Mr. 
DeLay), majority leader, blamed House Democrats for the fact that the 
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has still been unable to 
hear the case against him. Mr. Speaker, House Democrats are trying to 
abide by the rules that this House passed at the beginning of the year. 
It is the Republicans and the chairman who refuse to follow the rules. 
They want to appoint a partisan staff director to lead their efforts on 
the committee despite House rules that explicitly state staffers be 
nonpartisan professionals.
  The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is supposed to be a 
place where Members can get straight, unbiased, trustworthy ethics 
guidance. How can Members who might have disagreements with the House 
leadership feel comfortable going to the committee for advice if they 
fear committee staff members are incapable of performing their official 
duties in a nonpartisan fashion?
  I wonder, Mr. Speaker, why the Republicans want to appoint partisan 
staffers to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. Could it be 
that they like a partisan staffer in a room when decisions are made 
about certain Members of this House? We have to wonder.

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