[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 7073]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




          WEAKENED ETHICS RULES: ETHICS COMMITTEE NOW A SHELL

  (Mr. STUPAK asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. STUPAK. Mr. Speaker, on January 4, 2005, the first day of the 
109th Congress, this House adopted several changes to the House ethics 
rules that many in this body warned would severely weaken the ability 
of the House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to enforce the 
highest standards of ethical conduct in its Members, officers, and 
employees.
  In the middle of March, these warnings, sadly, came to pass when the 
House Committee on Standards of Official Conduct failed to adopt 
committee rules that would have given it the ability to investigate 
credible allegations of misconduct even in cases where partisan 
considerations caused the committee to be deadlocked.
  Now we are left with a shell of a committee, a paper tiger that can 
perform only a fraction of the advisory, enforcement, and investigatory 
duties assigned it.
  The absence of a functioning ethics committee and the collapse of the 
ethics enforcement process are untenable, unacceptable, and 
irresponsible. In the eyes of the American people, this can only serve 
to undermine the integrity and credibility of the Members of the House 
and the House as institution.

                          ____________________