[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[House]
[Pages 13059-13061]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I rise for the purpose of inquiring of the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) regarding the schedule of the week to 
come.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the distinguished whip yielding 
to me.
  Mr. Speaker, Monday the House will convene at 12:30 p.m. for morning 
hour debates and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider H.R. 
2863, the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for fiscal year 
2006, and any recorded votes requested will be rolled until 6:30.
  On Tuesday, the House will convene at 9 a.m. for morning hour debates 
and 10 a.m. for legislative business. We expect to consider several 
measures under suspension of the rules, as well as H.R. 2475, the 
Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006.
  For the rest of the week, the House will consider several additional 
bills under a rule: H.J. Res. 10, the Flag desecration amendment; the 
Legislative Branch Appropriations Act of Fiscal Year 2006; and the 
Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education 
Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2006 some time later in the week.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information. 
If I may inquire, Mr. Leader, the Labor-Health bill was marked up 
yesterday, and the legislative branch bill was marked up as well. What 
days does the gentleman expect those bills to be on the floor?
  Mr. DeLAY. First, let me repeat what I mentioned in my statement. 
This is rather unusual, but we will be considering the Department of 
Defense appropriations bill on Monday afternoon. We will roll votes 
until 6:30 p.m., but Members should know that we will be having very 
important debate Monday afternoon, including amendments.
  In terms of the rest of the week, I would expect us to consider 
intelligence authorization, Flag amendment, and legislative branch 
appropriations on Tuesday and Wednesday, and Labor-HHS would be 
reserved for Thursday and Friday.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the Flag constitutional amendment is on the 
calendar as well. Within the framework of the other bills, would that 
be left until Friday, or when will that be considered?
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I would expect the Flag amendment would 
follow right after the intelligence authorization bill, and then 
legislative branch right after that.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reports indicate that there has now been some

[[Page 13060]]

agreement as it relates to the ability of the national intelligence 
director to move personnel. That obviously was a problem we had. The 
gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter) did not feel that was 
appropriate. Apparently, there has been some discussion and that matter 
has been resolved. Would it be the gentleman's expectation there will 
be an amendment to the bill because that provision is still in the 
bill; or do you expect to have a provision in the rule itself which 
would be self-executing to remove the constraint from the intelligence 
authorization bill?
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, I think that the gentlewoman from California 
(Ms. Harman), the gentleman from Michigan (Chairman Hoekstra), and the 
gentleman from California (Chairman Hunter), and the ranking member, 
the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton), will be all in sync on that 
particular issue. They have been working together and working well to 
come to a solution to that. I would imagine it would be in a manager's 
amendment, whatever solution they come to.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, what I understand the gentleman is saying is 
whatever is agreed to by those three will be how it is carried out?
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, as far as I have been advised, that is 
correct.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, two additional issues: campaign finance 
legislation, or Pence-Wynn, and CAFTA. Can the leader give us any 
thoughts as to when those might be considered as it relates to the July 
4 break?
  Mr. DeLAY. Mr. Speaker, as far as campaign finance reform 
legislation, we have no plans right now to consider any legislation.
  As far as the Central America Free Trade Agreement, the President has 
not transmitted any proposed agreement so we will not make any 
decisions about scheduling until he does.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, lastly, the gentleman from Texas (Leader 
DeLay) had to leave early right after the votes last week, and the 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt) and I discussed that I am 
concerned, the gentleman is concerned, everybody is concerned and 
everybody is talking about it in the papers, the Committee on Standards 
of Official Conduct is still not staffed and unable to proceed. The 
gentleman has expressed concern that that is the case. We have 
expressed concern that that is the case.
  We believe, Mr. Leader, that under the rules the executive director 
and counsel need to be hired through agreement by both the Republican 
and Democratic members of the Committee on Standards of Official 
Conduct. We believe that is what the rules says.
  The impediment it seems, frankly, is that the chairman of the 
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct is still focused on having 
his chief of staff, who may be an outstanding individual, no aspersions 
whatsoever on his character or his integrity in working on the 
Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, but he has not been 
selected in a bipartisan fashion.

                              {time}  1500

  Could the leader advise me, the Speaker indicated he thought he ought 
not to get involved, but we appear to have an impasse. It seems to me 
as one of the leaders, I would certainly be prepared to work with you, 
with the Speaker, I think the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi) 
would, in trying to resolve this impasse so we could as an institution 
select bipartisan personnel that both sides could have confidence in 
that could then proceed to have an operating, effective Ethics 
Committee. I frankly hope we could do that. I think both of us and 
probably the entire institution is frustrated by the fact that we 
cannot get by this impasse.
  It is, however, from our perspective, as the gentleman knows, a very 
important issue because if both sides are going to have confidence in 
the impartiality of investigations, of Republicans or Democrats, it 
will be because both sides participated in and had confidence in those 
who were selected to, from a staff standpoint, proceed with those 
investigations.
  I would be glad to yield to my friend for his comments.
  Mr. DeLAY. I appreciate the gentleman yielding. The gentleman is 
correct in saying that this gentleman is very interested in getting the 
Ethics Committee up and running. It is for the good of the institution. 
I do not agree with the gentleman in his assessment of the rules, 
because the rules also provide for other alternatives other than what 
he suggested.
  I have to say that I think it is unfortunate that some--no one that 
serves on the committee am I saying this about--that some would use the 
Ethics Committee for political purposes. I think it is unfortunate. I 
think that the Democrats that serve on the Ethics Committee and the 
Republicans that serve on the Ethics Committee are more than capable of 
coming to some resolution.
  The gentleman assumes and suggests that the leadership ought to get 
involved in it. I think the problem is that the leadership has gotten 
involved in it. In the 20 years I have been here, the tradition of this 
institution to maintain the integrity of the Ethics Committee is that 
leadership should not be involved in these matters at the Ethics 
Committee level; that the Ethics Committee is a bipartisan committee 
set up to function as a bipartisan committee, and when leaders start 
dictating to the members on that committee, it undermines the 
credibility of that committee.
  I would hope that the members of the committee could look at 
alternatives, and there have been alternatives suggested and allowed by 
the rules. For instance, if they can come to no resolution of one 
single director, you can have codirectors, allowed by the House rules. 
The ranking member can have a director hired by him, and the chairman 
can have a director hired by him, and the committee can function on the 
staff level as the committee is set up to function on the Members 
level.
  I think the involvement of either leaders on both sides of the aisle 
should encourage, publicly or privately, for the members of the 
committee to work this out and not be involved in the decision-making, 
nor the discussion, nor negotiations. The leaders should stay out of 
it. I would hope that the Ethics Committee would come together and work 
together and function so that issues before this House protecting the 
integrity of this House and the credibility of this House as an 
institution can go forward.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, the leader and I have a different 
perspective on this. He is correct in that observation. First of all, 
let me say that clearly the leadership ought to stay out of any 
determinations or considerations or reference to complaints raised or 
under investigation or determination by the Ethics Committee. I agree 
with the leader on that.
  I do not agree with the leader on the fact that the leadership does 
not have a particular responsibility to ensure that the Ethics 
Committee is operating, is functioning, is performing the 
responsibilities of ensuring the public that we are maintaining the 
ethics of this institution and the democratic processes in a 
transparent and open and honest fashion. That is not any different, 
very frankly, than the leadership appointing the members of the Ethics 
Committee. It does not stay out of that. It appoints the members of the 
Ethics Committee on both sides of the aisle. It, in fact, removes 
members from the Ethics Committee. The problem has arisen here where 
for the first time since I can remember as a Member of this House, we 
have an impasse and a failure to, in a bipartisan fashion, agree on a 
single director.
  Mr. Leader, very frankly, I will tell you that the initial problem 
was raised and our perspective is that the rules were changed to 
provide for impasse, for gridlock, where five people could not agree to 
proceed with the investigation, and it would not proceed. I know we 
differ on that perspective, but that was our perspective. Frankly, for 
whatever reasons, we have now gone back to the rules that we believe 
provide for proceeding with investigations without providing for the 
possibility of partisan gridlock or partisan veto. If you had 
codirectors, which is what has been suggested, you have one director 
for the Republicans, one director for the Democrats, you provide 
indirectly

[[Page 13061]]

what you have now abandoned in the rule change that you made in January 
and gone back to the old rule. The whole purpose of having one 
director, selected in a bipartisan fashion, I suggest to my friend, was 
to provide and to have a confidence level in proceeding in a way that 
would provide for an effective operation of the Ethics Committee.
  Mr. DeLAY. If the gentleman will yield, I do not agree with anything 
he said, and I appreciate it.

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