[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 6]
[House]
[Pages 8471-8472]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                 ETHICS IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Hill) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. HILL. Mr. Speaker, today, I had the opportunity to introduce, I 
think, a very important bill. And for those who are listening in your 
offices, I hope other Members of Congress who have not gone home yet 
will take the opportunity to review this bill and join me as a co-
author of the bill.
  During the campaign last year, there were many issues that we talked 
about: energy independence, health care, the Nation's budget. But one 
that emerged as a very, very important issue was the issue of ethics in 
the House of Representatives.
  People were very disturbed at all the scandals that were going on in 
this great body, and they told me over and over and over again that 
Congress needed to clean up its act. And they are right. We did. And we 
do.
  It pains me that the American public does not have a whole lot of 
faith in this institution because I love the House of Representatives. 
It is indeed an honor and privilege for me to serve in this great 
Chamber. In spite of all the arguments that we have here, democracy 
works.

[[Page 8472]]

  I remember, Mr. Speaker, that Dick Gephardt once told me that the 
arguments that we have here in this great body is a replacement for 
war. And that, in fact, is the case. This system, even while it gets 
ugly at times, is a great system that we have in this great country. We 
love our country and we love our government because the government is 
here to serve the people. And when it doesn't act right, we need to do 
something about it. We need to restore the confidence of the House of 
Representatives back to the people of the United States. And in that I 
introduced a bill to try to restore that confidence again by the 
American people.
  This bill that I have introduced will replace the present Ethics 
Committee as we know it today. Right now, the Ethics Committee consists 
of sitting Members of Congress, and it is very difficult for colleagues 
to investigate fellow colleagues. It is just naturally very difficult. 
This bill will replace that committee system with former Members of 
Congress who are not lobbyists, giving people like, let's say, Lee 
Hamilton an opportunity to serve in this capacity, who can kind of take 
a step away from the Members and do the investigations that have to be 
done so that we can restore honor and integrity to this great body.
  I think it is a good idea. I have talked to several Members and 
already have several Members who have become co-authors with me on this 
important piece of legislation.
  There will be six members appointed by the Speaker on the Democratic 
side and six members appointed by the Republicans, by the majority 
leader, on their side. They will serve for no longer than three terms. 
But they will have the opportunity to do the job that sitting Members 
cannot do. So I think it is a very important piece of legislation.
  We need to make sure that the people who are on this committee have 
institutional knowledge of this great body. And as former Members who 
are not lobbyists, they have that institutional knowledge to do the 
work that has to be done, which is so difficult to be done now.

                              {time}  1515

  So I hope those who are listening on their television sets and their 
offices here in Washington, DC will take the opportunity to call my 
office to get on this bill and start the process of restoring 
confidence and integrity to the House of Representatives.

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