[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 9]
[House]
[Page 13094]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                             ETHICS REFORM

  (Mr. BLUMENAUER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute.)
  Mr. BLUMENAUER. Mr. Speaker, as the ethical cloud of the last dozen 
years has hovered over Congress, I am proud that the new Democratic 
Members are aggressively pursuing an agenda of ethics reform. Long 
overdue.
  I have introduced bipartisan legislation with my Oregon colleague, 
Greg Walden, to help establish an independent commission to do the hard 
work of professionally investigating and evaluating ethics charges. I 
am hopeful that some provision of that nature will find its way to the 
floor. The Democratic leadership has indicated that they will allow 
votes on key provisions and allow the votes on such proposals, the 
chips to fall where they may.
  I am confident with a wide range of choices that we will be able to 
have a longer, stronger prohibition from the congressional lobby 
revolving door and independent oversight. I hope that Members from both 
sides of the aisle will seize this opportunity to strengthen our ethics 
framework.

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