FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 04, 2005

CONTACT: Brendan Daly/Jennifer Crider 202-226-7616

Pelosi: GOP Rules Changes Undermine Ethics Standards of the House

Washington, D.C. – House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi spoke on the House floor today in strong opposition to a rules package introduced by the Republicans that would weaken the ethics process in the House. Below are her remarks:

“Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to what I consider a shameless rules package which will undermine the ethical standards held by this house.

“After the elections in November, the first thing the Republican majority did was to lower the House’s ethical standards. In an act of unprecedented shamelessness, they changed the rules of their party to permit an indicted Member to remain in a Leadership position.

“Last night, in the face of overwhelming bipartisan opposition and public condemnation, they changed the rules back. That is not shocking. What is shocking is that they ever considered it in the first place.

“Even more shocking, just when you think you have seen it all, is that the majority considered deleting the most fundamental of our ethics rules, which says that Members of Congress should be held to the highest standards of ethical conduct. Dropping this rule is unthinkable – yet Republicans only decided to keep it last night when the issue became too hot for them to handle.

“But what isn’t completely apparent, is that the Republicans didn’t leave it at that. They went on to make new mistakes and undermine the ethical standards of the House.

“Instead of a bipartisan effort to strengthen the ethical process, the Republicans have engaged in a completely partisan exercise that should be an affront to every Member on either side of the aisle. The proposed changes that are still in this rules package are destructive and unethical.

“Mr. Speaker, I served on the Ethics Committee for six years, and then for a seventh year, I served as part of the bipartisan committee to rewrite the ethics rules. And the package that was put together was meant to be fair to Members as well as uphold a high ethical standard. It says that members should be judged by their actions and by the rules of the House, and the law. It was only about what took place: the facts and the law. It wasn’t about rumor, it wasn’t about hearsay. It is difficult to make judgments about our peers. It’s a very difficult task, and we want to be fair, but we have a higher responsibility to uphold that ethical standard.

“The rule of the House in the Ethics Committee has been that in order to dismiss a case, you must have a majority of the Ethics Committee. That would be eliminated today. On a partisan basis, there could be no cases that go forward. Either party with half the votes in the committee, evenly split, could stop any complaints from going forward. That simply is not right.

“The point of the Ethics Committee is to have a process in which to deal with ethics complaints against Members. We should not whitewash or have a system that says nothing will ever move forward.

“What could the Republicans be afraid of that they would so fundamentally undermine the ethical process of the House to say we are going to establish a system where nothing will ever go forward? It simply is wrong. We owe it to the public, we owe it to each other to uphold the highest ethical standard.

"On the first day of the new Congress, the Republican majority has publicly demonstrated what has been evident for some time, and that is, its arrogance, its pettiness, and its shortsighted focus on its political life are of greater concern than deciding how each of us is fit to govern.

“The Republicans did some flash last night, so that the press is saying they blinked. They did blink on a couple of different scores. But the fundamental challenge to the ethical standard of the House being enforced is still in this rules package and it should be rejected.

“Democrats have made two proposals. One of them is to remove this change and that would be a vote on the previous question. Then on the motion to recommit, we address two other abuses of power that should be addressed in this bill.

“One is what I will call the Tauzin Rule. The Democratic motion to recommit would forbid a Member of Congress to negotiate with an outside entity that has business before his or her committee and before the Congress. It’s called the Tauzin Rule, because Mr. Tauzin who managed the Medicare bill, was being courted by the pharmaceutical industry, which was to benefit from provisions in the prescription drug bill.

“A rumored $2 million-a-year salary for selling America’s seniors down the river. That is simply wrong. Has this become an auction house? The public has to know that when we are here and we are on the public payroll and we are members of Congress that our accountability is to them and not to our next job.

“In our motion to recommit, we also address the three-day rule. As many of you recall, last November we voted on a huge bill containing nine appropriations bills. The bill came before this house after overnight passage in the Rules Committee without any chance of Members being able to read the bill.

“And in that bill it said that the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee in the House or the Senate or his or her designee could look at the tax returns of American taxpayers. Where did that come from? It’s a total orphan. No one was going to take responsibility for that because of the egregiousness and the violation of privacy of the American people. I insisted that the Members come back to vote on that rather than just have it be done by unanimous consent to remove that provision from the law.

“Why did I call Members back? So the American people will know that the abuse of power in the House, the ignoring of the three-day rule, means that Members can’t even see what they are voting on before they vote on it, and something like looking at your tax returns could be sneaked into the bill without any safeguards to protect you from that.

“And the previous question vote would say no to the Republican proposal to eviscerate the ethical process of this House by saying you do not need a majority to dismiss a case. It is simply not right and it shouldn’t be partisan. That’s what really sad about it.

“Everything we have done in the ethics process up until now has some level of respect because it has been bipartisan. Bipartisan in writing the rules, an evenly divided committee, and cooperation between the Chair and Ranking Member.

“Today is a major departure from that. I have spent too many long hours for too many long years in the Ethics Committee room trying to respect the rights of Members and our higher responsibility to hold an ethical standard to see the Republicans today run roughshod, rigging the rules, negotiating for jobs, no reading of the bill; it’s an outrage. It’s an absolute outrage.

“I urge my colleagues to vote yes on the previous question, yes on the motion to recommit, and by all means, however you vote on those, no on this shameful rules package.

“ Democrats are united in presenting a New Direction for America, one that will make our nation as strong as its people, one that brings opportunity, security, and prosperity to all Americans. ”

Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi