Raising a question of the privileges of the House.

Madam Speaker, we had a conversation on the floor of the House today with reference to this matter. I introduced a resolution to investigate this matter. The minority leader asked me to withdraw that resolution. I withdrew it.

The minority leader then asked me to have a meeting with himself and Mr. Blunt, and Mr. Clyburn attended that meeting. We discussed the incident of last night, we discussed proceeding to do the people's business, and what would be the conduct today.

The minority leader suggested that I have a member of my staff contact a member of his staff to discuss the creation of this select committee. That was just a few hours ago. Those discussions have not begun obviously and may not begin.

The minority leader talks about patterns. I think this is a pattern. I'm deeply disappointed, not by the resolution itself; although, we think the facts that are stated in the resolution are incorrect. I want to tell every Member of this House that I do not believe that there was any wrongdoing by any party yesterday. I do believe that there was a mistake made. I said that this morning. I repeat that this afternoon, and I regret it. I regret it because that mistake, understandably, angered those who perceived themselves disadvantaged by that mistake. I have a disagreement with the conclusion in here that has been again stated by the minority leader that I think would be disproved by any investigation that occurs.

There was never a call of the vote prevailing at 215-213 with a Republican motion to recommit prevailing. There was never a call by the Chair of that vote, period.

I observed, to the minority leader, that for 2 hours and 45 minutes I sat on this floor, actually, I'm not good at sitting on this floor. I walked around and talked to a lot of Members. For 2 hours and 45 minutes, my side was prevailing; not for 5 minutes, not for 2 minutes, not for 1 minute, as was the case last night. For 2 hours and 45 minutes, my side was prevailing, and the vote lasted another 10 minutes. It was referred to on ``60 Minutes'' last Sunday.

Now, historically, in the last 12 years, let me tell you what my friends' actions would have been on this motion. Immediately you would have moved to table. I do not do that. I do not accept the premises in your resolution, but I welcome the investigation. I applaud coming to the bottom of what happened because I know what happened.

Now, I wasn't looking behind me; I was looking at the Chair. But I've been informed of what happened, and what happened is eight people changed their votes. Three were Republicans, five were Democrats. There were 428 people who voted last night during that series of three votes. Every time the vote was called, 428 people voted. And the Chair called the vote at 214-214, which as all of you know adds up to 428. So every Member of the House had voted. No one was excluded. But some changed their vote on your side, and then some changed their vote on my side. And so the vote ended up and was finally called at 212-216, and we prevailed.

Now, as I said this morning, I understand the anger that existed and the sense of unfairness that was felt because, on the board electronically, when one of the changes came forward switching from one of the 214 to one of the 215 and reducing the 214 to 213, that was immediately reflected on the electronic board as the Speaker was announcing the vote, and so you were angry. I don't blame you. For 2 hours and 45 minutes as we sat on the prevailing side, the winning side, having more votes than your side, the vote was not closed. So I empathize with the sense of anger and frustration that you have.

And so what did I do? I didn't do what one of your former leaders did, just shrugged my shoulders and said, well, that's the way it goes, folks. I went to that rostrum, and I said we ought to vacate this vote and we ought to give everybody a fair shot at making sure the result is what those 428 votes want to do, because I understood that you had a sense of being wronged, and I wanted, to the extent I could, to try to right that wrong.

So I asked unanimous consent that that vote be vacated. There were many objections on your side of the aisle. I'm not sure why. You thought the vote was improperly cast. I know my friend, and everybody knows he's my friend, but we have a deep disagreement on this conclusion. Mr. Blunt believes that you won 215-213. We were ahead for 2 hours and 45 minutes. We didn't prevail. Why? Because the Speaker did not call the vote, and the Speaker didn't call the vote at the 215-213 margin. He called it at 214-214; you're absolutely right. But then he said, no, I was premature because there were changing votes, and so that vote was not finalized. You're absolutely right. The vote that was finalized was the accurate vote, 212 for your resolution and 216 against your resolution.

Now, one of those 216, of course, was the minority leader. He switched so he could make the motion, I presume, to reconsider, but it was not necessary for him to do that. I wanted, as I said, to try to make this right because, as I said on Tuesday night, and I repeated this morning, I want to try to have a civil relationship.

I work with a lot of you in this House on that side of the aisle. I like a lot of you on that side of the aisle. Some of you I do not know as well as I know others. More importantly than that, this is about my 40th year in legislative office, and I believe that it is important that we say hi to one another, respect one another and have trust in one another.

After you objected to the vacation of the vote, I moved to reconsider the vote, by which we prevailed on your motion to recommit.

I don't know why you didn't vote on that. It passed. We all voted for it on this side. All the Members on this side

voted for it to give you a second chance because you felt the first go- around wasn't fair.

I think it was fair but not appearing so because of the 215-213. Now, this investigation will look into that. As I said, we welcome it. We will not move, therefore, to table.

I have been asked to ask for a unanimous consent to drop all the ``whereas'' clauses but accept the result. I am not going to do that. Let me tell you why I am not going to do it.

I do not accept those ``whereases.'' I think they are factually inaccurate. They were not reviewed by me, and there has been no meeting of our staffs, I say to my friend, the minority leader, which we discussed at approximately 11:30 this morning.

I withdrew my resolution. My expectation was that the minority leader and I would sit down and our staffs would sit down and discuss this matter and determine how best to investigate this. That's what we discussed. There was no discussion about this resolution coming forward. There was no notice to me that this discussion was going forward; and there was a request to me, which I honored, to withdraw my own resolution offered this morning. I am disappointed.

I am not going to oppose this resolution, and we will have an investigation. We will appoint three on our side, and we will appoint three on your side. We will appoint three fair-minded Members who care about this institution. I hope you will do the same.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to take the leader up on his offer, and I don't want to argue the facts more than we have done. Mr. Blunt knows I disagree with the conclusions he has just expressed. We discussed our disagreements in my office just a few hours ago.

I want to take the leader up on his offer. And pursuant to that, I would ask unanimous consent that the Chair be permitted to divide the question of agreeing to House Resolution 611 between agreeing to the resolution and agreeing to the preambles.

The preambles are your conclusions. I would therefore, with the question divided, I would hope, very frankly, Mr. Leader, as my resolution did, it did not make conclusions. It simply asserted that we ought to look into the matter. Your resolve clause says that. We will support that, but we will not support the conclusions.

Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by commending my colleague on the page board, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee), for his service to the program, long service to the program, and for the bipartisan manner in which he has handled the legislation before him today.

I would also like to thank the Chair and ranking member of the House Administration Committee, and I would like to join my fellow, the ranking member and all of us, really, to say thank you to all the pages who are in the room today, all the pages who are currently serving, and all those pages who have done wonderful service in the past.

I am proud to be the original cosponsor of the House Page Board Revision Act and rise to urge my colleagues to support it. I believe my colleagues will support it.

The House page program has existed for well over a century and provides teenagers with an incredible opportunity to learn about the legislative process, gain leadership and teamwork skills that can be applied to whatever profession they decide to enter. House pages provide a valuable service to the House of Representatives as well. The page program is truly an asset, both to this body and to the Nation.

I guarantee, if you ask any page in this room, present or former, about their experience, there is one word that they always use to describe it when I ask, and that is ``fantastic.'' That is why Members of this House were shocked to learn that a former Congressman's inappropriate interaction with House pages came to light last fall.

As a mother, it was very upsetting to find out that children sent to Washington could possibly be preyed upon. As a Member of this House and a member of the page board, I was disappointed that the information regarding those e-mails was not shared with the full page board.

But since it is impossible to go back and fix, it is important that the House move forward to make the changes to prevent such an incident or other incidents that could endanger the safety of young people. Certainly, we all know that one of the most important rules of this House is for Members, of course, to conduct themselves in a manner that reflects credibility of the House.

But it is imperative that we learn lessons from last year's situation and take the steps necessary to better protect House pages and to ensure that any potential problem is investigated fully.

Mr. Speaker, many of the items in this bill are suggestions that I made to the page board in October, and I will include this letter into the Record listing my reasons for supporting this.

This legislation balances the partisan make-up of the page board by incorporating two pages from each party. I believe this provision is important, not just symbolically but it is also important because it demonstrates that nothing within the page board is ever construed as partisan.

It is important that everyone involved, House Members, staff, employees, pages, dorm supervisors alike feel comfortable approaching the page board with any information about possible threats to the safety of the children in this program. Demonstrating that the board is truly bipartisan should make this easier.

Expanding membership to include a former page and the parent of a current or recent page will improve discussions on policies for the page program and provide that additional perspective, that additional set of eyes and ears for any problems that may arise.

Certainly, regular meetings, I heartily agree, of the page board, will help shed light on any trouble facing our pages, and I am pleased that this provision has been included in the bill.

My hope is that other recommendations that have been put forward, such as a peer counseling program, better communications, will strengthen this program as we move forward into the future.

I commend the leaders of both parties for agreeing to take action to better protect the pages who serve this House; and, again, I thank Mr. Kildee for offering this bill. This is a good bipartisan piece of legislation, and I ask my colleagues to support it.

October 5, 2006.

Hon. John Shimkus,

Hon. Dale Kildee,

Mr. Bill Livingood, Sergeant-at-Arms.

Dear Page Board Member: This week has been difficult for

all Members of Congress, as well as for the institution in

which we serve. Make no mistake, the revelation of Mark

Foley's despicable actions have been difficult on the young

people in our Page Program as well. I am confident that I

speak for the entire Page Board in expressing outrage and

hoping that anyone involved in this tragic sequence of events

be severely punished.

Today, Speaker Hastert called for the Page Program to be

reviewed and strengthened. As the Speaker correctly stated,

times have changed since this great program was created, and

I believe it is incumbent upon us to ensure we address these

changes as they pertain to the Page Program.

As a fellow member of the Page Board, I write to you today

for two reasons: (1) To offer my full support for the

continuation of the Page Program, and (2) Offer my

suggestions on how we can begin to update and strengthen this

program to ensure it continues to offer a safe learning

experience for our nation's young people.

As we move forward, I ask that we consider using the

following items as a starting point for reform to the Page

Program:

(1) Increase the number of Members of Congress on the Page

Board and, like the Committee on Standards & Official

Conduct, establish equal representation from both parties on

the Page Board. I know we all agree that the issue of safety

for the young people in the Page Program is not a partisan

one.

(2) Developing a peer counseling program within the Page

Program. Modeled after peer programs that have been

successful in our educational system, this would provide

pages with an additional outlet to express any problems or

concerns that may be easier than reporting to an adult.

(3) The implementation of monthly meetings with the Page

Board, pages, as well as a representative from the U.S.

Capitol Police. We should create a system in which all

members of the Page Board have more information on any

potential problem facing the pages, including receiving

reports from the Capitol Police on any possible problems with

crime activity on Capitol Hill or in the page dorm

neighborhood.

(4) Establish training and guidelines on educating Members

of Congress and pages on the job description and

responsibilities of those in the Page Program as well as

proper relationships with pages, Members of Congress, or any

employee of the House of the Representatives.

I look forward to working with you to achieve our shared

goal of improving this great program, and more importantly,

ensuring we have put in place the best procedures to protect

the safety and welfare of the young people in the Page

Program.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of January 18, 2007, I call up the bill (H.R. 475) to revise the composition of the House of Representatives Page Board to equalize the number of members representing the majority and minority parties and to include a member representing the parents of pages and a member representing former pages, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, as chairwoman of the Committee on House Administration, I am delighted to call up this important bill to reform the governance of the House Page Program.

I trust that all Members recall the circumstances that led to this bill coming up during the first days of this new Congress, so that there is little need to deal with them here. Suffice it to say that the events of last September have been abundantly clear that the House Page Board can no longer be constituted as it was during the last Congress with two Members of the majority but only one from the minority. Such a ratio potentially raises the specter of partisanship and political considerations where they have no place.

Mr. Speaker, the House Page Board has the statutory responsibility to govern and oversee the Page Program. The Board must not only be free of partisanship, it must function so all of its members have access to the information necessary to discharge their responsibilities and do what is right for the pages. These delightful pages, whose parents send them here, trusting that they will be safe, become the responsibility of this House.

If structural changes are needed to ensure that members of the page board can properly oversee the programs, free of extraneous concerns, then we must make such changes.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Michigan has written an excellent bill that changes the page board's form and function. First, it enlarges the page board to include a second Member of the House appointed by the minority leader, thus equalizing the number of Members between the two parties. I must say the Speaker of this House is using her nonpartisan efforts to try to bring equity to this board. This alone could strengthen the board dramatically by making the minority full partners on the board.

But the bill goes further. It adds two outside members of the board, one to represent parents of current or recent pages, and another one who represents a former page to represent the pages themselves. These two outside board members must be appointed jointly by the Speaker and the minority leader for a 1-year term, but can be eligible for reappointment if they continue to meet the requisite qualifications. These additional representatives for pages and parents will infuse the board's deliberations with perspectives that only they can bring.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, to ensure that the page board gives the program the attention it deserves, the bill requires regular board meetings on a schedule established jointly by the Speaker and the minority leader. This bill, which would be permanent and effective immediately, authorizes reimbursement of the outside board members for the expenses of attending meetings. I am confident that Members agree that the benefits of a parent and a former page representation will be worth the modest cost.

I commend the gentleman from Michigan and the gentlewoman from West Virginia for introducing this excellent bill, and I commend the Speaker for scheduling this the first days of this landmark 110th Congress.

I urge my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, at this time I would like to yield 3 minutes to one of the authors of this important bill, the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).

Mr. Speaker, now I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), a former page.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the ranking member on the Committee on House Administration for his stewardship and his leadership in the Page Program. I would like to thank all of those who were responsible for this great legislation.

Mr. Speaker, this House must pass this bill. The Page Program is a treasured institution that offers youngsters from across this country the opportunity to serve and to learn firsthand about the Congress, while helping us to conduct the Nation's business.

As I said this morning to the pages when I was coming in, this is your bill. Of all the bills you have heard throughout the years you have been here, this one is yours, and we are happy to introduce this bill today.

Recent unfortunate events have shown that the governance of the Page Program needs reform. The House minority must be brought into the process as full partners with equal representation, eliminating any hint of partisanship. This is why I applaud the Speaker of this House. She wants to make sure, as much as we can, to have nonpartisanship in conducting the business of the People's House.

This board will benefit from new representation of parents and former pages themselves, and that is an added incentive, Mr. Speaker, because when you have parents and when you have former pages, they can have input that will benefit these pages who are here with us.

These and other reforms proposed by the gentleman from Michigan and the gentlewoman from West Virginia, who have served diligently on the Page Board, will greatly improve the program. I think also the increase in meetings will be an additive as well, Mr. Speaker.

So I am proud for all of those who have been part and parcel of this legislation, as well as I am proud of our new Speaker, who has made these reforms part of the agenda for the first days of the new Congress.

I urge all Members now to support this legislation and to protect these young folks who come from all areas of this country, coming here to do a part and to serve us as we do the people's business.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 475. I will not go into any detailed explanation of it because the Chair of the committee has already given that.

But before I begin my remarks on the legislation before us, I want to express my gratitude to all the dedicated young people who come to serve the House as pages. We are blessed to have such a talented group of young people who are willing to leave home and come here to work for us and for the people of this Nation.

I still recall the first page that I appointed during my first term in the Congress. She was a wonderful young woman, and she served here well. She then went on to college, then to medical school, and is now in residency and has established an outstanding record. Both here in the Congress as a wonderful page and academically, she has done very well. I am certain she will be a wonderful doctor as well. This is typical of the types of people that we have in this Congress as pages.

This legislation is certainly no reflection on any problems that they have created, but rather a reflection on problems that Members have created. We believe that pages who serve here should feel nothing but pride for the important role they play in the daily operations of this House and in the legislation that we present. The legislation before us is meant to improve the way that we as adults conduct our oversight of the page program.

Sadly, the sordid revelations of last fall were not the first time the House had demonstrated a failure to protect the young people who come here to serve in the program.

In July 1982, following allegations of sexual misconduct involving Members of both parties and their involvement with pages, the Democratic Speaker and the Republican leader of the House appointed a Speaker's commission on pages to study the page program, its usefulness, and to determine what changes needed to be made to better protect America's youth during their

service to the House of Representatives.

Many of the commission's recommendations were adopted by the House, including the creation of a leadership-appointed page board responsible for overseeing the page program. That was certainly a step forward, and today's legislation restructures the board that was created then. It has not been the fault of the pages that we had the incident this past year. It is not even the fault of the page board; but, in fact, rather, it was the fault of not engaging the full page board to deal with the problem that made the problem even worse.

This legislation before us will improve the board, make it more effective, and enable it to better carry out its important responsibilities. The pages who work here provide tremendous service to Members, staff, and the operations of the House of Representatives. They gain an invaluable experience, a superb education and improved insight into the workings of their own government.

We owe it to them to ensure that we are doing everything possible and to ensure that they are able to have a positive, healthy, and beneficial experience. We must ensure that we are taking good care of and protecting the young people who have been entrusted to us.

The legislation that is before us will help us meet our important obligations. I believe that adding an additional member and making it truly bipartisan with no party dominating will be a truly positive change.

I believe that adding a former page to the board will be a positive change. In the past at times we have had Members serving on the board who were serving as pages. They performed that function. But by specifically naming a former page to the board, we can ensure that their input is heard.

Furthermore, having a parent of a former page or, perhaps, even a current page serve on the board will be an asset to us as we consider the operation of the page program, their education and all the regulations pertaining to them.

I hope this legislation will help us meet our important obligation in this regard, and I ask all the Members of Congress to support this excellent piece of legislation.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to recognize a current member of the page board, the gentlewoman from West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to just make a few closing comments.

Mr. Speaker, I am just delighted with this piece of legislation. I congratulate Mr. Kildee, my esteemed colleague from the State of Michigan, and also Mrs. Shelley Moore Capito, who spoke earlier. It is a good piece of legislation. It is, unfortunately, needed. But it should have been in place before. It might have helped to prevent some of the events we had this past year.

So I strongly support this legislation. I urge all of our colleagues to vote for it. May we all have a better Page Board and a better Page Program and continue one of the most outstanding programs that a young person in this Nation can participate in.

Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank Mr. Boehner for yielding; and I also thank my good friend, the majority leader, for being willing to accept this effort to look at the standards of how we do our business in the House.

In fact, I think many of my friends on our side, and obviously your side as well, want to be sure that the work of the House is done in a way that the American people can be proud of.

I think a lot of the problem that we saw last night, to our side, at least, was another indication of deciding that the normal behavior and the normal rules of the House may not apply any more. Last night's vote, I see some of my friends near the front of their House shaking their head, last night's vote is the only vote I am aware of in the House of Representatives in the 10 years and few months that I have been here that the Clerk did not write down a number which is the official end of the vote and hand it to the Speaker.

The Speaker, in fact, is talking over the Clerk while the Clerk is trying to announce votes are being changed.

If any Member on that side or our side, either one, has ever seen a time in the House when a vote was announced or sees one later today where the paper wasn't filled out and you wait for that paper, I would like to know when that was.

You know, as the whip of the House for the last 4 years, the previous two Congresses, I remember many times thinking that I wanted the vote over; and I remember many times thinking the Clerk is writing too slow, the Clerk is turning around too slow, the Speaker is reading the paper too slow, but I don't remember it ever not happening.

If that had happened, we would not have this problem. The vote on the board has nothing to do with the official tally. The Clerk keeps the official tally.

During that vote, someone said to the Parliamentarian, the Parliamentarians don't run the House, the majority does. Well, that's right. The Parliamentarians don't run the House. But the Parliamentarians provide the continuity of how the House is always run.

This is not the great legislative body it is because every Congress decides how they are going to run things. This isn't the great legislative body it is because those of us who, I think, if 78,000 votes in the entire country would have changed would be in the majority or the minority that we have no rights here. This is not the great legislative body it is because the majority just gets to decide.

Now, there are other instances in recent days when we believe the Parliamentarian gave other advice than was taken. I don't want to create a problem for the Parliamentarian. But I do know that one night this week in debate Members of the House were told that their comments were irrelevant. Now, they might not have been the best comments in the world, they might not have been the most on-target comments in the world, but I never remember anybody in the chair ever before ruling that a Member's comments were irrelevant.

We are not irrelevant here. Just because we are in the minority does not mean we are irrelevant. Just because we have a small difference between our numbers and your numbers doesn't mean we are irrelevant. That doesn't mean that the Speaker can decide to end the votes when they want to, no matter what the traditions have been of the House.

It does mean, when the Speaker ends the vote, whatever the official tally is at that moment, which, by the way, is what the Clerk would write down, should be the official tally.

That's why, I may not be quite to the level of outrage, but that's why I am offended by how that process worked. I have never seen it happen before; I hope to never see it happen again.

If it had happened in the right way, we wouldn't be having this discussion right now. But maybe this discussion also allows us to look at our relationships with each other, our relationship with the Parliamentarian, the job of the Speaker in the chair is to create fairness. It's not to ensure that everything goes so that one side is happy and the other side is not.

I welcome the acceptance of my friend Mr. Boehner's resolution by the majority leader and, I assume, the majority. I look forward to the report. I hope this creates a moment when we all begin to think about what we are doing here and how we are doing it and the obligations we owed each other.

This is not a one-sided street. I understand that. Respect for each other, appreciation for each other, respect for the way business has been done here for a long time is an important part of what we all need to work to achieve, and hopefully this helps get that done.