Floor Statements

Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize the Honorable Judy Schier Hobbs, Justice of the Peace for Precinct 4 in Williamson County, who was awarded ``Judge of the Year'' by the Texas Justice Court Judges Association (TJCJA) at their annual 2009 Education Conference in Austin, Texas. The state-wide award was presented at the Awards Luncheon during the four-day conference at the Austin Hyatt Regency on Lady Bird Lake.

Texas Justice Court Judges Association is an organization representing Justice Court Judges and Clerks across the State of Texas.

Judge Hobbs was awarded the ``Judge of the Year'' by the Central Texas Justices of the Peace and Constables Association earlier this year.

Judge Hobbs is a lifelong resident of Precinct Four in Williamson County with a rich history of community service and was appointed and sworn to office May 15, 1982. She is a Lifetime member of the Texas Justice Court Judges Association and Central Texas Justices of the Peace and Constables Association.

Judge Hobbs is married and has two children and seven grandchildren with one on the way and is a member of the Brushy Creek Baptist Church.

Mr. Speaker, it's the first day of a new work week here, and we're going to talk about restoring the rule of law.

You know, we've talked about this now for about 14 weeks. It's so important that we talk about the rule of law because, quite frankly, it's what keeps our society together. It's what makes us different from anybody else and what makes America different from everybody else. And, you know, it's so simple that we take it for granted.

Every American that--I'll bet you can stop anybody on the street and ask them about their rights and they all know what their rights are because they're Americans and they know they have rights. But what does it mean to have rights? Well, what it means is you have a place, you have a set of rules that establishes your rights.

Now, our Constitution says certain rights are inalienable and given by your Creator. That means that all men are born with those rights. These are rights of liberty and freedom. When we had the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain, that's what we were talking about. You're born with these rights. These are the rights of free men everywhere. They are inalienable. They are given by the great Creator of the universe.

But everybody also knows I've got a right to free speech, I've got a right to assembly, I've got a right to a lawyer. And at all ages you can say, That's my right. That's my right. It is your right, but it becomes your right because it is enforceable, and that means that we have established a set of rules that our society operates under. And under those rules, there's a set of rules that's usually in the courts that enforce your rights, protect your rights.

You know, for 20 years I tried criminal cases and other cases, and we spend most of our time, at least the judges that sit in these court cases, we spend our time making sure people's rights are protected. And we have a whole series of cases that establish rights of criminal cases. Enough of you have watched television to know a lot about--we're some of the most educated, nonlawyers in the country, the folks who watch television in the United States, because we know about Miranda rights. So we know about other rights. In other countries maybe they don't know about them. Now, why wouldn't they know about them? Because they don't have them, okay. That's it. They don't have them.

And there are places on this Earth, and most of them are in Third World countries, where the rule of law does not prevail, where the average citizen doesn't have a place to go get recourse, recourse for injury that's happened to them in some form or fashion, a way to enforce a contract.

There are countries full of good people, but they haven't established the rule of law to the extent that the average citizen can protect their little plot of land or protect their little business or make a deal with somebody, a contract, and then when the other side doesn't do it, enforce that contract against them because the rule of law does not prevail. For whatever reason, whether it be history or culture, whatever it is, it doesn't prevail.

And so if a rich person or a wealthy group of people who wanted to go invest in that place or maybe they have a dictatorial system or they have a socialist, communist system that hasn't established a rule of law, so you can't go enforce it.

You know, when Russia first opened up and started working on capitalism, I had a friend who went over there and opened a clothing store. And if he's listening, he knows who I am talking about. And he said the problem was the clothing store was as popular as it could be and everybody wanted to buy American-cut suits, they wanted to look like Americans, prosperous Americans, and he had a booming business; but unfortunately he had to pay cash for everything.

He couldn't make a contract with somebody based on a bill of lading or anything like that at the time because he wasn't sure he'd be able to enforce it if he had to take it to court. He was afraid he would be out on a limb. And, quite honestly, he pointed out the Russians were doing the very best to correct that, and maybe they have. I haven't kept up with it. But it was putting a real strain on his national clothing chain that he tried to take to Russia.

I hope he fixed it. I don't know. I haven't talked to him in years

But the point is at the beginning of the establishment of capitalism in the former Soviet Union, in Russia, the rule of law had not come down to where you could feel comfortable with making contracts with people and believe they could be enforced. And hopefully that's been fixed. I would assume

it has because I had the good pleasure to go to Russia with the Homeland Security Department and, quite frankly, they're doing pretty well over there. Looked like to me, anyway. Lots of stores and lots of prosperous-looking people.

But the glue that holds society together that allows you to trade both inside and outside your country is the rule of law; there are rules and regulations that everybody is a part of, everybody is protected by and required to abide by. That's a basic premise in American society.

Now, we went through a time when there was sort of a 60s rebellion against the establishment, and people would say things like, It's okay to rob from ``the man,'' but you can't rob from the little guy. And ``the man'' was the big guy. Now, nobody really defined who the big guy was. Of course, everybody knew that Coca-Cola was the big guy and Exxon was the big guy and U.S. Steel was the big guy. But was it the neighborhood grocery? Was he the big guy? Well, yeah, maybe if he was big enough, if he had more than two grocery stores.

In other words, somebody was saying it was okay to break the law if somebody was really a lot better off than you were. That was insanity. That was when I was in law school. And we debated all of this in law school. And it was insanity. Because if you've got rules, you've got to abide by the rules; and if you're going to decide you don't like a rule, you're not going to abide by the rule, then you don't get the rule of law. You get anarchy.

Well, the United States Congress has rules. We write those rules down. The first set of rules was written by Thomas Jefferson; and to a great extent, we still follow those rules of decorum and procedure in this House of Representatives by using Thomas Jefferson's manual on this place. Now some of it's been changed and altered. I think most of them are basic fairness, basic honesty, fair treatment for all concerned; and you're supposed to abide by those rules.

We have rules that we run our government by, and those rules, they bind all of us. We have certain forms that we have to file; we have to tell people what our income is. You know, it's a funny world we live in because the American people are generally private about what they make, and it's kind of ``none of your business'' in most families to ask somebody what's your daddy--what kind of salary does your daddy make? What's your husband make? It's kind of a none-of-your-business question.

Unless you're in the public eye. If you're in public life, it's everybody's business what you make. And you're required to report what you make. And if you don't report it, there are penalties for that.

All of these things are some of the stuff we've been talking about.

But I would argue that we have some certain subjects that are really of concern to the American people today, and we've been talking about one pretty consistently, talking about Chairman Rangel's issues. I am going to move past those for today. They may get mentioned a bit. We're going to talk about some things we talked about in the past, but I think there's a passion for these issues among the American people.

Part of that passion is the man we elected President because he told us, ``I am campaigning on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. I don't want to send the message to the American people that there are two sets of standards: one for the powerful people and one for the ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.''

So the President set the standard back in February, on February 3 on CNN, 2009. That standard is going to be out there right now. And that's just right. I don't think there's any American that's going to argue with that. That's right, nobody is above the law. Nobody gets to not abide by the rule of law, because the rule of law governs our society; and that's basically what the President is saying. Nobody because of who they are, what office they hold, how much money they've got in the bank should get any other privileges above and beyond what ordinary people get.

Now, we've got some issues tonight. Let me say we're going to talk about a lot of stuff. But several people last week thought we were going to talk about some of that stuff, and one of the things that they wanted to talk about was the czars. Let me be real clear up front. We're going to get to the czars in just a minute. So if anybody's listening that wanted to talk about the czars but thought we weren't talking about it, come on down. We're looking for you.

Just briefly, I'm going to tell you in my opinion one of the things that most people are most upset about is this outfit called ACORN. This outfit was supposed to be a do-good public service, the group that was out there organizing communities and organizing groups so that we could have a better country.

So they got really involved in working on elections last time, and here's some of the results: in Colorado they were charged with voter fraud, multiple counts, with convictions; in Florida, vote fraud, cases are pending; in Michigan, voter fraud, multiple counts with convictions; Minnesota vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions; Missouri, vote and mail fraud, identity theft, multiple counts with convictions; Nevada, vote fraud, multiple counts pending; Ohio, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions; Pennsylvania, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions; and the same thing in Washington State.

So this good group has not been doing good things, nor have they been abiding by the rule of law.

Now, we have a bill that's been introduced by Minority Leader John Boehner to defund ACORN. And what he's basically saying in this is the American people have looked at this, they've listened to this stuff that's going on, they've watched these videos of these people advising folks about child prostitution and prostitution and so forth, and they've said we've had enough of these people and we darn sure don't want to pay for them. We don't want to pay them to go out and break the law.

And so the fact that they received millions of dollars in Federal funding offends people because they're not following the law.

So John Boehner has proposed that no Federal contract, grant, cooperative agreement or any other form of agreement will be awarded or entered into with the organization known as ACORN. No Federal funds will be given to ACORN; no Federal employees may promote ACORN; and that ACORN includes State chapters, organizations with financial stakes in ACORN, and organizations that share directors and employees with

Reclaiming some of my time, I'm glad you brought up the smelt in the San Joaquin Valley, because it's kind of interesting. Until this came up, most people in America probably didn't even know that the San Joaquin Valley is considered the breadbasket of this country. Now here is something interesting. It rained cats and dogs in Texas this week. We were real happy for that rain. But it meant my wife and I stayed indoors one Sunday afternoon because there wasn't anything else to do. And the movie ``Treasure of the Sierra Madre'' with Humphrey Bogart was on television. That movie was made in 1948.

One of the characters in the movie was reminiscing about what they were going to do with their share of the gold. And he said, and it struck me because I have been talking to Devin Nunes so much about this tragedy that is going on in the San Joaquin Valley and that whole valley region of California, and this character says, ``I grew up in the San Joaquin Valley, an agricultural region in California, growing fruit. And the happiest days I ever had was right after the harvest, when all the workers got together and celebrated the harvest. And if I get out of here, what I want to do is get me an orchard with my money.''

It struck me, because he was talking about the fact that in 1948 that was a major production region. Now the only way that region could produce anything is with water. It is the desert. I live in the desert. If you look at an 1845 map of the United States, starting just west of Kansas, you will see a sign that says ``Great American Desert.'' It goes all the way across the Rocky Mountains to California. And Texas is within the Great American Desert. We used to joke about it when I was in school, let's drive across the Great American Desert to Dallas. But the truth is, those of us who live in a water shortage State, and Wyoming has to have underground water or it wouldn't be able to exist, we know the value of water. That's why a vast majority of our laws have something to do as far as our land with water.

Taking away the water in the San Joaquin Valley is taking away a growing region, which I have evidence from the movie, that was prospering in 1948. Now how long ago was that? Sixty years ago. Now it's a shame that like you say, some laws that ought to have some exceptions don't. And we have unemployed people in literally entire counties.

It's a great thing to talk about when you talk about the rule of law. That's the responsibility of legislators. That's the responsibility of Congress people. When you have a rule of law that has to be changed, you shouldn't take to the streets with guns unless you have got a tyrannical society, which is what we had when we had our revolution. You should take it to the legislature with votes and change the laws that need to be changed. Make the exceptions to make things work. And this body would decide what is best for everyone involved. That's what ought to be happening.

Certainly.

That's right. Reclaiming a portion of my time, Greg Walden, Culberson and Brian Baird have H. Res. 554, the 3-day reading rule, which just basically they want to put in writing and have this body adopt as a--agreed by both sides voting on, legislation must be available to Members and the public for 72 business hours before taking action, requires the full text of the legislation and each committee report to be posted continuously on the Internet. And by the way, this is what one of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson, thought was a good idea, and we're just basically redefining his rules and modernizing it a little bit with the Internet.

But an interesting thing you said--we keep talking about this health care plan and I want to get on to other things, but it's an important thing, but there will be another health care debate later--and that is, it's important, but you need to look at history. I just saw on television the oldest health care plan in the world was created by Otto Von Bismarck in Germany when he united Germany, so it's the oldest one they've got. They tried all ways of funding it, but it comes down to coming out of your paycheck. And today, in Germany, 42 cents out of every dollar is taken out by the government to pay for the health care program, and they're having real problems with it in the modern world.

So, there's lots to be talked about, and what you said is right; let's talk. And by the way, something else. The Senate supposedly passed something today, but they haven't got it in writing. In fact, they passed something which is a concept. I think this is a new thing. I have never quite heard anything like this. They passed a concept, which none of it has been reduced to writing the way I understand it. So it's just we've got a bunch of ideas and here's what they are, and we're not going to write them down because somebody might hold us to them. So we're just going to say we've got some great ideas and we pass it. What is that?

Yes, I will yield.

I see my friend Louis Gohmert from Texas is here, and I'm going to yield to him in just a moment. But that kind of reminds me of ``Animal Farm,'' you know. They would say the rule is this, and the next day they would say, Oh, that's not what the rule is. The rule is this. Finally, they said, We're going to write them on the wall of the barn. So every night they wrote the rules on the wall, and then when they woke up the next morning, somebody had gone and erased the rules and added new rules. See, there is a reason why this body has the rules that it has, so that we and the American people can be educated about what we're doing. And concepts, that just doesn't get it done.

I yield whatever time Mr. Gohmert would like to have.

I thank my friend for yielding.

My good friend from Iowa is here, which brings up another rule of law issue that we've been discussing. I know he wants to talk about it, so I'm going to shift gears here.

I am first going to talk about Marsha Blackburn's H. Con. Res. 185, reining in the czars. And she is proposing that the President will report on the responsibilities, qualifications, and authorities of his special assistants, known as czars. She is saying the President will certify that czars will not assert powers beyond those granted by law to a commissioned officer on the President's staff, and that Congress will hold hearings on the President's report and certification within 30 days, I assume, after the receipt of those reports. All of this is a part of multiple pieces of legislation that are out there now talking about czars.

I'm going to yield to my friend, Congressman King from Iowa, as much time as he needs to consume. And I've got some kind of interesting stuff he might want to use here.

I yield to the gentlelady from Wyoming again.

I, too, and I think Brother King also supports the auditing of the Federal Reserve. It's our money. We want to know what's going on. We want to make sure we know that things are right. We are not questioning anybody's honesty; we just want to know what's going on. We are at a point in our society right now where it's pretty desperately needed to know.

I want to say one more thing: Mr. King's comment on the safe schools czar, what he is proposing is against the law, this man boy sex thing. Aggravated sexual assault of a child is the number one sexual offense in America today, at least by my experience. In 20, almost 21, years on bench, I tried--that used to be called rape. I tried lots of aggravated sexual assault cases. One out of probably a thousand was two adults and all the rest were children.

Now that will tell you, at least in my experience, in an active trial court, where I was--in fact, the one adult I was sitting as a visiting judge in Travis County, it wasn't even my county. As far as I know, over all my side, where I was trying my cases, we had three courts. I only saw aggravated sexual assault of the child cases and that means it's just rampant because the victim is unable to be a very good witness sometimes because they are so young.

It is a very tragic situation. It just shocks me that somebody that would be advocating those things would be put by a responsible administration in charge of safety in our schools. It is shocking.

I yield to Mr. King from Iowa.

That is right.

I thank my friend for coming down here and talking about a new subject, but a subject that is important. These czars, when we have got individual issues on the rule of law, we ought to talk about them. And I encourage all my colleagues, if they have issues about laws that they don't think are being enforced right or that they are concerned about the enforcement of, that is what this hour is about. It is about the rule of law.

I thank you for bringing up that issue. I hope everyone will be very concerned about the issues that you raised today.

Mr. Speaker, we thank you for the hour, and we will yield back the balance of our time.

Mr. Speaker, I have the distinct honor and privilege to represent 52,000 fighting American soldiers, men and women. As we stand here on the floor of this House today, 25,000 of my soldiers that I represent from Fort Hood, Texas, are engaged in combat against an enemy of the United States. And we have lost hundreds of soldiers from Fort Hood; and we have had thousands of soldiers, men and women, injured from Fort Hood fighting for freedom and doing their duty and accomplishing their mission.

I have always supported the United States military in every form or fashion, and I have always been a crusader for the authorization bill that gives those tools that gives my fighting men and women that fight for Fort Hood and fight for Texas and fight for America the opportunity to do their mission, accomplish their goals and maintain freedom.

But I'm in a dilemma today, as are many, many of my colleagues because we seem to be following a code of secrecy that seems to be the new mode in this Congress. When you have something you don't want to talk about out in public, you hide it somewhere. And so we're looking today on the fact that we've added to the bill that's designed to protect the men and women of the United States military and keep them safe, we've added a criminal justice issue having to do with hate crimes.

In 20 years on the bench as a criminal judge, at a felony level in Texas, I've spent an inordinate amount of time protecting the rights of the individual and protecting the rights of the defendant. I believe that we have created a justice system in America that blindly treats everyone equally. There are those who disagree, and I understand that debate.

But that debate should be resolved in a one-on-one confrontation between those who think the justice system treats all fairly and those who do not, and if hate crimes is the solution to that bill, if we thought crimes are what we want in America, then I think we should go forward independently on a hate crimes bill. And I think those who support hate crimes should have the courage to come out from underneath the cover of the United States serviceman and step up and say, this is a problem in America and it needs to be solved, and here's how we solve it.

Let us discuss it as men and women who represent the American people, and let us vote as our constituents would have us vote on the issue before us, hate crimes. Let's not hide that issue behind that American soldier who, at this very moment, is patrolling over in Iraq and putting his life on the line. This is an awful thing to do to the American soldier because it is taking him and having his Representative have to be in a quandary to support the military because someone is plugging in a bill that they might disagree with.

I believe every victim is entitled to be protected by the law. No matter who they are or what they do, they are entitled, as a victim, to be protected under the law and their rights to be part of the criminal justice system. And I believe the sentencing process that we give to our judges and our juries it is very important that they have choices to make and they can take into consideration evidence of why the event occurred, whatever that why may be.

But I think, to stick in here a controversial issue, which goes farther than just what the crime is, but what was that person thinking, or what are we going to presume that person was thinking, and if anybody ever talked to him on this subject, do we presume that they shall be considered aiding and abetting in this criminal offense. And it has issues that affect the religious freedom of the United States.

These are issues that should be talked about independently. It's time for the United States Congress to address this type of thing and other things openly and forthwith, and not hide them in another bill and force people to vote against their conscience. I'm ashamed of what we're doing here today, Mr. Speaker. I think we can protect these innocents that we're talking about using the fact that our Constitution tells us to and demand that kind of behavior from our justice system without going into thought crimes, hate crimes, and infringement upon States' rights.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I hereby notify the House of my intention to offer a resolution as a question of the privileges of the House.

The form of my resolution is as follows:

Whereas the gentleman from New York, Charles B. Rangel, the

fourth most senior Member of the House of Representatives,

serves as chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, a

position of considerable power and influence within the House

of Representatives;

Whereas clause one of Rule XXIII of the Rules of the House

of Representatives provides, ``A Member, Delegate, Resident

Commission, officer, or employee of the House shall conduct

himself at all times in a manner that shall reflect

creditably on the House.'';

Whereas The New York Times reported on September 5, 2008,

that, ``Representative Charles B. Rangel has earned more than

$75,000 in rental income from a villa he has owned in the

Dominican Republic since 1988, but never reported it on his

federal or state tax returns, according to a lawyer for the

congressman and documents from the resort'';

Whereas in an article in the September 5, 2008 edition of

The New York Times, his attorney confirmed that

Representative Rangel's annual congressional Financial

Disclosure statements failed to disclose the rental income

from his resort villa;

Whereas The New York Times reported on September 6, 2008

that, ``Representative Charles B. Rangel paid no interest for

more than a decade on a mortgage extended to him to buy a

villa at a beachfront resort in the Dominican Republic,

according to Mr. Rangel's lawyer and records from the resort.

The loan, which was extended to Mr. Rangel in 1988, was

originally to be paid back over seven years at a rate of 10.5

percent. But within two years, interest on the loan was

waived for Mr. Rangel.'';

Whereas clause 5(a)(2)(A) of House Rule 25 defines a gift

as, ``. . . a gratuity, favor, discount, entertainment,

hospitality, loan, forbearance, or other item having monetary

value'' and prohibits the acceptance of such gifts except in

limited circumstances;

Whereas Representative Rangel's acceptance of thousands of

dollars in interest forgiveness is a violation of the House

gift ban;

Whereas Representative Rangel's failure to disclose the

aforementioned gifts and income on his Personal Financial

Disclosure Statements violates House rules and federal law;

Whereas Representative Rangel's failure to report the

aforementioned gifts and income on federal, state and local

tax returns is a violation of the tax laws of those

jurisdictions;

Whereas the Committee on Ways and Means, which

Representative Rangel chairs, has jurisdiction over the

United States Tax Code;

Whereas the House Committee on Standards of Official

Conduct first announced on July 31, 2008 that it was

reviewing allegations of misconduct by Representative Ran-

gel;

Whereas Roll Call newspaper reported on September 15, 2008

that, ``The inconsistent reports are among myriad errors,

discrepancies and unexplained entries on Rangel's personal

disclosure forms over the past eight years that make it

almost impossible to get a clear picture of the Ways and

Means chairman's financial dealings.'';

Whereas the House Committee on Standards of Official

Conduct announced on September 24, 2008 that it had

established an investigative subcommittee in the matter of

Representative Rangel;

Whereas after the Ethics Committee probe was underway, The

New York Times reported on November 24, 2008 that,

``Congressional records and interviews show that Mr. Rangel

was instrumental in preserving a lucrative tax loophole that

benefitted Nabors Industries, an oil drilling company last

year, while at the same time its chief executive was pledging

$1 million to the Charles B. Rangel School of Public Service

at C.C.N.Y.'';

Whereas the House Committee on Standards of Official

Conduct announced on December 9, 2008 that it had expanded

the jurisdiction of the aforementioned investigative

subcommittee to examine the allegations related to

Representative Rangel's involvement with Nabors Industries;

Whereas since then, further serious allegations of improper

and potentially illegal conduct by Representative Rangel have

surfaced;

Whereas during the recently completed August district work

period, Representative Rangel acknowledged his failure to

publicly disclose at least half a million dollars in cash

assets, tens of thousands of dollars in investment income,

and his ownership of two pieces of property in New Jersey;

Whereas corrected financial disclosure statements filed by

Representative Rangel on August 12, 2009 now reveal his net

worth to be nearly twice as much as he had previously

revealed;

Whereas The New York Times newspaper reported on August 26,

2009 that, ``United States Representative Charles B. Rangel,

whose personal finances and fund raising are the subject of

two House ethics investigations, failed to report at least

$500,000 in assets on his 2007 Congressional disclosure form,

according to an amended report he filed this month. Among the

dozen newly disclosed holdings revealed in the amended ,forms

are a checking account at a federal credit union with a

balance between $250,000 and $500,000; three vacant lots in

Glassboro, N.J., valued at a total of $1,000 to $15,000; and

stock in PepsiCo worth between $15,000 and $50,000.'';

Whereas Roll Call newspaper reported on August 25, 2009

that Representative Rangel's corrected filings also revealed

``at least $250,001 in a fund called ML Allianz Global

Investors Consults Diversified Port III.'';

Whereas the aforementioned Roll Call story reported that

``Rangel also originally misreported that his investments in

2007 netted him $6,511-$17,950 in dividends, capital gains

and rental income. In his revised filing, that range jumped

to between $29,220 and $81,200.'';

Whereas these most recent revelations by Representative

Rangel have resulted in heightened national news media

coverage of alleged impropriety and potentially criminal

conduct by one of the most senior Members of the House;

Whereas an editorial in The Washington Times newspaper on

September 1, 2009 noted, ``Charlie Rangel is one lucky guy.

The Democratic congressman from Harlem, N.Y., just discovered

that his net wealth is twice what he thought. That's a pretty

good day at the office for a public servant. Mr. Rangel also

realized that he made tens of thousands of dollars more than

he reported in many different years over the past decade.

This is the most recent string in a series of financial

bonanzas for Mr. Rangel, who last year admitted he had

forgotten about $75,000 in rental income on his Caribbean

resort property.'';

Whereas the same editorial also noted, ``The congressman

has failed to pay property taxes on two lots in New Jersey,

according to the New York Post. That's not all. In order to

avoid taxes and get lower mortgage rates, Mr. Rangel

simultaneously claimed three `primary residences'.'';

Whereas an editorial in the September 17, 2009 edition of

the New Haven Register stated, ``The ethics and

tax complaints keep piling up against U.S. Rep. Charles B.

Rangel, who as chairman of the House Ways and Means

Committee controls writing of the nation's tax laws. The

New York Democrat may write those laws, but he apparently

feels no obligation to obey them. The investigation

appears to have a long way to go. The man who is in charge

of writing the nation's tax laws doesn't pay his federal

income or local property taxes. He has such a poor grasp

of his own finances that he neglects to list half his

assets on a disclosure form intended to keep members of

Congress accountable and honest. We can already hear the

defense of the next tax deadbeat called into court. ``If

Charlie Rangel doesn't have to pay his taxes, why should

The form of the remainder of my resolution is as follows:

Whereas the New York Post newspaper reported on September

2, 2009 that, ``A review of property records for the borough

of Glassboro revealed at least six tax liens levied against

Rangel's property during the past 16 years. Just last year,

two separate liens were levied against both properties owned

by Rangel.'';

Whereas on May 24, 2006, then Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi

cited ``high ethical standards'' in a letter to former

Representative William Jefferson asking that he resign his

seat on the Committee on Ways and Means in light of ongoing

investigations into alleged financial impropriety by

Representative Jefferson;

Whereas Speaker Pelosi took the aforementioned action while

Representative Jefferson was under investigation and the

subject of considerable controversy in the news media, but

prior to any indictment;

Whereas in April of 2007, Republican Leader John Boehner

successfully urged several Republican Members to relinquish

their committee assignments after learning that each had

become the subject of investigations into possible criminal

activity;

Whereas Leader Boehner took the aforementioned actions

while the Members in question were under investigation and

the subjects of widespread media controversy, but prior to

any indictments; and

Whereas in the wake of the most recent allegations against

Representative Rangel various editorials and articles in

major national newspapers criticizing Speaker Pelosi's

continued refusal to remove Representative Rangel as chairman

of the Committee on Ways and Means after promising she would

preside over ``the most ethical Congress in history'' have

held the House up to public ridicule: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That upon adoption of this resolution and pending

completion of the investigation into his affairs by the

Committee on Standards of Official Conduct, Representative

Rangel is hereby removed as chairman of the Committee on Ways

and Means.

I offer the resolution.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Clause 2(a)(2) of rule IX provides that debate on a question of privilege shall be divided equally between the proponent of the resolution and the majority leader or his designee.

Mr. Crowley, apparently as the designee of the majority leader, moved the previous question on the resolution after making his motion to refer the measure to the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

Madam Speaker, am I correct that Mr. Crowley's motion on the previous question had the effect of eliminating any debate on the motion to refer or the underlying resolution?

Further parliamentary inquiry, Madam Speaker.

Does this thus eliminate all debate not only on the motion but also on the underlying resolution?

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Further parliamentary inquiry.

What is the effect of the motion to refer? Is there any requirement that the committee take any action on the measure referred?

Is there any requirement that further action be taken by the committee?

Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to talk about my friend and the leader of the prayer here in the House of Representatives today, Greg Schannep. Greg Schannep actually works for me as my regional director and my liaison to Fort Hood. He retired from the United States Army as chief of chaplains at Fort Hood, Texas, which is the largest military installation on Earth. He had over 90 chaplains that worked under him.

He started off his life in the Army as an enlisted man, ended up his career after 2 years in the Army as a Special Forces sergeant. Then the Lord called him, and after going back to school and becoming a minister, he served 28 years in the United States Army as a chaplain. That totals 30 years of active duty as a soldier for the United States.

He's worked for me almost 5 years--it will be 5 years in January--as my liaison to the military and as a regional director on our behalf.

Greg is a family man. He's got a beautiful wife and wonderful kids: Melissa, Sarah, Alison, Amy, James and Samantha. His hobbies are golf and grandchildren, of which he has four. And he has just recently--in fact, within the last 6 weeks--he has decided to start another church and come out of retirement and become a full-time builder of a church, and he started a church in Bell County known as Faith Fellowship. I went to the first service that Chaplain Schannep performed as Pastor Schannep, and he did a pretty darn good job.

He is a loved member of our community, and I am proud to call him my friend.

Mr. Speaker, for about the last 3 to 5 months I have been down here pretty regularly talking about maintaining and restoring the rule of law to certain areas of our activities as a government. And I think this is important. I've stated it over and over and over. We created a Republic by creating a Constitution that set up that form of government.

But our Founding Fathers knew that the moral underpinnings of a Republic were required for that Republic to succeed. And they knew that there had to be implanted and instilled in the hearts and minds of Americans who would be--would maintain this Republic, a certain inbred understanding that there were rules that governed our society and our behavior and that there were morals and ethics which should be applied to what we do as we operate this Republic.

You will recall that when Benjamin Franklin was asked, when he walked outside of the Constitutional Congress, and they said, ``Mr. Franklin, what kind of government have you given us?'' He said, ``We have given you a Republic.''

Now, God help us that we can keep it. And the whole purpose of that statement is to point out that he was fairly confident, as was every one of our Founding Fathers, that at that point in time in the United States of America there was a moral and ethical underpinning of society, and that if we would maintain that moral and ethical underpinning of society, we would be able to keep our Republic.

But I don't think any Founding Father envisioned a society in which individuals thought they would make the choices as to which rules applied to them and what rules did not apply to them, and they would not abide by the rules that society had set but rather the rules that they had chosen to govern their own lives. Because that's not a Republic; that's anarchy.

Now, we've been talking about some things that are going on in our society and in this Congress that have to concern everybody. And they have to concern them in a big way because they affect the attitudes of those who govern here in the Congress and those who are involved in this governmental process.

I've tried to raise and point out some things that I think are of dire concern, and I will continue to do this because I spent most of my entire adult life basically following as best I could and trying to enforce those rules that this society has established for itself to operate in.

And when I came to this Congress as a new Member of Congress almost 8 years ago now, I was told there were rules that govern this body--all of the people who serve in the United States Congress--and I very quickly tried to do my best--as I am sure every Member here has--to learn what those rules were. And they were not only just parliamentary rules, but they were fundraising rules, they were political rules, they were reporting rules, they were tax-paying rules. There's lots of rules that govern the activities in this body.

I had started talking about this because I see a trend, and I see things that are happening that make me concerned that there are those who don't think certain rules apply to them.

I am going to point out what the President of the United States said as he started out his term: ``I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards: one for the powerful people and one for the ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.'' This was stated by Barack Obama to CNN February 3, 2009. And it's a noble statement by the President.

That's sort of what I am trying to talk about right now.

And I've got a laundry list that I went over last week, and this list is pretty much the same list but with some exceptions. I've added some things and taken up another subject.

But I want to start with something that's made the headlines here very recently, and that's this organization known as ACORN, which we discovered by watching television and seeing events on television, that people who were established to do certain things under the rules in fact forgot those rules and did others. And this House voted 345-75 for an amendment to bar the Federal funding to ACORN after these undercover investigators uncovered four ACORN offices engaged in blatant mortgage loan fraud and aiding and abetting prostitution.

In my opinion, that was the right vote. I am proud of my colleagues who voted for it, and I think we need a stand-alone bill--not a bill that's an amendment to another bill--that would restate the very obvious: That no Federal moneys should be distributed to those who would blatantly commit mortgage fraud and aiding and abetting prostitution. And many of us saw that, saw it live and in color on television.

But in addition to those videos, we have had our bodies here in this Congress out doing some investigations of ACORN, and they have found a lot to be concerned about.

They found a nationwide history of crime--most of it relating to the last election, but not all of it; some of it relating to mortgages and other things that they were supposedly there to advise the uneducated and the uninformed as to what was available for them, especially the poor and the underprivileged, so that they might attempt to prosper in our society. They sounded like a good cause.

But if you will examine with me this list for just a moment, these are things that our Oversight Committee has found and brought forward. There are things that have been brought forward by the press, and there are things that have been brought forward by court records.

In Colorado we had allegations of voter fraud with multiple counts with convictions. So people were convicted of that crime. In Florida, voter fraud with cases pending in the courts; in Michigan, vote fraud with multiple counts with convictions in the State of Michigan; Minnesota, vote fraud with multiple counts with convictions in Minnesota; Missouri, mail fraud and identity theft, multiple counts with convictions in Missouri; Nevada, vote fraud, multiple counts pending; Ohio, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions; Pennsylvania, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions; Washington State, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions.

Notice how many times the words ``with convictions''--which means--I think everybody knows what that means. It means a finder of fact and a ruler of law made a judgment that these people had violated the law, and they convicted them of breaking that law, and I assume they assessed some form of punishment against them.

So this is a case, I would argue, of just what I was talking about when I started talking today, that someone--and I would argue a whole group of someones--have made a decision that certain laws don't apply to them and therefore, they blatantly--across the United States in a very short period of time, basically the last election cycle--they went out and violated these laws and these rules because they made their personal judgment that the law that we as a society established didn't apply to them.

This is moral relativism run amok, and it's done with $55-plus million of

United States money because that's how much money we have heard that we have allocated and given to ACORN to do their business.

And by the way, we have bills that have passed this House that the Democrat majority have put in other funding mechanisms to the tune of $8 billion, and that's why when we address this very issue that we would no longer fund ACORN, we need to make sure that that includes those things already approved for sources of revenue for ACORN. Because if you're not going to follow the rules of law, there needs to be consequences in our society.

So we start off with this supposedly great helping organization called ACORN.

The next thing I want to address here tonight, and I see that I'm joined by one of my good colleagues, and if he would like to have some of the time, I would be sure glad to give him some, is the fact that Dr. Ron Paul has raised an issue before this body that I think we ought to be concerned about and that we ought to think about, and that issue that he has raised is that we have turned over an awful lot of money to the Federal Reserve, and the Federal Reserve has independently of this body issued an awful lot of additional indebtedness and printed an awful lot of additional money, and we would like an accounting of what is going on.

I think it's kind of important, and I would venture to say that if anybody walks up to anybody who serves in this House of Representatives and says, Where is the money we put in the TARP bill? Can you account to me where that TARP money is? Can you tell me where the stimulus money is and what has happened to it? I have been asked the question all the time. How much have we spent? Well, what we know is that the press says we've spent this or the press says we've spent that, but we should know that. I mean, we are the people that were sent here by the American folks to take care of their business.

The Federal Reserve has been designed because it has an effect on our economy. The theory is you've got to keep their activities sort of off in a dark mist so nobody really knows what is happening so you don't cause a run on one part or the other of the economy. And I don't have a problem with that.

But it comes down to the fact that this Congress has turned over $1 trillion worth of American indebtedness, basically money we don't have, money we are borrowing from other nations like China and others that are buying our paper so that we can issue these huge amounts of money. And if you take the TARP and the stimulus bill, it's $1 trillion, well, you've got to ask--and there's more than that, you've got more than that--but we ought to know.

So Congressman Paul has introduced H.R. 1207, and he is asking that we look into what's going on with our money. He says that we've given the Fed $700 billion in Bush TARP funds, and the Congress has given $787 billion in Obama stimulus funds, so that's $1.4 trillion and some change that we've given to the Fed, and yet the taxpayers and the Members of Congress have no way to independently verify what in the world the Fed has done with this money or where it is or who it went to or anything.

Now, we read about it in the newspapers. I used to tell juries when they would come before me, I would say, now we've got a case on trial here today that may be in the newspapers or on television or on radio, or there may be something out there in the news about this case. But I don't want you to listen to any radio broadcast, view any television programs or read anything in print about this case because, believe it or not, they don't always get it right. And we want you to only base your opinion on the evidence you hear in this courtroom under the rules of evidence. I'm sure my friend, Mr. Gohmert, Judge Gohmert, has done exactly the same instruction. And the reason is, you don't really know if the newspapers know what they're talking about. I like to hear what they have to say, but you don't know.

So why should the people that sit in these chairs around this whole big room, why should those people not have an answer to that question, Where is my money? Who is spending it? Where is it going to? How much is left? I think the guy that owns the garage on the corner down the street from me, he pays his taxes, he is entitled to know. His children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren are inheriting the debt we have created for them. They ought to be able to know what we are doing with it today.

And do you know what? That kind of number is a potential for disaster if somebody is crooked. Because it's such a big number, how are you going to know? There can be people stealing billions of dollars, and we don't know. So we ought to know.

I think Dr. Paul has a good bill here. Let me ask my friend, Louie Gohmert from east Texas and a fellow judge, I will yield such time as he may wish to spend on this subject of the Federal Reserve and the fact that we probably ought to have an audit that is reported back to this Congress.

I thank my colleague for his passion. You know, it is very simple: We expect the Fed to look at our banks back home and make sure that they are handling our money right. I don't think anybody I know has close to a billion dollars in the bank, and yet we expect the people that we put in charge of our money to have somebody looking over their shoulder to make sure that they are doing the right thing.

This is the largest chunk of money on the face of the Earth right here, and I don't think it is too much to ask somebody to look over their shoulder and decide what is going on.

That is very good.

I am going to change gears here because I have serious business on the floor of this House tomorrow. For every week of this year, just about, I have come before this body and I have discussed with them the fact that we have serious allegations that have been made against the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel. I have asked repeatedly that Mr. Rangel do the right thing and resign his position as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee until such time as these allegations have been dealt with by the appropriate authorities. A lot of this is supposed to have been dealt with and we have been promised would be dealt with by Speaker Pelosi. She told us, by the end of 2008, the Ethics Committee would have resolved Mr. Rangel's issues.

So I am going to just go briefly over a few.

Mr. Rangel admits to underreporting income and assets for 2007 by more than half, including failure to report income from his Caribbean resort property again. By the way, I say ``again'' because that's the allegation that started all of this information about Mr. Rangel.

Mr. Rangel's aides have now also filed amended disclosure forms revealing similar underreporting by them.

The Committee on Standards is still investigating Mr. Rangel's lease of multi rent-controlled apartments in Harlem; his use of the House parking spot for long-term storage for his antique Mercedes; his failure to report and pay taxes on rental income on his resort villa in the Dominican Republic; an alleged quid pro quo trading legislative actions in exchange for donations to a center named for Mr. Rangel at City College of New York; a gift rule violation on trips to the Caribbean sponsored by the Carib News Foundation in 2007 and 2008; and now Mr. Rangel has the audacity to push through a bill in this body today increasing tax penalties on his fellow taxpayers on the heels of Secretary Geithner's crackdown on UBS depositors for failure to pay taxes.

So, you know, tomorrow I will be offering to this body a very important piece of legislation, a document called a privileged resolution, asking this body to consider what Mr. Rangel refuses to do, and that is the right thing.

We cannot have the chief taxing authority of this body with the allegations, and there are many more than these, these are just a few. There is another full page just like this of different allegations. We cannot have the

chief of values over the IRS, the man who writes the tax laws for this House of Representatives, as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. It is a travesty of justice for him to serve as the chairman of that committee when the American citizens back home, they realize that he has been getting special treatment on his tax problems and those problems he has not faced, the onerous issues that they have to face when they have the IRS finding that they haven't paid their taxes, and he is doing, we are seeing just what President Obama said he didn't want to see, and that is people of power being treated differently than the ordinary American citizen. That is why I have raised this issue.

When I read what the President said, that gave me the incentive to do this. It does not please me at all to raise issues against any Member in this body, but I am telling you, this gives an appearance of wrongdoing and an appearance of impropriety at the least on behalf of Mr. Rangel, and good governance tell us he should not be in this position of power until the issues are resolved.

I will be the first to say if they are all resolved and concluded to be irrelevant and not any kind of wrongdoing or breaking of the rules, I will be the first to say Mr. Rangel ought to be the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. He ought to be put back in there. But it is not right for him to be there.

So tomorrow, I will ask this body to remove him from that position.

Does the gentleman wish to comment on the issues with Mr. Rangel?

I agree. There will be more about Mr. Rangel tomorrow.

I want to bring up something else. We have had a lot of issues to do with automobiles in this country, and now we have somebody at least that is trying to say, you know, the United States Constitution, section 10, says no State shall pass any ex post facto law or law impairing the obligation of contracts or grant any title of nobility.

This is the Auto Dealers Economic Rights Restoration Act, and this bill prohibits automakers in which the Federal Government has ownership interest or which receives loans from the Federal Government from depriving an auto dealer of its economic rights.

What they are talking about is it seems that these automobile dealerships when they were in the bailout position with the Federal Government--and, quite frankly, General Motors stands for ``Government Motors,'' as far as I am concerned, and Chrysler is sort of in the same boat. I understand Fiat was buying some of that. I am not sure that they made the purchase.

These people went out and made choices to break contracts with one auto dealer and award his customers to another auto dealer. There have been allegations made that these were political decisions. I have no evidence of that. But it is, you know, a right of contract, and they had a contract with these dealers, and because they were pressured, I would argue that they breached contracts with one group of dealers to put their sales into the hands of another dealer. For what reason is beyond my understanding.

But I think this is a good law because it says, this is a violation of the Constitution. This is not the way we do business in the United States. And you know what? We did the Cash For Clunkers, and oh, boy, the government was involved and the money was flowing and all's right with the world, although the government hasn't even started to pay for the clunkers yet. They're still out there processing the deals. And, you know, I think that's a great example, Cash For Clunkers is the perfect example. Do you really want the government running your health care if they can't even pay for junk cars on time? My Lord. I mean, but anyway, that's all part of another tangent.

I will yield to my friend.

Reclaiming my time for just a moment. I will also point out that, to date, according to my auto dealers, they still haven't paid all the dealers for all the clunkers that they bought. So you know, that program has closed out, finished out, done, and there are some dealers with millions of dollars owed to them and the government hasn't processed those dollars in that thing. The important part of this bill is----

And you know, reclaiming my time, the reports this week have been that the sales from our two bailed-out automobile firms that are now part of Government Motors, are tragically low, and there's a lot of talk that they don't know if General Motors can even pull this out. So it's important. Mr. Gohmert has hit upon something that's very important. It's important that we follow procedures and follow the rules. That's what we're talking about, the rule of law, follow the rules. We need to follow the rules of this House so we give a proper examination of every bill and every idea that passes through these halls.

And that's why we've got a bill by Greg Walden and John Culberson and Brian Baird that says how about us following the rules that are written into our book that was written by the Honorable Thomas Jefferson in the rules of this very House of Representatives, that says we're supposed to get three days to read a bill? And as Mr. Gohmert pointed out, just the Cash For Clunkers bill didn't go through any committees, rushed in here. We saw it when we were voting on it and, bam, it was out there. And has it done any good for the automobile industry?

Maybe there was an idea sitting in one of these chairs that would have been a little bit better than the idea that came from who knows where, because it didn't go through a committee system to get through floor, and none of us had time to read it or come up with an idea or amend it, because the rules didn't allow us to amend it.

And that's what's happened on every bill that's been offered this year of any importance. It is brought to us, crammed down our throat, and we're not given the chance to even read it. The American people have made an outcry, and they're making an outcry about bills that are hard to read. I'll admit they're hard to read. But they're saying, why don't you read the bill that's going to change health care in America permanently? And so many of us struggled through it and did. But we're not enforcing a rule that says we should have 3 days to read this bill. We should.

If Americans send us to Washington to be their voice and cast their vote in Washington, D.C., and we are handed a document that may be 2,000 pages long and spend $700 billion, and it gets to us at midnight and we're expected to vote on it at 10:00 the next morning and they drop in amendments after that, how in the world can we do the job the American people sent us to do here?

So this bill right here, the 3-day reading rule, is just ordinary good courtesy and common sense in a place where we spent, in the last year, in the last 6 months we've spent more than we spent in the history of the Republic. So maybe we should slow down. Maybe we should follow the rules and give us 3 days to read these bills. Sorry, but that's kind of a passion, I think, Mr. Gohmert. I'll yield.

Reclaiming my time, I call that the Chicken Little syndrome. The sky is falling. We've had the sky falling in this Chamber on more than one piece of legislation. Oh, my God, the sky is falling; the banks are dropping off a cliff, the economy's going to hell in a handbasket, and you've got to vote now. Don't bother to read it. Don't ask any questions. Give us the money. Trust us. Sign the check.

Well, and I'm telling you this, the same thing happened in the last waning months of the Bush administration, and I didn't support that then, and I won't support it now, because the sky's not falling. We're sent here to do a job, and we ought to be given the chance to read these bills. And I think this is a good bill. And I hope our leadership will let us bring this up. I'm coming down to the last thing I want to talk about tonight, and that is, we are setting history, because we now have more czars by twofold than the Romanovs in all the history of Russia, Imperial Russia.

And so we have a couple of bills, both of them dealing with czars, which say that they want to--Mrs. Blackburn wants to deal with the czars. And we'll start with Mr. Scalise. Mr. Scalise defines czars. We have now, and I may be corrected by my friend, Judge Gohmert, but I believe we're at 34 czars, or maybe 36 czars have been created by this administration, which is like head and shoulders above any bunch of czars we've ever had. We've got czars for everything in the world.

In fact, the compensation czar today announced some compensation rules which were kind of interesting, and I think there's going to be some contract law matters that will probably come up on that. But we have a compensation czar. We have a czar probably, you know, furniture polish czar, for all I know. But sunset the czars. In other words, let's look at them, see what they're doing. If they're not doing anything worth having or they're duplicating efforts that are done by the people who've gone through the Senate appointment process and been vetted by the Senate, the secretaries of the various departments of this government, maybe we ought to just eliminates the czars.

Then our friend, Marsha Blackburn, has a bill that the President is to report the responsibilities and qualifications that authorizes the special assistance of czars. The President will certify that the czars will not assert powers beyond those granted by the law to a commissioned officer on the President's staff, and Congress will hold hearings on the President's report and certification within 30 days.

In other words, Mr. President, tell us what those folks are going to do, how qualified they are to do the job. We're going to pay them somewhere between $175,000 and $200,000 a year to do the job. And the Congress ought to be able to see that report and have the ability to deal with it. Both of these are good laws, and both of these have to do with czars. My friend, Louie Gohmert, has been here with me for almost the full hour. We're about 5 minutes from conclusion, so I'll yield a couple of minutes to my friend, Louie Gohmert.

Reclaiming my time, I agree with my friend and fellow judge from Texas. We don't need czars that don't answer to the people. We intentionally designed the executive department to stand with checks and balances over it, just like the legislative department is designed that way. We intended it. This is not the way our Founding Fathers intended this country to be run.

We've been talking tonight about the rule of law. It's about the rule of law. It's about following the rules. You know, if we don't hold each other to the standards that are required by this body, if we don't hold our colleagues to the standards that are required by this body, then why would we expect the American people to trust us? I will tell you, all of us need to be worried about the issue of trust. So I will continue to raise these issues, and I will be glad to be joined by anyone in this discussion to discuss following the rules and obeying the law.

Madam Speaker, this debate goes on, and I hearken back to how did this all start. It started with enemies of the United States killing American citizens on American soil. By the grace of God, they didn't kill the number they were hoping to kill because they were hoping to bring down those towers in New York completely full of people, and potentially hundreds of thousands of people could have died. But because of the braveness of the police force and the fire department and others, we were able to evacuate those buildings and the casualty toll was not in the hundreds of thousands or the tens of thousands. But, still, every single American life lost there we care about.

I think most people thought we're going to war, world war. That's what I thought. That's what the people I was with in Taos, New Mexico, at the time thought. And we wanted to do something about it. The American soldiers in two fields of battle have done something about it. They continue to do something about it today. And through the work of our intelligence people and the American soldier and the American Marine Corps, we have brought many of these terrorists to captivity. They are enemy combatants captured on the battlefield.

We're not talking about people who have rights to Miranda warnings. My Lord, how can you fight a war if you're going to have to have Miranda warnings every time you come in contact with an enemy soldier? It makes no sense. Neither our Founding Fathers nor the Supreme Court, I would say, ever envisioned us giving Miranda warnings on the battlefield.

But I believe and I think Americans believe that these people mean us harm and by their very presence on the sacred soil of the United States they bring harm to this country. Because I would argue, as we all know, the recruiting of radical Islam is going on in our prisons right now. Witness just recently some arrests that were made inside this country and how those American citizens got to be influenced by radical Islam. Much of it comes out of the prison systems. And we are going to put people that are being held properly in Guantanamo, we're going to bring them to our soil, give them the rights of an American defendant and put them in the prison system of this country where they can continue--even if they are in solitary confinement, their very presence can make them a hero of the recruiters inside the prison.

Gangs are bad enough in the prisons without us creating gangs that are part of an international plot to destroy the United States of America. These people have no business being on the sacred soil of the United States. They certainly don't have the rights that are being argued for here. They are in the right place, where they belong. The military justice system is fair and they will get a fair trial, and I would argue that they belong in Guantanamo and they should stay in Guantanamo.

Yes, I agree with my colleagues on the other side of the aisle that we have

maximum security prisons that we could put them in. There is one that was featured in ``60 Minutes'' awhile back in Colorado where we put the worst of the worst; but did anybody listen to how much it costs us to put the worst of the worst in those maximum security prisons?

We are spending enough money around here without going out and spending that kind of money on prisoners where we already have them in a secure facility, where they are being humanely treated, and where they are able to meet with their lawyers and they are able to prepare for the defense of their case. There is no reason on God's green Earth to bring them over here and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars incarcerating each and every one of them in a Federal maximum security prison. It makes no sense in light of the fact that we are practically bankrupting our country with spending in the last 8 months.

So I think Mr. Rogers has a very good bill here. I think what he is asking in this motion to instruct the conferees is common sense that the American people understand. Now, we get in this political world up here and common sense seems to go out the window. But I think if you stop the average American on the street, they will tell you that these people intend to kill us and as far as we are concerned, we don't care where they stay, but we don't want them in our neighborhood.

I certainly don't want them in Texas, and I would argue that each Member who represents their district in this august body does not want them in their neighborhood. I have a Federal prison that is within 30 miles of my home, and I promise you, my friends and neighbors do not want one of these detainees in that Federal prison because they are evil and they will corrupt those who are already there.

Madam Speaker, we spend most of our time in the courtroom giving people their constitutional rights as criminal defendants. And I have spent, in a criminal case, at least 50 percent of the time spent on every criminal case, my job was to protect those people's rights and make sure that they got every one of them. I did the very best I could. But at some point in time, in a criminal trial, upon the finding of guilt, those rights convert over to the State and to the people to make decisions on punishment.

I would argue these people don't start with those rights, and the American people have in mind what they think should happen to these people that would kill more American citizens on American soil.

Don't we have the courage of our Greater Generation forefathers to stand up to evil when it addresses our country and do something about that evil? Why would we want to coddle people who have a proven track record of being part of the network that attacked the United States of America?

Madam Speaker, I would argue this is an excellent instruction to the conferees, and I believe Mr. Rogers and what he has stated here has expressed the will of the American people.

To address just one of the other issues about photographs, I think that pretty well has been decided.

But, you know, one more thing, as we bring these people here and we put them into the American justice system, which I treasure, the American justice system, but in turn the defense lawyers will be able to use the discovery process to find out about covert operations of the United States intelligence. We have already put our intelligence folks in bad places by our bad behavior around this place many times before. But to put our intelligence people in the courtroom with everybody to see, and out those people, if you will, would be absolutely a travesty of justice.

So this is a good thing to do, and I support Mr. Rogers in his effort, and I would hope that everybody who cares about this country will support this motion.

Mr. Speaker, to my hall mate, Mr. Kennedy, that was a moving tribute and well deserved. I am glad we could yield the time.

The subject of this hour that we have been talking about now for, I believe, about 14 or 15 weeks is we are talking about the rule of law and how the rule of law must prevail. It is the glue that holds our society together. And when we start to ignore rules or ignore others' laws, then we are ignoring what our Founding Fathers intended to rule us.

When we established this Nation, the people who established it came from a monarchy. Yet they felt that a much greater society would be a society which would pledge itself to the rules, not to the authority. So they didn't want a king. They didn't want some powerful dictator. They wanted the rules to prevail in the Nation. And that's one of the secret parts of the society that was created that nobody can see, that over time has developed the most important and most powerful Nation on the face of the Earth that has ever existed.

We cannot ignore that rule of law today. We cannot let personalities or concepts or attitudes change the fact that there are rules that you follow, and you must follow those rules. And there are laws, both civil and criminal laws, that have to be upheld. We as a society have created those laws. They have governed us in some instances since the beginning of the Republic. And to waive or to ignore those laws, we do it at our peril.

So tonight we're going to talk about some legislation that addresses the issue of ignoring or not following certain laws or bending laws.

We are going to start off with my good friend Roscoe Bartlett. I'm going to yield to him, and he's going to talk to us about a bill that he has, H.R. 2743, the Car Dealer Equity Act, in which he talks about the fact that he feels some laws, some contract laws, were either bent or ignored.

I yield to my colleague.

Reclaiming my time, I thank you, Roscoe. You have hit on something that when that all happened to me, I just wondered what happened to the law of contract. Where did it go? When did our executive branch think it had the authority to just negate contracts in order for people to, through some threats that were made to settle a bankruptcy, to lose dealerships that--I talked to people in my district. It was not only did you lose your dealership, but your work product got handed to the people you'd been competing with. Just kind of free gratis. You get the win, and I get nothing. And of course, hopefully this will be resolved in the courts or something. I don't know what's going to happen.

But Roscoe is on the right road. We can do something about it here because if you can't contract, you don't have freedom, and especially freedom of commerce. If you can't make an honest contract with somebody and depend upon that and have it be enforceable in the courts of our country--because the rule of contract is sacred. If you don't have that, which we'd had for the history of our Nation, then the rules of commerce come tumbling down.

And we keep hearing people say, Do we want to be a Banana Republic? And nothing against our poor Banana Republic neighbors, but that's what happens when you don't have the rule of law. You can't make a deal that can be enforced and people become--go more and more to the dark side in their trading habits. And this is one of the issues that when we've got the world economy we've got to deal with.

We've got multiple subject matters, and we are going to start with one that's all over the front page. Roscoe is going to fix the auto dealers, and I am on that bill and proud to be there.

We've got a bill by Leader Boehner and Darrell Issa, Defunding ACORN Act, and my friend, Lynn Westmoreland from Georgia, is here to join me, and my friend Mr. King from Iowa is here to join me. And we've got a bunch of things to talk about here today.

Let's talk about ACORN.

I think those videos that the American public have now seen were a shocking wake-up when they had already heard about all of the ACORN violations. We'd already heard about this, and it didn't seem to be bothering anybody that there were all kinds of election law frauds, convictions, and so forth across the country. But then we saw advice being given to two people pretending to be into criminal activity, and you saw people that seemed to be encouraging child prostitution calling it a business, how to do your taxes, just like they weren't talking about criminal activity. And I think that shocked America into realizing that all of this was real, and that cheating on elections and cheating on voter registration and so forth was just as criminal and just led to further, more criminal activities. And now, all of a sudden, the folks at ACORN are all over the front page.

So I will yield to my friend, Mr. Westmoreland from Georgia, to let him make a few comments on this. And you've got a sign there. What have you got, Lynn?

I'll yield time to my friend from Iowa (Mr. King). And I guess we'll talk about ACORN and then we'll shift gears to something else.

We've got a lot of things to talk about, but ACORN is now all over the front page. The trial started in Nevada, and quite frankly, I see a very aggressive prosecutor that was talking on television today, and it's going to be an interesting case. We should all watch it very closely because wrongdoing is being put before the American public, and it's going to be interesting to see how that comes out.

I want to shift gears now because our friend Dr. Ron Paul has introduced a bill which has been talked about now for years, and I think now the American public is starting to say we'd kind of like to know something about this.

We have had, as we talked about before, more money spent since last summer supposedly saving the economy than just about has been spent in the history of the Republic, certainly before 1930. It clearly surpasses what we spent then. It is in the trillions of dollars now.

The Federal Reserve, this mysterious thing that I would bet there is not one American in a hundred who can tell you even close to what the Federal Reserve system even does, where they come from, who sets them up. There is just very limited knowledge. Unless you get to graduate school, you don't even get taught it in universities as to what the Federal Reserve does. And yet the Federal Reserve, as Congressman Paul points out, is in charge of administering and keeping track of these billions and now trillions of dollars of money that we are going to have to pay back and our children, our grandchildren have to pay back.

What Congressman Paul, Ron Paul, wants basically is that he would like to see an audit of the Federal Reserve so that we can know just what these guys do. And so I want to throw that out for discussion here, and I recognize my friend from Georgia.

We will.

I will yield now to my friend from Iowa (Mr. King.)

To finish up this particular subject, let me just point out that I think most people know that the Fed has, as one of its things it does, it uses interest rates to micromanage our economy. It prints money. And the more money that it puts out there, the less value our dollar has. It has an affect on every part of our lives.

Now if you have never contracted with the Federal Government, back in the 1970s, I did a lot of work for people who built section 8 housing projects. And let me tell you, because you're dealing with large numbers, this is what you would hear, you had to be looked at and relooked at and relooked at, which is the right thing, to make sure nobody is doing something wrong. When you're dealing with $8 million or $10 million, the government wants to look closely at how that money is being spent, are the subcontractors being paid, and so forth. Now, why do they do that? Because they know the nature of certain people is such that there can be wrongdoing.

We are talking about trillions of dollars. And we ought to at least know a little bit that an audit would tell us about what's going on at the Fed. So that's Ron Paul's bill.

I'm going to go to another bill. It's not really a bill, but just a comment. We've been talking about the Rangel rule. I've got a new one today. We are going to talk about Mr. Geithner again because he is back in the news because he says he has got this bank, UBS, over in Switzerland, to open their secret vaults and let him know what's over there. And he is being very magnanimous to the people he thinks have been hiding funds overseas. He is telling them that, I know you. I've made a successful raid. I know who you are. Now if you step up and pay your taxes, we're only going to give a maximum of a 20 percent penalty for your failing to pay taxes.

Wait a minute. What about the Geithner gesture here? When he talks to these people, he owed $17,230, no penalty. He owed another $25,960, no penalty. He used bad child credits. He filed additional taxes with interested infrastructure, he had a faulty retirement plan, an improper small business deduction, and he was expensing utility costs that went for personal use. All these things he was doing to no penalty. We call this the fox watching the hen house; he says they've cheated the government. And maybe they have.

Where I come from, if they cheated the government and there's penalties to be assessed, fine. Everybody ought to get the penalty. When I've been late on paying my taxes, and I have, I filed not on April 15 before, I filed on August 15 before, I filed on October 15 before. I paid my penalties, and I paid my interest because that's what you're supposed to do. I think it is curious that

this is the subject of Mr. Geithner's conversation when he has not. He, the boss of the IRS, has not been assessed any penalties.

So I throw that out for quick discussion. I think it's interesting. The Geithner rule ought to be zero penalties on taxes paid back on unreported income until Mr. Geithner pays his.

I do.

We're working on it.

Do you wish to be heard on this, Mr. King?

Reclaiming my time, it's kind of interesting that, back to our other subject, talking about holding the Federal Reserve accountable, one of the suggestions was that the Secretary of Treasury Tim Geithner be able to review the books of the Fed. Probably the smartest thing the Fed said was, No, I don't think that's a good idea, and maybe there's something to that. That may be the smartest thing the Fed has done in a long time.

We have got another issue that's been an issue for many of us, and Greg Walden and John Culberson and Brian Baird have introduced a bill, House Res. 554, and they're asking that each bill have 72 hours before you take action. And this is not hard for us. We know what they're talking about because we have seen in this Congress bill after bill after bill spending billions and billions and billions of dollars that we get in the middle of the night to vote on the next day. And all they're saying is, let's do what, when Thomas Jefferson wrote the rules of this body, still follows. He said they need 3 days before voting. That's in Thomas Jefferson's rules, which he wrote for this House, and they're basically the same rules we follow now, with some changes that have been made.

All they're asking to do is let's do what Jefferson said we ought to do in

this House, and what they did in this House for a century, well, let's do it.

I yield to Mr. Westmoreland.

I yield to my friend from Iowa.

Reclaiming my time, the previous discussion that took a little over an hour before we came to the floor commending Senator Kennedy and his legacy, it seems to me that when we're talking about civility, which is one of the things they talk about, if we can get back to civility, I think the 72-hour rule would have something to do with that.

Very quickly, I want to go to one more thing and then I want to come back and talk about ACORN.

We're the czar champions of the world. We have got more czars than the Romanovs had in the entire history of their dynasty, and our friend Steve Scalise, who was going to be here tonight but he got tied up and couldn't come, he's got a bill to sunset these czars.

A czar is someone who heads a task force, a council, is appointed by the President without the consent of the Senate, is excepted from the competitive service and does not have an existing removal date. Appropriated funds

can't be used to pay for salaries and expenses of task forces or councils established by the President and headed by a czar.

This is what he's trying to do. He's trying to put a sunset on the czar policy, because it seems to an awful lot of people in this country, the term ``czar'' means absolute power, and they've created these positions of absolute power without any oversight.

I will start with my friend from Georgia.

We're just about to run out of time. We had a surprise guest come from the back of the room. Would you like to tell us about the czars? Did we stimulate you?

Reclaiming my time, thank you. We feel real good when we can call a colleague out of the dark. We're glad you're here. We are just about to wrap up our time.

Before we stop, I'm doing something different today. We've been talking about an awful lot. This is probably the most we've talked about in a single hour. As soon as this is over with, as soon as I walk across the street to my office, if you go to www.house.gov/carter, we're going to have a live Webcast for the next hour-and-a-half where you can ask questions and make comments about what we've talked about here, or anything else that's bothering you or that you're concerned about, I want to have it, so that you can tell Congress what you think. I've already started doing this. I enjoy it. I've already got 300 questions waiting right now. I'm going to advertise a little bit and welcome people to come to this Webcast.

Mr. Speaker, how much time have I got left?

Thank you, everybody, for participating. It's most important you remember the subject of this conversation, and that is the rule of law that holds this society together. Never forget. We're all talking about rules and laws and how they seem to be stretched and violated. We've got to get back to the rule of law governing this Nation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank my fellow judge and friend from Texas, first off, for being here to start this, because I was across town, and was fighting the traffic to get back. I apologize for not being here on time, but sometimes things don't cooperate around here like they should.

We're starting off by talking about--and I think you've probably told people

we're again addressing what we've been addressing every week now for probably 12 or 14 weeks. It's very simple that the rule of law must prevail in this country. That means that we have to have rules both of this House, of this Nation and of our States. We have to abide by those rules. The failure to abide by those rules has to have consequences. So we've been talking a lot about internal things that go on with the Ethics Committee and so forth here in the Congress. Now, tonight, we're talking about some things that are in the news that, once again, are under the subject of the rule of law. It puts a bright light on an issue that we really need to be concerned about, and that is the issue with ACORN.

I think, probably, an awful lot of people have seen this video, what we have right here. I know, if they watch Fox News, they've seen the video, but I think now it's being shown on other stations. It's of these actors who pretended to be a pimp and a prostitute, who went to ACORN and asked for their advice on housing and taxes. They were basically given a hand on how to do things--on how to do fraudulent activities, on how not to get caught, on how to beat the system, on how to be able to run a child prostitution ring, and on how not to claim those people as dependents because you don't want people to know about them--all kinds of things like that, things from an agency which is supposed to be there to help people, an agency which is supposed to be law-abiding, which has received $50 million worth of American taxpayer money to help fund that organization, and which is standing in line right now, based upon bills that have already been passed through this House, to pick up another $8 billion--with a ``b''--as a potential that could go into ACORN's hands as community organizers.

This shocking event happened not just at one place but in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New York, San Bernardino, and San Diego. They all have videos showing this.

Of course I will yield.

Reclaiming my time, the only thing is that the $8 billion right now was in the stimulus bill and in some of the other bills, and it's available to be played with right now; whereas, H.R. 3200 has yet to pass this House. We anticipate it might. If there's a party line vote, it might pass this House. You're right. There is additional funding in that bill.

As we talk about this scandal, which is a scandal that has broken on national news, let me point out that the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform of this House found that ACORN had committed the following offenses: voter fraud, tax evasion, obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting, embezzlement, investment fraud, use of taxpayer funding for partisan political activity, and Department of Labor violations.

Now, these are all things that have been raised by the Oversight Committee, the named ``Oversight Committee'' of this Congress. So, as we've talked about these various issues that involve the rule of law, what we want to do and what, I think, is necessary for this Nation to do is to--you know, a lot goes on in the dark, but when you put sunshine--sunlight--on an issue, you get to see a clear picture, and that's what we're about here. We're about putting sunshine on the issue so you can see a clear picture. This clear picture is awful. This country and anyone who stands up for this group of people should really be having second thoughts.

So here are some other issues that are listed, and we'll go into these, but I see my friend Virginia Foxx is here.

Would the lady like to claim a little bit of our time?

Well, I thank the gentlelady for giving a good explanation.

Leader Boehner, Leader John Boehner, the minority leader of the House has asked Nancy Pelosi for a stand-alone bill that will clearly define no funds go to ACORN from any source. That's going to be difficult.

That's correct. There is a stand-alone bill, and he is calling on the Speaker to call it up. If the Speaker doesn't call it up, he is going to ask for a discharge petition so that we can force it to be called up for a vote. If we maintain the vote we got before, then we will have evidence that now this Congress overwhelmingly says ACORN is through.

Although I think you have given a very adequate description of the politics that may be involved in this issue, let's go back to right and wrong, and, unfortunately, you can vote to make things sound like they look right when, in reality, the results come out wrong. I think that's a perfect point.

Yes. If you get enough votes to pass the bill that says I want this bill voted on, any Member can file a discharge petition asking that that bill be voted on. If he gets enough people to sign his discharge petition that it would pass, by the signatures on the discharge petition, then it will be called up against the ruling of the majority party.

That is true.

That's absolutely correct. That is a good point.

Just look at this chart right here. Colorado, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. Florida, vote fraud, case pending. Michigan, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. Minnesota, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. Missouri, vote, mail fraud, identity theft, multiple counts with convictions. Nevada, vote fraud, multiple counts pending. Ohio, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. Pennsylvania, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions. Washington, vote fraud, multiple counts with convictions.

So not only are there allegations of fraud, identity theft and other things, there are people who have been convicted by a court of those offenses. Realize that American taxpayer dollars go to fund every one of those organizations. There are, by the stimulus package and other things we have created, there are multiple grant applications out there in this spider web that Congressman Gohmert has so adequately described where there are all these offshoots, all these 501(c)(3)s out there that are nonprofits, with nonprofit status, and yet they can push up the money to the mother ship, if you will.

It's a real issue. It's an issue that, quite frankly, a team of very capable people at the Justice Department should be looking into, busting up as much of it as they can. But our job, from what we are trying to do here tonight, is let people see what's there. It's bad. It's awful.

Let me point out one thing. You made a very good point, Congressman Gohmert, when you said this internal audit thing isn't going to get it done. That's right. Let's just look at what Government Reform has discovered with the discovery they have done.

First, ACORN has evaded taxes, obstructed justice, engaged in self- dealing and aided and abetted the coverup of embezzlement by Dan Rathke, the brother of ACORN founder Wade Rathke.

Second, ACORN has committed investment fraud to deprive the public of its right to honest services and engaged in racketeering enterprises affecting interstate commerce.

Third, ACORN has committed conspiracy to defraud the United States by using taxpayer funds for partisan political activities.

Fourth, ACORN has submitted false filings to the Internal Revenue Service, the IRS, and the Department of Labor in addition to violating the Fair Labor Standards Act, FLSA.

Fifth, ACORN falsified and concealed facts concerning an illegal transaction between related parties in violation of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, ERISA.

Now, all those things, in addition to what we have discussed, and an internal audit has already been done once with no information released. Basically they look at their own books and say, We are just fine.

We should have a full external audit of the books at ACORN and, quite frankly, I believe the Justice Department or this House should be involved in subpoenaing all the records of all the entities that are involved in this, and we should lay this picture out on the table, which brings us to another issue that I want to talk about.

ACORN, we can talk all day and all night, but there is a new thing out there that our colleague from Texas, Ron Paul, Congressman Ron Paul has brought out, and that is holding the Federal Reserve accountable; H.R. 1207, Congressman Ron Paul's bill that's pending before the Congress and trying to get the Federal Reserve audited.

Congress has given 700 billion in the Bush TARP, 787 billion in the Obama stimulus funds to the Fed. Congress and the taxpayers have no way to independently verify how those funds have been used. The American public wants to know what is happening with that money. The American public doesn't want any more double standards.

Quite frankly, this is a bipartisan bill, because, quite frankly, Ron Paul points out that 1207 is sponsored by Congressman Paul but has 290 cosponsors already. Obviously there are Democrats and Republicans on this bill. There is going to be a full hearing on this on Friday.

And I think people back home want to know, in fact, I got asked that the whole time I was home in August, and which I, if you recall, had said that on the floor of this House more than once, Where's our money? Where is it? What's happening to it?

The stimulus isn't being spent at a rate we were told it would stimulate the economy. Special projects are being funded. Where's our money?

And, then, what we forget is the Treasury and the Fed can independently pour more money into the economy. And I don't even know the number, but it could approach trillions of dollars.

I yield back.

Well, what our chart here shows, since 1913 the U.S. dollar has lost 95 percent of its purchasing power. The Federal Reserve has many privileges of government agencies, but many benefits of private organizations.

H.R. 1207 would open the Fed operations to enhanced scrutiny. The Federal Reserve Transparency Act would achieve much-needed transparency of the Federal Reserve. Under H.R. 1207, we would audit the Federal Reserve system and the Federal Reserve banks by the end of 2010. The Comptroller General would submit a report to Congress within 90 days. The report would include recommendations for legislative or administrative action.

On July 30, Ron Paul asked, Why are Wall Street and the Fed so hysterically opposed to H.R. 1207? Just what information are they so anxious to keep secret? Only an audit of the Federal Reserve will answer this question.

When you really get down to it, when it's our money and they have the ability to dump money into our economy by printing it, then with--with the help of the Treasury--then what's so unreasonable for asking for an audit? I think that's a perfect point.

I'll yield back to Judge Gohmert.

Thank you. I thank the gentleman for yielding. And as we talk about all this, we don't want to forget what the President told us when we started out in his new administration: I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for the powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.

And that's what this group--basically, we have taken the President's charge, and that's what we're doing every first night of the week, talking about helping the President do what he said he wanted to do and what he said he wanted to do in his administration: show that there's no special treatment for one who is a Member of Congress and one who is Secretary of the Treasury versus one who lives in east Texas or one who lives in North Carolina. They all should be treated the same, which brings us to the fox watching the henhouse.

Obviously, it didn't include Mr. de la Torre. And Mr. de la Torre was not treated the way the Secretary of the Treasury was treated.

I've been talking about others, but I want to go back to the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. Geithner. The fox is watching the henhouse. He's the guy who's supposed to be watching over our money. Let's see what he didn't do.

He didn't pay Social Security and Medicare taxes for several years. The IRS audited Mr. Geithner in 2003 and 2004, finding he owed taxes and interest totaling $17,230. The IRS waived any penalties on Mr. Geithner. Could it have been because he was in the nomination process for Secretary of the Treasury? I think maybe so. I think so. It certainly wasn't your friend, Mr. de la Torre.

In 2008, they found he owed $25,960. He used his child's time at an overnight camp in 2001, 2004, and 2005 for tax deductions. Sleep-away camps don't qualify.

Recently, he filed $4,334 in additional taxes and $1,232 in interest for infractions including a retirement plan early withdrawal penalty, an improper small business deduction, and the expense of utility costs that went for personal use.

Now, this is the guy that's in charge of our IRS. He is the Treasurer of the United States.

Now we talked about the Rangel rule, where Mr. Rangel didn't pay his taxes and got no penalties and no interest assessed, which I find extremely curious. Now we ought to look at the Geithner rule. Mr. Geithner had interest assessed, but no penalties.

Now, what makes Mr. Geithner more special than Mr. de la Torre, which Mr. Geithner had to be found out by the IRS? Mr. De la Torre went to the IRS

and said, Work with me. I have a going business. I have issues. I will get my money and I will pay you. And they said, Sorry, Charlie.

Now what's wrong with this picture? What should an average person back in their living room, back home, if they're watching this, think, that we've got special treatment for a man who comes from Goldman Sachs--is that where he came from?

He originally was in Goldman Sachs, wasn't he? I think everybody who has been Treasurer for the last, I don't know, 20 years have been Goldman Sachs people. There's something interesting there, something we ought to look into.

Anyway, I want to know why Mr. de la Torre can't write ``Geithner Rule'' across his tax return and ask them to treat him this way, to let him be assessed with no penalties and interest which would drive him into the poorhouse. This is the kind of question I think the American people want to ask. I think they want to know, because the man they elected President said that he wasn't going to have a world where men and women of power got treated differently than ordinary citizens. That's why we are here. We're here fighting a good fight for what President Obama had promised this Nation would be the agenda of this administration. I think it's time to step up to the plate and start swinging because these fastballs are getting thrown at us. They are coming in high, hard and inside, and we've got to deal with them. With that, I will yield back to Mr. Gohmert.

Mr. Speaker, as some people might know and some of my colleagues know, I have been appearing before this House for the leadership hour now for approximately 12 weeks, and I have been talking about this House of hypocrisy that we seem to be thriving in here as we have all of these issues that involve multiple people concerning ethical issues, and in some instances maybe even criminal issues that need to be addressed. I have raised the issue because I want to remind the leadership of this House that if we don't address these issues, we are failing in our duty as Members of Congress.

As we sit here with the Democrat majority blasting Joe Wilson for a very inadvertent outcry in the House of Representatives, we seem to have forgotten what I have been talking about for the last 12 weeks which is Chairman Charlie Rangel's decades of tax evasion and ethics violations that have been raised over and over on the floor of this House. This is the ultimate of hypocrisy. So I am going to talk about it again tonight. I think it is important that we listen.

It is important to also know this has not just started in the last few months. Today is a very important day. This is September 15, I believe. Close to it anyway. On September 15, 2008, the New York Times, certainly not one of the more conservative newspapers, and I don't think anyone would consider them a Republican newspaper, called for the resignation of Chairman Rangel as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee because of the allegations that he himself had pointed out to this House on the floor of this House of his failure to report certain items of value and failure to pay taxes on about $75,000 worth of income that he realized in the Dominican Republic on a vacation home that he owned there and rented out. He rightfully said he was going to correct that by paying the taxes and amending his return and that he felt bad about it, and that he had turned himself in to the Ethics Committee.

Well, this turning yourself in to the Ethics Committee is almost the hypocrite's dream because you say I want you to judge me. Well, are they? They have had a year now. This was turned in to the Ethics Committee a year ago. We were promised when this new Congress started, we were promised in the fall of last year by the Speaker of this House, Nancy Pelosi, that she was sure that all of the Rangel issues would be resolved by the first or second week of January of this year. And yet they are still not resolved.

The Ethics Committee's job is to be the charging body in this Congress, and they are to look into these allegations and they are to make decisions. It is our method of policing ourselves. Quite frankly, when you find your method of policing yourself has failed, and I would argue 1 year on one person is pretty close to failure, then maybe we need to come up with a new system. Maybe we need to come up with a new

way. Maybe we are not capable of policing ourselves.

There have been bodies like bar associations and medical associations that have historically policed up their own members; and other associations, certified public accountants, architects, and others have boards that police up their members. If they do a good job, they should be commended. And if they fail, they should be condemned. There is an old adage in the law, and having spent the vast majority of my life in the trial court in Texas, serving 20 years on a trial bench as a district judge, for 20 years prior to my coming to Congress 8 years ago, I can tell you we have an adage that justice delayed is justice denied. That is why we have things like speedy trial acts in the courts of America where a defendant can say I want this case brought to trial within a set time period because justice delayed is justice denied.

That's why we have multiple terms of grand juries and we promote the grand jury process to move cases along through the system so we can deal with felony criminal cases in an opportune way so justice is not delayed. Therefore, justice is not denied. That is why we come up with alternative forms of resolution of disputes in the courthouse because our civil dockets and our family law dockets get so bogged down in numbers that justice becomes delayed; and, therefore, justice is denied.

Well, I would argue that when one man stands at that microphone and for about an hour confesses his transgressions to this House, defended by the speech and debate clause of the Constitution, and states in no uncertain terms that he had made some serious errors and he was going to correct them and that he was turning it over to the Ethics Committee to get it resolved, then he has not been fairly treated by the Ethics Committee not resolving this. That is one of the things that I want to point out. I am about resolution of disputes. I am about solving these types of things that put an evil light upon this House of Representatives.

We have enough trouble with the public right now. Our poll numbers are terrible. But the reality is that the history of this place calls upon us to be honorable people. We address each other as honorable people. And if you are going to be an honorable person, then we have to have a means of recourse when honor is challenged even if you challenge it yourself. And I would argue that our methods that we are using right now in the Ethics Committee are failing this House of Representatives and the leadership whose committee it is is failing this House of Representatives. This needs to be resolved.

When we talked about this 1 year ago, we heard about Mr. Rangel's issues concerning the rent that he failed to report as income, and he announced to us that he was paying the taxes and would pay any penalties and interest that may be assessed against him. Later we learned that he paid taxes but he didn't pay any penalties and interest because they weren't assessed against him. That looked to me like the IRS was giving special privileges to Mr. Rangel. Why would they do that? Could it be because he is the chairman of the committee that oversees the IRS and the chairman of the committee that writes the tax laws of this Nation? It could be, but that is not right. That is not the way it ought to be. Just because 652,000 Americans decide to send one of us to Congress, does that mean that we have special rights that others in this country do not have? No, it does not. And we need to stand up and say so. We go through that same line everybody else does at the airport. We get our pockets emptied at the airport, and we go through the magnetometer just like everybody else at the airport, and we should. We are not different than anybody else in the United States.

And yet I think it is totally, totally inappropriate for the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, who has admitted that he failed for years to pay taxes on income that he received in the Dominican Republic, that he should not be assessed penalties and interest. For 10 years I practiced law in Texas, and I represented a lot of people who had trouble with the IRS. And I always saw when we finished it up and resolved their issues, penalties and interest. In many instances, the penalties and interest were more than the taxes. And Mr. Rangel, and I don't have exact numbers, but it was for a period of 10 or 15 years that he didn't pay on this income. Why shouldn't he pay penalties and interest?

So I wrote him a letter. I said very respectfully, Mr. Chairman, I am sure that you do not want to be treated any differently than any other American. I would request that you speak to the IRS and ask them to assess the appropriate penalties and interest, and that you pay them. I received no reply to that.

So I introduced a bill that I call the Rangel rule. The Rangel rule says very simply if you owe penalties and interest on income that you fail to pay, when you pay that tax, write on your tax form ``exercising the Rangel rule'' and you as an American citizen will be treated the same as the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.

I thought that was fair. I thought that was just. It is still in the hopper. I am perfectly willing, if the leadership of this House will bring it up, to put it to a vote of my colleagues, and we might be surprised; the Rangel rule might actually become law. But we should at least have that find of fair treatment for Americans, the same kind of fair treatment we expect to have. We don't expect people in this Congress to get different treatment.

That is what I have been talking about, failing to report. We have to file a report every year. It is required by law. It is like an oath, and if you violate that oath, there are consequences of violating that oath. You basically swear this is what I owe, this is what I made. This is dividend income or interest income, or whatever. We sign and swear to that. That would at least make it subject to perjury. And we file it every year.

Now the complaint that we give ranges is true. You can report that I own property that is worth between $250,000 and $500,000, and you don't know exactly what end of that rainbow you are talking about, that that is the range. I didn't write the forms; those are the forms. But if you fail to report it, you are given a certain amount of time to amend it. That is fair. People can miss something. And many of the things that Mr. Rangel talked to us about when he talked on the floor of this House was the things that he didn't report. That is good. He was being honest with the American people and with the Members of this House. He turned that over to the Ethics Committee, too. I assume that he filed the amended reports. And that is sort of what we have been trying to get resolved before the Ethics Committee, is this something that should be sanctionable by the House? The Ethics Committee's job is to tell us that. We have certain sanctions that this House can have. They are set out in our rules. Those rules were given to us by Thomas Jefferson, a fairly famous scholar and famous Democrat. We have got these rules, we have these sanctions, and that committee is supposed to function to start the process.

Today is the first anniversary of the process starting for that, just what I told you so far.

But since then, since that time other things have come forward. In fact, recently, other things have come forward. Mr. Rangel has been found, in many newspaper articles that have been coming out about this, in a potential additional violation of underreporting income and assets in 2007 by more than half, including the failure again to report the income from his Caribbean resort property. He has aides that work for him that also failed to file these reports and failed to disclose this information.

His lease of a multi rent-controlled apartment was part of the discussions that took place at that time. He is using his House parking space as a storage place for a car he didn't want to pay to be stored. His failure to report or pay taxes on his rental income in the Dominican Republic, the alleged quid pro quo trading legislation action in exchange for the new Rangel Center and College and New York College. All of these things are part of previous accusations. But now we have new properties, brand new retirement accounts, brand new investment accounts, five different investment accounts that, oops, we just discovered those. And

we've just discovered rental properties over in Brooklyn, New York, and over in New Jersey, just discovered and have just come out in the newspapers. And there's article after article after article.

As we celebrate this anniversary, here are some of the things that are out there. We just talked about some of them, the parking spot and all those things. There is also a trip taken by Mr. Rangel and others to the Caribbean; it was paid for by lobbyists when we had a firm promise by the Speaker and the leadership of this House, the Democrat leadership, that this was a new Congress, they were draining the swamp. Well, the swamp is not drained; in fact, we're knee deep in alligators right now. But the draining of the swamp was there would be no more lobbyists paying for trips, when we have multiple Members of this House, including Mr. Rangel, who went on a lobbyist-paid trip where they are on film thanking the individual lobbyists for their contributions to the trip.

People say, why isn't this working? Why isn't this Ethics Committee working? And of course the newspapers, who like to speculate, have pointed out that three of the five Democrat members on the Ethics Committee have received major campaign donations from Charlie Rangel. We asked why Speaker Pelosi hasn't taken a hand in this and we found out 119 Democrats have been given money by Mr. Rangel for their next campaign. And so he's a source of funds for the majority party here in this House, and that may be it, but we don't know.

But you know what? What this is all about is I am sick and tired of everybody being lumped together as evil people in this House. And therefore, justice delayed is justice denied, and it's time we address some of these issues.

I am joined by my friend, who is a classmate of mine, from Iowa. He is one of the stars of this floor because when he speaks, he speaks from the heart. Brother King, tell us what you've got to say. I will yield you what time you may need.

I thank my friend for everything he had to say, and I agree with everything he said.

I want to say something that is concerning me. It has come to my attention, through the rumors that have spread around the Halls of Congress, that some are saying this issue that I have raised about Mr. Rangel has something to do with his race. I want to make it very clear: I spent 20 years on the bench. I believe in that Lady Justice who stands there with that blindfold. I can tell you in no uncertain terms--and I will leave it up to the people in my district, and you can check with them--that I never gave a sentence to a criminal defendant based upon his race nor did I even see the color of his skin. I based it upon his behavior, and the behavior that needed punishing I certainly punished. It had nothing to do with the race of anybody. When people start accusing someone of being a racist because he raises an issue of right and wrong, there's something wrong in this House of Representatives.

I bring this up now because I would hope this wouldn't happen, but if it does, I stand ready, willing and able to point out that this has absolutely nothing to do with race.

By the way, Mr. Rangel isn't the only Member of this Congress whom I have spoken against and said that we needed to do something about. I just had to get that off my chest. Before this stuff starts, I want you to know the race card has nothing to do with what I'm trying to do on the floor of the House. I'm trying to see that we get justice at this level.

Mr. King pointed out the fact that the Chairman of the IRS has got issues of not paying taxes. Who is going to go after him? The chairman of the Ways and Means Committee has issues of all sorts, which we've talked about here. Who is going to go after him? Well, I'll tell you who can--the Justice Department.

You know, when there are allegations of improper behavior, if those things rise to the level of criminal behavior, it is the duty and responsibility of the Justice Department to investigate, and I think the Justice Department should. It's supposed to be like that Lady Justice--blind to the political ramifications and going forward based only upon doing justice. That's why it is called the ``Justice Department.'' If there are issues here that people see, the Justice Department ought to do something about it.

This Congress has the ability to hold hearings on these issues, and they have the ability to hold hearings on the other issues that have been talked about here tonight, and it's about time we did it. We have issues of major proportions that are being totally ignored by this House. This has become the House of hypocrisy, as Mr. King said. There are those who accused others of a culture of corruption just 2 years ago and actually, blatantly, stepped forward on the floor of this House and admitted so. Now, as the corruption is being exposed, all of a sudden, we don't hear anything more about that. It is hypocrisy. I wanted to bring that up because it's important.

I've spent my lifetime trying to be like that Lady Justice--blind as to who you're dealing with. If people will think back, I have said the reason I stand here tonight is because the rule of law is the glue that underpins the very basic foundation of this Republic, and if we let the rule of law be forgotten or to be discarded and if we, as a people, are not bound together by those agreed laws we've agreed to through our legislative process and if political power or influence changes that, then we're no different than a banana republic. Therefore, nothing is more sacred to the basic premises of a Republican form of government and a democracy than that all people, no matter what their statuses, are bound by the law.

Together, we just sent a man who stole in a Ponzi scheme billions of dollars from people around the world. Do you know what? It speaks to the American system. He is in prison tonight. That's the rule of law, and that's the way it's supposed to be.

So, when we talk about this--and occasionally I do--I smile and have fun with the Rangel rule, but the reality is, if we surrender the rule of law, we surrender our freedom and we surrender our Nation. We just can't do it. With all the political back-and-forth that may go on on the floor of this House, I believe in my heart--and I hope in my heart--that every person who sits in these seats is about standing up for the rule of law. If they are not, they don't belong here, because the rule of law is the glue that holds our society and our Republic together. It's very simple. It's not a complex issue. It's that people, as a people, decide to govern themselves with certain rules and regulations that are required of us as citizens. It's what we promise to do by being good citizens. So we're not going to take a handgun and walk across the street and rob the grocery store, because that is disruptive, and society has decided we're not going to tolerate that. That armed robbery in Texas will put you in prison for life, and believe me, I can tell you several people who know that very fact.

There's a reason we have laws: They hold our society together. It's not a law that says the poor immigrant gets the prison sentence and the rich executive does not. If they both break the law and the punishment is prison, they both ought to go to prison because that's the rule of law.

So, when we have issues that affect the rule of this House and, maybe, the rules of law of this Nation--right now, I'm talking about the rules of the people's House. This is the House of the people. This is the only House of the people. Don't let those Senators fool you, okay? They're not the House of the people. This is the House of the people. If someone dies in this House or is removed or leaves office in the middle of a term, nobody appoints his replacement. It is unlawful to appoint his replacement, because the Constitution of these United States says this is the House that is elected by the people. If we have a Senator die, the States can have a rule which says the Governor--and in fact, my State has that rule. If a Senator dies or leaves office in the middle of the term, our Governor gets to appoint a replacement Senator until such time as an election is held, and most States have something along those lines, which means they're not necessarily placed in that office by the people. That's the difference. When we say this is the House of the people, this is the only House of the people.

If we can't abide by our own rules when we are in charge of making those rules that govern life in America, what kind of example is that? Maybe these folks who've been in the streets for the last couple of weeks, who've been marching and yelling and fussing about Congress, have got something to fuss about; because the truth is, if we can't govern our own House, how can we be expected to govern our Nation?

I have been pointing out to the Democrat leadership of this House, who has this responsibility--you know, when you're in the majority, you govern. When we were in the majority, we governed. Governing is hard. It's harder than being in the minority. In the minority, you can just vote your conscience, and that's what we all should do anyway, but in the majority, you're responsible for the results just like whoever sits in the White House is responsible for the results.

Well, if we can't even figure out our own little rules and make our own little rules happen, how can we make laws that are responsible for the results that affect the people in Iowa or the people in Texas or the people in Louisiana or the people in Oregon or the people in Maine? How can the people have confidence if we can't even take care of our own business?

By the way, an issue is coming up, I think, in this House. Whether you're for it or against it, Joe Wilson made an outcry the other night, and he knows and has admitted that he should not have done that. In the heat of emotion, he made an outcry while the President was speaking. Joe is a very honorable man, and he immediately apologized to the President of the United States, and he immediately, in writing, apologized to the White House and to the Vice President. Now there's another street rumor that a privileged resolution is going to be filed on the floor of this House to censure Mr. Wilson before this Congress.

Of course, it's kind of interesting that the process is normally done through privileged resolutions, but there's usually some involvement by the Ethics Committee. I don't see any here. The Speaker has already said she didn't think it was appropriate to do this, and she made public statements that we should move on with health care and that he has apologized. I read that in the newspaper. Yet we're going forward on this. Then I'm crying for 12 weeks about really offensive behavior: When you pay your taxes, don't you think the guy who runs the Ways and Means Committee ought to pay his taxes? I don't see anybody jumping up, except the one time I did, and offering a privileged resolution. Mine was tabled on party lines and didn't get addressed, but I find it curious. I think Joe Wilson has apologized. He has acted like a gentleman, and I think that's where it ought to be. I agree with Speaker Pelosi's statements of 3 days ago to the press that we should move on. We'll see, but I hope we don't do that because it's just going to add, I say, to the hypocrisy of what we're talking about.

I yield back to my friend from Iowa.

I thank the gentleman for that impassioned speech. We have about 5 minutes more left.

So I make it very clear, I don't think I made it clear, but Roll Call newspaper reported on August 25 some of these issues with Mr. Rangel.

I am going to go through them very quickly. He filed an amended return about his 2007 assets and income disclosing more than $600,000 in assets, tens of thousands of dollars in income, that he had failed to report. He failed to report, for instance, a Congressional Federal Credit Union, which is just right down the hall from us here, account of at least $250,001; an investment fund account also worth at least $250,001.

He originally claimed assets of $516,000 to $1.316 million. Now he has revised it to $1.028 million to $2.5 million.

And once again he failed to report the income on his Dominican Republic account. He failed to report investments that netted him between 29,000 and 81,000 in capital gains dividends and in rental income when he previously claimed between 6,000 and 17,000.

He failed to report his investment in certain stocks, at least 1,001 of Yum brands; 15,001 in PepsiCo; and 250,001 in funds of Allianz Global Investors Consults Diversified Port III, half the limit, number three.

He failed to report rental income, and that's on top of the multiple allegations we have been talking about. It's time for a Member that justice must be swift and justice delayed is justice denied.

I ask the leadership of this House to move this process, reconcile these issues of the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, and let's resolve this crisis of this House so we can no longer be called the House of hypocrisy.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for recognizing me for this hour.

For many weeks now, I've been coming to the floor with my colleagues to talk about something that, I think, is the glue that holds our Republic together, and that is the fact that the rule of law does and should prevail in this Nation. By ``the rule of law,'' it means that we are able, as a people, to establish a set of rules. Whether they be legal rules, whether they be ethical rules, whether they be rules of this House or rules of this Nation, we agree to abide by those rules, and those rules cover every element of our lives. There is the rule of contract. We don't violate criminal laws. We have laws that govern this House. We have rules that govern this House, and they're the glue that holds a society together.

When we see the society having people or events that cause the glue to weaken, I think it's our duty and our responsibility as Members of this House to step up and say, hey, this is out of control; this has got to stop; the rule of law has to prevail. We have rules. We have responsibilities to keep those rules, and we as a Congress should hold each other to those rules.

The Congress of the United States, like many other bodies in this country, has a set of rules, and we police ourselves up. We're not the only group of people who does this. The medical associations do it. The bar associations do it. They have, within their own memberships, committees that police up the activities of their own members. The whole purpose is so that they can correct issues before they get out of hand and, if something is out of hand, so that they can have the strength of their convictions of their associations to stand for what is right even if it's difficult and to do the right thing even if it's difficult.

I've been raising issues on the floor of this House with the help of my colleagues now for about 10 weeks. Of these issues, there is one in particular with which I've had some amount of fun. Actually, I've created what's called the Rangel Rule to put a spotlight on some issues that involve the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee; but over this August break, after talking about all of the things that were not resolved by our present Ethics Committee concerning Chairman Rangel, more things have arisen which raise the issues to such a level that they just absolutely cannot be ignored anymore.

We have an Ethics Committee, and the American people should demand that, if we are going to set up a system where we police up this House, then we need to get behind the business of policing up this House. If it has to do with a Member who, by his own admission, has either through error or intent broken the rules of this House, then the Ethics Committee should not be deadlocked on political lines but should resolve this issue. If it's not going to be done, then the leadership of this House should take control of this House. The Speaker of the House was given the authority to be in charge of this House of Representatives, and it's her job. It's the job she signed onto. It's the responsibility she took to make sure that this House runs by certain rules. When blatant issues come forward and when newspapers across this Nation are crying out that some kind of justice needs to be done on an issue, if we're not going to do it, we're failing the very foundation of our Republic.

Tonight, I am joined by my colleagues--and there may be many of them here tonight--and we're going to talk about some of these issues that involve our friend. I want to say that specifically. I have no personal animosity whatsoever against Mr. Rangel. In fact, I will tell you he has been nothing but kind to me since I've been in this House, and I've tried to be kind back, but there is an issue that needs to be resolved, and it should not be resolved just by saying on the floor of this House ``I'm sorry.'' It should be resolved by following the rules established by this House, and that's what this is all about. It is not personally aimed at anyone. It is about this institution and about the fact that the American people are more and more distrusting of this Congress for reasons just like the reason we're talking about tonight. They see things that upset them and that would upset them in their workplaces if they were to have that happen, so they ask: Why aren't the people we sent to Washington resolving this issue? What is wrong with those people? Now we need to ask those questions of ourselves. So I want to make it clear that this is not personal. This is about the rule of law and about the responsibility of this House.

I am joined by my good friend Virginia Foxx, who is going to talk to us. She is from North Carolina. She is going to talk to us a little bit tonight. I yield her as much time as she may consume.

We have a poster here that has a picture of our President. And as the gentlelady just pointed out, he points out, I campaigned on changing Washington and bottom-up politics. I don't want to send a message to the American people that there are two sets of standards, one for powerful people and one for ordinary folks who are working every day and paying their taxes.

I think that's a commendable statement by the President of the United States. And the issue we are talking about here today is an issue that involves what some would argue is the most powerful chairmanship in the House of Representatives, and that is the chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee.

I have a brief exhibit that we can talk about of some of the allegations that concern Mr. Rangel: underreporting income and assets in 2007 by more than half, including failure to report income from his Caribbean resort property again. And those who have been listening will recall this all started because the chairman got up here on the floor of the House and told us that he had failed to report rental incomes for certain years on his Caribbean property.

And he said, But I paid the taxes. And if they assess any penalties and interest, I will pay the penalties and interest.

And it seemed to me very curious that after a long time of not--this is an income tax situation--and after a long time of not paying income tax on income, that no penalties and interest were assessed. And so I came up with the idea of the Rangel Rule, which said that if the chairman of the Ways and Means can be excused of his penalties and interest for failing to pay his taxes, then any other American who fails to pay theirs and goes in and pays those taxes and catches up can exercise the Rangel Rule and have the penalties and interests waived.

I did that to point out what the President of the United States said he did not want to happen in this country: people of power are getting special treatment over ordinary folks.

And so the purpose of it was to point out, it looked like to me that's what was going on here. So that's happened again, underreporting of income and assets by Rangel aides.

Not only did the chairman not report these things, but people he is responsible for didn't report them. Lease of a--multi rent-controlled apartments in Harlem, a special lease. Rangel's use of a House parking spot for long-term storage of his Mercedes. Failure to report and pay taxes on rental income on his resort villa in the Dominican Republic. Alleged quid pro quo trading legislative action in exchange for donations to a center named for Rangel at the City College of New York, and a gift rule violation on a trip to a Caribbean resort by the Carib News Foundation in 2007 and 2008. These are a list of some of the allegations that are going on.

And there is more. There is more to be discussed.

I am joined by many of my colleagues, and I am glad to see my friend Lynn Westmoreland from Georgia is here with us. I yield to my friend, Mr. Westmoreland.

I thank the gentleman for yielding back. I want to point out the timeline so everyone has a clear picture.

It was almost a year ago when the chairman took this floor and told us about the first event where he had failed to pay taxes on rental income. He said he inadvertently did it. He didn't realize how he had it structured, that he was actually getting income from it, and that he was paying the taxes and that he did not expect any penalties and interest to be assessed.

Now, that was a year ago. What the gentleman from Georgia was just describing was a provision that was placed in this health care bill that we are debating today and we are going to hear from the President of the United States on tomorrow, and we have been discussing for the entire August recess. We have been discussing this in town hall meetings across this country. I did 10, one of which was a TEA party.

Thousands of people showed up to talk about this, and they are talking about this bill. And I think that is what really should upset you is to realize that when the chairman did not have penalties and interest assessed against him in his misfiling, he is putting a provision in the law that they, the Democrats, are trying to pass through Congress right now which would mean the ordinary person would pay double penalties and interest for failing to alert the IRS of potential questionable tax exemptions and that would bar the IRS from waiving penalties. They wouldn't be able to waive penalties, like they did for Chairman Rangel.

By his own provision in the bill that he placed in there, there would be double fines under certain circumstances. I don't know what those circumstances are, but obviously if this keeps going on and on and on and on in the chairman's life, at some point in time it would seem to me that someone would say this is getting blatant. And yet the American people will have double fines, and we are seeing the chairman having no penalties and no interest being assessed against him.

That is what we are talking about. That is what the President of the United States said. That is what he wanted for the American people, is that ordinary people and people who have positions of influence in this country should be treated exactly the same under the law.

That is what the rule of law is all about. We establish rules, and those rules will be for everybody and there will be no exception for the prince nor the pauper. That is the way it is supposed to be. This prince of the House has actually written new rules into this bill. Another reason not to vote for this bill, as far as I am concerned, is because it doesn't treat the American people as fairly, if this is fair, as he got treated.

So when we are talking about the rule of law, we are trying to tell you that this cement binds us together as a people.

One of my good friends is here from the State of Georgia, another great Georgian--you know, the one thing is Georgians will answer the call, they

are always there--is my friend Phil Gingrey, a physician from the great State of Georgia, one of my classmates and personal friends. I yield to him on this issue.

I thank my friend from Georgia, and reclaiming my time, I want to point out it's something that is part of this forum that we're discussing here today, because this is--I want to say something that's very important. This weekend, I had a couple of opportunities where I was interviewed by national news organizations on television. One of the questions that was asked of me was that at least there's been some inference that this is a racially motivated situation that I am in right here. And my statement--and I stick to this statement because it's the truth--this issue is not about race. This issue is about responsibility and meeting the responsibilities of this House. Mr. Rangel needs to meet his responsibilities and, quite frankly, the Speaker of the House needs to meet her responsibilities.

I will refer you to the Buffalo News, ``Rangel Should Resign,'' and it tells us what we've been talking about. And it says if he won't, Speaker Nancy Pelosi needs to push him.

Last year he tells us he had $75,000 worth of unreported income. Now it gets worse. Rangel failed to report at least half a million dollars in assets in 2007, and his net worth is about twice of what he claimed in 2008. The odds of simple error fall to near zero when it happens twice and when both times are in your financial favor.

This is Pelosi's sternest test. She should give Rangel a week to do the right thing, and then if he doesn't, she must.

So this is about responsibility, and that's what we're talking about, being responsible to the rules of this House and to the rules of law. And there are two individuals here that have the opportunity to do what is right and be responsible, and that is the chairman and the Speaker.

Yes, I will.

I would like to recognize my good friend and fellow judge, former judge Louie Gohmert from Texas to speak and use as much time as he wishes to consume.

Reclaiming my time, I would like to point out that as I've been talking about some of these issues, just so we can make it very clear, this is not just about Chairman Rangel; I've also talked about John Murtha, Al Mollohan, Jim Moran, Pete Visclosky. All these are issues that are before the Ethics Committee or the Justice Department in some form or fashion. And so we are clearly saying we have appearances that are concerning us at every level.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to the Republican Leadership standards on earmarks, I am submitting the following information regarding earmarks I received as part of the Department of Defense Appropriations Act for Fiscal Year 2010.

Project Name: Fort Hood Training Lands Restoration and Maintenance

Account: Operation and Maintenance, Army

Project Recipient and Address: Fort Hood, TX U.S. Army Garrison, Fort Hood, Bldg. 1001, Rm W321, Fort Hood, TX 75544

Amount Provided: $2,500,000

Project Description: Dedicated resources are needed to rehabilitate Fort Hood lands degraded by over 60 years of training with tanks and other military vehicles. Substantial rehabilitation can be achieved over the next five years with an integrated program that reduces soil erosion and compaction, increases desirable vegetation, supports woody vegetation management, and provides appropriate tank trails, stream- crossings, and hilltop access points for tactical vehicles. Texas AgriLife Research will work with Fort Hood Integrated Training Area Management (ITAM) and other collaborators to plan, implement, execute, and verify the effectiveness of these rehabilitation efforts.

Benefit to Taxpayers: The project improves training land for Fort Hood soldiers using research proven reclamation practices. The practices installed through the project have saved both time and money, while achieving training area restoration. The local economy also benefitted as local contractors were employed for soil ripping, gully plug construction, and other work.

Spending Plan: $700,000 is for brush clearing and endangered species maintenance programs. Of the remainder, approximately 90% goes to Fort Hood-ITAM programs for implementation of training lands restoration validated practices and 10% goes to Texas AgriLife Research for assessment of these programs and development of new practices.

Project Name: Techniques to Manage Noncompressible Hemorrhage Following Combat Injury

Account: RDT&E Army

Project Recipient and Address: National Trauma Institute, 16500 San Pedro Avenue, Suite 350, San Antonio, TX 78232

Amount Provided: $2,500,000

Project Description: Traumatic injury is a nationwide problem with severe consequences for our military and civilians. Noncompressible hemorrhage from injuries to the torso is the leading cause of potentially survivable deaths of American troops and its mitigation is the highest priority of U.S. military trauma surgeons and researchers. NTI's goal is to develop simple, rapid and field-expedient techniques for non-surgeons to stop truncal hemorrhage. To secure advances in this field will require additional federal funding. Currently, trauma research is significantly underfunded compared to illnesses which do not cause nearly the same level of mortality as trauma.

Benefit to Taxpayers: Increasing trauma research is likely to lead to the reduction of mortality and complications from noncompressible

hemorrhage and improve outcomes. This will affect soldiers as well as civilians from the 31st and every congressional district.

Spending Plan: Personnel, 54%; Materials & Supplies, 8.4%; Equipment, 4.2%; Patient Care Costs, 16.8%; Administrative Costs, 16.2%.

Project Name: Army National Guard M939A2 Repower Program

Account: O&M Army National Guard

Project Recipient and Address: Osh Kosh Corporation, 1300 N. 17th St., Suite 1040, Arlington, VA 22209

Amount Provided: $5,000,000

Project Description: Army National Guard M939A2 Repower Program. Due to the age of the M939 vehicle fleet, a lack of a support program for major sub-assemblies, and parts obsolescence, the M939A2 Repower program is a critical program to maintain the M939 series 5-ton trucks the U.S. Army will have in its inventory until 2035.

Benefit to Taxpayers: The M939 series vehicles are fielded in all 54 states and territories and are used extensively in Homeland Security, disaster relief, emergency response, and training missions. This program benefits Central Texas (Killeen/Ft. Hood area) from a work force and supplier perspective. Approximately 48 production employees and support staff are involved in the M939A2 Series 5-ton Repower Program in Killeen, TX.

Spending Plan: $5 million to install vehicle repower kits for aging Army National Guard M939 Series 5-ton trucks utilized in homeland defense and national security missions. Approximately 90 percent of funding is for material, including engine, transmission, cooling package, electronics, and other vehicle components, with the remaining 10 percent for manufacturing labor.

Project Name: High Volume Manufacturing for Thin-film Lithium Stack Battery Technologies

Account: RDT&E Army

Project Recipient and Address: Applied Material, 1300 N. 17th St., Suite 1040, Arlington, VA 22209

Amount Provided: $1,000,000

Project Description: The war fighter is reliant on dependable power for electronics and weapons to assure superiority in battle. The power sources must have energy available to power the electronics and weapons and be small, light and affordable. Applied Materials will develop cost effective domestic mfg. systems for next generation thin-film lithium batteries that provide a solution to these challenges that meet current and projected future DOD requirements for high power, light weight, small size and low-cost. Successful development of the proposed mfg. systems will address the DoD power source technology requirements such as energy and power density, life cycle, shelf life, discharge and charge rates, form factor, safety and cost for the needed military applications such as sensors, fuses and man wearable soldier battery devices.

Benefit to Taxpayers: This project establishes in the U.S. innovative manufacturing technologies for a strategically important military and commercial field--thin-film energy storage technology. It will strengthen the competitive edge of Applied Materials and enable U.S. based companies to provide high-tech next generation domestic sources of thin film lithium batteries for military and commercial applications.

Spending Plan: The total project cost is $30.5 million of which Applied Materials has requested $3.0 million from Congress. Applied Materials will match the federal contribution dollar for dollar: Personnel Salaries/Wages, $12,777,500; Travel, $660,000; Equipment, $14,165,667; Materials/Supplies, $2,904,000; Others (Shipping), $24,000; Total Direct Costs, $30,531,167.

Project Name: HTS Trap Field Magnet Motor

Account: RDT&E Navy

Project Recipient and Address: Teco Westinghouse Motor Company, 5100 North IH 35, Round Rock, TX 78681

Amount Provided: $1,000,000

Project Description: The megawatt power on Navy future ships is estimated to be six times greater than that of existing surface combatants. The emergence of superconductor motors have the potential to make propulsion packages smaller, more powerful, more energy efficient, and quieter than their standard counterparts. The cost of superconductor motors, however, must be reduced if they are to be affordable for Navy ship applications. This development effort is for the purpose of demonstrating that bulk high temperature trapped field magnets can be used rather than wire to reduce the cost of superconducting motors by one third, produce twice the power, and increase safety of the crew and ship by being able to turn the magnets off during fault conditions.

Benefit to Taxpayers: Will help sustain the 391 jobs at TECO- Westinghouse in Round Rock and create 4 new jobs. Once the program moves from development to production phase, it would have direct impact on 40 to 50 jobs. The benefit to the U.S. Navy is that it would have a powerful, affordable, reliable, and safe motor to support advanced weapon systems and radars on future ships in meeting the Navy's requirements stated in its Next Generation Integrated Power System Roadmap.

Spending Plan: If fully funded, the $6 million requested in FY10 combined with the $2 million appropriated in FY09 is expected to complete the development effort. The breakout is as follows: $920,000 for Program Management and Support; $3,500,000 for engineering labor; $290,000 for manufacturing labor; $1,290,000 for Testing.

Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize the City of Leander and its staff for their great work within the community for the Adopt-a-Unit Program. The City of Leander adopted troops from the 4th Infantry Division out of Fort Hood, Texas through the Adopt-a-Unit program. The city offered support to the troops and their families with supplies, care packages and moral support during their deployment to Iraq over the last year.

I appreciate the work and dedication of the City of Leander staff and commend them for their commitment to the soldiers of the United States Army.

It is an honor to recognize the City of Leander for their great work.

Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize the Greater Leander Chamber of Commerce for its great efforts within the community and serving as a helpful resource for the Adopt-a-Unit Program in Leander. The city of Leander participated in adopting troops from the 4th Infantry Division, Fort Hood, Texas. The Program provided soldiers and their families back home with supplies, care packages and moral support during their deployment to Iraq over the last year.

I appreciate the hard work and commitment of the Greater Leander Chamber staff and look forward to what great things it will do in the future.

It is an honor to recognize the Greater Leander Chamber of Commerce and its staff.