Mr. President, I am pleased to rise again, for the second year in a row, in support of the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007. It was my pleasure, last year, as the chairman of the Rules Committee, to work with my…
Mr. President, I am pleased to rise again, for the second
year in a row, in support of the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act of 2007. It was my pleasure, last year, as the chairman of the Rules Committee, to work with my colleague on the Democratic side of the aisle, Chris Dodd, and in fact, the entire committee in a bipartisan way to produce this legislation from the Rules Committee.
Then we brought it to the floor. We had an open process. We had lots of amendments offered. At some point it was the will of the Senate we bring debate it to a close, and we produced legislation because there is a need for ethics and lobby reform. I have been an aggressive supporter of many of the provisions that have been already mentioned today and that are included in this bill.
So I want to make it clear that last year the Senate passed this legislation, with significant improvements or changes in the law with regard to the rules of the Senate, ethics, and lobbying reform, and moved it into the process of being in conference with the House. Unfortunately, it was not concluded.
I do have a long history in this area, going back to when I was in the House in the 1970s, and when we passed some gift reform in the 1980s. And here we are again. I don't back away from having in the past supported some changes. And having done it last year and again this year, I think we should move forward in this area. But I must say, I am delighted to yield the leadership role on this issue to the distinguished Senator from California, Mrs. Feinstein. She is now the incoming chairman of the Committee on Rules managing this legislation in place of Chris Dodd of Connecticut who did such a good job last year, and my colleague from the great State of Utah, Senator Bennett. These two people will work together. They will do a credible job. They will aggressively support responsible changes in the ethics rules and lobbying laws of this country. However, I believe they will have the courage to say to us sometimes: Wait a minute, what does this mean? What are we doing to ourselves, the institution, and the job we do?
I have been in Congress 34 years. I know when changes need to be made. I also know sometimes when we are about to put a gun to our head and pull the trigger. Let's do this in a responsible, nonpartisan way that is good for the institution and good for America. But, please, let's not turn it into feckless positioning to make it look good when, in fact, the result could be very counterproductive. I hope we will not do that. I don't question anybody's motives. We all have perspectives we have to think about.
Take, for instance, the issue of earmarks. We all have views on that. In some areas it is called pork. I have said many times that earmarks are pork when they are north of Memphis, TN.
I am from one of the poorest States in the Nation. I am not going to give up the right, the opportunity to get some help for some of the poorest people in America when the bureaucracy won't do it.
I have a little old town in Mississippi, Tchula, MS, with an African- American woman, Republican mayor, where they have to haul water to their houses for drinking. That is in America today. It is unbelievable that in 2006, you have people who don't have safe drinking water in this country. We passed the safe drinking water legislation in 1996. Yet it still doesn't seem to filter down to the poorest of the poor sometimes. I tried for years to get HUD to help this little town that sits in a saucer that floods every year.
I said: Please help us move these people onto higher ground, get them out of their snake-infested, annually flooded houses; help us get them water and sewers; help us get them decent housing; help us get them a community center, a police station. Just help them.
I never got a nickel. So my colleague Senator Cochran and I started earmarking funds for this little town. It wasn't big. It was a relatively small amount of money. But if we cannot, as Senators or Congressmen from a district or a State, whether it is Montana, Minnesota or Mississippi, step up sometimes where legislation has not done the job, or where the bureaucracy has not done its job, and fix the problem, then we are not fulfilling our Constitutional obligations to the citizens of our states. Sometimes I know more about the need for a transportation project than some bureaucrat at the Department of Transportation. I am not going to give up what I consider a Constitutional right, and that is the right to shape how federal money is spent.
However, has earmarking gotten out of control? Yes. Has it been growing like topsy over the years under Democrats and Republican? Yes.
Some people say: You shouldn't get an appropriation unless it has been authorized. Do you know why we started getting appropriations for projects that weren't authorized? Because we quit authorizing. The Senate got in a situation in recent years--and it goes back to both Republicans and Democrats; we share the blame on this--where we quit getting bills done. How many bills lie dormant at this desk because there is a hold by a fellow Republican or a Democrat against a fellow Democrat? If you wait until you get authorization, such as a water resources bill, before you get the appropriation, you may never get it. That forced a lot of what has happened.
I am a firm believer in sunshine. Disclose it. That is the best antiseptic. I am not ashamed of what I do. If I am going to be embarrassed if it is made public, I won't do it. Of course, there is one danger. The more we publicize what we are doing, there may be more and more pressure on us to do more. Somebody is going to have to explain on the Appropriations Committee why Senator X gets an earmark and Senator Y doesn't. So we may be, again, creating growth in this process. But I think we should disclose it. I don't have any problem with identifying earmarks, explanations of earmarks. There is no amount of disclosure you can come up with that I wouldn't think is OK.
I also--and Senator Feinstein knows this--have developed a real concern about what has been going on now and growing for a number of years where things are added in conference at the last minute that were not considered by, or included in, either the House or the Senate bill. That unnerves me. By the way, it is not just appropriations; it is authorizations, and it is tax bills.
The one incident that alarmed me actually involved a tax bill. Because if you are a conferee in the last minute of conference some night at 10 o'clock and you can change a phrase in a tax bill that can mean billions for a particular sector of the economy, that is very dangerous. But it happens.
I know it is difficult to write exact language to deal with the problem of last minute inserts in conference reports. I drafted such language that I believe will be workable. I welcome these new leaders of the Rules Committee and recommend they review closely the language I have drafted that addresses this issue and I believe will not create a tremendous problem for the leadership.
Harry Reid is going to be standing here one day trying to wrap up a session on a major bill and if we create point of order authority on anything that is added in conference without some limits on it, he could be hit with a series of points of order, one after the other after the other. Then how do you complete the conference report? The leadership has to worry about that on both sides of the aisle.
I think we could do more on these earmarks. My colleague from Mississippi Senator Cochran has been chairman of Appropriations, as well as the ranking member. I am going to make sure I work closely with him on how we do this. But we need to do more.
I believe this legislation we have before us is a good effort. Some people say it is not good enough. Look, if we start trying to satisfy certain media people, certain ethics groups, there is no limit. We will all be living in robes in the Russell courtyard with no access to the outside. So we can't do that. But let's do all we can. Let's do some things that will improve the way we do business. I think this legislation does this. It is bipartisan in introduction. I understand a substitute will be offered later this afternoon that will maybe move the ball forward some more. I am not sure exactly what all that would be, but what I have looked at, I don't see major problems there. I do think how you deal with the defining earmarks and how you disclose sponsorship is important but more delicate than some may think.
With regard to gifts, we ought to get over that. We should not be having gifts from lobbyists. We shouldn't be having meals paid for by lobbyists. Some of you have heard me say this, anyway. If I never have to have another meal at night with, frankly, anybody, the happier I will be. But I am so offended that somebody says for the price of a meal, I can be had by a lobbyist or anybody else. People wouldn't elect me Senator from Mississippi if they thought I could be had for a meal. Plus the meals you have up here are not any good, anyway. You can't get blackeyed peas up here. You can't get really good, properly prepared catfish up here. It is outrageous. So my point is, I am insulted by the accusation. Get rid of the gifts and meals and get that perception off the table. You are not giving up much, anyway. I would rather go home and have dinner with my wife. That is what more of us ought to do.
By the way, I hope under the present leadership we will have a little more time at night with our families. I have this unique idea about my job. I think you should work during the day, and I think you should go home at night. I hope we will not be nocturnal. I am glad to see Senator Reid saying he is going to hold the votes to 20 minutes. I am glad we are going to be working on Mondays and Fridays. When I had a little bit to say about that, we did that. We voted on Mondays and Fridays. I would rather work during the day and do the responsible thing and go home and be with my family at night.
With regard to third-party-funded travel, again, I think we need to have a lot more disclosure. I think you ought to have detailed trip identification or itinerary, and a listing of who was on the trip. I do think we need to be careful. Are we going to totally ground ourselves around here? There are constitutional questions we have to consider. We do have to get places within our own States. I do think we should be aware that if you represent Maryland--maybe Senator Bennett made this point--if you represent a State that is relatively small, you can get where you need to be in an hour in a car. But if you represent Alaska or California, you can't get there. Even my State, when I go from the Mississippi gulf coast devastated by the hurricane to north Mississippi to that great center of learning at Oxford, the University of Mississippi, it is 346 miles. That is not even the end of the State. You can't get everywhere you need to be with just automobile transportation. Should you have to report it? Should there be a limit on how you do that? Absolutely. But let's be careful about making it impossible for us to do our jobs here as men and women of the Senate.
With regard to some of the other rules included in this bill, floor privileges for former Members where the possibility, perception may be that a former Member is here lobbying on a bill, you can't have that, no. At the same time, we shouldn't prohibit former Members on the day we are sworn in, as we had this past week, from coming on to the floor and participating in that celebratory ceremony. Again, let's use some common sense. Don't prohibit them en bloc. Allow former Members to come on certain occasions, but don't allow them to come when we are legislating, certainly, if they are lobbying.
Another issue deals with job negotiations by sitting Senators. Again, we ought to have disclosure. If you are negotiating for private employment, you should disclose that. That's what this bill does.
In conclusion, I think we have a good base bill. It sounds as though the substitute may be OK. I am sure there are going to be some amendments that we should think about very carefully. Let's be careful about pompous pontificating or questioning other people's motives. Let's be careful that when we do something, we can actually enforce it. Let's think it through. I think we can do that. I think the way it has been brought up is fine.
I am very concerned about the idea of an outside office of public integrity and how that could be used unfairly in a political season. Some people say: Well, don't worry about that. Well, you have to. Because we could do it to each other. You would hope that we wouldn't; I wouldn't do it to the Senator from Florida and he wouldn't do it to me. But it has been done. Going way back to my years in the House, I was on the franking commission. We had a process to file complaints with the franking commission if a Member of the House misused the frank. It was interesting, right before the election, how many extra complaints about abuse of the frank showed up before that commission. It became a political issue that was used to beat up a Member who quite often wasn't even guilty of anything wrong. But the damage was done. It was in the media.
Mr. President, we can and should pass a reform bill. I said that last year. It is the right thing to do. But I hope that we will use common sense. Let's not turn ourselves into something where we can't even do the job. Let's not inadvertently make criminals out of ourselves and our staffs. I am not saying there haven't been problems and that there won't be in the future. We are all human beings, and we are capable of making mistakes. But we can do a better job. I think it is time we do that.
I want to make it clear that as far as I am concerned, this is going to be a bipartisan effort.
This is not partisan. The mistakes made over the years that I have seen since I have been in Washington have been made on both sides of the aisle. We can do a better job of putting things into place where we are less likely to make a mistake. I wish the very best to the Chairlady and the ranking member. I think they can do a good job, and I think we can do something good for the institution, and we will restore a modicum of faith in us from the American people.
I think my time has expired. Who has the floor, Mr. President?
I am glad to yield to the Senator from Florida.
Mr. President, it is a very good adage.
I yield the floor.