Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2317, Lobbying Transparency Act of 2007 and Providing for Consideration of H.R. 2316, Honest Leadership and Open G
Floor Speech
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2317, LOBBYING TRANSPARENCY ACT OF 2007 AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 2316, HONEST LEADERSHIP AND OPEN GOVERNMENT ACT OF 2007 -- (House of Representatives - May 24, 2007)
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Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Castor) who is floor manager for this important bill.
And I want to thank the gentlewoman from Ohio (Ms. Sutton) for the great work she, and I include the former chairman of the Rules Committee, they have done in trying to bring about reform in the House of Representatives and in the Congress as a whole. I mean it. I was up there yesterday, and I was one of the ones that took exception to calling Mr. Dreier of California's H.R. 4975 a sham bill. It was not a sham bill, and we have taken many of the things out of that bill and have brought them to H.R. 2316 which we're observing.
So we think that we all agree on both sides of the aisle that we have one big problem. The Congress has a black eye in terms of ethics, and we want to correct it. We're agreed? Okay. We check that one off.
Now, how do we correct it? Well, the one way that you will never correct it in the 110th Congress is to vote down this rule this afternoon, because if you vote down this rule this afternoon, there will be nothing to meet the Senate bill, which has already passed in January. They have been waiting for February, March, April, end of May, and now all of us who are concerned about fighting corruption, fighting for better ethics, fighting for transparency, fighting for basic disclosure now say on that side, let's vote down the rule. And do what I would ask? What do you have in mind that we haven't done now?
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Mr. CONYERS. I thank my friend for helping me out there, because what we will have done, and there are some in the media that are predicting that this is what's going to happen, that we're going to abandon all of the work that we have put into this measure. And I'm looking still after a number of decades for the Member who can concede that he's voted on the perfect bill in the legislative process.
But if we abandon this at this course, months behind schedule, we're sending a perfectly obvious message to the American people; namely, that this is the sham that is working on the Congress.
We've got to get this rule going. I'm happy that our colleague, the former chairman of Rules, said nothing about the amendments that have been granted by the committee in which he worked so hard over the years. We've got amendments. Some are Republican amendments, some are Democratic amendments, but for goodness sake, let's keep our promises to the American people.
We campaigned on this. We said we can improve the transparency and the rules regulating lobbyists, regulating bundling, regulating reporting, increasing the penalties. We've said all of this and put it in in as perfect form as we can do here.
We need now to get something to go to conference. I pledge to be open to suggestions, as I have all along the way. We've got to keep our promises, and the promises start with voting the rule to begin the debate. Now, you may have differences in the debate but certainly not on moving forward from this elementary process.
I thank the gentlelady, the floor manager, for allowing me to bring these matters up at this point.
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