Freshmen Democrats Promote Accountability and Oversight
Floor Speech
FRESHMEN DEMOCRATS PROMOTE ACCOUNTABILITY AND OVERSIGHT
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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I am Ron Klein, and I represent Florida's 22nd Congressional District in Congress, which is southeast Florida, Fort Lauderdale to West Palm Beach area, and I have the privilege of anchoring tonight's freshmen's Special Order. We decided as a group of freshman, and there was a large group of us that were elected this year, to meet on a regular basis and to discuss policy, those of us who had contested races, those of us who did not have contested races, but all of us new with this process coming in with a fresh perspective and the belief that hopefully we could influence the process in a way that would move things along, which is, I think, the loud message we heard from the people that elected all of us, both Democrats and Republicans this year.
Tonight our Special Order is going to focus on the importance of accountability and oversight within our Nation's government. There is no question that the ability to exercise accountability and oversight among the executive and legislative branches, that is our branch and the President's branch, is vital to making sure that our government is operating and governing within the highest ethical and moral standards, and makes sense. It is also important to make sure our government is doing the right thing for our people.
It seems that every time we are turning on the news lately or pick up the newspaper, there seems to be some story about where there is no accountability. And the oversight and lack of accountability seems to be the prime topic of conversation back home in our districts, in our offices, in our supermarkets, in our churches and synagogues. If you just think about the most recent one, the United States attorney scandal, where a number of U.S. attorneys were fired; and, of course, there is a question about for what purpose they were fired and whether there is a reason, and now there is a question of getting all the information out on the table.
The ongoing concerns over Valerie Plame and the outing of Valerie Plame. And, of course, I think most of us as Americans understand, when someone works for this country as a member of our intelligence services, we owe that person the highest degree of respect and integrity and make sure that their position is held confidential. And certainly anybody who is responsible for outing that person should be held accountable and punished.
Conditions at Walter Reed Hospital. And we are going to talk about that a little more tonight, and, unfortunately, other veterans hospitals. And I am happy to say that in my area and in many other parts of the country that there are some very good things going on in our veterans hospitals and our veterans outpatient clinics, but many times it is a matter of having the resources to have enough doctors in place. And I know I have heard from time to time about long waiting lines. But there are places like Walter Reed and other places that have now been identified where you had mold and you had ceilings falling in and lack of care, and people that were working there that were overworked and unfortunately not providing the type of treatment that should be awarded. The highest level of respect should be awarded to our men and women who are our heroes in this country.
And, of course, the no-bid government contracts being awarded to companies doing business in Iraq to the tune of billions of dollars of waste, and certainly not accomplishing the major goals. One of the goals we went in there with, of course, was to take out Saddam Hussein, but I think everybody understood very quickly that if we were going to be successful in changing the hearts and minds, that some of the rebuilding activities, getting electricity on, getting hospitals up, creating jobs, those kinds of things would be very, very important to making the people of Iraq feel that this was a worthy cause to set up their own government. Unfortunately, we have spent billions of our money over there, and, unfortunately, the condition is in many ways worse today than it was with the fall of Saddam Hussein.
The news on these subjects is everywhere. So tonight we are going to talk about accountability and oversight, and my colleagues who are going to join me tonight as freshman Members recently elected are going to be talking about how we are working to restore those features of accountability and oversight to Washington and our government.
A couple things I just want to touch on before I turn over to my colleague Congressman Hodes. On November 7, which was last year's election, we believe that the American people, I know we all heard this as we walked door to door and heard from the American people, they wanted change. It wasn't necessarily Democrat or Republican; they wanted people to come together, find common ground, and move forward. And fortunately for this country, this House has, in fact, started that process. There were six items very quickly that were passed in the beginning called the 100 Hours, the Six for '06, everything from fixing the Medicare prescription drug program, which I know many of our seniors are concerned about making it easier to use, less costly to the taxpayers; minimum wage, making the minimum wage higher, of course, is a key issue; lower student loan rates; and a number of other issues like energy policy. These are the things that we came to work on and that were done.
We also passed the lobbying reform bill and a full disclosure bill which has already significantly reduced the influence that lobbyists have on this legislative process. We need to do more, but we certainly took a lot of the right steps by not allowing lobbyists to take Members of Congress out to lunch. We had that in Florida, we changed that, and I am glad we changed that here, too.
And, of course, the earmark process. And for those of you who don't know what earmark is, that is this idea: In the past, Congressmen, Members of the Senate and House, would go behind closed doors and add millions and tens of millions of dollars, even hundreds of millions in some cases, of special projects in the dark of night to the budget without any consideration by all the Members of Congress. And that needs to change, and I am very happy to say that with new earmark reforms in place, that will change.
The way it is changing is very clear: Anything that is presented needs to be presented in the light of day. It needs to be publicly disclosed and laid out for the Members of the Congress so that a legitimate project in Alaska should be a legitimate project in Florida. Even though it may benefit one State, we all represent this country, but it has got to be done the right way.
This week we passed important legislation which curbs waste in Federal contracting; strengthens protection for whistleblowers, and those are, of course, people that discover and come forward when there is waste and corruption in government; and also provides long overdue of the veterans health care crisis and other Federal issues. We are going to talk about accountability of tax dollars. We are going to talk about a number of other things.
I am joined by some colleagues here, and I would like to introduce them. We have got Congressman Ellison, who is going to join us and talk to us a minute; Congressman Hodes. Congressman Welch is going to join us for a few minutes.
You look like you are poised and ready to go, Congressman Hodes, so why don't you kick off and give us a little oversight on what you are going to talk about on oversight and accountability.
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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Hodes. I think you laid it out very well.
I think the average American believes very strongly in accountability and oversight because they understand, that's how they live their lives. If you have a business, you can't do anything without keeping track of your books, keeping track of you inventory, keeping track of your personnel, your employees, and knowing that there is an end-point. And you will make money or not make money by running it efficiently with oversight. And I think that nobody is asking for any more than that in government. And, unfortunately, as you have pointed out very eloquently, that is exactly what has gone on without anybody looking after it. And many of the committees were either not operating or were abolished in the last number of years, and that just doesn't make any sense.
So I think you pointed out very appropriately that we are glad I think in a way that the Democrats are leading, but I think the Republicans are now joining us. And, again, this is a bipartisan approach to fixing this.
Mr. Ellison, I know that you have been leading and talking about this as well, so give us some of your thoughts, please.
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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Ellison.
I think that, again, the example you gave is something that is on our front pages. We are hearing about it and we are listening.
Some people have said, well, what is the difference if someone is coming forward or if they are coming forward under oath. Well, I like to see, when someone comes forward, that they put their hand up and say, I swear to tell the whole truth. I can't imagine somebody wouldn't want to do that and what are they hiding if they are not prepared to do that. That seems to be a little battle going on between the Congress and its investigative authority and the President. But, again, I think you put your hand up, we are expecting the truth anyway, and I think that is an appropriate thing to do.
Mr. Welch, our representative from Vermont in our class, why don't you share with us some of your thoughts on this.
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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. The examples obviously go right back to what I think we all believe in strongly as Americans: common sense. Use common sense when you do anything. When you make decisions, use common sense. When you follow up, use common sense. I mean, the examples that you have cited are so extraordinary, they defy common sense.
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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. I am glad to see, Mr. Welch, some of the legislation coming forward. Mr. Waxman and others have proposed eliminating or limiting no-bid contracts and putting all this out there. And I think this is a bipartisan issue. Nobody seems to have any problem with it. But I think, as you said, it is long overdue.
Madam Speaker, we are joined by another Member of our freshmen group, and it is Mr. Perlmutter from Colorado. We are now geographically dispersed from the Southeast to the East to the Midwest and the West.
So why don't you give us some of your thoughts from the Colorado perspective.
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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Thank you, Mr. Perlmutter. And I think we have heard from some of our friends and we have a lot of others within the Democratic side of the freshmen class. There are 41 of us. It is a big class this year, along with the rest of them, Republicans as well. And I think the message is pretty clear, the things you are talking about, the checks and balances. And, by the way, we have our checks and balances with the President. There are also checks and balances with all the agencies. And those are some of the things we are talking about tonight, to be sure things are operating the way they should. A big budget. A lot of money. It has to be spent properly. We feel very committed to that.
Mr. Hodes, I know you want to add another thought here.
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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Obviously there are so many things to talk about in terms of the oversight and accountability. One of the things that I think really hit hard for a lot of the people, particularly if you served in the military, was the Walter Reed Hospital revelation.
Many of us have not served in the military. We may have some family members that receive veterans benefits and things like that. We think of people we ask to serve our country or may have served in the past. They are American heroes on so many levels, and they deserve the highest level of care. So it was shocking, and then shocking even more so when we found out this has been going on for a while.
I think this oversight we have been talking about, the accountability, the proper funding, the proper level of care, doctors, nurses, things like that, so many people in the system are doing good jobs, but there are clearly deficiencies.
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Mr. KLEIN of Florida. I thank you, Mr. Hodes, for being part of our freshman class and our working group that is going to be here every week. The 110th Congress is strengthening oversight, and the proof is in the pudding.
People can say, I have lost confidence in Congress, but look at what we are doing. We have had dozens of hearings in the Foreign Affairs Committee just on the ability of working with our diplomatic efforts and all of the strategies in dealing with Iraq on the nonmilitary side. In the past, there have not been enough opportunities to do that.
We've had hearings on the veterans health care crisis and Walter Reed, the politicalization of the Justice Department and how wrong that is and that needs to be cleaned up, the Hurricane Katrina response and the things we are doing right now, passing legislation to truly get people back up on their feet. Global warming and energy independence was mentioned, and the fact is that we are getting down to the things we need to do as Americans to deal with our energy needs and the fact that there is an environmental impact. And, of course, upcoming hearings of oversight on everything from Valerie Plame to oil and gas royalties and National Guard and intelligence.
This is part of the mandate of the last election. I look forward to working with our freshman class. We will be doing this every week. We certainly want input from our constituents back home. Tell us what you think we can be doing. We look forward to working with both Republicans and Democrats to build on this theme of accountability and oversight.
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