Stupak: Time to Clean the House and Put Hard Working
Americans before Special Interests

WASHINGTON – In the first two days of the 110th Congress, the Democratic controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed a package of rules aimed at aggressive ethics reform, reversing excesses of previous Congresses and restoring integrity and civility to the daily operations of the U.S. House of Representatives. 

“As I travel Michigan’s 1^st Congressional district, I have heard from northern Michigan constituents concerned about special interests taking over the people’s business in Washington,” Congressman Bart Stupak (D-Menominee) said.  “I promised to make ethics a priority and am proud that on the first days of the 110th Congress I voted to install the toughest ethics package in the history of the U.S. House.  It is time to clean the House so that the concerns of hardworking constituents come first.”

The ethics proposal that passed includes a number of changes to House rules.  The new rules state that Members of Congress and their staff cannot accept gifts or meals from lobbyists. The rule changes also ban lobbyist planned travel for Members of Congress.  The measure includes provisions to end efforts like the "K Street Project," which amounted to a revolving door between Congress and lobbying firms, in which Republicans told corporations and lobbying firms whom they should hire in exchange for political access.

“These common sense rules will return transparency and integrity to the U.S. House of Representatives,” said Stupak. 

The new rules also include provisions aimed at restoring civility to the U.S. House of Representatives, allowing for greater open debate throughout the legislative process and protecting the rights of the minority party in the House.  For instance, the new rules ensure that members of “conference committees” are given the opportunity to attend all conference negotiations, where differences between House-passed and Senate-passed legislation are ironed out.  The new House rules also prohibit the practice of holding votes open for undue amount of time for the sole purpose of affecting the outcome of a vote. 

An example of how the previous, unfair House rules affect legislation can be seen in the 2004 Medicare prescription drug bill.  In 2004, Republicans crafted behind closed doors Medicare prescription drug legislation without even allowing Democratic Members into the conference committee.  Republican House Members then held open a 15-minute floor vote for more than three hours while they twisted enough arms and changed enough votes to gain passage of the bill.  The legislation, which created the Republican Medicare prescription drug package, passed the House by only five votes, after Republicans pressured four members of their party into changing their votes.  

Stupak said that if the new House rules had been in place in 2004, they would have prohibited the Republicans abusive practices and would have resulted in a better prescription drug bill for all Americans.

“As we saw with the prescription drug bill, unfair procedures that stifle debate make for poor legislation,” Stupak said.  “The rules changes the House is adopting this week will restore a civil process to the House and allow Republicans more input than Democrats enjoyed when we were in the minority.  These new rules will allow for full consideration of legislation and ultimately result in legislation that truly addresses the needs of the American people.”

The House of Representatives this week also passed measures to restore fiscal responsibility.  The new rules include "pay-as-you-go" budget rules to stop any new deficit spending.  This means that any new or increased spending must be offset by a corresponding reduction in spending elsewhere in the budget.

“The American people have to live within their budget and make ends meet day in and day out, month after month,” Stupak noted.  “The Congress should have to do the same and a ‘pay-as-you-go’ budget rule is a strong step in that direction.”

Stupak said the new House rules also require enhanced transparency of earmarks.  The explosion of earmarked special interest projects set the stage for the bribery scandal, in which lobbyists were providing gifts and money in return for earmarks.  That scandal landed former Representative Randy “Duke” Cunningham (R-CA) in jail. 

“These new earmark rules will mean there will be no secret deals between legislators and special interests,” Stupak concluded.  “There will be full disclosure of all earmarks in this new Congress.”

A former member of law enforcement and attorney, Stupak is well respected by his colleagues on ethics issues.  In recent years, he has been one of the few Representatives selected by the Democratic Leadership to be part of the bipartisan small pool of Members of Congress who may be called upon to investigate other members of the U.S. House for potential ethics violations.

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