Howard Berman: “I view this amendment fundamentally differently than the other amendments that are coming before us, in that to me, I…”

“I view this amendment fundamentally differently than the other amendments that are coming before us, in that to me, I understand fully the intentions of the authors of this amendment, but in reality, when we come right down to it, if one is totally cynical and defeatist about the ability of this House to have peer review, if your commitment to the ideological and partisan battles that this House is engaged in and that this Nation is engaged in is so important that they obliterate any notions of guilt or innocence, and should it permeate and invade the entire ethics process, then you vote for this amendment. But if we still have some hope that people of goodwill can isolate themselves from the partisan pressures and the ideological battles, and can make judgments even about their peers based on the facts in front of them and the established rules of conduct, we never want to say that by a certain period of time, either guilt or innocence automatically comes by operation of law. This is an amendment that I think kills the ethics process in terms of what we want, because it promotes and incentivizes partisanship and deadlock throughout the whole process.”