Howard Berman: “I rise in support of the ethics task force report that my distinguished colleagues, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr.…”

“I rise in support of the ethics task force report that my distinguished colleagues, the gentleman from Louisiana [Mr. Livingston], and the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Cardin], have chaired, a panel on which I have served, an effort that took a great deal of time, that raised my esteem for both of these gentleman tremendously by the sincerity with which they approach the issue, by the difficulty and complexity of the questions that were raised. What they have come up with is a proposal that in every aspect of the process makes the process better. It does more to promote the due-process rights of people who are accused in this process; it does more to promote the confidentiality of the process; it does more to promote the discretionary ability of the chair and the ranking member and their flexibility to deal with the issues that come before this committee in a fair and sensible fashion; it does more to be honest with the American people. Getting rid of this three-refusal rule, that is a disingenuous measure by which people who want to see a complaint come before the committee are forced to write a letter refusing to file the complaint in order to allow outsiders to do it. That is scrapped, and a limited-outside-complaint provision is substituted for that decision.”