Nancy Pelosi: “we are halfway through the first session of the 109th Congress and the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has…”

“we are halfway through the first session of the 109th Congress and the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has yet to begin its important work; and because the chairman of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct refuses to obey the rules of the House and provide for a nonpartisan staff; therefore, pursuant to rule IX, I rise in regard to a question of the privileges of the House and offer a privileged resolution. The Clerk read the resolution, as follows: Whereas, in 1968, in furtherance of its constitutional authority and to promote the highest ethical standards for Members of Congress, the House of Representatives established the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct; Whereas, the ethics procedures in effect during the 108th Congress, and in the three preceding Congresses, were enacted in 1997 in a bipartisan manner by an overwhelming vote of the House of Representatives upon the bipartisan recommendation of the ten member Ethics Reform Task Force which conducted a thorough and lengthy review of the entire ethics process; Whereas, Rule XI, clause 3(g) of the Rules of the House, first adopted in 1997 upon the recommendation of the task force, provides that the Committee ``staff be assembled and retained as a professional non-partisan staff'' and ``[a]ll staff member shall be appointed by an affirmative vote of the majority of the Members of the Committee;'' Whereas, Rule XI states that each such staff person ``shall be professional and demonst…”