Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, I have the deepest respect for the author of this amendment. He is a person who has fought long and hard to improve the credibility of this institution. I disagree with this amendment. I think it moves in the wrong direction. The gentleman from Pennsylvania mentioned a couple of points that I would like to directly respond to. First, he says it takes too long for us to consider complaints. I agree with him. That is why, in our resolution, we have provided to the chairman and ranking member to have but 14 days to determine whether a matter is a complaint or not, while we have 45 days of initial factfinding, and then they must do something with the complaint, so it cannot sit there indefinitely. I agree with the sponsor of the amendment in that regard. The problem is that his amendment does not fit into the work of our committee. There are some additional powers that we gave the chairman and ranking member that quite frankly would not have been there but for the fact that we have direct filing of outside complaints. Those provisions are unaffected by the Murtha amendment. The amendment does not fit. It is going to cause problems for the process.”