Bob Kerrey: “I would like to speak for a minute on the amendment just offered by the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from…”

“I would like to speak for a minute on the amendment just offered by the Senator from Tennessee and the Senator from Alabama striking the provision in title I concerning the oversight board and specifically concerning the employee representative on that board, and even more specifically the language that will enable that board member to function on the board; that is to say, language which, by the way, is not precedent setting. There are many other cases where people have been given protection from very specific areas of conflict of interest in order to be able to do their work. In this case, the only protection against conflict of interest charges is postemployment, since the individual selected from the Department of Treasury is working for the IRS. Certainly, we want the law to be written so they are able to go back to work with the IRS or do whatever work they had in connection with the employee's representative association without being prevented from doing so. So that is the only protection that this language provides. There are really three sort of threshold questions that Members have to both ask and answer as they deliberate this particular amendment.”