Don Nickles: “I wish to compliment Senators Johnston and McConnell for their leadership, because this is not an easy issue to lead on.…”

“I wish to compliment Senators Johnston and McConnell for their leadership, because this is not an easy issue to lead on. It is one that has a lot of people feeling uncomfortable and uncertain on what we should be doing. I look at their proposal and substitute and I see that they are trying to tighten up on existing law. I think that is a step in the right direction. I might mention that we have done a lot in the area of reform. There is a lot of talk about congressional self flagellation, but we have made significant improvements in a lot of areas. I have been involved in some of those fights. We have tightened down, for example, the amount of franked mail. We mail today probably about 25 or 30 percent the amount of mail that was going out per Senator and per Congressman just 6 or 7 years ago. We did it because we made some reforms and said we have to disclose mail costs on an individual basis. We are required to disclose mailings on a frequent basis, and that helps get congressional mailing costs down. Many of us have been working to try and make sure that Congress lives under the laws like everybody else in America, like the private sector has to do. Hopefully, we will have success in finally making that happen. We have made some progress in that area, and legislation was recently introduced by Senator Grassley, Senator Lieberman, myself, and others, to take further steps in that direction. I compliment those Senators for that effort.”