Federal News Service - Weekly Media Availability - Transcript
Federal News Service March 4, 2004 Thursday
Copyright 2004 Federal News Service, Inc.
Federal News Service
March 4, 2004 Thursday
HEADLINE: WEEKLY MEDIA AVAILABILITY WITH HOUSE MINORITY LEADER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA)
LOCATION: H-206, THE CAPITOL, WASHINGTON, D.C.
BODY:
REP. PELOSI: Hello again. Thanks for coming today. It's been one month since President Bush released his budget; three weeks since the Bush administration admitted that outsourcing was its preferred policy; two weeks since we learned that the Bush administration is considering calling making hamburgers a manufacturing job; one week since Alan Greenspan told us that the president would have to cut Social Security benefits for seniors to pay for tax cuts for millionaires.
Today President Bush's economic policies are withering under the Democrats' scrutiny. The longer the Bush budget sits out in the open, the more the president's distorted priorities are driven home to the American people. The president simply has the wrong priorities. His budget undermines opportunity, underfunds education and hurts small businesses. It evades responsibility, failing to pay for the cost of the troops in Iraq and passing on massive debts to our children. It destroys community, outsourcing jobs and destroying entire towns.
Yesterday House Democrats released an analysis of the impact of President Bush's budget on Hispanics. The report found that his budget cuts funding for Perkins low-interest loans and low-income students by $100 million and freezes Pell grants. It cuts funding for the Office of Minority Health by 15 percent, despite wide disparities in health for minorities. It underfunds Head Start and school dropout prevention programs. It goes on and on.
I don't know if you have it here. Does anyone have a copy of that? We had a press event yesterday about it. But since some of you weren't there, I thought you might like to have the benefit of that documentation of the distorted priorities of the Bush administration.
Today the Democrats on the Small Business Committee, led by Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez of New York, will release a report documenting the impact of the president's-negative impact of the president's policies on small business. And small businesses, as you know, employ half of all workers and create three out of four jobs. But the Bush budget slashes the Small Business Administration funding by $79 million. The Small Business Committee Democrats' report highlights that the Bush budget will eliminate 20 programs, including SBA, Small Business Administration's flagship loan program, reduce the funding for 15 initiatives including the micro-loan program, which provides very small loans to start-ups.
And today, Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer and the Blue Dogs will call on House/Senate Republicans to deal honestly with the president's record deficits during the markup of his budget. I just want to call to your attention that they will be upstairs in H-306 at 11:15 for this very important press event. Democrats are fighting for a fiscally responsible budget that is the statement of our national values and that honors opportunity, responsibility and community.
With that I'd be happy to take any questions, and when I say happy to take any questions, I am indeed very happy that we now have a nominee of the Democratic Party. Democrats are very excited to work with our nominee to grow the economy, to create jobs, to expand access to quality health care, to have the best possible education for our children, to protect our environment and to keep America safe and secure. We will be working closely with the nominee and working closely, as we have already, with Senator Daschle. I think you will see fusion in the Democratic message, and I think you will see Democrats rallying for a tremendous victory in November.
So I am indeed happy to take any of your questions.
Q Madame Leader, can we expect any legislation that is sort of coordinated with the Kerry message as he gets his campaign further under way?
REP. PELOSI: Yes.
Q Can you be a little more specific?
REP. PELOSI: No. (Laughs.) We only have had a nominee for 36 hours. I actually-that's why I was a few minutes late coming out here-just spoke to Senator Kerry, and we have put in place how we will communicate and-we continue our communication, but be more specific. I myself think that what you have just suggested is a good idea, and that it would be important to the American people to know that when the Democrats are elected, with a Democratic Congress and a Democratic president, that they could expect certain legislation to improve their lives regarding jobs, education, health care and our national security.
Q Did you discuss with the senator about how he might be helpful with House candidates and Democratic incumbents on the campaign trail?
REP. PELOSI: Not yet, no. We're really mostly talking about how we can fuse our message and support him. And we will go to those next conversations, but we haven't done that yet. But he is aware of our success in Kentucky. He is aware that our chairman, Bob Matsui, has done an excellent job with a disciplined, focused, strategic plan to win the House for the Democrats. He is aware that Democrats have now the highest rate of unity, or so says CQ, of any House Democrats since 1960, when Sam Rayburn was the speaker of the House. So we are-our unity is our foundation, and it enables us to work directly on message, mobilization, and, when we talk about it, the elections.
Q Earlier this week, a number of public interest or watchdog groups had an event where they really took sharp issue with the conduct of ethics inquiries, particularly in the House, and they talked a good bit about what they perceive as the truce between the Democrats and Republicans not to bring or pursue ethics charges, even when the facts might suggest that they should be. Is there such a truce, and if so, why is it?
REP PELOSI: I'm not party to any such truce. I, however, did serve on the Ethics Committee for six years and then spent another year of purgatory discussing, debating, writing the rules for the Ethics Committee. And the Ethics Committee-the rules that were written took the responsibility of the Ethics Committee very, very seriously. If there is in the public domain information that would point to the need for an ethics investigation, it placed a heavy-the new rules placed a heavy burden on the Ethics Committee to pursue that course of action. They are in camera, they are not-what they do is not made public, so we don't know what they are pursuing or not. But I'm sure if you asked, you will find out whether a particular investigation is under way.
The groups have a legitimate concern, I believe, because they cannot bring an ethics complaint themselves, but that does not foreclose the option of their giving an ethics complaint to a member of Congress to file. So if they have done the work, and they have the facts to support the charge, I would recommend that they seek out members of Congress to file the complaint for them.
I always thought when I was on the Ethics Committee that it was wrong that so many of the ethics complaints were coming out of Newt Gingrich's office, I will be very frank with you. And so now as leader I want to distance myself as much as possible from anything that has to do with the orchestration or the origination of an ethics complaint. But I have not been a party to any truce. If there was a truce, I think it spoke to a truce about frivolous, unsubstantiated charges just being made to cause trouble, but not really to maintain a high ethical standard for the House.
Q As minority leader, are you satisfied with the performance of the Ethics Committee given, you know, a number of things that we all know about, from TRMPAC, which is the subject of a grand jury investigation in Texas, to Charities for Children, which the IRS is looking at, Oxley, and so on, et cetera, et cetera?
REP. PELOSI: And you could add to that the K Street project, Halliburton, Westar Energy, the Tauzin employment search, Tom Scully, Nick Smith, the allegation of bribery on the floor of the House. You mentioned DeLay fund-raising, Blunt's connections to lobbyists, the Weldon issue that has come up. The list goes on and on, not to mention --
Q There are Democrats on that list, too, right?
REP. PELOSI: -- not to mention the revolving door. Not to mention the revolving door.
I don't know if you saw this, how Republicans have turned the government over to special interests. That was put out by Congressman George Miller of the Democratic Policy Committee.
So yeah, there is a whole --
Q (Off mike ) -- you're making a point, it seems.
REP. PELOSI: I think we're going to get a scroll like Lou Dobbs, a scroll of Lou Dobbs, undermining the ethics of the House and of public service. So if they have --
I really do not think it's my job to investigate these things to a point, then file a complaint on them. But if they have the information and they want to turn a complaint over to a member of Congress, that is their right within the rules.
I don't know what the Ethics Committee is investigating. I do know that when first asked, the chairman of the Ethics Committee said that it was just political, that we were asking whether there was an investigation of Nick Smith's allegation of bribery on the House floor. He later retracted that statement and said that, yes, indeed, the Ethics Committee was engaged in the initial informal investigation process and had been so since December.
Q Madame Leader, by enumerating that Lou Dobbs-style list, it would imply that you think that these matters are worthy of investigation. Aren't you throwing a stone and hiding your hand by saying you don't want to get involved in calling for an investigation, and then enumerating all of these supposed transgressions?
REP. PELOSI: Well, I'm just saying that the Ethics Committee has the responsibility. Now, I think part of it is your job to pursue some of these allegations, and when there is public-when this is in the public domain and there are articles which are part of what enables you to bring a charge to the Ethics Committee-it's not hearsay, it is a documented statement, a documented allegation in the press bringing dishonor to the House-it has to be merchandised in order to bring the dishonor to the House. So don't underestimate the role that you play in all of this as well.
Q But is there no investigative role for the Ethics Committee?
REP. PELOSI: No. The Ethics Committee-I think the question you have, that you are asking me, are questions that you should be asking the Ethics Committee. Are you investigating these issues? Now, for example, Halliburton is not an Ethics Committee matter because Halliburton is not a member of Congress. Scanlon and Abramoff are not members of Congress, but it all is part of the fraying of the moral fiber of what goes on here and undermining public confidence that we are here for the public interest and not the special interest.
So I think you have an important role in all of this to pursue these. You certainly aggressively pursued them during the Clinton administration. And I think that this accumulation, this attitude toward the special interests, is one that I think the Republicans are going to have to answer for politically to the public, and I will have no hesitation in taking these concerns to the public. But I don't have the time, nor do I think it is appropriate that the resources of the leader's office be set aside to document ethics violations.
Q And, Nancy, just a quick follow-up. I know that you spoke personally with Chairman Tauzin. Are you satisfied now that he is not taking the PhRMA job, that everything's cool?
REP. PELOSI: I'm satisfied that he has said that there was an-that the matter was in abeyance. He didn't use that word. He said that they were not at this time in negotiations. But what would I be satisfied about? The fact is is that a member of Congress who was the chairman of the committee of jurisdiction was accepting a job for two- and-a-half million dollars a year, big money in anybody's language; a bill that sold the seniors down the river; and at the same time as the administration's person, Scully, was actively in negotiation at the time of the creation of the bill, and the administration gave him a waiver to do that.
So, again, you have your role; we all have our different roles to play. And again, I don't hesitate in any way to go out there and throw a punch. But any time you throw one, you know you're going to catch one. But I think you all have your responsibility as well to pursue some of these facts, and also-but the committee has a major responsibility.
And the outside groups have an avenue. They can give a member of Congress a complaint. If they have a complaint that meets the criteria of a complaint for the Ethics Committee, I don't know why they just don't hand it over to a member of Congress to file for them. I don't know if they have done that, I honestly don't know, and I don't think they said so at that time.
But any truce that may have been in place was about frivolous complaints, it wasn't about ignoring serious allegations of wrongdoing; for example, the Nick Smith case.
Q And you're not suggesting that that list that you enumerated are frivolous complaints, I take it?
REP. PELOSI: No. And I'm not saying that it's exhaustive of the grievances. I think this thing could-the scroll could go on and on and on. But because I want you to go to Steny Hoyer's press conference at 11:15, and because I will be meeting with Governor Dean at 11:30, I didn't go through the whole list. It could take all day.
Q Why do you think that no Democratic members of Congress have decided to take that exhaustive list to the Ethics Committee? Certainly these groups could approach any member, and they all have the ability to do it. Are you at all concerned that what you're saying here, that you won't get involved, you won't orchestrate, you won't originate, is trickling down to the rank-and-file Democrats, and then they're getting a message, "Well, if Pelosi won't do it, I'm not going to step out there and do it myself?"
REP. PELOSI: Well, why wouldn't the Republicans do it? Aren't they concerned also about the reputation of the House of Representatives as well? This is something that when you go there, you have to have your facts, you have to have your documentation, and it's a decision that you make to do that.
Maybe it's a disservice to the issue that I spent so much time on the Ethics Committee, some brutal, brutal years. It was a very difficult time, and I was on the subcommittee that investigated Newt Gingrich. And I do know-not in terms of our subcommittee, but in terms of the full committee, I believe that the Speaker's Office had a hand in everything that went on there. I thought that was wrong. I don't care if it's a Democrat, I don't care if it's a Republican; I thought that that was wrong.
And I didn't think-and if somebody wants to take the initiative to do this, they know that my position is about me and my experience and the role that I think the leader's office should play. It doesn't in any way say to them: Curb your enthusiasm for ethics in the House of Representatives.
But it may come to a point. It may come to a point. You know, I can take a pretty good punch, and I may have to be the one to throw it, but I will continue to speak about the connection of all of these special-interest initiatives that the Republicans have taken to undermine this place. And it is not unrelated to the other abuse of power, which is to not allow Democrats to sit at the table when you are writing the energy bill.
Oh, and did we talk about the vice president and energy? No, we did not. Add that to the list. Kevin Phillips, I think, is advocating that perhaps the reason they don't want to release all that information is because there were designs on the oil fields in Iraq before we went into Iraq. But that's in the book.
Q Congressman Tauzin's spokesman made a big point to reporters that Tauzin and you had a, quote, "clearing of the air" on the House floor. Can you confirm that you had a clearing of the air? Was this issue put to rest as far as you are concerned in terms of Tauzin's employment?
REP. PELOSI: No.
Q Could you explain what happened then?
REP. PELOSI: The only clearing of the air we had at that moment was that I had not ever had any intention of going to the floor to interfere with the accession of Chairman Barton on the committee. I think that was a concern the Republicans had, that we would have had disruptive tactics at the time that his name was put forth. That was never my intention. I think that was what Mr. Tauzin was talking to me about, and I said, no, I didn't intend to do that. By the time we spoke, actually, it was during that vote, so it was past the time when we would have disrupted anyway.
Q So he never talked to you about the job with PhRMA, the search and when it began?
REP. PELOSI: No, he did talk to me about it, we did talk about it, but the only thing definitive that came out of it is I didn't have any intention of using Mr. Barton's moment to go into Mr. Tauzin's troubles. Now, he did say that-he talked about his health and he talked about having an examination, and when that happened he would make a determination about his future. But I didn't hear anything from him as was reflected in the press that he has cut off permanently the conversations with PhRMA. I did not hear that at all. No.
We have been friends for many years. He used to be a Democrat, you know, and I have many friends who are Republicans. Our friendship persisted after that, but that doesn't mean he can sell America's seniors down the river for $2.5 million without anybody thinking that that is not the right thing to do.
Q The outside groups that met this week and said that they thought that this truce was hurting things, the ethics.
They also said that they wished the rules were back to the way they were, you know, a couple of years ago when outside groups could file complaints. It sounds like you don't agree with a change like that. Would you be in favor of a change where outside groups could do it?
REP. PELOSI: If they have a complaint, they can bring it to a member of Congress.
Q So you don't support such a change.
REP. PELOSI: Yeah. I mean, I was part of-when we put together the package, it was to strengthen the role of the Ethics Committee and to emphasize the responsibility of the Ethics Committee so that we could have a fair hearing on what was a true ethics violation, not that we could play tit-for-tat as to who could make up something. But you have to understand, this was in the context of Newt Gingrich making allegations that had absolutely no merit, that resulted in an investigation that led to the resignation of the speaker because of some-because of a book. But that was not part of the initial allegations. The initial allegations were baseless.
So we want to get away from something like that, where somebody has a plan, and part of that plan is to undermine somebody, and the best way to do that is to bring up an ethics complaint whether there is any merit to it or not, but just get-let's subject every one of you, your entire lives, to complete and total scrutiny and see what we come up with. And so-a parking ticket, whatever it is, a violation of the law. So, in any case, it was to get away from that kind of thing.
You know, I mean, I've said what I said. It was to eliminate the tit-for-tat, as I understand it. I was never a party to any truce. The purpose of our rules was to put a heavy burden on the Ethics Committee and a heavy responsibility on them to investigate. Part of that, though, is that they have to have documentation, and documentation is what people say, and what they say to the press, and what is printed in the press. So understand your own role. A couple of pieces of paper that are a documentation of an allegation, or that somebody said it, is enough to take something to the Ethics Committee. But nothing-if you don't have that, you don't have much to go on to go to the committee. So somebody has to cover it. And you have an important role in this.
But I will tell you this: we can't have a situation where there is dissatisfaction, for whatever reason, on the performance of the Ethics Committee to uphold the ethical standard of the House. It's very, very important. And, you know, I think I've said enough why I think the Ethics Committee should do its job, and it may well be. But since their work is in camera, is confidential, then I don't know everything that they're
I do know that in one case where we made a fuss, the chairman changed his public statement from, you're being political, to, yes, we've been investigating for two months now.
So with that, unless there is any other question --
Q Could you tell what you're going to talk about with Governor Dean or what the meeting is about?
REP. PELOSI: I'm going to congratulate Governor Dean for infusing so much energy and idealism into the political process. I'm going to thank him for bringing so many people back into the process, or new people who were never there before. I'm going to thank him for calling the public's attention to some of the distorted priorities of the Bush administration. And I look forward to doing that.
Q Will you talk about his future role in the party now or what role he will play in the --
REP. PELOSI: Well, that will be up to him. That's what I'm going to talk to him about. It's up to him in terms of what he will talk to me about in terms of his future role. But I know that he will have a future role, and I know that it will be an important one.
Thank you all very much.
Q Thank you.
END