The Congressional Progressive Caucus
Floor Speech
Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, my name is Keith Ellison, and I do represent the great State of Minnesota. And tonight I'm coming to the floor to talk about the progressive message of the Progressive Caucus, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, dedicated to ideas that some might describe as liberal, but all must recognize have benefited the United States over the course of time.
To be liberal is to be open-minded, to be accepting of others, to listen to different points of view and to try to be tolerant and inclusive of all people. But the progressive community in the United States and throughout our whole land is entitled to have a body of people in Congress who will reflect their views. And tonight we are coming together to offer these views. I'm proud to be able to take the floor tonight with the cochair of the Progressive Caucus, Mr. Raúl Grijalva from the great State of Arizona. We are proud to have him in our leadership.
But I want to point out before I hand it back to our Chair that the progressive promise is fairness for all. The Congressional Progressive Caucus offers progressive promise for all. We believe in government of the people, by the people and for the people. Our fairness plan is rooted in our core principles. And it also embodies national priorities that are consistent with the values, needs and hopes of all of our people, not just the powerful and the privileged.
We pledge our unwavering commitment to these legislative priorities, and we will not rest until they become law.
I want to throw it out to our co-chairman, Raúl Grijalva from the great State of Arizona and ask him, what makes you come to the House floor tonight and commit yourself to talking about the Progressive Caucus and the principles that support our caucus?
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Mr. ELLISON. So when we are talking about fighting for economic justice, we are talking about universal health care and about preserving guaranteed Social Security benefits for all Americans, including protecting private pensions and corporate accountability.
We are talking about investing in America by creating new jobs in the U.S., by building affordable housing and rebuilding America's schools and physical infrastructure, just like you talked about a minute ago, about cleaning up our environment and improving our homeland security.
What we mean when we say ``economic security'' is about exporting more American products and not more American jobs, and we demand fair trade, not just free trade, and affirming freedom of association and enforcing the right to organize. You and I know that we will probably be coming here one day in the future to talk about the Employee Free Choice Act. That is the right to organize in the labor union, and also to ensure that working families can live above the poverty line with dignity by raising and indexing the minimum wage.
I would like to ask you about protecting and preserving civil rights and civil liberties. What does that mean to you, Mr. Chairman?
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Mr. ELLISON. Chairman Grijalva, as you know, the Progressive Caucus is dedicated to preserving civil rights and civil liberties. That means we believe in sunsetting expiring provisions of the PATRIOT Act and bring remaining provisions into line with the Constitution. We believe in protecting the personal liberty of all Americans from unbridled police powers and unchecked government intrusion. That means unlawful surveillance, things like that, violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We believe an extended Voting Rights Act could reform the electoral process.
We believe in fighting corporate consolidation of the media because if the people don't know, how can they do anything about it. And we also believe in ensuring the enforcement of all legal rights in the workplace. That goes again to OSHA and things like that so people don't get injured. We worked hard for those rights, isn't that right, Mr. Chairman?
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Mr. ELLISON. I think it is important as we come together with the Progressive Caucus message, and it is our goal to come here week in and week out, that people know what the Progressive Caucus stands for, that they know what the Progressive Caucus will fight for, and that they have a chance to join and participate.
So now, I think, Mr. Chairman, we are ready to talk about the main subject we are going to be talking about tonight and that has to do with a report that was recently issued called ``Reining in the Imperial Presidency.'' This is a 500-page document that was drafted by Chairman John Conyers and his staff, the lessons and recommendations relating to the Presidency of George W. Bush, House Committee on Judiciary Staff to report to John Conyers.
In this report, it lays out a whole series of issues that need to be addressed. You know what, Chairman Grijalva, some people have said we don't want to look back, we don't want to dig up old dirt. We have a new President, why look back. But you know what, Chairman, I don't think we are looking back because you and I never want to have to deal with another President in the future who thinks, because George W. Bush did these things, they can do them, too.
We are looking to the future. We don't want to set a precedent around illegal wire-tapping, around domestic warrantless surveillance, around the U.S. attorney scandal, and things like that. We will get into this over the course of the next several minutes, and that is what we are going to be really talking about and digging into tonight.
Do you have any preliminary comments, Mr. Chairman?
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Mr. ELLISON. You know what? Chairman Grijalva, I'm holding in my hand a pretty thick piece of paper right here. This is 500 pages all documenting allegations regarding abuses of power by the Bush administration. This thing is not designed, as you said, to try to settle old scores but to get to the truth of the matter of what really happened.
I mean, don't the American people deserve to know what Karl Rove would have said if he would have honored the subpoena that was lawfully served on him? Don't the American people deserve to know what Harriet Miers and Josh Bolten would have said when the Judiciary Committee had a subpoena duly served on them, where they were summoned to give testimony before the Judiciary Committee and they simply refused to show up? What would they have said?
This is the kind of process we need to go into. And I think the American people deserve to know what the truth is. And I think that this very weighty report--you know, you could probably work out with this thing, this thing is heavy--and it details allegations and it details the facts and information that cry out for answers.
And so what we've done is not just come to talk about a problem but really to discuss a solution. H.R. 104 is a bill that calls for a panel to do an investigative process to figure out what the truth is behind the allegations right here. Now, if nobody did anything wrong, then there won't be any problem and nobody should be concerned. But if there is some facts tied up in here that can be confirmed in this voluminous document.
I think it only makes sense that we should pass H.R. 104 to really figure out what actually happened. What actually happened with regard to allegations of torture and the torture memos that were written authorizing the torture of detainees? What happened with the extraordinary rendition, when, Mr. Chairman, people were brought from the United States and sent to countries and were tortured in those countries, where these countries aren't squeamish about torture? What happened with warrantless domestic surveillance? What happened with the U.S. Attorney scandal? These are things that need to happen.
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Mr. ELLISON. Well, Mr. Chairman, I mean, Josh Bolten, Karl Rove and Harriet Miers were served with subpoenas to appear in front of the Judiciary Committee within the context of the law. We followed the rules when we authorized those subpoenas to be served upon them, and the White House told them not to come. Now, there may one day be a Republican administration, a Republican House, I mean, we're Democrats now, but one day things may change. Do we really want to set up a situation, no matter who's in charge, where an individual can simply scofflaw or skip over or just ignore a subpoena of the Judiciary Committee? I think it sets a horrible precedent, no matter who is in charge of our government.
And so I think you're right. This is a forward-looking process. This is not about settling scores. This is about setting the record straight. I think it's important that the American people really know what happened. I mean, extraordinary rendition. I was in a committee hearing one day when a man named Maher Arar, who is a Canadian of Syrian ancestry, was explaining how he had come from Europe through New York and was on his way to Canada when he was scooped up by representatives of our government and then held incommunicado, sent to Syria, and was tortured and was eventually released.
The Canadian Government did a full investigation of the whole matter and came to the conclusion that they grabbed the wrong guy. Oops. Well, the fact is the Canadian Government gave him a monetary award, but he could not come to the committee hearing and explain to us what actually happened to him. He had to appear by teleconference. Why? Because even our State Department, after they had demonstrably said they made a mistake about who they had picked up, still refused to take him off of the watch list.
My point is, these kind of things need a full hearing; these kind of things need a full airing. The rest of the world needs to know this is not how America does business. It was something that happened. We're not happy about it, but it happened.
We've been joined, Chairman Grijalva, by one of our most outstanding public servants from the great State of Texas. Sheila Jackson-Lee has been putting it down for a long time. How are you, Congresswoman?
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Mr. ELLISON. Reclaiming my time, could you speak on this critical issue. Some people might think that having a blue ribbon panel such as contemplated in H.R. 104 might be a backward-looking process and sort of be something about settling old scores now that the Dems have the White House and the Congress. But in your opinion as a lawyer of many years, what would such a process do in terms of signaling that such presidential behavior from a future President might not be permissible or might not be condoned if we were to have such a process?
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Mr. ELLISON. Thank you, Congresswoman.
Let me just say, tonight we have come together, members of the Progressive Caucus, a caucus organized, not based on ethnicity, like the Black Caucus or the Hispanic Caucus, not based on things like that, but based on our commonality of views, our value, what we all believe in. The Progressive Caucus represents diverse members of our congressional body, people from all over the country, different religions, different ethnic groups, all coming to project a progressive vision for our Nation.
We believe in fighting for economic justice and security in the United States and global economies. We also believe in protecting and preserving civil rights and civil liberties. We also believe in promoting global peace and security. These are some of the essential core beliefs of the Progressive Caucus, and you can count on us to come, week in, week out, with the progressive message to talk about how these critical values impact you.
Tonight we have spent time, Congresswoman Sheila Jackson-Lee and Congressman Ráúl Grijalva, talking about the imperial presidency that we have just seen ushered out of the door. We have seen a 500-page report, this big, thick, giant, humongous, enormous report full of facts and information in detail about allegations that the Bush administration may have overstepped its constitutional bounds. We believe this needs to be looked into. We believe the groundwork has been laid for an inquiry for a blue ribbon panel.
The vehicle, we believe, that should be used to get to the bottom, to get to the truth, is H.R. 104. H.R. 104, which Members and their community can look it up and read it, but what it would tell you if you looked it up is it would contain 47 separate recommendations designed to restore our Constitution's traditional system of checks and balances.
Chief among the recommendations are, one, continuation of congressional oversight; two, independent probes by the Justice Department; three, creation of a blue ribbon commission to fully investigate the activities; and they go on and on and on. You can look up the report online. It's there for you to look at it, at judiciary.house.gov/hearings/printers/110th. You can look it up that way.
Finally, we want to look into and don't want the American people to forget that our constitutional system is delicate. It must be maintained. It is a three-part system of checks and balances, executive, judiciary and legislative. The legislative branch is the first one mentioned in the Constitution.
We are a coequal branch of government. We don't work for the President, not the President we just got, Barack Obama, although we support him and wish him well. He is not our boss. The people are our boss. Also, we don't work for the President. We have a duty and an obligation to provide oversight to the executive.
We need to get to the bottom of allegations of torture and inhumane treatment, extraordinary rendition, warrantless domestic surveillance, the U.S. Attorney General scandal, a contrived drive to go to war with Iraq, signing statements to override laws of the land, intimidation and silencing of critics. We need to get into what happened with Valerie Plame. Why didn't Rove, Bolton and Myers show up to the Judiciary hearing after they were duly served? These are issues the American people have a right to know, and we intend to get to the bottom of it.
This is going to conclude the Progressive Message. Mr. Speaker, it has been a wonderful hearing.
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