Freshmen Democrats Promote Accountability And Oversight

Floor Speech

FRESHMEN DEMOCRATS PROMOTE ACCOUNTABILITY AND OVERSIGHT -- (House of Representatives - March 22, 2007)

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. ELLISON. Madam Speaker, let me thank my colleagues, the gentlemen from Florida and New Hampshire, both for their eloquent remarks. I am looking to my colleague, Congressman Welch and his remarks, but I would like to say that the bedrock idea behind accountability in government is trust in government. If somebody is not accountable, if they are not answerable, if they don't have to tell you whatever you want to know, if they can tell you to take a hike, take a walk and they don't have to listen to you and they are not answerable to you and not accountable to you, as the public, then what you cannot have is trust.

Trust goes away when accountability goes away. Trust leaves the room when there is no one to answer the question about what happened. Trust leaves the room when you cannot have a public official look you in the eye and say here is what happened, the good, the bad and the ugly.

Accountability is not about perfection because when you have a human endeavor, there is no such thing. But accountability is about being able to say, you know what, those folks up there on Capitol Hill, I believe that they are doing the best they can because when I asked my question, they gave me an answer. When I came forward with my concerns, they gave me a reply. They had the documents. They were able to say, here is what is going on.

But when government, Madam Speaker, will not answer, we have problems, we have a lack of trust, and unfortunately sometimes people disengage. But this Congress is here to turn that around. This Congress is here to say, no, there will be accountability. You can trust your government. You can expect that your government is going to be operating on your behalf.

Let me turn to an example. One example is that for the last several years we have had prosecutors, United States Attorneys, trying to do the best they could in many instances at ferreting out corruption in government. We saw prosecutions go on, former Congressman Cunningham and others, and we saw prosecutors who were appointed by a Republican administration to essentially do their job. As you know, Madam Speaker, prosecutors are not like other attorneys. Their job is to seek justice, find the truth. They are ministers of justice, whereas other attorneys, very correctly, have, within the rules, no other obligation than to zealously represent their client. But prosecutors have a higher calling than that, and that is because it is their job to protect the public.

But what we found out recently is that eight of them have been fired, and it appears very clearly that the reasons were entirely political. Eight of them have been fired, and the evidence that has been unearthed so far in only 3 months of this ``accountability Congress,'' as the distinguished gentleman from New Hampshire is calling the

phrase, in this accountability Congress, the first 3 months we have seen getting to the bottom of this question of justice being undermined.

The Democrats have brought back accountability. And what we have seen that is unfolding right now is that the Justice Department has released thousands of pages of e-mails based on the demands of the accountability Congress, and internal documents as well, related to this U.S. Attorney scandal. These documents would not be in the public domain. They wouldn't be in front of the people. They wouldn't be available for questions to get to be asked and answered but for this accountability Congress.

I am so proud to be associated with this accountability Congress because what it means is that the U.S. Attorneys, whether they be U.S. Attorneys or food inspectors or people who work at the hospitals taking care of our veterans, they now can know that there is not going to be an intolerable condition that exists for too long before some inquiring person in Congress says, what is going on over there. Thank heavens for it.

And I just want to point out, and I will get back to this in a little while, I just want to point out that even Patrick Fitzgerald, who was a prosecutor in a recent case that you may have heard of, the Scooter Libby trial, in which he obtained four convictions out of five counts, he himself was rated as ``not distinguished.'' He was not distinguished in the eyes of the Bush administration officials. And I can see why they would find such a gentleman as ``not distinguished,'' because he did not evidence enough loyalty and obedience to the administration, but he certainly did bring forth some real accountability in government.

I am going to yield back now, but I am going to be sticking around because I have more to say about this. I am going to yield back now; but before I do, I just want to say that accountability breeds trust in government and trust in government promotes an active, engaged citizenry which is fundamental to democracy.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source