Congressman Peter J. Roskam's (R-IL) floor speech against the earmark slush fund.
Roskam believes in the principle that earmarks should be exposed to the full sunshine of public scrutiny, and that includes a debate and vote on the floor of the People's House.
Video text:
Mr. Chairman, thank you. I want to take you back because I know you have an independent recollection of what it was like to come here in your first term.
Many of us in this chamber came here just in January, took the oath of office and now what we find is that every week is a new week, all new process we are learning. Those of us who are not appropriators, we come into our conference and we hear this is the appropriations week. We sit down with our staff and staff gets us up to speed and we hear about the earmarks, heard about them a lot in the campaign, Mr. Chairman, and start to get the staff briefing on what are the tools that we have in earmarks. If you talked to people in the Illinois' Sixth Congressional District tonight and ask them about earmarks, you would get their attention. They would focus in. It was a symbol of an abuse of the process. So when you sit down as a freshman and your staff says, "Congressman, this is what you can do - you can offer amendments, argue with these things, and challenge them on the floor." As iron sharpens iron so one makes another better, and so that process, that winnowing process, is what this is all about. And that's what every member has the right to do.
Except now.
Because now what ends up happening is our staff tells us, "no, there's this new process, Congressman, what you get to do is you get to write a letter, you get to write a letter to the chairman of the committee" And the chairman of the committee is going to open up the letter and make a decision of the merits of you, an independent elected member of congress, that is who you get to talk to. You don't get to argue on the house floor. You don't get to light up 435 people. You don't get to talk to millions of people. You get to write one letter. That's where you get to go.
If you think about that, that's absurd. There are all kinds of great things in this bill, no doubt about it. My prior colleague from the State of Illinois articulated many good things in this bill and it's my hope that we can come together and drive towards those things, but to act as if the earmark process is insignificant is really patronizing.
It is patting people on the head...and saying off with you, be lively. You get to write your letter to the chairman and the chairman will make a declaration on whether it's a good idea or a bad idea.
Well, one of our colleagues on the internet recently said this, he said to his constituents, he said, "I will remain no one's congressman but yours." Doesn't that sound great? That's great stuff. That's rich. That is rich in the Chamber of Commerce meetings. That's rich in front of the Rotary groups. That's rich in front of the coffee groups and you go door to door and say I'm going to be your congressman.
But you know what? You end up seeding that responsibility, you end up seeding that opportunity to one person, and that's only if you're lucky enough that he reads your mail. I say no to that, Mr. Chairman. I yield back and I move the committee do now rise.
Tags: Congressman Peter Roskam Congress Earmark Slush Fund
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