The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Sisk?

Mr. SISK. I was intrigued by your comments, Mr. Curtis, in reference to calling the committee a grievance committee, and I might say I can see some real benefit in considering that aspect of such a committee.

I want to join my good friend from California, Mr. Smith, in some of the comments he made, because I think they were very excellent. I, too, want to say that I have had some indication-I was called by some member of the press a day or so ago who wanted to know who was holding up this resolution. Nobody is holding up this resolution. This particular member apparently did not know anything about what was going on. He seemed to think that the 110 resolutions we had here were all identical. Well, of course there are resolutions of a broad variety of approaches.

One, for example, calls for the creation of a 15-member committee in which you would have seven public members appointed by the President, and then of course there are a number of them calling for a joint committee of House and Senate, as I am sure my friend from Missouri knows.

There are others which go in the direction of having a committee that would hold hearings and develop a code of ethics and report back to the House, some within 90 days, some within 1 year, et cetera, and then go out of existence and the House would approve the recommendations. Others are similar to the Bennett resolution, which go to the point of being the committee that would be the so-called watchdog of Congress. So this thing is a serious matter, and I do not think that anyone is holding it up. I think we have a serious responsibility, and I particularly appreciated the comments by the gentleman from California on

this.

Getting back to your comments on the grievance angle, and I simply wanted to, because the gentleman mentioned that there are only two professions that apparently have gotten by so far without them, and that is those of us in political life and the press

Mr. CURTIS. News media.

Mr. SISK. News media, let us put it that way.

I agree with you, because that covers the whole scope. Let me ask the gentleman if he would visualize a situation in the way of a grievance committee such as may exist in the legal profession or others, where, for example, a Member of Congress was being maligned, let us say.

Unfortunately, the news media have among its members a few muckrakers who seem to have not much else to do except to attempt to destroy some individual, apparently in some cases because of some personal dislikes.

Would the gentleman visualize that some Member of Congress might at some time find himself in a position, because of some wild accusations made against him, that he might want to come to the committee and request consideration?

Mr. CURTIS. The gentleman has made a very fine point. Taking it affirmatively, a good grievance committee, and this is true in the bar, where you have a client who for one reason or another does not like what you have done and you say, "Well, why don't you take this to a grievance committee?"

It is a proper way of handling something like that. Someone who has been accused of something, if there is a standing grievance committee that has a fine reputation, can refer the matter to it, this is an immediate way to get the thing clarified, and from the affirmative standpoint. This is the way I look at it. This is a great thing, and I point up again that 90 percent of the complaints that we used to receive in the St. Louis Bar Grievance Committee turned out to be misunderstandings.

Let me say in behalf of the news media: I think 90 percent of the complaints we constantly hear, and I make them, against the news media turn out to be misunderstandings.

Mr. SISK. I agree.

Mr. CURTIS. It is an advantageous thing to have this kind of thing. I think any profession, and I regard the news media as a high and fine and a very difficult profession, has to have something like this if it is really going to move and perform its functions in a responsible and professional manner.

Mr. SISK. As I said, the gentleman brought out what I feel is a rather intriguing aside here which I admit I had not given much attention to, and I do not think it has been discussed in committee, that actually this could be a two-way street in which a member, because of, let us say, the unusual incident of being maligned rather in a malicious way, might find it convenient to appeal to the committee to set the record straight, because all of us, and I agree with the gentleman, I think a very substantial percentage, 90-plus percent, of the press is clean.

Unfortunately, we have got some lemons in there, as you have everywhere else, and they let personalities get away with their judgment.

As I say, I think this is an intriguing thought to examine as we dig in this further, but I did cite the differences in these resolutions to indicate that this committee does have a very heavy obligation here as to what we finally bring to the floor.

Mr. CURTIS. May I comment on this?

I would certainly urge this committee to take the time necessary to do a workmanlike job, and I will do everything I can to help. Of course, I do thing this is urgent; but on the other hand I felt this has been urgent for at least the past 10 years, and I have seen the mistakes made when a committee, any committee or any group, acts under the whip of emergency.

It is much more important, and I do not need to say it to this group of distinguished men, that you should take your time to do a thorough job.

Mr. SISK. That is all.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Quillen?
Mr. QUILLEN. No questions.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Young?
Mr. YOUNG. I have no questions.
The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Pepper?
Mr. PEPPER. No questions.

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Matsunaga?

Mr. MATSUNAGA. I have one question. Did the joint committee consider the establishment of committees based purely on party lines? We have had some comments here that maybe we ought to make it

bipartisan, or the other political party might take it out on the member of the other political party.

What about the creation of a committee strictly on party lines? Let the Republicans take care of their rats and the Democrats take care of our rats.

Mr. CURTIS. We did not consider that. We did recommend it be a bipartisan committee because in discussing our point, ethics should never be a matter of partisan differences.

This is something that all of us in public life should share, and it gains this advantage. I heard Mr. Young's comment about bipartisan outfits never getting anything done, and I was going to comment, the Madden-Monroney committee is completely bipartisan, in other words six Democrats and six Republicans.

I think we did produce something; maybe not as much as I would have liked. I thought your points were well taken Mr. Young, but this is an area that I would argue with you that serves well to be on a bipartisan basis to get this element.

Mr. YOUNG. If the gentleman will yield, the committee has not reached the final finish line yet. Maybe it will be the exception.

Mr. MATSUNAGA. The only reason I bring this point up is that during the hearings we have had overtones of some apprehension that this might develop into an instrument for partisanship.

Mr. CURTIS. Let me say I think it will not, particularly if it is a bipartisan approach. I think the only way one party can take the partisan approach is if the other party refuses to move forward.

If both the Republican and Democratic parties' leadership moves forward to meet the problems in the field of ethics, then there is no issue, but if one lags

Mr. MATSUNAGA. You do not think this idea is a good one, to have two separate committees ?

Mr. CURTIS. No, because I do not think ethics in politics should be a partisan issue, and it can only become one if one of the parties lets it be by inaction on its part. I again emphasize, it can be such, but shouldn't be. I am really worried about this: If neither of the political parties moves forward in this area.

This is a very serious time in our history, in my judgment, where neither of the two political parties might move forward in this important area.

I am very serious about this, and we had better start thinking a bit whether the leadership in both the Democratic and Republican parties fail to move forward in an adequate way to meet this problem.

If they do not, I do not know what is going to occur. All I know is that somebody has got to grab the ball here, but this could notMr. MATSUNAGA. Then we will be at the mercy of an even greater ethics committee, our constituents.

If the news

Mr. CURTIS. And this goes back to the news media. media do not adequately report, and they have not reported the debate which occurred in the Powell case, and have permitted the word to get back to Harlem that this was a racial issue and that the debate was the result of panic and not deliberation, yes, we can have a constituency respond in an inadequate way.

The responsibility in representative government in reporting to the people is twofold: On our shoulders first, we are the people's representatives, but it is also on the news media.

If the Congressmen fail to talk and speak up, of course we cannot blame the news media for not reporting, but when they do speak up, then the news media-and as I look at you here, you people may report, but who on the cutting desk, the editor's desk, cuts it out? When you get onto television and they cut it on the floor and it is not viewed? And when you report it for the wire services and it never goes out on the wires? The net result is there. And the net result is there on this issue, the Powell case.

I have seen a shameful example of news reporting here. And if the constituency, mine and elsewhere, does not get the true message, what happened-not drawing your conclusions, but what happened then the constituency cannot judge well. For example, the New York Times had a full page and a long part on a back page, reporting the debate in the Powell case and not one word that I said in the 4 minutes that was granted to me to debate the position on the floor was reported. Yet I was the one who offered the resolution which was adopted.

The Washington Post, and so on, not one word. Plenty was said about Mr. Celler's expressed views, and other points of view. Not one word, though, by, or about, the arguments advanced by the person who offered the resolution that prevailed. When you have this kind of inadequate reporting, believe me we are in serious difficulty, and we are in serious difficulty in my judgment, very, very serious.

If anyone reviewing the record of that debate thought that there were racial tones in it, let them say so. Anyone reviewing that debate and thinking that it was not conducted on a high level of discussing issues, let them say so.

Regretably we have had Members of Congress make statements to the effect that this was a hysterical kind of debate, and that this had racial overtones, and I have got the news clippings of their statements, too. This was a considered debate and racism was not in evidence. The CHAIRMAN. Anything further?

Mr. MATSUNAGA. No.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you, Mr. Curtis.

Mr. Reid, the committee will be glad to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF OGDEN R. REID, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF NEW YORK

Mr. REID. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am very appreciative of the opportunity and privilege of testifying before your committee. I will be very brief, because I know Chairman Aspinall and members of his distinguished committee are here and I am not unmindful of your injunction.

Permit me, Mr. Chairman, to say that I also have had the good fortune to attend not a few of these hearings of the Rules Committee, and I would like to commend you and the members of this committee for the thoughtfulness, the diligence, and the time that you have given to this very important subject.

Mr. Chairman, in my judgment it is imperative that the Congress act decisively and with dispatch to restore public confidence in the integrity of the Congress.

I think all of us are not unaware that we have enacted comprehensive conflict-of-interest provisions to apply to the executive branch and yet have not seen fit to test our own conduct by comparable standards.

The public is not unaware that by Executive order each officer and employee of the executive arm is subject to a comprehensive code of conduct. Yet we have not seen fit to enact a code to govern our own conduct, nor that of the officers and employees of the legislative branch. The public is not unaware that the major officers of the executive branch are obliged to make disclosure of their financial associations. Yet we have not seen fit to require that for ourselves.

As members of the committee are aware, I introduced three bills at the beginning of this Congress, and others going back to preceding Congresses. House Resolution 87, House Concurrent Resolution 42, and H.R. 1162 have been introduced this year.

Since the introduction of those bills, Mr. Chairman, and in the light of some of the testimony that I have heard here, I do have a few brief additional thoughts, some new thoughts on the subject.

First, I feel very strongly that there should be a permanent and preferably a joint committee, a standing committee to deal with congressional ethics.

I think that it is important that this committee be empowered to take significant action and have powers of enforcement and be able to receive complaints, properly verified, from any citizen.

Second, Mr. Chairman, I think it is imperative that we consider, and I seriously hope that this great Rules Committee will consider, a strong full disclosure bill, quite aside from what action you may take with regard to a separate ethics committee.

I am introducing today a unified package of six bills which I hope will be given some consideration and will sketch the perimeters of a broad approach. I am sure that they are going to require very careful consideration, but first I would urge a bill providing for full disclosure of income, gifts, real estate holdings, creditors, business enterprises in which Members own stocks, bonds, or other securities. Third, the establishment of a permanent House-Senate committee on ethics and conduct.

Fourth, the formation of a comprehensive code of ethics for Congress including rigorous conflict-of-interest provisions.

Mr. Chairman, I think there is some concern in the Congress and in America generally that concern over the formulation of an ethics committee may result in action on disclosure legislation being deferred, possibly unnecessarily, or indeed totally sidetracked.

I believe that full disclosure is the most effective vehicle for guarding against conflicts of interest in Government service. The refusal to act decisively and with dispatch would constitute, I think, a serious dereliction of our public trust.

I think that in terms of conflict-of-interest legislation that the type of rule that should be set would hold that it is indefensible to have a double standard. I think it is indefensible not to make clear that any Member of this body, or of the Senate, must uphold standards similar to those which we insist that the executive maintain.

I would hope the committee would consider a broad conflict-ofinterest standard which would apply to all Members, prohibiting