Mr. BENNETT. I think in this field, I think when it has been given the powers that are in this field, it is my understanding they do.

Mr. DELANEY. We have a conflict. There is a standing committee with some powers, that is, on the election and so forth. Would it not be better to include al of these things under one committee?

Mr. BENNETT. I am not avaricious for jurisdiction; it's not me. The committee is not avaricious for jurisdiction. There is juridiction in the House Administration Committee which it has had for years with regard to its accounts which it supervises administratively, in addition to oversight. In other words, it approves the checks, and I don't see any reason to move that jurisdiction into this committee. I would think the things that they have had before under their jurisdiction they could well continue.

I think this committee is going to have plenty to do without getting into the House Administration Committee's functions. If you wanted to specifically spell it out in the resolution, this came up as a practical matter last fall because if this committee had been avaricious about jurisdiction, it might have raised the question with regard to House Administration Committee and its looking into Adam Clayton

Powell.

It did not do so. It felt that the House Administration Committee had a jurisdiction in this field and it was proper for it to handle the hearings. It made no protest or effort to get into this act whatsoever. And I think this would be the experience in the future, but if you wanted to write something into the law to specifically preserve to the House Administration Committee the things that are within its powers, elections and accounts, this would certainly not in any way seriously affect this committee.

Mr. DELANEY. It seems there is such a close relationship between the House Administration and this select committee that it should come under one head rather than under separate heads.

Mr. BENNETT. Well, I have already stated in my statement why I don't think this broad power should be given to the House Administration Committee. I must also add if you try to do so, you would have to have a two-thirds vote, as I understand it, because it would require an amendment of the rules.

It does not have the jurisdiction at the present moment and I think this is an important enough thing and I think the country wants this thing to be looked at importantly and handled importantly, an important enough thing to put it in the hands of a committee which is designed to try to improve this particular thing instead of just sticking it in another committee which has endless things to do as it is.

Mr. DELANEY. We have a joint committee here with Mr. Madden and Mr. Monroney. They recommend

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, they did.

Mr. DELANEY. Well, if they recommended an ethics committee, then it would go through both Houses and we would have it as a joint committee?

Mr. BENNETT. The only difference between that committee recommended by the Joint Committee on Organization of the House and Senate, and this committee, is this very mild-but I think important

provision that in proper cases reflecting upon the House with competent evidence submitted that they will have the ability to censure. Now, of course, the Senate committee which already stands, and it is a standing committee, I believe, anyway it already exists-it has much broader authority than what is recommended in the joint committee recommendation and much broader authority than this resolution could give, because it could actually, I assume, expel a member. It could not itself; it could recommend impeachment or expulsion or recommend a lot of things which this committee cannot do.

All this committee could do would be in these very narrow cases properly safeguarded, based on a law which has already been passed, it could in those cases recommend to the House that a resolution of censure be passed.

Mr. YOUNG. Is that the Committee on Rules and Administration? Mr. BENNETT. The House Committee on Rules.

Mr. DELANEY. This committee has been established and called upon to act on their recommendation. We are acting on their recommendation to the joint House and Senate on the organization of the committee.

In the meanwhile we have an amendment of their recommendations right here with a select committee for the purpose of ethics. I understand there is a recommendation in there.

Mr. BENNETT. Yes, but it does not contain this particular provision that I think is important to the committee. It does not contain it and I think it should contain it.

Mr. DELANEY. I don't know what the recommendations are, but I understand there is a recommendation in there.

Mr. BENNETT. It is virtually almost what our last year's bill was. Mr. DELANEY. We are going ahead now and then we get a general reorganization. We are doing this piecemeal when we could do the whole thing together.

Mr. BENNETT. Well, of course, this measure is a highly important measure. If you took the testing of the people throughout the country on the things they are real interested in, this rates real close to Vietnam, and to say this thing has got to wait until that omnibus bill is passed, which may be defeated on something other than this entirely, and all the delays involved in it, to tell the public they will wait that long, I think, would frustrate the public and make them rather furious, because I think they feel this is something we could handle.

It is not a complicated matter. The bill we had last session was what was in the joint committee recommendation.

Now, the Senate itself, the Senate itself gave much more power than we are asking for here in their Senate committee. As I say, it has much greater power, but the joint committee recommendation was just exactly what we had in the last session.

Mr. MADDEN. Would you yield? Were you talking about the joint committee recommendation?"

The CHAIRMAN. Yes, the question was asked.

Mr. MADDEN. For the information of the committee, the recommen

dation of the Joint Committee on Organization of the Congress was, and I will read it:

The House of Representatives shall create a committee on standards and conduct. The Joint Committee heard considerable testimony with respect to the problem of the ethical conduct of members of Congress. It is the opinion of the Joint Committee that the House of Representatives should create a committee to be concerned with the standards and conduct of members of the House. The Senate has already created a committee to examine problems in this area and the House might explore profitably the organization and procedures of the Senate committee prior to implementing this recommendation.

Now, Mr. Chairman, that was the consensus of the opinion of the joint committee and the recommendation as far as the House was concerned, so I just thought I would read that for the information of the members.

The CHAIRMAN. If the gentleman from New York will yield to me to answer the gentleman from Indiana's question.

You state in your report, as you read it, this was to be a select committee. Is it to be a temporary committee or a permanent committee?

Mr. MADDEN. That is true.

The CHAIRMAN. Which is it?

Mr. MADDEN. It is the recommendation that the House create such a committee or explore the advisability of creating such a committee. The CHAIRMAN. What committee; permanent or select?

Mr. MADDEN. It doesn't set that out.

Mr. BENNETT. I can answer that. Upon advice of Mr. Sewell here, he tells me the bill that has been introduced to implement these recommendations provides for a select committee.

I misunderstood him. It is select in both instances.

Mr. SEWELL. In the bill it calls for a standing committee.

Mr. BENNETT. In the bill they call for a standing committee.

Mr. MADDEN. As I understand, some of the resolutions call for a select and some permanent; is that true?

Mr. BENNETT. Yes; that is correct.

The CHAIRMAN. Anything further, Mr. Delaney?

Mr. DELANEY. Just on the adoption, say, of the Madden bill, we would have a standing committee of the House and here we would have in existence a temporary or select committee?

Mr. BENNETT. Of course, we could amend that to put in a provision about censure so you could use this procedure. The question is whether you want to occupy this kind of time since you are giving it a full hearing now, whether you want to do that and whether you want to occupy this kind of time since we have had this full hearing and the issues are all before us.

I would hope the Rules Committee would come forth with whatever committee they wanted to have, a standing committee, select committee, giving it power to censure or not power to censure, as you all determine is best for our country and the House.

pass

Mr. DELANEY. Suppose the Madden bill were to pass now, and both Houses and you had a select committee here, then under this law, why, we would have a standing committee of the House. We would have a conflict then?

Mr. BENNETT. I don't believe that would happen on the floor of the House. I believe an amendment would take place during the debate which would handle that. It would either take the standing committee we create by the Rules Committee here, and I do hope you create a standing committee, or you would change that provision of the Madden provision to make it a select committee, since that would be the normal way to operate, I would think.

The CHAIRMAN. Of course, this committee has original jurisdiction in this matter. It could report out any kind of a resolution it saw fit. Mr. Martin?

Mr. MARTIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I concur in your remarks, Mr. Bennett. I think you made a very fine statement. The feeling in the country today and the image of the Congress, I think, demands completely that a separate committee be set up in this area, not assigned to the House Administration Committee or any other committee that we have in existence.

I think this is most important for the image of the Congress itself. I think we need a strong piece of legislation in this area, or a strong resolution. I have a question or two on part of your testimony.

On page 3 under section 2, you state:

Such an investigation may be made only upon receipt by the Select Committee of a complaint, in writing and under oath, made by or submitted to a member of the House, and transmitted to the Select Committee by such member.

Do you not think there is a little weakness involved in that procedure? There might be cases of misconduct that occur outside the House which would not be known to the Members themselves, yet could be reported by outside people who, if they had the authority to report directly to this select committee, would do so.

Secondly, it seems to me that there is a weakness in that under this language a person would have to make his complaint to some other Member of the House and there might be a great reluctance on the part of the Member to file, under oath, a formal complaint against one of his colleagues.

Mr. BENNETT. On that last point you make, it would not be envisioned that the Member of Congress would file anything under his own oath, unless it was his own information. The procedure of setting it up that way was done analogous to the prosecuting attorney referring things to the grand jury or things of this type.

I must say, speaking for myself and I think for every member of this committee, of course, I cannot speak for them because they did not vote on this particular thing, but looking at the careful minutes we took, which are available for anybody to read, the provision about making it under oath and in writing, and the provision about a Member of the House having to refer it to the committee were done entirely for the purpose of reassuring Members of Congress that trivial matters would not come in any way to the committee. The committee would still have the discretion to turn it down.

Mr. MARTIN. Your staff could turn it down?

Mr. BENNETT. I would much prefer having those provisions stricken, because the committee still does not have to hear these matters. If trivial, the staff or the committee can sift them. I don't think a matter should be considered under investigation unless the committee makes

a motion it is under investigation, so I think the committee can well protect Members in this field.

Analogous in the Senate, they did not put anything in theirs about being under oath and in writing and Members submitting it to the committee. If you remember in the last days of the last session of Congress, I am not perhaps the most belligerent Member of Congress available to carry on this kind of fight, but with the assistance of some stalwart men on both sides of the aisle, we were able to make a case, but we were under heavy attack from people who said this was an immolation committee and something to destroy Members of Congress and all kinds of protection should be set up to keep down this abuse, and, of course, there is no Member of Congress probably that has said -I will put it this way. As far as I am concerned, if I go back on this committee, I don't know whether I would or not, I have never said an adverse thing about any Member of Congress either privately or publicly and I am certainly not anxious to see anybody hurt.

All I want to do is help raise the standards of Congress analogous to the grievance committee and the bar, known by its anonymity, not publicity. It is known by its effort to prevent rather than its penalization of individuals.

So I think these provisions are entirely unnecessary and I would welcome them being stricken by the Rules Committee if it wants to do so, because I think it is a weakness I think it would be good to strike it, but if it makes some of the apprehensive Members of Congress happier, well, it is a rule which we could live with and we are not anxious to do anything but help, not to hurt.

Mr. MARTIN. Well, one other question, Mr. Bennett, in regard to protection of the Members of the Congress themselves.

The resolution reported by the Rules Committee last fall required a two-thirds vote, two-thirds of the total membership, eight of the 12 members, for a report or a censure of a Member to the House.

Now, as I read your resolution, it would require a simple majority? Mr. BENNETT. That is true only because the House itself in working its will on this bill did this. You see, in other words, this resolution you have before you today has had only one thing done to it other than what the House did to it last fall.

The only thing done to it is to allow resolutions of censorship to be presented in proper cases for action by the House of Representatives. That was the only thing added. It was my thought and the committee's though that the House had worked its feeling about what the House had decided.

As far as I am concerned, and I guess as far as the other members are concerned, the two-third requirement is not unusual. I said repeatedly in the hearings of this committee I hoped this committee could be a unanimous committee; I hoped that, there is no rule about that.

I hope we can do that. I served under Mr. Vinson for many years in the Armed Services Committee. That was his rule-we did not bring out things unless they came out unanimously. Of course, you cannot always do that, but you can have that as a goal, so I think twothirds would not be a difficult thing to live with at all.