mr. speaker , i rise in opposition to what i consider a shameless rules package which will undermine the ethical standards held by this house .  after the elections in november , the first thing the republican majority did was to lower the house 's ethical standard .  in an act of unprecedented shamelessness , they changed the rule of their party to permit an indicted member of their party to remain in a leadership position .  yesterday , in the face of an overwhelming bipartisan and public condemnation they changed their rules back .  this is not shocking .  what is shocking is that they ever considered it in the first place .  even more shocking , just if you think you have seen it all , is that the majority considered deleting the most fundamental of ethics rules which says that members of the house should be held to the highest standards of ethical conduct .  it says a member shall conduct himself at all times in a manner that should reflect creditably on the house of representatives .  dropping this rule is unthinkable .  yet republicans only decided to keep it last night when the issue became too hot for them to handle .  thank heavens it became too hot for them to handle , but what is completely apparent to the public and those who follow the congress is that the republicans did not leave it at that .  they went on to make new mistakes , to undermine the ethical standard of the house .  instead of a bipartisan effort to strengthen the ethical process , the republicans have engaged in a completely partisan exercise that should be an affront to every member on either side of the aisle who has served in this body .  the proposed changes which are still in this rules package are destructive , and they are unethical .  mr. speaker , i know of what i speak .  i served on the committee on standards of official conduct for 6 years , and then for a seventh year i served as a part of the bipartisan committee to rewrite the ethics rules .  it is bipartisan , evenly divided , and we came up with new ethics rules , some of which survived the floor that year in 1997 .  the package that was put together was meant to be fair to members as well as uphold the high ethical standards .  it says that members should be judged by their actions and by the rules of the house and the law .  so it was only about what took place , the facts and the law .  it was not about rumor .  it was not about hearsay .  it was about the facts , the rules of the house and the law .  there was a process which was fair to members because , as i say , as someone who has 7 years on the ethical process , that it is very hard to make judgments about our peers .  it is a very , very difficult task , and we want to be fair , but we have a higher responsibility to uphold that ethical standard .  so it was put forth and has been the rules of the house and the committee on standards of official conduct that in order to cease or dismiss a case , we had to have a majority of the committee on standards of official conduct .  that would be eliminated today .  that would be eliminated today .  so , on a partisan basis , there could be no cases that go forward .  either party with half the votes in the committee , evenly split , could cease and desist any complaints from going forward .  that is simply not right .  the point of the committee on standards of official conduct is to have a process in which to deal with ethics complaints against members .  the point of the committee on standards of official conduct is not to whitewash or to have a system that says nothing will ever move forward .  what could the republicans be afraid of that they would so fundamentally undermine the ethical process of the house to say we are going to establish a system where nothing will ever go forward ?  this simply is wrong .  we owe it to the public , we owe it to each other to uphold that ethical standard .  so , as i say , on the first day of this new congress , the republican majority is publicly demonstrating what has been evident for some time , and that is its arrogance , its pettiness , its shortsighted focus on their political life rather than to decide how we are each of us fit to govern .  here is the thing .  we have this rules package before us .  they did some flash last night so that the press is saying , oh , they blinked .  they did blink on a couple of different scores , but the fundamental challenge to the ethical standard of the house being enforced is still in this rules package , and it should be rejected .  democrats have made two proposals .  one of them is to remove this change , and that would be a vote on the previous question , and then on the motion to recommit we address two other abuses of power that should be addressed in this bill .  one is what i will call the tauzin rule , and the democratic motion to commit would forbid a member of congress to negotiate with an outside entity that has business before his or her committee and before the congress , in the current congress or in a previous congress , called the tauzin rule because mr. tauzin , who managed the medicare bill , was at the time being courted by the pharmaceutical industry which was to benefit from provisions in the prescription drug bill , a rumored $ 2 million a year salary for selling america 's seniors down the river .  that is simply wrong .  has this become an auction house ?  the public has to think and believe that when we are here and we are on the public payroll and we are members of congress that our accountability is to them and not to our next job .  i call that the revolving door , shorthand for the tauzin rule , and the impact of that is a very , very bad prescription drug bill that put pharmaceutical companies first , seniors last .  in our motion to commit we also address the 3-day rule .  as many of my colleagues recall in recent memory , there was occasion on the floor when a huge bill of many thousands of pages , containing nine appropriations bills , seven of which never appeared on the floor of the united states senate , came before this house where the matter was overnight passed in the committee on rules , came to the floor the next morning without any chance of members being able to read the bill .  it came under the martial law rule the republicans use by which they say we waive the 3-day rule by a simple majority .  it should take two-thirds , but by a simple majority we waive the 3-day rule .  well , why was it important ?  it was important that day because there was a great deal in that bill that members did not know about that they were voting on and should not they know that , but very specifically in that bill and it was not found out until the because of the egregiousness of that and the violation of privacy of the american people , i insisted that the members come back to vote on that rather than just have it be done by unanimous consent to remove that provision from the law .  why did i call members back ?  so that the american people will know because of the abuse of power in this house , ignoring of the 3-day rule , that members can not even see what they are voting on before they vote on it , and something like looking at your tax returns could be sneaked into the bill , without any safeguards to protect people from that .  that is just one example .  another example is the medicare prescription drug bill which came to the floor without proper time for review as well .  the list goes on and on .  in our motion to commit , we address the abuse of power of a powerful chairman , negotiating for a job while he was a member of congress , who had control of the bill over the industry , which was offering him $ 2 million a year .  that is how much it cost to sell the american seniors down the river , and i hope that even if you separate yourself from any of the examples and just say i sent you to congress to represent me , you do that in what you say there and how you vote , and i expect that you know what you are voting on .  the message to the american people here this afternoon is a vote for the motion to commit , is a vote for members to be able to read a bill before they vote on it .  is that asking too much ?  the republicans say it is .  so a yes vote on the motion to commit gives members the 3 days which under the rules of the house they are entitled to .  a vote for the motion to commit stops the unethical process of members negotiating with people outside , whose bills they are managing inside this congress , in this congress or in the previous congress .  the previous question vote would say no to the republicans in their evisceration of the ethical process of this house by saying that you do not need a majority to dismiss a case ; you can just do it if all the members of your party on the committee decide to stick with you on it .  it is simply not right , and this should not be partisan .  that is really what is really sad about it .  everything that we have done in the ethics process has had some level of respect to the extent that it has because it has been bipartisan , bipartisan in writing the rules , evenly divided committee , cooperation between the chair and ranking member .  today is a major departure from that , and i guess maybe i have just spent too many long hours for too many long years in the committee on standards of official conduct room trying to respect the rights of members and our higher responsibility to uphold an ethical standard .  to see the republicans today run roughshod , rigging the rules , negotiating for jobs , no reading of the bill , it is an outrage .  it is an absolute outrage .  so i urge my colleagues to vote yes on the previous question , yes on the motion to commit , and by all means , however you vote on those , no on this very shameful rules package .  