[House Hearing, 110 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING ON ADOPTION OF COMMITTEE RULES
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE VOTING
IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 2007
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 27, 2007
__________
WASHINGTON, DC
SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2,
2007
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachussetts, Chairman
ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama MIKE PENCE, Indiana, Ranking
STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, South Member
Dakota STEVEN C. LaTOURETTE, Ohio
KENNY C. HULSHOF, Missouri
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C O N T E N T S
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Page
I. Opening Statements:
1. Delahunt, Hon. William.................................... 1
2. Pence, Hon. Mike.......................................... 2
3. Davis, Hon. Artur......................................... 3
4. LaTourette, Hon. Steven C................................. 4
5. Herseth-Sandlin, Hon. Stephanie........................... 5
6. Husholf, Hon. Kenny....................................... 6
II. Appendix:
Amendment by Mr. Latourette.................................. 31
ORGANIZATIONAL MEETING ON ADOPTION OF COMMITTEE RULES; CONSIDERATION OF
INTERIM REPORT; AND HEARING ON VOTING IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
----------
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2007
House of Representatives,
Select Committee To Investigate the Voting Irregularities
of August 2, 2007,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to call, at 9:11 a.m., in Room
H-313, The Capitol, Hon. William D. Delahunt (Chairman of the
committee) presiding.
Present: Representatives Delahunt, Davis, Herseth Sandlin,
Pence, LaTourette and Hulshof.
The Chairman. A quorum being present, the select committee
will come to order.
Today we are meeting to do three tasks: adopt our committee
rules, adopt the internal report, and to hear for the first
time--of what we expect to be multiple occasions--from the
Office of the House Clerk. We will wait for the gentlelady from
South Dakota, who was at her other select committee.
I now recognize myself for 5 minutes to make an opening
statement, but before I do, let me note I will then go to
Congressman Pence as the Ranking Member. And in subsequent
hearings, it would be our hope that just he and I would make
opening statements. But on this initial hearing, any member of
the panel that wishes to make an opening statement is most
welcome.
I would be remiss not to begin by thanking the Chair of the
House Rules Committee, Louise Slaughter, and the Ranking
Member, David Dreier, for making their hearing room available
to the select committee.
I also want to welcome everyone to this initial meeting of
the select committee that has been mandated by the House to
review roll call No. 814. I would note that none of the Members
sought this particular assignment, but each of us appreciates
the role and the significance of the House in our unique
constitutional order, and recognize that the integrity of the
system by which we cast our votes on the House floor is
essential to the confidence that the American people have in
this institution, aptly described as the people's House.
We are all institutionalists. Each of my colleagues has
served this House well. Each is admired and respected on both
sides of the aisle and enjoys a reputation that reflects the
finest traditions of this institution. I am genuinely honored
to serve with them. But I do believe, though I am not naive,
that this augurs well for a successful effort, for I have no
reservations about the motives and bona fides of these Members,
and I am confident that, at a minimum, we will be able to
demonstrate a degree of civility and comity that reflects well
on the House of Representatives and is expected by the American
people.
Today we will adopt a set of rules and an interim report
that will yield order and efficiency, and ensure
bipartisanship, cooperation, and, most importantly,
transparency. This would not have been possible without the
assistance of the Congressional Research Service. I would note
that as the committee took stock of resource issues, the
Ranking Member and I requested the assistance of CRS, and we
have been indeed fortunate to have access to Judy Schneider and
Mike Campbell, whose expertise is truly remarkable. They have
been a superb resource as we get under way, and we are in their
debt. Thank you, Judy, and thank you, Michael.
The Chairman. With that, let me yield to the Ranking
Member, the gentleman from Indiana, Mike Pence.
Mr. Pence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And at this first
formal meeting of the select committee to investigate the
voting irregularities of August 2, 2007, let me say I am
humbled to serve as the Ranking Member. I will seek to confirm
the confidence placed in me by approaching this task with a
firm commitment to fairness and effectiveness.
I am especially grateful to serve with my Vice Ranking
Member, Steve LaTourette of Ohio, and Congressman Kenny
Hulshof, whose years of experience exceed mine, and whose
reputations for integrity will, as the Chairman noted, greatly
enhance our ability to move forward.
Allow me, Mr. Chairman, to echo the esteem which you
expressed for all the members of this committee. Based on the
caliber of the Members appointed by the Democratic majority,
including the Chairman, and given in evidence of our
preliminary and informal discussions prior to this hearing, I
am confident we will be able to proceed with this inquiry in a
bipartisan manner that puts the interests of the American
people over partisan politics.
I am especially grateful for the Chairman's cooperation in
the securing of resources for this committee and very much look
forward to continuing to work with you and all the members of
this committee to ensure that we have the resources necessary
to conduct this investigation in a manner befitting the
seriousness of the issues.
The Constitution of the United States enshrines the right
of every Member of the House of Representatives to vote on the
floor of the House on behalf of the people they were elected to
serve. This select committee has been charged with a solemn
duty: to investigate voting irregularities on August 2, 2007.
The integrity of the House of Representatives is completely
dependent on the integrity of the vote that takes place on the
floor of Congress. Every American is entitled to have a voice
in the people's House and to know that their Representative's
vote counts.
As the ancients knew, honesty in measurement is central to
the administration of justice. In the book of Leviticus that I
read just this morning, it provides, quote, ``Do not use
dishonest standards when measuring length, weight or quantity.
Use honest scales and honest weight.''
The events of August 2, 2007, where confusion and anger
reigned on the House floor, represented a serious breakdown in
the voting system of this institution, and the integrity of the
means of measurement was called into question. That night the
Republican minority voted to deny taxpayer-funded benefits to
illegal immigrants in roll call vote No. 814. According to the
voting machine and the minority, the Republican motion to
recommit prevailed. According to the man holding the gavel and
the majority, the Democratic majority prevailed.
This conflict between parties, man and machine, must be
thoroughly investigated. This select committee must follow the
facts and let the chips fall where they may. Whether they lead
to findings of an abuse of authority to benefit illegal
immigrants, or to glaring holes in the rules of the House, or
to other determinations, we will expose the truth of what
happened and ensure the voting franchise of every Member of
Congress is protected.
And let me say as I close, Mr. Chairman, we will approach
this task in a fair, thorough and solemn manner, for as the
scholar Norm Ornstein wrote recently, quote, ``The dynamic here
between the parties is not just game playing, it is serious
business. The House is fragile enough that we could end up with
truly nasty and counterproductive behavior deeply damaging to
the country and the long-term operation of the Congress,''
closed quote.
I look forward to working with my colleagues in both
parties on this committee. I appreciate the spirit of
cooperation and comity that has characterized our discussions
to date. Members of the minority commit today to continue in
this spirit to ensure that the Members, officers of the House,
or staff who were responsible for this incident be held to
account and to develop recommendations to ensure that this
never happens again. We owe the American people and the
people's House nothing less.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Pence. And let me turn to the
Vice Chair of the select committee, the distinguished gentleman
from Alabama, Artur Davis, and see whether he wishes to make
any opening remarks.
Mr. Davis. Mr. Chairman, thank you for recognizing me. I
will be extremely brief because I know that we are here to
begin this process today and not to orate. But let me just say
a couple things by way of perspective.
The first one is this: Many of the American people do not
realize how exclusive this institution of the House of
Representatives has been since 1789. As of this day, September
27, 2007, less than 13,000 American citizens have ever served
in this place. The smallest county in my congressional district
has the same number of people. Many of the counties that many
of us represent have substantially greater numbers of people.
This is one of the smallest, most exclusive fraternities and
sororities, if you will, in the world, and we are mindful of
that, Mr. Chairman.
We are also mindful of this solemn charge we have been
given by our colleagues. Our colleagues voted overwhelmingly in
a bipartisan manner to charge a group of Members to conduct a
searching inquiry of the moment on August 2, 2007, when the
routine turned unusual, and a process that we have come to take
for granted experienced some unexpected bumps and turns.
All six of us take this responsibility enormously
seriously, and I echo what the Chairman and Ranking Member have
said. We are honored. Not one of us sought out this assignment.
This is the fourth committee for some of us. But we have all
agreed to serve--if I can be so bold to say what I think all of
us are thinking--we have all agreed to serve, because whenever
the House is in question, whenever its practices are in
question, Members have a stake in doing all that we can to
ensure to preserve its integrity. And I am sure that is the
spirit that will motivate us.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Davis. I will now go to the
Vice Ranking Member of the select committee, the distinguished
gentleman from Ohio, who, during the Republican era as the
majority party, distinguished himself, on many occasions, as
the presiding Member and someone whom I look forward to working
with because of his special expertise and his exceptional
talent, Mr. LaTourette of Ohio.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As I was
getting ready for this hearing last night, I began to think
about--and I believe I am the oldest-serving Member, the Member
who has been in the House the longest.
The Chairman. You might be the oldest Member, actually.
Mr. LaTourette. I was going to say I don't think I am the
oldest Member, but this is my seventh term. I am a member of
the historic Republican class of the 104th Congress. I had
never served as a legislator before. I was a prosecuting
attorney by nature, so a lot of the things I saw in 1995 were
foreign to me. I had never encountered them.
I remember going to Republican conference meetings, and
hearing some of my new Republican friends say, ``40 years we
have been in the wilderness, and now it is payback time. We are
going to treat the Democrats the way they have treated us for
40 years.'' Then, as I was here a little bit longer, about 6
months later, I became friendly with a number of the people on
the Democratic side. They would say to me, ``We were bad, but
we were never this bad.'' I took that to heart.
Then we sort of fast forward 12 years, and because of some
missed cues on our part, the majority has now shifted again.
The 110th Congress is an historic Congress in that we have the
first woman Speaker of the House in the history of our country.
And I think we are all honored to serve in this country. I know
from a Republican perspective, it is nice that we have made
history. Now let's get back to the way it was for 12 years.
But I hear the same things. I hear some of my Democratic
friends say, ``You abused us for 12 years; now it is payback
time.'' And I hear some of my Republican friends say, ``We were
bad, but we were never this bad.'' And that brings us to this
committee and why I think while perhaps the world isn't
watching, I hope that our colleagues who aren't serving on the
committee are watching.
During our first get-together a number of us on this
committee said, in discharging its responsibility fully and
fairly, the committee has the opportunity to bring the
temperature down here on the House side, and I hope that is
where we go. And I will tell you that there are a number of
steps that we are going to have to take and a number of steps
that we have already taken that give me hope. And I just want
to outline those steps and tell our colleagues that aren't here
today why they should be encouraged by what we are about to
embark on.
There are a number of things that didn't have to happen. We
didn't even have to be in this room. When Minority Leader
Boehner made the motion to create this select committee, the
majority leader Mr. Hoyer could have moved to table it, and it
would have been a partisan vote, and there never would have
been a select committee. The majority chose not to do that. The
majority leader said that he recognized that there were some
difficulties with rollcall 814, and he didn't stand in the way
of setting up the committee. I think that is an important thing
to recognize and give credit to the majority for doing.
The second thing that you and other Members have talked
about, each side could have picked really partisan people to be
on this select committee. And Mr. Pence quoted Mr. Ornstein's
article. He predicted that this would be a 3-3 tie; we are just
going to be partisans, we will pretend to be fair, but we are
not going to get anywhere. And I don't think that is the case.
I think the leadership of both parties deserves credit for
employing people that, at least in my understanding, will
attempt to be fair.
And then lastly, after our last get-together, I was tasked
to meet with Congressman Davis to talk about things like
scheduling and how we will move forward, and I found nothing
but cooperation, and I found nothing but a willingness to work
together. And I think that we are off to a good first few
steps, and I look forward to continuing this way. It is an
honor to serve with you men and woman, and I look forward to
it.
The Chairman. Thank you, Steve. And let me go to my right
and recognize the gentlelady from South Dakota, Stephanie
Herseth-Sandlin.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will echo the comments previously made in terms of how I
deem it an honor to serve with very distinguished and respected
colleagues to look into the circumstances surrounding a
particular rollcall vote, but also the broader charge of making
recommendations that may be necessary to ensure that we can
avoid such circumstances in the future; and to do this
historically, to understand the practices, the traditions of
the institution, of what happened on the House floor in the
past, how we conduct our work, how we work with one another,
and how much we rely on those who are on the House floor to
help us as we cast our votes on behalf of our constituents.
And as was commented upon as well, we have man, machine,
and parties and competing circumstances, again, with this vote,
but taking the broader view, laying the foundation, following
the facts, and making recommendations that are good for the
institution, that are fair to all of our colleagues, and
certainly making sure that the commitment to our constituents
and the integrity of the votes that we cast on their behalf is
ensured for this Congress and Congresses to come.
And the seriousness with which we all undertake these
responsibilities on the select committee can't be overstated in
terms of where the accountability will reside as we look into a
particular rollcall vote, but, again, providing the clarity
that may be necessary going forward. And I agree with my
colleagues that the comity and cooperation that has already
marked our work, that we anticipate would continue to mark our
work, will impact the broader environment in which we work here
in the House of Representatives.
So thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Pence, for what
we have already accomplished in a relatively short period of
time, and working with all of us to ensure that the process
going forward with the select committee is one that is
transparent, that is fair, and that is focused on the
betterment of the institution.
The Chairman. Thank you, Congresswoman. And let me now go
to the gentleman from Missouri with whom I have worked in the
past. The circumstances brought us together again on a
difficult task, but one in which I know he will conduct
himself, as he always does, in a manner that speaks well of his
personal integrity, his independence and his fairness, and that
is Kenny Hulshof.
Mr. Hulshof. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for your
courtesies, thank you for your friendship. I appreciate that.
It is humbling to be here with the caliber and integrity of
the Members that are here. It is an unfortunate matter that
such an event occurred in August that necessitates this select
committee, but it is fortunate not just for the institution, it
is fortunate for the American people the caliber of those that
are here sharing the dais with me, with whom I am privileged to
serve to get to the bottom of this matter.
Mr. Delahunt, my friend, references the other occasion with
which unusual circumstances brought us together. The last time
I served in this type of investigatory capacity, it was, again,
centering on a vote on the House floor; not voting
irregularities, but the Medicare Modernization Act in November
of 2003, and there were some allegations made by certain
Members. And as a result, the Ethics Committee and the
investigative subcommittee were impaneled. I was the Chair of
that subcommittee, and Mr. Delahunt was fortunate enough to
also share time.
And as I recall, with reference to something you said, Mr.
LaTourette, to some of the naysayers out there, I recall before
that investigative subcommittee that there were those who
predicted doom and gloom, predicted gridlock, predicted that
the ethics process could never hold our peers accountable. In
that instance it was necessary; the House rules required us to
toil in confidentiality, so the public could not see what we
were doing in that instance. But I believe that the process and
the eventual report that admonished the then majority leader
proved those pessimists wrong.
I believe in this instance that we will go where the facts
will take us; we will judge those facts accordingly and take
whatever appropriate actions are deemed necessary. And I have
no qualms at all certainly about the Chairman and about his
dedication to that goal. I think, as everyone has said, the
integrity of the institution is at stake, and we will, I
believe, perform our service in a manner that will elevate the
integrity. And I appreciate that, Mr. Chairman.
I yield back to you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Kenny. The first agenda item is
the adoption of the select committee's rules. And before I
recognize the gentleman from Alabama, let me thank the
gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Davis, and the gentleman from Ohio,
Mr. LaTourette, for their work. During the course of the past
week, they have come together, and I think this was
acknowledged by Steve LaTourette, and worked together in a way
that I think befits what we have all been saying in terms of a
common ethic to work in a way that is bipartisan.
And with that, let me recognize the gentleman from Alabama.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I will ask the staff to publish the document that we will
submit for consideration labeled Rules of the Select Committee
to Investigate the August 2, 2007, Roll Call Vote 814. And let
me thank my friend from Ohio, Mr. LaTourette. Both of us were
charged with the responsibility for coming up with the rules
for this select committee, and we both believe that there was
no need to reinvent the wheel. We believe that, given our small
size and our charge to be expeditious, there were some minor
tweaks that we needed to make to help us do our business in a
more orderly fashion, but we arrived at an overwhelming
consensus in how we should do this.
The document being put in front of the Members and the
staff today is very straightforward. In effect, what we have
done, translated in plain English, is to adopt the rules of the
normally governed regular committees of the House of
Representatives with three exceptions. I will outline them.
Every committee is charged with setting a regular meeting
day. Clause number 1 states that the regular meeting day for
this committee should be the first Thursday of each month at 9
a.m. As all who are here are very well aware, the Chair has the
discretion first, and the Ranking Member, to add to that, to
task additional meetings to help us finish our business in the
next several months. But the regular meeting time that we will
establish will be 9 a.m. on Thursday. And again, the Chair will
make decisions as to whether our next meeting will be 2 weeks
from now, whether we will proceed every 2 weeks from this point
on, or whether our schedule will be more truncated to that.
The second provision deals with questioning witnesses.
Obviously, we are a very small committee. I believe that at
this point we are the smallest committee in the House of
Representatives with only six members. The questioning time at
which we have arrived, clause 2, is 30 minutes for each side.
The Chair and Ranking Member shall determine how to allocate
that questioning time, and, of course, as always, the Chair
retains discretion to permit additional rounds of questions and
additional questioning time. But the baseline should be 30
minutes allocated to each side for 1 hour total.
Final provision. Clause 3 refers to the time for submission
of supplemental minority or additional views. The timeframe we
have agreed on is 3 calendar days unless the committee should
agree to a different time. That is the position of the
committee Chairman and concurrence of the Ranking Member.
Again, very simple, very expeditious.
Mr. Chairman, Mr. LaTourette and I were also asked again to
consider the question of a timetable, a template for how we
intend to do our business, and we have decided to not publish
that document, not to make it public. But there is a draft
document that will be circulated internally to Members and
staff that does lay out a projected schedule. For those who are
here and who are interested, I will summarize it this way
without getting into details.
We intend to be expeditious. We intend to finish the public
hearing phase of this work before the House adjourns this year.
We intend to leave ourselves adequate time before the end of
the year to complete a written report, which may or may not
include supplemental minority views. But we intend to get the
hearing phase of this finished before we adjourn.
The schedule, Mr. Chairman, at which we have informally
arrived, is one that will again look into the foundational
work. As you will see today, we will have a witness who will
not act as a fact witness, but who will lay a foundation for
the August 2 vote and various technology and machinery
associated with it. We will move forward. We will have
witnesses who will talk about the rules and customs of the
House with respect to voting, and then for the end of our work,
Mr. Chairman, we will have fact witnesses.
Mr. LaTourette and I have arrived at a tentative list of
fact witnesses, fact witnesses defined as those who have
specific knowledge of the events in dispute that night, staff
members and relevant Members. And once again, that list has
been circulated internally.
If it is appropriate, Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield
now to Mr. LaTourette for any comments on the rules or any
amendment he may offer.
[Text of the amendment may be found in the Appendix.]
The Chairman. Mr. LaTourette.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you very much, Mr. Davis. I want to,
again, publicly indicate what a pleasure it has been to work
with you on this process.
We just have one minor dispute that will be the subject of
an amendment whenever the Chair feels it is appropriate,
dealing with the quorum of the committee.
I think we have provided a good rules package, and I think
there has been great input on both sides, and we are ready to
move forward. That is all I have to say about the rules.
On the schedule, I want to make a couple of observations
about the schedule, and that is, I think that it is our work
that can really help to educate other Members of the House as
to what the traditions are here. Everybody is busy. A lot of
people don't know how the electronic voting system got
installed, a lot of people don't know what the rules are, and
then that leads to some people getting mad when maybe they
shouldn't get mad. So I think that, by laying the foundation
today with the Clerk's Office, then moving through historians
in the next couple of hearings, and talking about the
precedents in the House, that the only cautionary note--and I
know that you have been great in working with us on resources--
the schedules Congressman Davis and I talked about do
contemplate having staff in place, staff for the committee by
the time we finish the history section so we can appropriately
prepare for the gathering of the facts relative to August 2.
And I want to publicly thank the Clerk of the House Ms.
Miller in not only what she and her staff have done to date,
but, echoing my comments in my opening remarks, a lot of people
think that because the Democratic Party is the majority, that
she is the Democratic Clerk of the House. Well, she is not. She
is the Clerk of the House, and the way that she and her staff
have discharged her responsibilities to this moment in time in
saving evidence and identifying to Congressman Davis and I who
on the dais might know things, might not know things is really
exemplary. And I want to thank you publicly for that.
Mr. LaTourette. And whenever you are ready, Mr. Chairman, I
have an amendment. It is not at the desk because we don't have
a desk yet. But I have an amendment.
The Chairman. We have a table. Let me call up the draft of
the committee rules and ask unanimous consent they be
considered as read and open to amendment at any point.
Mr. LaTourette. And I have such an amendment.
The Chairman. Mr. LaTourette.
Mr. LaTourette. I believe that Members have the amendment.
The amendment deals with the issue of quorum that we were not
able to agree on. The standard rules of the House for
committees----
Mr. Pence. This is a parliamentary inquiry of the Chair.
Since we don't have a clerk, is there--is it appropriate to
have the clerk report the amendment, or simply have a Member
read it?
The Chairman. Why don't I read the amendment then?
Mr. LaTourette. Perfect.
The Chairman. Someone suggested I should become a clerk.
``Amendment to the rules of the select committee to
investigate the voting irregularities of August 2, 2007,
offered by Representative LaTourette. Strike (3) in the second
sentence and insert (4). Add at the end of the following new
section 4, A Quorum: For the Purpose of Taking Testimony and
Receiving Evidence, One Member from the majority and one Member
from the minority shall constitute a quorum unless otherwise
agreed to by the ranking minority member.''
Mr. LaTourette, your amendment.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
As has been proposed by Mr. Davis, the standard rules of
the House would indicate a quorum of this committee would be
three Members. And again, standard committee rules would
indicate that for the purposes of taking testimony, you would
only need two Members and those Members could be of the same
party.
We have only one evenly split committee currently in the
House today and that is the Ethics Committee, and those rules
indicate that they cannot actually begin proceedings or take
testimony unless the majority is present. And that, by
definition, because it is five and five, indicates that there
has to be six Members, and somebody has got to be from the
other party. You can't get to six without having both
Republicans and Democrats in the room.
This simple change to the quorum--I can't imagine a
situation where all six of us wouldn't be present, but were
there such a situation, we are proposing that a quorum for the
purposes of receiving testimony and evidence be two rather than
three at a minimum, and that we have to have at least one
Republican one Democrat.
And I yield back.
Mr. Davis. Mr. Chairman, I will claim time to speak in
opposition to the amendment and just to give some perspective
to the committee. It is sometimes difficult to appreciate and
translate these rules which were written in English into the
plain language in which we speak in every day, so I will try to
do that.
So the difference in the rules, as they have been submitted
in the LaTourette amendment, is a fairly simple one. Normally
the rules don't contemplate a bipartisan quorum. Rules
translated to a committee of this size would establish a quorum
for taking testimony of not less than two. Mr. LaTourette's
amendment would add the additional requirement that it be a
bipartisan quorum, one Democrat and one Republican.
And I certainly understand Mr. LaTourette's perspective,
and it goes without saying that our colleagues meant this to be
an evenly balanced body. The resolution, frankly, could have
been amended on the floor to give Democrats the majority on
this committee. My leadership chose not to do that. If I can be
so bold as to speak for them, I suspect it was because they
knew it was important that the final product of this select
committee not be one that was rendered on a party-line basis,
but there be a final product that reflected bipartisan
consensus. That was the aim and the goal of this committee. So
we did reserve the advantage that the voters delivered to this
committee.
I think I 100 percent agree with Mr. LaTourette. I cannot
imagine a circumstance where we would proceed to take testimony
and not have a bipartisan representation in this room. For us
to do that would, frankly, flout the understanding that our
colleagues charged us with. We presented the rules as they are
again to describe for consistency what the rules employed are
by the committees, and because other committees don't include
the partisan point, we have chosen not to do that or to have a
bipartisan requirement. So I will make an observation, Mr.
Chairman, and then yield back.
The Chairman. The ranking member Mr. Pence.
Mr. Pence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be very brief.
I take the gentleman from Alabama's point to heart. I think
it is a valid point to say a majority quorum contemplates that
if one party is in the majority. But in this case I believe Mr.
LaTourette's amendment is appropriate, Mr. Chairman. And just
to ensure the confidence of the membership and the broader
public in the bipartisan nature of our deliberation, I would
heartily endorse the LaTourette amendment.
The Chairman. Well, in that spirit, if the gentleman yields
back----
Mr. Pence. Yield back.
The Chairman. And that is fair, Mr. Pence. And we were
talking about bipartisanship and comity. I will support the
amendment by the gentleman and----
Mr. Davis. Then I will withdraw any objection, Mr.
Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
So if there is no further discussion, the question is to
the draft committee rules as amended by Representative
LaTourette--I certainly demonstrated my knowledge and
familiarity with the rules of the House. I think that
underscores the observation by Mr. LaTourette that this select
committee provides all Members an opportunity to educate
themselves as well as the people about the practices and the
procedures in the rules of the House.
On the amendment, all those in favor say aye. Aye.
Having no need for a roll call vote, the amendment is
adopted.
If there is no further discussion, the question is on
agreeing to the draft committee rules. Those in favor, say aye.
Aye.
Those opposed to, say no.
Hearing none, in the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have
it, and the select committee's rules are adopted.
The second agenda item is adoption of the interim report.
As Members know, the interim report must be filed by September
30, which is Sunday, and it is my understanding the House is
not expected to be in session tomorrow, which is Friday.
At our preliminary meeting we requested that the
Congressional Research Service prepare a draft or interim
report and then provide that document to Mr. Pence and myself,
which CRS has done. We have disseminated it to our colleagues
on both sides, and the document before the select committee
today reflects any changes suggested by committee members to
that draft.
Is there any discussion or amendments to the interim
report?
Mr. Pence.
Mr. Pence. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me just say that I am very grateful for the approach
which you endorsed early on in some of our preliminary
discussions that we would fulfill our statutory obligation in
the September 30, 2007, report without going forward into
debates about facts and controversies that the committee would
not have the ability to have investigated up to that point.
I believe this report lays a solid foundation for us to
begin our work, and I believe it will serve to inform the
Members of Congress about our work to date and the manner
whereby we intend to go forward. And that, in combination with
the deliberations of today, I believe represents a good start.
I would raise the issue that while we did move a recitation
of the rules cited by CRS as relevant to this discussion to an
appendix. I would like to engage the Chair in a colloquy on--
about the inclusion of these rules in an appendix to the report
as descriptive and not proscriptive. I think we don't know yet,
Mr. Chairman, what rules of the House will bear upon this
inquiry until we enter into a detailed investigation of the
facts and circumstances surrounding what occurred on August 2.
I am mindful, though, of the good-faith effort of my staff
at the Congressional Research Service to simply identify rules
that may pertain to our inquiry, but I might welcome a colloquy
with you about ensuring the Members in the minority that the
appendix is in a very real sense merely a good-faith effort to
describe the rules that we believe at this moment to be
relevant to the inquiry.
The Chairman. If the gentleman would yield?
Mr. Pence. Pleased to yield.
The Chairman. I would concur with your interpretation.
Clearly, you know, this is the product by the Congressional
Research Service, and it is not meant to be comprehensive
without further review by the committee. I would also note that
it does not draw any conclusions.
My own observation was with the naming of the select
committee involving the term ``irregularities,'' I think if I
had been aware of the naming of the committee while the
resolution was being considered on the floor, I would have
raised the issue that that was conclusory, and it was really
the task or the responsibility of this select committee to
determine what the facts are.
But that is of no great consequence, and I certainly concur
with your interpretation of the appendix as drafted by the
Congressional Research Service.
Mr. Pence. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you for that clarification. The only other issue I
would raise as we work through this draft is the issue that you
mentioned in your opening statement and our colleagues
mentioned, and that is the question of resources. There is a
line on page 3 that makes specific reference to a copy of a
letter.
I know there has been a good-faith effort on the part of
the majority and minority staff to speak with one voice to
request the leadership of both parties in the Congress to find
a means either by resolution or through leadership accounts to
fund this committee. I don't believe we arrived at an agreement
with either leadership on that, I don't believe we are quite to
the letter yet, but I want to renew to the committee and to any
that would be looking on that we need the resources to engage
in the kind of solemn and serious and fair inquiry that I
believe every member of this committee deemed this morning to
be appropriate in this matter.
And so with that, the Chairman may need to make, by
unanimous consent, a change to the draft relevant to the
resources issue, but I will take the opportunity to renew my
profound concern that we resolve that issue, as Mr. LaTourette
said, well before we arrive at the truly fact-gathering aspects
of this inquiry, or it will, in my judgment, both hamper our
ability to complete our work and, more likely, simply delay our
ability to complete this inquiry in an expeditious manner.
And with that, I would yield back.
The Chairman. I thank the gentleman for his observations. I
concur, and again, I would hope that by Monday or Tuesday of
next week, given our rather hectic schedule today and the fact
that we are in recess tomorrow, that we will have that letter
to our mutual satisfaction completed and forwarded for
expedited action by the leadership of both sides. And I am
confident that that can occur.
If there is no further discussion, the question is on
agreeing to the interim report. Those in favor, say aye. Aye.
Those opposed, say no.
In the opinion of the Chair, the ayes have it, and the
interim report is agreed to.
Without objection, the staff is authorized to make sure
such changes are made as may be necessary to reflect the
actions of the select committee. Hearing no objection, so
ordered.
In order to meet our September 30 deadline and to provide
all Members of the House with rapid access to the interim
report, Mr. Pence and I have agreed that we will insert the
interim report in today's Congressional Record. The committee
can at a later time have it printed.
Mr. Pence. Mr. Chairman?
The Chairman. Sure, Mr. Pence.
Mr. Pence. I am sure this falls into the category of
parliamentary inquiry, my inquiry to the Chair. I would request
the Chairman, as with all other committees, to ensure a
transcript also be published in the normal course of business
proceedings of the select committee.
The Chairman. Without objection.
The third agenda is to hear from the Office of the Clerk.
The Office of the Clerk provided the select committee with a
letter listing an initial inventory of 21 items which the
Clerk's Office has preserved for use in the committee's
investigation. I will have to consult for a moment with staff.
Russell Gore in the Office of the Clerk is here to explain
the items listed in the letter. He is accompanied by the
distinguished Clerk of the House, Lorraine Miller.
Mr. Gore.
Ms. Miller. Morning, Mr. Chairman----
The Chairman. Good morning.
Ms. Miller [continuing]. And members of the select
committee. We are delighted to be with you today and to explain
some of the items that we have preserved.
If you will allow me to just make a couple points as we get
involved in this. I take personally the charge of being the
Clerk of the House seriously. And our main objective is to take
the votes, tally those votes, and preserve the records of the
U.S. House of Representatives, and we do that.
One of the other things that I want to assure you, we look
at this, as Mr. LaTourette mentioned, in a nonpartisan way. We
are your agents to make sure that your votes are recorded and
reported accurately, and so we take that very, very seriously.
Our staff is excellent. I must say that in all candor. We take
our job very, very seriously, and politics really doesn't come
into play even in any part of our work for you.
Ms. Miller. I wanted to take a second just to walk you
through one of the things that I wanted to do, and I pledge to
you the openness of the Office of the Clerk. Taking it
seriously is one thing, but executing that and giving you the
kind of information and support you need for your work we will
do. And I hope we have tried to demonstrate that.
One of the things that we did on the night of this event, I
sent an e-mail out before the House resolution was passed to
all of our staff to say let us save everything you have, no
matter what it is, no matter if--we didn't even try to make a
determination if it was relevant or not. That didn't matter. We
wanted to preserve everything that we could in order to be of
help. So the documents and the data that we preserved were done
immediately because of that Resolution 611.
So we were very broad. There may be duplicates. We erred on
the side of preservation.
There are three offices that are basically involved, and I
can go through this fairly quickly. There are three offices of
the Office of the Clerk, of our nine offices, that are
basically involved. The Office of the Official Reporters--
voila, the ladies that are taking the stenographic work; the
Office of the Legislative Computer Services; and our
Legislative Operations personnel.
I took the liberty of asking the Chief of each of those
offices, Joe Strickland of Official Reporters; the Legislative
Computer Services' Goldey Vansant, who is accompanied by our
Deputy Clerk, Ed Sorensen; and our Legislative Operations
person, Frances Chiappardi, and Frances has taken the liberty
of bringing a couple of her guys, Kevin and De'Andre, who were
there the night in question. So if you have any questions of
them, they are here and available.
So the documents that are preserved come from these three
groups: From Official Reporters, the Legislative Computer
Systems, and the Legislative Operations staff.
So in the Official Reporters, what you have is a transcript
of the floor proceedings, all of the documents from the
initial--from the transcription to the transmission and then
what actually goes to GPO, the Government Printing Office.
You have the steno files that are electronic files that
contain the shorthand transcription. You have the shorthand
files, which are then converted to full English, and then they
are saved to text files. Those text files actually get printed,
so you see the paper of those text files. We have those for
you.
And then we send to GPO KSLUGs. These are the technical
terms about--these are the partial segments that go and are
actually inserted in the Congressional Record. So periodically
during the day, KSLUGs are sent to GPO for printing.
There is also--you have the audio files. These are the
recordings of the floor activity through the feeds by
electronic equipment and by cassette. And that is what you have
from the Official Reporters.
Do you want to add anything, Russell, to that?
Mr. Gore. No. Thank you very much.
I believe that that--and those, that item, that description
consists of essentially most of what are items 1 through 14 of
the August 4th letter that you have been looking at.
So I think what we thought would be helpful--so the Clerk
has explained the steno files, the text files, the KSLUGs, and
as you will see, there is some redundancy in items 1 through
14. That is in part because even if we had five versions or
five copies of it, we saved everything.
We thought it might be helpful if the members of the
committee have questions regarding items 1 through 14, with
that background, maybe ask us, and we could provide some
further.
Ms. Miller. And Mr. Strickland is here. Joe. He is here.
If you have any questions, we would love to----
The Chairman. I would call on any member of the committee
that has any inquiries to make, and at the suggestion of the
Clerk----
Mr. LaTourette. If it is appropriate, a couple of things I
do have some questions about, just what the stuff is that has
been retained. But I thought it would be instructive as well,
Mr. Chairman, it might help other Members as we move forward,
we have a poster over here that we took from the night of the
vote before all hell broke loose, that has people sitting in
their chairs, and I thought it may be helpful if we put up the
poster and ask the Clerk to identify what jobs the people at
the dais have and what they do.
See, everybody is calm. Nothing bad is happening here.
But I think we all know the presiding officer, the speaker,
Mr. McNulty.
Mr. Gore or Madam Clerk, could you identify the other
people at the dais and what their jobs are?
Ms. Miller. The display, the TCR, blocks the stenographic
folks in the well. Those are the folks that are actually
recording the proceedings.
And then on the rostrum, there are a number of us.
The Chairman. Would you be kind enough to stand?
Ms. Miller. Sure.
The Chairman. I don't know if that causes problems in terms
of the recording.
Ms. Miller. Kevie is the reading clerk. And then----
Mr. LaTourette. What is her job?
Ms. Miller. She actually is multifaceted. What you actually
see her doing is getting up and reading a bill, if there is an
amendment or a bill is being introduced. But what Kevie and
Kevin, who is also a reading clerk, what they are very expert
at is knowing and anticipating your floor actions so they can--
if there is a--some kind of motion that is coming up, they
anticipate that to make sure that they are prepared,
anticipating the presiding officer and what the Parliamentarian
may suggest.
Mr. LaTourette. During the course of the vote, it is my
understanding, and I want you to tell us, but that the reading
clerk is involved in changes; is that correct?
Ms. Miller. Yes. Kevie will announce--the reading clerk
will announce, for instance, if a Member decides to change a
vote off ``aye'' for ``no'' for a Member, or, Mr. Delahunt
votes aye. And so especially when the Members come to the well,
this is a--this is an interesting operation of what happens in
the well.
The Chairman. If I could interrupt.
Is that the customary seat for the reading clerk?
Ms. Miller. Yes. That is the customary seat for the reading
clerk.
The other person that is really key--there are two other
people that are really key: the seated tally clerk, who happens
to be De'Andre here, and the standing tally clerk.
When Members are voting, when they come to the well, that
standing tally clerk then takes the Member, writes their name
on the card, hands it to the tally clerk, who notes it, puts
the district on there, the roll call number of that vote, that
particular vote, and they hand that well card to the sitting
tally clerk. The seated tally clerk is at the computer, at the
EVS system itself, and as Members vote their well cards, that
gets entered into the computer.
Mr. LaTourette. And there is nobody standing, but my
understanding on August the 2nd, Kevin Hanrahan was the tally
clerk, and I think he is sitting at the moment because we are
not doing a vote. So he takes the well cards and hands them up
to De'Andre, and what does De'Andre do during a vote?
Ms. Miller. Well, when he hands the card to them, De'Andre
then enters the Member's vote into the EVS system. So there are
fluctuations because he is entering those well card votes into
the system as the vote is going.
Mr. LaTourette. Does he, as the seated tally clerk, turn
the machine off and on? How does it even go on?
Ms. Miller. He controls it, yes.
Mr. LaTourette. Is there anybody else at the dais in this
photograph that is involved in the actual taking of a 15- or a
5-minute vote from your office?
Ms. Miller. The taking of?
Ms. Chiappardi. No. The tally clerk records the----
Ms. Miller. She records.
Mr. LaTourette. And the woman in yellow is--not Kevie. The
other woman in yellow.
Ms. Miller. That is Gay.
Mr. LaTourette. What does she do?
Ms. Miller. She works for the Parliamentarian. She is the
timekeeper. She is the person that says to the presiding
officer, you have this much time left on a vote, or, you need
to recognize--she is kind of the eyes and ears of the presiding
officer.
Mr. LaTourette. On the other side of Mr. McNulty, just for
the record purposes, that is the Parliamentarian?
Ms. Miller. Yes.
The Chairman. Will the Chairman yield for a moment?
The function of the standing clerk or the standing tally
clerk is to receive from the Members----
Ms. Miller. From the well.
The Chairman [continuing]. From the well the voting--the
voting card, if you will.
Ms. Miller. Yes.
The Chairman. And that standing tally clerk then turns
around and submits it to the sitting tally clerk.
Ms. Miller. Yes. After--usually that tally clerk will then
note on there the roll call vote that is in process that he is
voting on--he or she is voting on.
The Chairman. But the only function, if you will, of the
standing tally clerk is to receive it from the Member and to
turn around and physically hand it to the sitting tally clerk.
Ms. Miller. And at the end of the vote, the presiding
officer indicates that the vote is finished, that standing
tally clerk will then write out the tally.
The Chairman. That----
Ms. Miller. Based on what they have in the machine.
The Chairman. Standing or sitting?
Ms. Miller. Standing. And then will give it to the
Parliamentarian, who will then give it to the presiding
officer.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you very much.
I don't have any questions on the picture. I do have a
couple of quick questions about the letter, and I appreciate
the Chair's indulgence.
The WAV files that you have identified you obtained, and my
understanding is those are audio files that are maintained by
the Office of the Official Reporter, and they may have
conversations with you, Mr. Gore. They may or may not--they may
contain more audio than went to C-SPAN or less.
Have you retained those in a way that there is a cassette
that each member in this committee could have to listen to
those WAV files? Have you put the 45 minutes together?
Mr. Gore. We have not yet put anything together in the way
you have described. Part of what we have done with the evidence
is it has been stored. We haven't done anything with it so that
once the committee decided what they wanted we would then, with
the committee's approval, make copies. It hasn't been done.
If I could just clarify--the way--after you and I spoke, we
went back and we looked into this, and the way we understand it
is that the microphones on the floor, while they are all the
same microphones, they actually have several different lines
that go into them. So, for instance, the video and the audio,
the video control is one line that is controlled by I believe
it is the Office of the Chief Administrative Officer, whereas
the WAV files that you are referring to, those come from a
different line in the same microphones.
The person who turns them on and turns them off, for
instance, when the person gets up to speak at the podium, may
turn them on slightly before or slightly after because it is a
different person. So, to the extent they may contain more
information, it would be based on something of that nature.
Mr. LaTourette. That is what I understood.
Mr. Chairman, I would just ask in that regard that we all
have a copy of the videotape of that night just so I can get
myself ready, and I would think the other Members might want to
do that, too. If we could ask the Clerk's Office--if you want
unanimous consent or whatever--to see if we can't ask the
official recorder to put together these audio files for the
time in question on either side of when the vote started, when
the vote ended, and then we can determine if they had more or
less information that may be available on the videotape.
The Chairman. Yeah. I would at this point take Mr.
LaTourette's request as a unanimous consent request, and there
is no objection, and I would request the office to----
Mr. Pence. If the gentleman will yield on this point, I
would like to follow up.
Very quickly on these WAV files, where are these recorded
from? We understand that there is one audio track with--that is
preserved. That was the audio track of what was broadcast?
Ms. Miller. Right.
Mr. Pence. I have asked Lorraine, is it your understanding
that with regard to video/audio tracks, the only audio tracks
that have been preserved is the audio track of the video file
that was broadcast; is that your understanding?
Ms. Miller. That is my understanding, but I need to--I
believe that is the case. Yes. We will double check, but----
Mr. Pence. That was represented to us in some informal
conversations down in the, for lack of a better term, the
control room for the video operations.
To Mr. LaTourette's point, because I will have a few of my
own questions on my own time, but to follow up on Mr.
LaTourette, these WAV files represent different audio tracks,
and my question is what microphones are you referring to the
WAV files being collected from? Are these the floor
microphones? Are they microphones on the dais itself?
Ms. Miller. Let us defer to Joe. Joe Strickland is our
Chief of Official Reporters.
Mr. Strickland. Mr. Pence, the steno machines that our
reporters use on the floor actually have built into them a
digital recording device, and there is a line run right into
the steno machine. And that feed that going directly into the
reporter's machine is coming from the microphones that are on
the floor controlled by--as Russ was saying, controlled by the
LCS folks upstairs turning them on and off when they are
needed.
There is no ambient mic like this sitting on a table
someplace. There is no open room mic. This is a means--and she
is doing it right now. It is a means for the reporter to have
better hearing. It is difficult to hear on the floor.
Mr. Pence. Let me ask--and this may be subject to the
technical hearing later with some of the technical people--just
from your impression, is what the stenographer is hearing, is
that different than what the Members are hearing or someone
watching on television might be hearing, or do you think there
is----
Mr. Strickland. Only to the extent--it is the same
microphone. Only to the extent that our feed may be turned on
and turned off at a different time than the feed that C-SPAN
may turn on. But it is the same microphone.
Mr. LaTourette. I just have two more questions.
In your letter to us with the list of 21 things, you
identify 7 employees of the office that you have mentioned who
you asked that their e-mails be retained. And my question, in a
response after our meeting, Mr. Gore, you said nobody wants to
read anybody's e-mails, but you indicate that some of these e-
mails, they contain privileged communications. I am wondering
what would the privileged communication be? I get what personal
stuff is, but what would be a privileged communication?
Mr. Gore. Well, for instance, on communications that I, as
the counsel, may have had with the Clerk. Additionally I also--
my e-mails would contain--I have a dual role from having
previously worked in the Office of House Employment Counsel,
where we represent individual offices, and there are
communications in those e-mails that would be attorney-client
privilege.
That is largely what I was referring to without--of course,
we haven't looked at these e-mails so that it is conceivable
there could be some other privilege that would apply, but that
is the one I was referring to.
Mr. LaTourette. My question is could you perceive any
privileged communications dealing with the circumstances of
this roll call 814?
Mr. Gore. I can't.
Mr. LaTourette. Last question I have, Mr. Chairman, on
these 21 things, and you described the tally sheet before,
Madam Clerk, I don't see a tally sheet that was retained from
that evening; is that right?
Ms. Miller. There wasn't a tally sheet. No. There wasn't
one.
Mr. LaTourette. Just so I am clear, the standing tally
clerk never prepared a tally sheet for this vote?
Ms. Miller. No, because we were still voting, and there
were votes going on in the well.
Mr. LaTourette. I got that. But first of all, my question
is did you retain a tally sheet? The answer is no. And the
second question is was there ever a tally sheet?
Ms. Miller. No.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Mr. Davis.
Mr. Davis. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Let me pick up on the very last question Mr. LaTourette
asked, and let me try to make sure that I understand.
Exactly what is a tally sheet?
Ms. Miller. A tally sheet is the sheet that the tally clerk
with the votes would actually give to the Parliamentarian to
give to the presiding officer to announce the vote. And that is
based on--it is a combination of all of the votes from the
well, from our voting stations, and that is what we--that is
what we announce. And that always is the same that we have in
the computer in our EVS system.
Mr. Davis. What triggers the writings--the tally sheet is
handwritten?
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Davis. What event triggers--first of all, what
individual; is it the tally clerk who literally writes in the
information on the----
Ms. Miller. No. The tally clerk writes it.
The Chairman. The standing or the sitting?
Ms. Miller. The standing one.
Mr. Davis. What event literally triggers the tally clerk to
fill in the final tally sheet?
Ms. Miller. The presiding officer has a litany of things
they may say: Is there a Member who wishes to vote? Is there a
Member in the Chamber who wishes to change a vote?
Based on those kind of declarations by the presiding Chair,
that is the way we proceed to end the vote.
Mr. Davis. So let me, I guess, state it this way and see if
you agree with this.
The standing tally clerk prepares the sheet when he or she
believes that the vote is about to be called; is that correct?
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Davis. And the tally clerk would not prepare a tally
sheet in the normal course of business if he or she did not
believe that a vote was about to be called?
Ms. Miller. Absolutely.
Frances, is that----
Ms. Chiappardi. Yes. Normally the tally clerk will--I do
this.
The Chairman. Could you identify yourself?
Ms. Chiappardi. I am Frances Chiappardi. I am the Chief of
Legislative Operations.
Normally what we do is when the Chair asks if there are any
changes, that signals to the tally clerk that the time actually
is usually at zero, and that they are going to start to close
the vote. And so what we do is as soon as he said, Are there
any changes, the tally clerk will--if no one is down in the
well, will turn--will close the vote stations.
Mr. Davis. Let me stop you at that point.
Is it the discretion of the tally clerk to decide whether
or not to close the vote stations as you understand the way
that the job works day in and day out?
Ms. Chiappardi. Yes, it is. Well, the tally clerk closes
only when the Chair says, Does anyone wish to change their
vote, and there are Members that are not coming down into the
well or into the Chamber. A lot of times people will yell,
``One more, one more,'' and so the tally clerks will leave the
electronic stations open.
Mr. Davis. I will yield.
Mr. Pence. If the gentleman would yield, I would simply ask
the Chair if the gentleman from Alabama's inquiry, while
certainly being asked of the committee, but to ask our current
witness what the discretion of the position is more relative to
the practice. It may be useful for us to focus these witnesses
on what the practice is. We will be hearing shortly from
witnesses about what the tradition of the institution is.
Mr. Davis. Sure, and I certainly will take that correction.
Reclaiming my time. I am trying to--I don't know that we
will hear from you ladies and gentlemen again. I want to make
sure that I know what the job is, what the job description is
of these individuals.
Ms. Miller. And we do invite the committee, this is a very
interesting process, and to understand how the EVS system
works, we would be delighted.
For months I have been sitting out there on the floor
observing it. Having worked around here a number of years is
one thing, but to actually know how that--how the voting system
works is fascinating and something that we invite you to
investigate.
The Chairman. It is my intention to take a view, if you
would, and, you know, accommodate Members' schedules as well as
the floor schedule, just simply to walk down on the floor and
have the appropriate personnel explain to us in very tangible
terms what happens.
Mr. Davis. Let me go back to my questions about the tally
clerk again.
The absence of a tally sheet, it infers what; or what do
you imply, Ms. Miller, from the absence of a tally sheet?
Ms. Miller. The vote is still open. We have not closed the
vote if we don't have a tally sheet.
The presiding officer--we look for the particular ups and
the particular downs. If there is no activity in the system
where Members are coming in to vote one way or the other, and
it is stagnant and stable based on the presiding officer's
instructions of what he says while he is presiding, that is
what we--that triggers our actions.
Mr. Davis. Just to clarify. Mr. LaTourette points out there
is not and has not been a tally sheet in connection with the
disputed August 2nd vote.
Ms. Miller. No.
Mr. Davis. Never was a tally sheet?
Ms. Miller. No.
Mr. Davis. Let me shift to the board itself, which is what
Members are able to see when we are in the Chamber.
I understand we are not getting to the factual issue, but I
want to clarify the procedure.
When ``final'' flashes across the board, when the word
``final'' flashes across the board, and there is a number, what
event triggers the display of the word ``final''?
Ms. Miller. When ``final'' flashes across the board, that
means that we are in the process of closing down the voting
stations, okay.
So on the floor--there are 46 voting stations on the floor
that are available for Members to vote. And so ``final'' means
that we are closing down the voting stations and then the--we
are moving to a final process of closing out that vote. But
that doesn't mean, necessarily, that the vote is closed.
Mr. Davis. So the word ``final'' could appear on the board
without a vote being closed?
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Davis. What member of the staff makes the determination
as to when ``final'' would be displayed?
Ms. Miller. Well, again, everything is triggered by the
presiding officer and what that presiding officer says when
they are in the Chair, which triggers our reaction to go to
step 2, step 3 or step 4 in order to close the vote.
So the voting stations may be open, but Members come to the
well or--the voting stations may be closed, but Members still
come to the well even with ``final'' up there. So it depends on
what the instructions we get from the presiding officer.
Mr. Davis. So the display of the word ``final'' itself does
not have any determinative consequence?
Ms. Miller. No.
Mr. Davis. Okay.
Ms. Chiappardi. That is correct.
What normally happens when the final--the tally clerk is in
the process of closing the vote down, and the Chair is saying--
you know, the tally clerk is listening to the Chair, and
apparently the Chair probably was in the process of saying,
``The motion is agreed to, and without objection,'' and while
they are saying that, the tally clerk has a screen which they
are--there is a button that they click. You go to terminate
vote, set time to final, and release the boards and the summary
boards.
Mr. Davis. And who literally does that.
Ms. Chiappardi. The tally clerk.
Ms. Miller. The seated tally clerk.
Ms. Chiappardi. The seated tally clerk.
The Chairman. Will the gentleman yield for a moment?
Why the necessity for displaying ``final'' when, in fact,
it is not final? I mean, is there--does it just pop up?
Ms. Miller. Well, it is----
The Chairman. But it is the tally clerk that triggers the
display that----
Ms. Miller. For us it is a signal that we are going--this
is ending the vote for us technically. And that has been
traditionally the way the system has been set up. And so we
are--it actually signals that we are on the road to a final
vote and closing it out.
Mr. Davis. Let me try to shift gears to another aspect of
the physical evidence. Those of us who are on the floor
obviously can look at the well, and we can observe whether
there is activity, whether there appears to be people picking
up cards to change their votes.
Tell me which of these items would be the visual
preservation that night of people being in the well around the
vote cards. Are there any items that would capture that moment
for our review?
Ms. Miller. We do have a DVD that captures that, and then
one of the things that we did, we preserved the well cards. So
we have the original well cards that the Members cast their
votes on.
Mr. Davis. And this is my last question before I yield. If
you can look at the list of 21 items, let me direct you to
number 19. And I am--I am uncertain what it means. That is why
I ask about it. It says, 18 well card votes including 2 that
were not processed from Majority Leader Hoyer, which was a
duplicate of Minority Leader Boehner.
What does that mean?
Ms. Miller. Well, Mr. Hoyer, as I understand it, decided
that he wanted to vote no and had already voted no. And so it
was a duplicate.
Mr. Boehner was going to vote no because I believe he
wanted to reconsider.
Mr. Davis. And a motion to reconsider, just so we are clear
on the rules, that has to be made by a Member who is on the
noncarrying side. I am sorry, on the carrying side. The motion
to reconsider comes from a person on the carrying side.
Ms. Miller. So we save those.
The Chairman. Mr. Pence.
Mr. Pence. Thank you.
I want to thank the Clerk for your service. I know I speak
for everyone on the panel. We appreciate the dignity and
integrity with which you operate your office every day and your
staff.
Ms. Miller. Thank you.
Mr. Pence. Let me ask, with regard to your testimony today,
you said you alerted your staff to, quote, `Save everything you
have,' and that was, quote, `done immediately.'
I wasn't entirely clear on what precipitated your request
to preserve documents and e-mails. Was it the events of August
2nd, or was it the passage of the resolution to form this
select committee on August 3rd?
Ms. Miller. Actually I sent the e-mail before the passage
of the Resolution 611 simply because I wanted us, irregardless
of what--we had no idea that the select committee was coming
up, but I wanted us, as an office, to know what happened. And
so that is why I initially--I wanted to make sure we had
everything that we could, possibly could, to make sure we knew
what happened.
Mr. Pence. Let me--there has been some talk of this--the
standing tally clerk, the seated tally clerk and this business
of tally sheets.
There were--with the Chairman's indulgence, and I would
stipulate that we haven't established this time line yet, but
in looking at a video that every member of the committee has
viewed, in a 2-minute period of time, the vote was actually
called twice by the Chair at 214 and 214, one of which may have
simply been inadvertent.
My question to you is you said this morning there were no
tally sheets. Were there no tally sheets relative to either
call, to your knowledge?
Ms. Miller. No.
Mr. Pence. During that 2-minute----
Ms. Miller. No. No tally sheets. No.
Mr. Davis. Will the gentleman yield for clarification?
Mr. Pence. I would be happy to.
Mr. Davis. And I think this is probably inadvertent
phrasing on the part of my friend, the Ranking Member, but
obviously we are not here to put into evidence or to make any
representations regarding the events, the factual disputes that
night. I simply wanted to clarify the ranking member's
observations about there being two instances where the vote was
called that was possibly a point of dispute, if I am not
correct, Mr. Pence.
Mr. Pence. Reclaiming my time. It is possibly a point of
dispute, and I concede the point. I am not interested at this
point in beginning the factual debate, but only to clarify
whether or not there was--at any point in the relevant time of
vote calling--there was no tally sheet.
Ms. Miller. There was no tally sheet.
Mr. Pence. No tally sheet to this final?
Mr. Hanrahan. No. No tally sheet.
Ms. Miller. No.
Mr. Pence. If the record can reflect that.
Ms. Miller. Kevin Hanrahan was the standing tally clerk on
the evening in question, and De'Andre was the seated tally
clerk.
Mr. Pence. And he testified from the gallery here that
there was no tally sheet anytime.
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Pence. Let me get on to what interests me as much, if
not more, and that is this business of electronic voting and
the electronic voting system.
I am wondering very much when I, as a Member, go to the
floor and vote, when I vote by a card, there is the light by my
name on the wall, and as I watch it, the light board that
flanks the Chamber changes almost instantaneously.
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Pence. When I turn a card in to the standing clerk,
there is a time lag where I presume someone in your
organization is entering that data that appears on the wall?
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Pence. Can you describe the differences? Is there a
human discretion in the electronic voting system between when a
Member votes and when it is displayed on either of the light
boards in the Chamber? And what is the role of the inputting in
the electronic voting system at the dais?
Ms. Miller. When a Member goes to the voting station and
inserts his card, presses this vote choice, that is an
instantaneous mechanical recording of what that Member votes.
Instantaneously. You stick the card in the receptacle; you vote
aye, nay, or present; it is instantly displayed.
The difference in the well card voting is that that
Member's name and the actual vote, all of that has to be
reported. That takes a few seconds, and that is where the delay
comes in.
Then the system----
The Chairman. Will the gentleman yield for a moment?
It has to be typed in?
Ms. Miller. He has a keyboard. He has an actual keyboard.
Mr. Pence. And who precisely does that in the picture?
Ms. Miller. De'Andre here, who is our seated--the seated
tally clerk. Before him, right below him is a computer. It is a
computer, and he sits there and he types it in. He goes to
different kinds of programs to find Mr. Pence, and then types
in ``Pence'' and your vote, and then that gets recorded on the
display.
Mr. Pence. And as we proceed we will explore the rules of
the House, Mr. Chairman, but I find the rules of the House
bereft of any reference to electronic voting, to my knowledge.
And it seems that what you are suggesting is there is human
involvement, the Clerk's Office is involved when paper ballots
are submitted, but there is no human involvement in the
electronic voting system; is that----
Ms. Miller. No. Technically correct, but it is not
something of a discretion of--the seated tally clerk is not
sitting there saying, oh, well, I am going to delay putting
this in.
Our object here is to expeditiously enter a Member's vote
and get it displayed as quickly as they can, and then it gets
shown on display boards.
Mr. Pence. Now, as I said in my opening statement, this
was--this is a conflict in some respects between parties and
men in the Chair and the machine. It is much more complex than
that. But I am very interested in one more question, and it--
the gentleman from Alabama explored this effectively, but I
would like to hear it again.
The term ``final'' or--and I am not sure I know whether it
says ``time final'' or ``final''--that appears on the
rectangular light board in the Chamber.
Ms. Miller. Yes. On the sides.
Mr. Pence. Can you say who activates that? I mean, many of
us have been on the floor for very long votes, and the term
``time final'' never appeared on the board. Is it a striking of
the gavel that initiates that? Is it the paper process of the
tally clerks? Is it the tolling of a certain period of time?
I am just--given the importance of that term that appeared
that night, I think we all might agree of the inflammatory
nature of that term appeared, who pushes that button?
Ms. Chiappardi. The tally clerk.
Ms. Miller. The tally clerk. The seated tally clerk.
Mr. Gore. It is important to understand that, and when the
committee sees the voting process, there is a menu screen that
the tally clerk has which has a number of different steps, and
actually there are five steps to go through. They are not
procedural. They are technical steps to do--set the vote to
final. And setting to final, which I believe actually the
screen says, is, I think, step 3 in the process. But the vote
is not closed at that point. That is just the third step in the
process.
So I just want to make sure that the committee understands
that this is part of the several steps, and the tally clerk
doesn't say, Okay, I am now going to determine that the vote is
final. The tally clerk does that in part of the process, and,
of course, the tally clerk can explain this in more detail when
the tally sheet is being completed and the vote is being
called.
The Chairman. Would the gentleman yield?
Mr. Pence. I would be pleased to yield.
The Chairman. During the course of voting, unless I am just
oblivious, there have been multiple occasions where on the
display on the side I have seldom noted the word ``final''
being displayed. I mean, that would appear to vary. Why on some
occasions is ``final'' displayed and would appear, and on the
vast majority of cases it is not displayed?
Ms. Chiappardi. What happens--it is normally because
another Member comes into the Chamber, and the Chair affords
that Member the opportunity to vote.
The tally clerk is in the process of closing the vote down
because the Chair has read 214 to 199, and the bill is passed
and without objection. And then someone will ultimately come in
the Chamber, and the tally clerk at that time would click the
button, terminate vote, set time to final, release the summary
reports. And in that process, it is supposed to go like this:
The Chair will say, Stop, and while they are in that process,
there is no way you can take that click back because they were
going through to shut the vote down. And so they are stopped
by, ``One more, one more,'' and affording a Member the
opportunity to vote.
And so sometimes it will say ``time final,'' though it is--
you know, the time has run out, the vote is not closed.
Mr. Davis. Will the gentleman yield?
Mr. Pence. Reclaiming my time, I would be pleased to yield
to Mr. LaTourette.
Mr. LaTourette. Having been in the chair for 12 years, in
my experience it is always the same five people who come into
the Chamber and yell, ``One more, one more.''
The Chairman. They will not be named.
Mr. Davis. I will be extremely brief.
I want to make sure I understand exactly the last point
that was made. My understanding, and this is from recollection
of sitting in the Chamber, rarely does ``time final'' appear on
the board. Is there an agreement about that, that it is a
fairly rare event for ``time final'' to be displayed in the
normal course of amendments and motions?
Mr. Gore. I believe. And I understand the confusion, I
believe that, and we will clarify this, but it is always
displayed, but it is usually that the five-step process is so
quick that it is instantaneous.
Ms. Chiappardi. Right. You don't see it. And the tally
clerk--some of the tally clerks actually wait until the Chair
gavels down the vote and then clicks through those four or five
steps just simultaneously.
Mr. Davis. You say some of them do. What is the other
practice?
Ms. Chiappardi. Sometimes when we have a new tally clerk,
someone who is, you know, fairly new, they are not--they are
not as fast; they are a little slow.
Mr. Pence. Reclaiming my time.
Yield to Mr. Hulshof.
Mr. Hulshof. This five-step process, I recall obviously
hundreds and hundreds of occasions with which we vote, and
being in the Chair is the last step. Where is the last, the
point of no return? Because it is my recollection that as
Members, even tardy Members, once the display boards go dark,
you cannot retrieve that. Is that the last click of the button,
if you will, that--the point of no return that you cannot
retrieve that?
Mr. Gore. That is the fifth step. It is confirm and release
of the display boards, I believe, is the fifth step.
Ms. Miller. And then they are gone.
Mr. Hulshof. But on any of the previous steps, the tally
clerk could actually go back and redo or retrace those steps
if, and as you talked about, the Chair is indulgent with those
tardy Members. It is just that last or final step that once--I
mean, that is truly the final because you cannot retrieve or
bring back up that electronic board. But you can--up until that
point, you can go back, and so even if--and you are correct,
and my recollection is that often that word ``final'' is just
briefly appearing, but it is part of the process.
Thank you, Mr. Pence.
Mr. Pence. Reclaiming my time.
I would just again thank the Clerk and her team for their
testimony today. It has been very illuminating.
I do find myself, Mr. Chairman, thinking your thought about
a walk-through would be helpful, if not----
The Chairman. Critical.
Mr. Pence. At some point as I tried to look at the process
here, and I think about what has been collected and the cards--
you know, whether or not a reenactment at some point would be
helpful.
Ms. Miller. Sure.
The Chairman. A Civil War reenactment.
Mr. Pence. Let me ask one further question.
Mr. LaTourette. One other thing just for the Members that
just struck me when you talked about a reenactment. I didn't
know this until I talked to Mr. Gore, but they can actually
give you a computer printout of where everybody voted that
night, what time you voted, if you stuck your card back in to
confirm your vote, and we actually can reconstruct this vote
and where people voted based upon that, and I think we may want
to get there.
Ms. Miller. Thank you. I was about to say that, because we
do--a lot of times we have Members that will repeatedly stick
their card into the voting stations just to check the vote, and
we can tell you which voting station they stuck that card in
and what time they did.
Mr. Davis. We can tell you which Members, too, by the way.
The Chairman. Even when they check their vote.
Ms. Miller. Yes.
Mr. Pence. Reclaiming my time.
I would alert Members, Mr. Chairman, I think in the
September 20th communication from your office, I think the
Member-by-Member voting station or information was sent to the
committee, and I might offer it for the record, submit it for
the record.
The Chairman. Without objection.
Mr. Pence. Lastly, the whole subject of these, the
documents that you have collected immediately, and I do find
myself wanting to commend you for not waiting on Congress to
inquire into the event that occurred on August 2nd. I commend
you for taking strong leadership in your office to ascertain
what occurred on an administrative level and preserving
documents.
Where are the 18 well cards, all of that which is described
in the----
Ms. Miller. They are locked in our Legislative Operations
Office under lock and key.
Ms. Chiappardi. I have them.
Ms. Miller. Yes. They are locked up. Everything--everything
we have has been locked and secured because we just wanted to
make sure, until we received instructions from the committee on
how you wanted to use them, we haven't tampered with them or
anything. We have locked them up.
Mr. Pence. That concludes my questions. I thank the Clerk
and her team, Mr. Chairman. And I yield back.
The Chairman. Stephanie.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. Yes.
Thank you for your testimony and responses to the questions
my colleagues have proposed.
We have explored quite a bit here in terms of the broader
practice of what each member of your office and the roles that
they perform, and, of course, there is a tendency to kind of
want to get at the specific events and procedures as to how
they relate to the circumstances surrounding this roll call.
You had sent us a PowerPoint presentation as well. Do you
have published updated documents or other materials for each
office within your office? You mentioned sometimes, you know,
the things get entered more slowly when you have new employees,
new clerks coming on. So I would like to see and perhaps make
part of the record anything in your office that is printed for
training materials for new people in each office that go into
detail that you utilize for everyone to understand the five-
step process here of closing a vote.
I mean, we appreciated how you set it out in a very concise
way in the PowerPoint, but I think we should make part of the
record as really official standard operating procedures from
your office as to the description of each person's
responsibility and how that relates to the Parliamentarian's
Office, how it relates to the presiding officer.
Are you aware of those materials being available, copies,
in the Parliamentarian's Office and in the Speaker's Office?
Are they shared among all three offices involved here?
Ms. Miller. I don't think so. No.
Ms. Herseth Sandlin. And we will certainly be taking
testimony from folks, Parliamentarians, because I think what
also is important isn't just the description, the understanding
of each of the four people in your office as the vote is going
on, but then what is--what is the understanding of the
Parliamentarian specifically as it relates to these tally
sheets; what is the understanding of the presiding officer?
I think we have, you know, some published materials here
that help provide guidance, but whether or not everyone is on
the same page as to what is standard operating procedure, I
think, is the area we continue to need to explore here, and we
are laying the foundation today. So if we could get those
materials that are available. So I think that is, you know,
more of the specific things were explored already, but I did
want to make sure that I posed the question of what is
available in written format for new people in your office, and
how they are being trained, and what describes their
responsibilities on the House floor during the vote.
Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Steve.
Mr. LaTourette. I just have one clean-up that is again
involving Mr. Gore and you, Madam Clerk. You have identified
the people that might make good fact witnesses relative to the
events of August the 2nd, and in that picture you have
identified for us Mary Kevin Niland, who is the reading clerk
on that particular evening; and De'Andre, who is the seated
tally clerk; Kevin, who is the standing, even though he is not
standing in the picture; and you also indicated Ed Sorensen,
who is the Deputy Clerk.
Is there anybody else from your operation that you think
would be useful for this committee to hear from relative to the
facts and circumstances in the operation of the vote on August
2nd, or is that it?
Ms. Miller. No, sir. Those are the folks that are most
directly hands-on folks that you really would benefit from
hearing from.
Mr. LaTourette. Thank you very much.
Last thing, Mr. Chairman, I would say is that Congressman
Davis had a great idea, in my opinion, during some of our
discussions, and that is that we might want to, as we collect
fact witnesses, send a letter out to the membership of the
House under our signatures saying any Member--so they feel
included--any Member that has something to say about what you
saw, or you think you have information that would help this
committee reach its conclusions--I think you guys did that in
the Medicaid Part D vote. As I remember you sent out a letter,
and I thought Congressman Davis says he always does that, and
that is an excellent suggestion, and I would ask unanimous
consent, if that is the appropriate thing, to have the
committee do that.
The Chairman. I think that is an excellent suggestion, and
I would request that yourself and Mr. Davis draft that letter.
Mr. Davis. I thought we might be volunteering ourselves.
The Chairman. I think that is an excellent suggestion.
Let me note that I found this very informative,
illuminating, and the Clerk's Office might want to consider
having a similar on-the-floor exposition of the process itself
for the membership, because, again, I can assure you that many
Members are ignorant of how this process works. And I know that
I have a number of subsequent questions for further
clarification that I am not going to pose at this point in
time, but I think most Members would be candid and acknowledge
that they are ignorant of this system, and it could be very,
very informative. So I offer that as a suggestion.
Ms. Miller. Yes, sir. And Mr. Blumenauer has sent the--sent
us a letter signed by several Members wanting just such a
demonstration. But I agree with you. I sit out there sometimes
and just having casual conversations with Members about what is
going on in the rostrum, and you would be surprised at how much
they don't know.
The Chairman. Ms. Miller, I would not be surprised.
Ms. Miller. But we have--but I do want to say one thing. I
believe emphatically that our system is sound. Our EVS system
is a very good sound system. It has been upgraded over the
years. We have invested quite a bit so that we can accurately--
you can actually take those votes, we can tally those votes,
and we can assure you that our system is very good. And we have
a great crew of people who maintain it.
The Chairman. I have no doubt about the quality of the
personnel.
I think it would be helpful to the committee if you could
provide the committee with the dates of those upgrades and what
the enhancements amounted to in terms of the efficiency and the
effectiveness of the system.
Ms. Miller. We will.
The Chairman. Any further questions?
Well, the Chair thanks the panel. As I indicated, Ms.
Miller, Mr. Gore, you have been very helpful. I want to thank
my colleagues on the panel for their work in this matter, and I
particularly again want to thank Mike and Judy from CRS,
because we would not have--we wouldn't have been here today
with a draft report and a set of rules without their guidance
and assistance, and we look forward to your continued help and
cooperation.
Mr. Pence. I would just echo your sentiments about our Judy
Schneider and her team at Congressional Research Service. We
are without the resources at this point in the life of this
select committee now organized. We would simply not have been
able to meet our statutory obligations that we have met in the
business portion of these hearings. So I am grateful to them,
very grateful to the panel.
And, Mr. Chairman, after you get your daughter married off,
I am looking very much forward to a vigorous schedule of
hearings and inquiries and a resolution to this issue.
The Chairman. Thank the gentleman, and the select committee
will stand in recess.
[Whereupon, at 10:58 a.m., the select committee was
adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
----------
Amendment to the Rules of the Select Committee to Investigate the
Voting Irregularities of August 2, 2007
Offered by Rep. LaTourette
Strike ``(3) '' in the second sentence and insert ``(4)'';
Add at the end the following new section (4):
``(4) Quorum. For the purpose of taking testimony and
receiving evidence, one Member from the majority and one Member
from the minority shall constitute a quorum, unless otherwise
agreed to by the ranking minority member.''