John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the dean of the House. (Mr. DINGELL asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), a member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Markey).

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Waters), who serves on both committees, incidentally.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

Mr. CONYERS. I yield to the gentleman from Texas. This is a yes or no response.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds. Could I ask my distinguished chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, has his committee held hearings on this bill?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. This is the time for truth-telling. We put in 5 years and it was unanimously opposed by the other side. Where did the sudden legislative conversion take place? Over the weekend? Yesterday? Sometime before 6:30 when the bill was dropped by all of my colleagues? Five years was no good in April, May, June, July, but this morning that is nothing, we have got to get them. Maybe it is because the Attorney General and the Department of Justice do not bring these kinds of cases, and I would like to ask the chairman and all of his lawyers and the other Members to tell us where there have been any cases brought like this. This is a sham, not against individuals, and that is why leaving out the civil penalties is a dead giveaway. What about giving the defrauded investors more time to seek relief? Is that being covered? I do not think so. And my colleague has heard of sentencing enhancement, has he not? But they are not in the gentleman's bill. So without trying to draw nitpicking distinctions, this bill is seriously flawed. I am voting against it. I know there may be Members that feel inclined to show that they are doing something rather than nothing. We are back to this scale of two versus 10. But this is a very flawed bill, and that is why we cannot bring it before the Committee on the Judiciary for hearings and the discussion it deserves. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as she may consume to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. CONYERS. After this is passed, the gentleman is going to hold hearings. I thank the gentleman very much.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, it is this kind of legislative process that gives our body a bad name. Now, it must take a certain amount of chutzpah to say that this is a bipartisan bill. There has not been any bipartisan input on this bill whatsoever, and it is a very important bill. There is no way that, as the gentleman from New York (Mr. LaFalce) pointed out, there is no way that we can amend this bill. The curious thing is back in April when I introduced a motion to recommit, it was April 9, the bill was voted down by the Republicans. All these provisions that were rejected are now the ones that are being brought forth with great pride. And so I just want to point out that it may have had something to do with the Senate voting unanimously to include the provisions that both the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary and I have introduced to bring real accountability to wrongdoers. Now, maybe this move to criminalize but not have civil penalties might be due to the fact that the Attorney General has yet to bring one case in this area for prosecution against any individual. Has he changed his attitude? I do not know and I wonder if anyone in the House does. So we come here in some shock, some disappointment that we are here doing this kind of a run and catch up; let us get cover to make sure we might be able to head off the work that is being done in the other body. Now, I want to ask this question to anybody in the House. Is it true that the whistleblowers language that is in this bill which was, I think, subsequently added, was that given any help or assistance from those in the securities industry? You can answer that yes or no. The criminal relief requires that an employee prove beyond a reasonable doubt to get a conviction; we are now eliminating the civil provisions which only require a preponderance of evidence. Are we aware of what we are doing here and why we are doing it? So I am very disappointed in the way this is being done. Mr. Speaker, I reserve my time at this point.

Mr. CONYERS. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I simply ask, has the gentleman had a hearing on the bill?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, how much remains?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee), a distinguished member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. I am talking about the civil penalties now. I am not talking about the criminal penalties. I agree with the criminal penalties. But there must have been some profound legal reasoning that led to the omission of civil penalties. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. In other words, the gentleman thought this out, or somebody, whoever put this bill together, and they have come to the conclusion that we do not want civil penalties, in other words, hitting these corporations and the crooked CEOs in the pocketbook, which is what motivates much of this malevolent corporate behavior; but the gentleman wants them to now go to jail, which was a provision that I had in the original bill that we proposed, I say to the gentleman from Wisconsin, that he and the Republicans voted against. What newfound energies. This is really wonderful.

Mr. CONYERS. In other words, what we have here today is a jacked-up version of a ``let's-run-and-deal-with-an-emergency'' that is so critical to the stabilization of the stock markets that the bill was introduced less than 24 hours ago, has never been before the Committee on the Judiciary, has never been consulted with the Democratic leadership, no consultations, and then has been amended in the process, and we now find ourselves under a suspension procedure in the House in which we are now told that this is very important that we do it, it is a very important piece of legislation, information on which there has never been a hearing in the Committee on the Judiciary. Mr. Speaker, I do not mean to use up all my time with my friend, the gentleman from Wisconsin, but for my final question I would ask the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner), are there any civil penalties for retaliation against whistleblowers in this bill?

Mr. CONYERS. I am happy to learn of the zeal of the leadership in the House. Now, let me just ask the gentleman, was there any consultation on the part of the Republican leadership with the Democratic leadership?

Mr. CONYERS. Was the bill changed?

Mr. CONYERS. Was it changed?

Mr. CONYERS. It was 6:30 p.m. I thank the gentleman. Has the bill been changed since the bill was introduced at 6:30?

Mr. CONYERS. What time?

Mr. CONYERS. I know the gentleman does not see my name on the list. Did the gentleman tell me what time it was introduced, which was what my question was?