Vernon Ehlers

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for calling that to my attention. I did not mean to imply that. Reducing the margin gets into another issue, but my point is that the reports from the Registrar of Voters and the Secretary of State certainly indicated substantial problems with the election. Unfortunately, the national headquarters of the INS stopped the process by telling the Los Angeles office they were no longer allowed to cooperate with the California Secretary of State. At that point, the House Oversight Committee asked the INS to cooperate, and again we were told no. All this resulted in approximately a 3-month delay, until the committee issued subpoenas and the INS then responded to the subpoenas. The delay was most unfortunate because we wanted to wrap up the investigation quickly. Another delay occurred with the subpoenas issued by former Congressman Dornan in an attempt to engage in the discovery process and get more information. All of those subpoenas were ignored by the recipients and no progress was made on that point. Furthermore, the request by the House to the Department of Justice to enforce the subpoenas resulted in no action and, again, we incurred approximately a 3-month delay. Finally, the Congress itself issued subpoenas to a few crucial witnesses and organizations, and after considerable work on our part and their part, they responded and we did get some information, although it is still in question as to how thorough that was. I give this only by background to illustrate some of the difficulties encountered by the task force in attempting to ascertain the truth and, as I said, to be fair, honest, factual, and thorough. Let me give a very brief report of the process and of the discoveries we made. This chart looks very complex because it is, and it is very hard to read because there is a lot of information on one sheet. I will not go through it in detail; I simply want to illustrate that the process started by getting a computer tape of the Orange County voter registration list, computer tapes of the INS database, and running comparisons. And that is what we started from. The rest of the work primarily was going through the results of the computer match because we wanted to determine to the maximum extent possible what names had to be eliminated because they had proof of citizenship at time of registration to vote. So most of the work, contrary to what one might expect from a Republican majority task force, was not devoted to finding additional noncitizen voters but rather to prove that we could verify and document the results presented here. Let me report now on what we discovered in terms of number of votes. After doing the computer check, eliminating obvious mismatches, we had an original number of 7,841 suspect votes. Upon further examination, going through not just the INS computer tapes but also through the INS written records and trying to clear up the many discrepancies we encountered, we discovered that 5,303 of the 7,841 actually were citizens and were legitimate registrants. So we subtracted that from the 7,841 and that indicated we still had 2,538 suspect registrants. Then, checking the voter records carefully, we determined that 1,718 of them, even though they had registered illegally, did not vote and so, therefore, had no impact on the election. But it does illustrate the point that the chairman of the committee made a moment ago, this is definitely a matter of concern. Altogether, we have approximately 2,500 illegal registrants discovered in our process; and that has to be taken care of as a separate issue, through further legislation. That indicated that there were still 820 suspect registrants who did vote in the November 1996 election. At that point we went into extensive examination of the data to try to document in the best possible way those that we could be certain were illegal noncitizens who voted, and the number that emerged was 624. We had circumstantial evidence that an additional 196 had voted but were unable to document it to my and our satisfaction; and, therefore, we decided not to include those in the total of questionable votes. If we add to the 624 illegal noncitizen voters that we have identified the 124 absentee ballots that had previously been disallowed by the Orange County Registrar of Voters, then we discover 748 illegal votes. And that is the total that we had emerge as the number of illegal votes cast in that election. If one were to include those votes with circumstantial evidence of illegality, there would be 944. Let me remind my colleagues again, the margin of victory was 979. Let me also remind my colleagues, the three options open to the committee and the task force were, number one, to dismiss the election, simply saying there is not sufficient proof to change the result of the election; number two, to say the evidence was so overwhelming in favor of the contestant that we had to overthrow the election and seat Mr. Dornan; and number three, to simply say, we cannot tell the result of the election, no one can tell the result of the election, and we vacate the seat and the State must call a new election. It is our recommendation to the committee, and its recommended to the Congress, that we dismiss the election in view of the fact that the number of illegal votes we identified is less than the margin of victory that was previously determined.

Mr. EHLERS. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the chairman of the committee for yielding me this time. I am pleased to come to the House and report on the results of a very thorough investigation of the Dornan-Sanchez contested election race. I was given the following charge by the chairman of the committee, when I took this task: I was asked to chair this task force because of my reputation for integrity and honesty, and he emphasized in the initial assignment that he wanted me to be fair, honest, factual and thorough. This charge was reinforced by the Republican leadership of the House several times during the course of this investigation when certain issues came up, and once again I was always encouraged to be fair, honest, factual and thorough in the investigation. And I have certainly attempted to do that because that is the way I want it to be. It is regrettable that many false charges were made by the minority party, even on the floor of the House, during the course of this investigation. Because I felt it improper for anyone involved in the investigation to comment, I restrained my comments at that time. Initially, there were several charges made in the contest documents filed by former Representative Dornan. As we examined these, we found that many of them simply could not be substantiated. But what we did find was that charges of illegal voting, specifically of fraudulent voting by noncitizens, could be substantiated and, in fact, were true. The initial examination by the registrar of voters of Orange County discovered 124 absentee ballots which were invalid, and so that reduced the 979 vote margin by 124. The California Secretary of State did an independent investigation of the election, along with the Los Angeles office of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, and identified in their first pass 305 noncitizens who had registered to vote and had voted.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on Senate Concurrent Resolution 61, Senate Concurrent Resolution 62, and Senate Concurrent Resolution 63.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, first I want to thank the gentleman for yielding me this time to speak regarding section 10(2)(B) of this bill. This section would make nondischargeable through bankruptcy a debt incurred as a result of the operation of a boat or airplane while under the influence of alcohol. This section is taken from a bill I sponsored for several years and which the House passed unanimously last year, but which unfortunately did not receive action in the Senate. My bill, and this section of H.R. 764, seeks to correct what I believe was a bill-drafting oversight involving our bankruptcy laws. Current law states that if an individual incurs a debt as a result of the operation of a motor vehicle under the influence of alcohol, they cannot have that debt discharged through a declaration of bankruptcy. Since this law was originally enacted, the courts have generally interpreted the statute's use of the term ``motor vehicle'' as meaning ``automobile,'' although some courts have differed with that. Mr. Speaker, as we know, my home State of Michigan has an extraordinarily robust boating industry. Over the years we have worked hard on the State level, as have many other States, to make it perfectly clear that drunk boating is as serious a crime as drunk driving, and we have consistently written Michigan drunk driving laws to explicitly include drunk boating. The language in this section simply seeks to extend this notion of equal treatment of drunk driving and drunk boating to the Federal level, as it concerns our bankruptcy laws. Since the courts have ruled that the Bankruptcy Code, as it is currently written, may only refer to automobiles, we seek to specifically add watercraft to this section of the Bankruptcy Code. In addition, while it does not have the public profile of drunk driving and drunk boating, the operation of aircraft under the influence of alcohol and drugs has also been a problem, with far higher potential for injury and death. I might just mention parenthetically the airplane that crashed into the White House a few years ago when someone was flying under the influence of alcohol and drugs. This bill's language recognizes this and includes the drunk operation of aircraft as well. I want to note here that it is not my intention, nor do I believe that it is the intention of this committee presenting this bill, to include ``watercraft'' and ``aircraft'' in the definition of ``motor vehicle,'' but rather it is the intention to add ``watercraft'' and ``aircraft'' to this section of the Bankruptcy Code exclusive of ``motor vehicle,'' and I want the record to reflect this. Again, Mr. Speaker, while this issue may not garner a great deal of public attention, those that have been negatively impacted by the lack of clarity in this section of the Bankruptcy Code have suffered significantly by not being able to collect judgments that have been given them, and we ought to protect future victims of drunk boating and drunk flying by adopting the simple correction called for in this bill.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time. If the gentlewoman from Michigan [Ms. Kilpatrick] wishes to yield back the balance of her time, I shall do likewise.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, these resolutions provide for the following: Senate Concurrent Resolution 61 provides for printing of the revised edition of the publication entitled ``Our Flag.'' This resolution provides for the printing of 250,000 copies, or such number as can be printed, for a total printing and production cost of $150,000. Senate Concurrent Resolution 62 provides for printing of the revised edition of the publication entitled ``How Our Laws Are Made.'' This resolution provides for the printing of 250,000 copies, or such number as can be printed, for a total printing and production cost of $180,000. Senate Concurrent Resolution 63 provides for printing of the revised edition of the publication entitled ``The Constitution of the United States of America.'' This resolution provides for the printing of 440,000 copies, or such number as can be printed, for a total printing and production cost of $120,000. All three of these are extremely useful to our constituents and to Members of Congress, and I strongly urge that we adopt these resolutions. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the Senate concurrent resolutions (S. Con. Res. 61) authorizing printing of a revised edition of the publication entitled ``Our Flag,'' (S. Con. Res. 62) authorizing printing of the brochure entitled ``How Our Laws Are Made,'' and (S. Con. Res. 63) authorizing printing of the pamphlet entitled ``The Constitution of the United States of America.''

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 612, I was detained in an important meeting and could not reach the floor in time to vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I do not plan to discuss confidential information which would be from the INS, such as names and issues such as that, but I do want to share with the body some numbers, numbers which the gentleman from Maryland is familiar with from the work of the task force since he has received most of this information. These are going to be very approximate numbers, but I felt it important to deal with that, and also to give a little bit of history of what the task force has done. I have given partial histories in past debates on this issue, and I will try to deal with some of the questions that have been raised since then. First of all, it is important to recognize that the Committee on House Oversight and our task force did not choose which election to be involved in. That decision is made by the contestant who files the notice of contest, and that was Mr. Dornan in this case. Mr. Dornan, as has been observed, filed many charges as part of his notice of contest. We have investigated that. We found that many of them did not have a strong basis and were not factors in the election, and so we have put those aside. The largest issue that did emerge, however, is a question of fraudulent votes by noncitizens, and that deserved greater study. Now, the problem developed with that, which I will get to in just a moment, that midway in the investigation as Mr. Dornan and the California Secretary of State were pursuing that, suddenly their source of information in the INS was shut off, and that has created a good deal of the delay that we are discussing tonight. Furthermore, as everyone knows from previous discussions, a number of the subpoenas were not responded to. Now, I have, just for graphic purposes, and I apologize for the poor quality of this, I am an X professor and I am used to working with materials at hand and not hiring people to prepare fancy displays suitable for this audience, but several numbers to remember. The margin of the election. 984 votes is a certified margin, but the recount actually was a 979-vote margin. The Secretary of State does not in California change the certificate to reflect the recount total, but the actual margin of election was 979. The Registrar of Elections of Orange County, conducting her own investigation of the election, discovered 124 fraudulent absentee ballots using the standard measures under California law for determining which absentee ballots are fraudulent, and also under California law subtracting them from the total. The California Secretary of State received information from Hermandad, the organization that has been mentioned before, through the Orange County district attorney, indicating 1,163 individuals, and I am sorry I did not write that number down, 1,163 individuals who had gone through citizenship classes at Hermandad. That is not necessarily the complete list, because the Orange County District Attorney was not specifically looking for that information, but that is the information they received when they went in and seized the records. There are other records they did not seize. We would like to see those records; they have ignored subpoenas up to this point, and we simply do not have the information. From those 1,163, with the aid of the Los Angeles district office of the INS, 305 have been identified as noncitizen voters in Orange County, so add the 124 and the 305, those are rock-hard certain voters who are noncitizens. At that point the Director of the INS in Los Angeles was told by his superiors in Washington to no longer cooperate. That was in late March, early April. We then asked the INS for assistance so that they would furnish the materials to the California Secretary of State. We were refused. We then had to subpoena the INS records, which we did, and there was all together approximately 3 months delay as a result of their decision to cut off the assistance they had been providing. As the committee tried to develop a list of potential noncitizen voters, the initial list was approximately in the neighborhood of 6,000. That included a list from the INS, a computer match of the Orange County voters versus the records of the INS of individuals where they matched the first name, last name, date of birth. This also includes a list from the Orange County Registrar of Voters and other officials there of individuals who had refused to accept jury duty because they checked off they were noncitizens, but yet they had voted. This also included individuals who had voted, but there were border crossing cards on record for them in which it was clear that they had been born in another country, and their citizenship could not be verified with the INS. So this is the gross number, greater than 6,000. Out of that, we culled down approximately 4,000 that looked very seriously as if they could be nonvoters--pardon me, noncitizens who had voted. Now, much has been made in the resolutions that have been presented here over and over about this delay and no credible evidence. This is credible evidence. Why the delay? Because we have been going through very, very carefully, and what we have to verify is that indeed, the individuals in the INS records and the individuals in the Orange County records are, in fact, one and the same, and so that has allowed us to narrow down the list. Something else we had to verify. Are the INS records accurate? When they indicate that someone is a citizen or a noncitizen, is there some verification for that? We have to depend on the INS, but we have had them go through and do a search of their records, and we keep searching and keep trying to find the most accurate record we can. The minority has also been helpful in this. They took another search approach, and the information that they came up with has been included. So notice the number has been shrinking, greater than 6,000, then greater than 4,000, greater than 2,000, approximately 1,000 at this point. Actually, the number is larger, but I do not want to claim any larger number at this point, and we are still working on it, trying to finalize as closely as we can. In addition, we recently asked the California Secretary of State for assistance, because we want independent verification of these numbers. Roll Call Newspaper erroneously said we were turning the issue over to the California Secretary of State. Not true. We are simply asking them to review what we have done and to verify that it is accurate. I also want to make it clear that contrary to charges that have been made on the floor, and to which I take considerable offense, we have not targeted Hispanics or Latinos. We have never once asked for any records specifying that we want those with Hispanic or Latino names. We are not targeting women in this race. We are not including illegal immigrants, which we probably should do if we could get a handle on that, and the California Secretary of State is looking at that independently. But there is a whole group of individuals who are not included in this examination, that is the illegal immigrants, simply because the INS has no record of them. If they are illegal, they do not sign up with the INS. The gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer] has made a point that Mr. Dornan says he is finished. He has submitted his evidence. That is fine, but all of us know that when we go into a court of law, when we finish the case, it is not over. The jury has to deliberate, and we perform the function of the jury. The point is simply we want to complete the analysis. We are not proceeding with malice, we are not proceeding in an effort to be unfair; we are trying our very, very best to look at these numbers which are very, very substantial numbers and verify as precisely as we can what the actual numbers are, and then we will discuss them with the committee; we will discuss them with the House of Representatives, and a decision will be made as to the final result of the election. That is our responsibility as Members of the task force. Nothing more, nothing less. There are many other issues that have emerged from this. Others have registered concerns about targeting and this sort of thing. We do not look at those issues; we are simply looking at the votes that were cast in trying to identify which votes were fraudulent. Now, let me add one more point. The difference between this case and what makes it different from previous cases that the House has frequently dealt with is that the fraud in this case is different. In most previous Congresses when the Congress has dealt with fraud, it has been deliberate fraud, organized fraud, large blocks of votes. That is not true in this case. I think this is not deliberate fraud, except perhaps on the part of Hermandad, we have to determine that later, but certainly not on the part of the individuals voting. I think they were misled. We are dealing with individuals who honestly thought they were doing the right thing. Nevertheless, if the votes are fraudulent, that must be dealt with. I thank the Speaker for the time to present this, and I ask the indulgence of the House as we continue to wrap this up, I hope as soon as possible, and as accurately as possible.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, very often from this podium we hear criticism of our Government and of our Nation, and rightfully so, because we exercise an oversight role. But I believe we have an obligation also to point out when the Government does something good and something right. I would like to mention two such items that have happened recently. First of all, Dr. William Phillips, of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, recently shared a Nobel Prize for physics for research that he had done on cooling atoms. This is a very esoteric field of research, and it has real promise for the future, particularly for precise timekeeping, and will improve our time-standard accuracy by a factor of 100. In a recent science magazine I noticed also that William H.F. Smith from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and David Sandwell from Scripps Institution have succeeded in mapping the world, including the ocean floors, from satellites. What I am displaying here is a remarkable map, obtained for the first time in history, showing all the topographical details of the land and undersea surfaces. This will be extremely useful in analyzing effects such as El Nino and determining how to improve our fisheries. I commend these scientists as well as Dr. Phillips for the good work they have done. We are proud of them, and proud to have them as Government employees.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I share the regret expressed by the chairman of the Committee on House Oversight that the minority leader is not here, because not only would I like to have him hear my remarks but, frankly, I wanted to compliment him on the manner in which he presented his statement and his case, in a very straightforward manner, dealing with the facts. And that is what we are trying to do in this case. In response to the gentleman from Connecticut, I will answer just one of his questions. He asked if someone here would stand up and say how we would deal if Mr. Dornan had won by 10 votes. I do not care how many votes he might have won by, he would have been treated the same way as the present coutestee and the case would have been handled the same way. In regard to the contestee in the case, the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez], I commend her for her statement, and I want to assure her and assure every Member of Congress that I do not in any way question her actions. I have never accused her of stonewalling. I do not intend to. I am sure she wants to resolve this. I want to resolve it. And I think we will both be well served if we can resolve it as quickly as possible. However, it is not that simple when one has to deal with all the details we have had to deal with, and I will try to outline a few of the aspects of that. First of all, a few comments on the resolution presented. The chairman of the committee has already indicated a number of issues that we would disagree with. I simply want to say, although the task force has only had a few official meetings since the start of the year, we have had several informal meetings discussing the quashing or modification of subpoenas and, furthermore, we have had four meetings of the full committee where we have dealt with those same questions. So we have not been inactive on the meeting front. In addition to that, we have been very active in analyzing the data and information, and I will, if time permits, get into some of the details of that later. I do also want to comment on the ``whereas'' clause which states that the Committee on House Oversight has issued unprecedented subpoenas to the INS; and also that this is the first time in any election in the history of the United States that the INS has been asked by Congress to verify the citizenship of voters. First of all, I do not believe the subpoenas are unprecedented, and, frankly, the reason they were issued is that, although the INS initially agreed to cooperate at the local level, they were stopped by the officials in Washington, and we had to resort to subpoenas because they simply refused to cooperate with us. I believe if my colleagues look back through the records, they would find the INS has been more cooperative in the past. Furthermore, they have been asked a number of times, or their predecessors have been asked, to verify citizenship not just of voters but of candidates for the office. I find it interesting, looking through some of the previous files in the last century, more of the questions about citizenship were raised about the winners of the contest than about the voters in the contest. But, clearly, this is an important issue and they have been involved in this issue before. Furthermore, I happen to think it is not bad to verify citizenship of voters. I think that it is extremely important, because the law requires that voters be citizens. I have no problem whatsoever with ensuring that voters of this Nation are citizens of this Nation. Just a comment about the resolution's phrase that we are now seeking a duplicate and dilatory review of materials already in the committee's possession by the secretary of the State of California. We are not asking for a duplicate or dilatory review. We have done enough work on these. Rather, we are seeking verification, because we want to have as few errors as possible. And that is why we are presenting what we have uncovered in the investigation, in great confidentiality, to the Secretary of State and to the INS, with whom we have been working, asking for verification of various factors there. Another comment, that no credible evidence has been provided. Well, first of all, I would relate to everyone that our task is somewhat similar to that of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The Committee on Standards of Official Conduct has to work in a confidential atmosphere. We do, too. We do not release information. And that is why we have confidentiality agreements for anyone who works on the information. Some numbers are public, and I will mention those. My colleagues have heard them referred to. The California Secretary of State initially stated that 303 out of the list of 1,150 registrants, the list from Hermandad, had voted illegally. The Secretary of State's office has taken the information provided by the minority. We have worked with them. The California Secretary of State has now, through careful scrutiny of the entire list, verified that 305 individuals voted illegally. In other words, these are noncitizens who voted. In addition to that, the Registrar of Elections in Orange County has verified that 124 individuals voted illegally. This has nothing to do with a noncitizen issue. It is illegal use of absentee ballots. So we have approximately 430 known, publicized illegal votes in that district. Furthermore, one other number that has become public is that our examination of INS and Orange County reveals there are approximately 4,100 potential noncitizen voters. That is, of course, a huge number. And we have, through months and months of staff effort, tried very diligently to try to find out which of those individuals might possibly have citizenship that did not show on the initial search of the INS records. After all this work, that number of potential noncitizen voters is now much smaller. And we are asking the California Secretary of State to verify our work so that we can have the most precise possible number. Verification is what we are seeking from the California Secretary of State, and I think it is very important to do that. I believe it is also very important to note that this Congress did seat the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez]. She has performed her duties, insofar as I can tell, and she has performed them well. She has all the rights and duties of a Congressperson and she is exercising them. There was no attempt to deny her the seat. There is no attempt to unseat her without sufficient information. We want to make sure that we have verified all the facts in this case before we act. Is it taking too long? It is certainly taking longer than I would like. I had hoped we could resolve it sooner, but there is a great deal of detailed work that needs to be done and we are nearing the end of that process. We are trying to keep it nonpolitical, and I know that is very, very difficult in this atmosphere. I have chided one member of our committee for wearing an orange ribbon in committee meetings and on the floor. I think that is inappropriate, but that is his choice. I am just saying that I have tried to be very evenhanded in my handling of this issue. We simply have turned to the chief election officer of the State of California to verify what we have done. That official issued a Certificate of Election, which we accepted, but we also want further verification of the numbers we are dealing with.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, just to clarify a few points and respond to a few items mentioned by the last two speakers, the two gentlemen from California on the minority side. First of all, the statement was made that they have not seen one shred of evidence. Apparently they did not hear my comment that, independent of our work, there are 305 illegal voters identified by the Secretary of State, and 124 illegal absentee ballots identified by the Registrar of Elections in Orange County. That is a substantial number right there, certainly more than a shred. In addition to that, of course, we have the other areas we are investigating. I also want to respond to the repeated comments, both on the floor and off the floor, about the length of time this is taking. Let us get a little reality in here. I would hope that the Members of this House would look back in history and look at what has happened in the past. I have in my hands a chart, which I will be happy to share with anyone, going back to approximately 1930, of all the contested elections that had real substance to them, such as this one, where an investigation was required. The first one was 22.75 months duration; then we have a series of over 12 months duration; two of 16 months duration; several more of 12 months duration; 13\1/2\ months; 16\1/2\ months; 19, 22, 16\1/2\, 18\1/ 2\, 19\1/2\. And you think this one is too long? Look at the history. Look at what we have had in the past. This case has not taken too long. If we would decide this contest today, it would be one of the earliest decisions made on an issue of substance in the history of contested elections.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 487, I missed the vote due to an urgent need to return to my office between votes. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of misinformation this evening. My purpose here is to simply try to lay out some facts and some information about the process that is used. First of all, recognize that nothing is more sacred to the democratic process than to ensure that each legitimate voter be allowed to vote and that their votes be counted. Furthermore, that the voter be assured that no illegal votes be allowed to be cast or to be counted. The principle of one person, one vote, or one citizen, one vote is extremely important in our system of government. So important, in fact, that the founders of our Nation decided to put it in the Constitution and ensure that the elections of the House were valid, and gave to the House itself the power, as we read in section 5 of Article I, near the beginning of the Constitution, that ``Each House shall be the judge of the elections, returns and qualifications of its own Members.'' Now, any contestant or any loser in an election may file a petition for a contested election. The committee does not choose to file these; the House does not. All of this discussion about picking on a particular person because the attributes of that person is simply false. The House has no control over which elections are contested. The losers of the election make that decision, and I am sure in this particular case we recognize that the person who filed the contest is not someone who would take advice from the House, the committee or anyone else. Now, how does the House proceed? It has proceeded in various ways throughout the years the House has been in operation. Many, many contests have been filed over the years since 1789. All were filed under the constitutional provision. Some have been filed under statutes that were in effect at the time that the cases were filed, but there have been years when no statute was in effect, they were simply filed under the Constitution. Our current law guiding this is the Contested Election Act passed in 1969. Under that, the duties and responsibilities of contested elections are assigned to the Committee on House Oversight, which then appoints task forces to investigate. I was appointed to the task force for this election. I did not seek that appointment. I did not want that appointment. It was almost as bad as being appointed chair of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. It is a difficult task. It is particularly difficult for me to stand here and hear charges of racism, sexism and other charges when they are simply not true, and being unable to respond because of the nature of the case. There are many issues that are confidential. There are privacy statutes that have to be obeyed. Eventually, perhaps some of the details can be given, as we do in ethics cases, but I would urge those present and those listening in their offices not to judge the content of the case and the procedures by the comments that we have heard from some on the floor this evening. Since 1789, the standard method of obtaining information in the case of a contested election has been the use of the subpoena. Even before statutes were written, the subpoena was used. There have been many contested elections over the years, and many thousands of subpoenas that have been issued in these cases. Currently they are issued within the confines of the Contested Election Act. In this particular case, 51 subpoenas were requested by Mr. Dornan. The committee has the power, under the Contested Election Act, to review those subpoenas. We quashed 15 of them; 9 were withdrawn by the contestant. Six have been responded to; there was no response to 6; 13 have been ignored. How can we enforce response? That is the question that faces the committee. If a subpoena is filed in a court, the court can use contempt proceedings. That power is not given us in the Contested Election Act. We must depend on the U.S. Attorney to bring actions in these cases. The timetable in this case is that on March 19, a subpoena was issued on Hermandad Mexicana Nacional by Mr. Dornan. On April 16, the committee modified that. May 1, the response is due, no response is received. May 13, Mr. Dornan's attorney filed a criminal complaint with the U.S. Attorney. Nothing was done. June 2, the attorney once again asked for action. Nothing was done. June 23, the committee sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney. No response. June 30, another letter was sent, and we finally got a response saying, ``We are looking at it.'' We are now in September, and we are still trying to get enforcement on the action on the subpoena that was issued under the law which was passed by the House of Representatives. What can we do? What is the next step? We thought the next step was for the House to send a letter to the Department of Justice by way of the resolution that is before us right now. That is the next logical step. If the Department of Justice chooses not to respond again, the only next step is that we issue a committee subpoena, but I am sure that the recipients of the subpoenas would prefer dealing with a U.S. Attorney rather than dealing with facing contempt of the House of Representatives. We simply cannot allow individuals to thumb their nose at the House of Representatives and say, we do not want to answer your subpoena, so we are not going to. It is a legal subpoena issued by a U.S. District Court judge, and it is very important that these subpoenas be responded to. Our task force needs the information. We have obtained some information from the INS through a committee subpoena. That is all we have available at the moment, but we need the information that will be provided by these various subpoenas, and once we have that information, we hope we can bring this case to a rapid conclusion.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 397, S. 562, I was in the Chamber and voted ``yes,'' but apparently my vote was not recorded by the electronic voting system. Had the voting system worked, I would have been recorded as voting ``Yes.''

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. EHLERS. I will not take any more of the gentlewoman's time. I just want to say that I will continue this in the next special order. But I do invite all of my colleagues to remain for that. And I will be happy to explain and answer for my colleagues and give the facts of the situation.

Mr. EHLERS. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding, and I did not come here to rain on her parade. I understand what my colleagues are doing. But I do have to simply rise and voice some concern about the language and the words which were used. And, frankly, I take them personally, to the point almost of wishing to raise a point of personal privilege. The term ``witch hunt'' was used to describe this. I am the chairman of the task force attempting to resolve the issue of the contested election in the 46th District. I have tried my very, very best to keep this fair and honorable. We did not initiate it, Mr. Dornan initiated it. We have a responsibility to pursue it. The issue was raised by the gentleman from California [Mr. Capps] that if the name of the gentlewoman from California was not Sanchez, this would not have happened. I do not happen to believe that is true, but at any rate that is immaterial to the discussion.

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] for yielding and simply want to make a few comments about the discussion which just ended. I was disappointed in the tone of the conversation and disappointed to hear the results, particularly disappointed that all the speakers whom I invited to stay to hear the explanation have decided to leave the Chamber rather than to hear the facts. In particular, I respond to the last question which was asked; and that is, why were 1.3 million records in Orange County subpoenaed and why were they all Latino? The answer is, they were not subpoenaed and they were not all Latino. How can I respond to questions such as that which totally misstate it? As I said earlier, this is not a witch-hunt. This is following the law that was established by the U.S. Congress and signed into law by the President of the United States. This is not an attempt to discredit the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez], who was certified as having won the election. And we did seat her, and she has served since that time and is serving her district to the best of her ability. This is not a partisan attempt. It is simply a response. I wish the previous speakers had remained to hear some of the details of the law. The issuing of subpoenas is not unprecedented. It is the first time it has been done under the current law. But if we look over the 200-year history, we will find that in fact subpoenas have been issued a number of times in contested elections. Furthermore, I would point out that in the last election we had five contested elections. What is unusual about this year is that we have only one. Of the five that were filed last year, two I think were serious challenges. The committee dealt with those and, after due examination, dismissed all of them. But the last one was not dismissed for over 20 months. It took that long to verify that the election had been won. But in the meantime, that individual had sat in Congress, had served Congress and, after it was dismissed, continued to serve in Congress. I certainly want to clarify that this is not an attack on Latinos. As I mentioned in the discussion yesterday, a large number of the names that have emerged are Vietnamese. There are other nationalities present as well. And the names we are holding confidential, at the request of the INS. We do not at this point know whether this investigation will proceed or how far the investigation will proceed. We are simply following the process that has been outlined. Mr. Dornan filed the contest. The committee did not file the contest. My task force did not file the contest. Mr. Dornan chose to file it, just as five individuals chose to file contests in the previous election 2 years ago. It is not the choice of the Congress as to whether or not a contest is to be filed. It is a choice of the losers in the election. The subpoena power was not given by the committee. In fact, the committee restricted the subpoenas which were issued to Mr. Dornan by the court. He went to court and asked for the power to send out subpoenas. The first time a magistrate said yes. The opposition to Mr. Dornan went to court and said you are not supposed to do that. The judge ruled, yes, the magistrate should not have issued those subpoenas. And the judge said that he would issue those but under his conditions. He attached those conditions. We were then asked as a committee to review those by the judge. We did quash some subpoenas. We restricted some subpoenas, and others we let stand. I would point out, also, that the majority of the subpoenas have not been honored. And, therefore, the comments that people have been harassed by this is simply not true. They are simply giving a response in several cases, and particularly the largest cases, saying we do not plan to honor this, or have simply ignored it. These are some of the facts and I felt it incumbent to present to this body after the previous discussions some of the facts that we are dealing with. I will be happy to answer questions which are addressed to my office about this to try to clarify it as much as possible. But let me emphasize once again, I take personal umbrage at the reference to this as a witch-hunt. It clearly is not. One might use that term to apply to the 1984 election, which is quite a different situation. I would also point out that there is a Democrat on the task force, the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer], and my colleagues can check with him as to whether or not I am attempting to run this task force as fairly as possible and in a bipartisan fashion. My colleagues can also ask those who attended the hearing we held in Orange County. I received many comments afterward from the audience and participants commending me for running it in a fair fashion, without trying to discredit either party or to shame either one. Obviously, we asked tough questions of those who appeared before us, including the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez]. Former Congressman Dornan also appeared but very, very briefly and did not give us much opportunity for questioning. I want to thank the gentleman from Wisconsin [Mr. Neumann] once again for yielding and for the opportunity to set the record straight on some of these issues.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding time to me. Mr. Chairman, I am the chairman of the task force investigating this election. I have to say that the comments I have heard from the other side of the aisle bear no resemblance whatsoever to the activity of the task force. The point has been raised that the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez] won the election fair and square. We have not in any way said that she had cheated in the election. We are simply trying to determine if noncitizens voted in the election, and that would be illegal if they did. But we are not saying that she instigated this in any way whatsoever. I also point out that my parents were immigrants. I grew up in an immigrant culture in a small town in Minnesota where a majority of people were immigrants. I would also point out that this Congress, the Republican majority, seated the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez], which is a practice not followed by the Democrats in the case of a famous election in 1984 when they did not seat Mr. McIntyre and eventually denied him a seat on very poor grounds, and seated his opponent. I would also point out that we have not delayed in determining this. We are working as rapidly as possible. The other task force on which I served in the previous session of Congress, that of Mr. Charlie Rose of North Carolina, did not resolve the issue until September of the following year. We certainly hope to resolve this one before that amount of time elapses. We are certainly not dilly-dallying on this one, or delaying, or conducting an investigation of a type that has not been done before. A comment has been made that for the first time the committee has allowed subpoenas to be issued. We did not allow them. Mr. Dornan read the law and discovered that he could issue them. So he proceeded to issue them. It was a question raised in court by the Sanchez attorneys, and the court said: That is fine, Mr. Dornan can issue those subpoenas under the law. We have not had any involvement with that activity. The only subpoenas issued by the committee have been those on the INS which unfortunately proved necessary because the INS was not willing to release its computer tapes to the committee without subpoenas. Fortunately they have been cooperating since that time. As the gentleman from Kentucky [Mr. Rogers] has mentioned, we are checking all names, and my colleagues might be surprised at the results, since all the discussion here has been about those with Spanish surnames. The number of Vietnamese names is very, very large on the list in question, and other nationalities appear as well. It appears that there may have been an organization in Orange County, which is why we are looking at all of Orange County, that deliberately encouraged noncitizens to register to vote. In other words, this organization may have been using noncitizens in citizenship classes and encouraging them to register to vote before they could legally do so. That is one area we are investigating. The problem we have encountered is that subpoenas issued to that organization and to the gentlewoman from California [Ms. Sanchez] and to other organizations have not been honored. They have not even responded to them. They refuse to give the information. The U.S. attorney has been asked to rule on that and has not yet done so. But it appears the only way we could get the information would be through committee subpoenas. We have not done that as yet, but we may be forced to. This is not a new type of attacks as stated here. We are using the procedures under the act as it was written by this Congress and signed into law. We are simply using them properly for the first time in the history of the act. No one can accurately accuse us of subverting the process in any way.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, I just learned that my name was mistakenly entered as a cosponsor of H.R. 1984, and I ask unanimous consent that my name be removed as cosponsor.

Mr. EHLERS

Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 279, because I was detained in unexpectedly heavy traffic, I missed the vote. Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''