Richard Pombo

Mr. POMBO

Mr. POMBO. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. Cremeans] for yielding this time to me. Madam Speaker, when I first got here I came from the State of California, and I represent the State of California where we do have open meeting laws, and we are required to conduct our business in the open, and, as the previous gentleman said, that he was not aware of very many meetings that we have that are closed to the public, but one of the first things that I ran into here as a new Member was a meeting that was closed to the public, and that was the Committee on Ways and Means markup of the tax increase of 1993 which was closed down to the public where not only the public and the press, but other Members, had to leave the room. Madam Speaker, the argument that was given to me at the time was that Members who are on the panel, on the committee at the time, needed to feel free to speak their mind and to vote their conscience, and that if the public were in the room, they would not be allowed to do that. That is exactly why we need this rules change to pass, so that the public knows exactly what is going on.

Mr. POMBO. Madam Speaker, I think that it is pretty simple. The LSOs were using taxpayer money, and what we were afraid of----