U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

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H.R. 1: STRENGTHENING ETHICS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

COMMITTEE ON 

OVERSIGHT AND REFORM 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED SIXTEENTH CONGRESS 

FIRST SESSION 

FEBRUARY 6, 2019 

Serial No. 116–02 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Oversight and Reform 

( 

Available on: http://www.govinfo.gov 

http://www.oversight.house.gov or 

http://www.docs.house.gov 
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COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM 

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland, Chairman 

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York 

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of 

Columbia 

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri 

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts 

JIM COOPER, Tennessee 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

RAJA KRISHNAMOORTHI, Illinois 

JAMIE RASKIN, Maryland 

HARLEY ROUDA, California 

KATIE HILL, California 

DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ, Florida 

JOHN P. SARBANES, Maryland 

PETER WELCH, VERMONT

JACKIE SPEIER, California 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

MARK DESAULNIER, California 

BRENDA L. LAWRENCE, Michigan 

STACEY E. PLASKETT, Virgin Islands 

RO KHANNA, California 

JIMMY GOMEZ, California 

ALEXANDRIA OCASIO-CORTEZ, New York 

AYANNA PRESSLEY, Massachusetts 

RASHIDA TLAIB, Michigan 

JIM JORDAN, Ohio, Ranking Minority Member 

JUSTIN AMASH, Michigan 

PAUL A. GOSAR, Arizona 

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

JODY B. HICE, Georgia 

GLENN GROTHMAN, Wisconsin 

JAMES COMER, Kentucky 

MICHAEL CLOUD, Texas 

BOB GIBBS, Ohio 

RALPH NORMAN, South Carolina 

CLAY HIGGINS, Louisiana 

CHIP ROY, Texas 

CAROL D. MILLER, West Virginia 

MARK E. GREEN, Tennessee 

KELLY ARMSTRONG, North Dakota 

W. GREGORY STEUBE, Florida 

DAVID RAPALLO, Staff Director 

KRISTA BOYD, General Counsel 

ELISA LANIER, Chief Clerk and Director of Operations 

CHRISTOPHER HIXON, Minority Staff Director 

CONTACT NUMBER: 202-225-5051 
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C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Hearing held on February 6, 2019 ......................................................................... 1 

WITNESSES

Mr. Scott Amey, General Counsel, Project on Government Oversight 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 11 

Mrs. Karen Hobert Flynn, President, Common Cause 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 37 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 39 

Mr. Rudy Mehrbani, Spitzer Fellow and Senior Counsel, Brennan Center 

for Justice 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 48 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 50 

Mr. Walter Shaub, Jr., Senior Advisor, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics 

in Washington 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 125 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 127 

Mr. Bradley A. Smith, Chairman, Institute for Free Speech 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 139 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 141 

INDEX OF INSERTS

Page 

Statement of the Indivisible Project ............................................................... 233 

Statement for the Record In Support of H.R.1, the For the People Act 

of 2019 ............................................................................................................ 235 

Letter from Don W. Fox ................................................................................... 240 

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H.R. 1: STRENGTHENING ETHICS 

Tuesday, February 6, 2019 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

COMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT AND REFORM

Washington, D.C. 

The committee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:04 a.m., in room 

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Elijah Cummings 

(chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Cummings, Maloney, Norton, Clay, 

Lynch, Cooper, Connolly, Krishnamoorthi, Raskin, Rouda, Hill, 

Wasserman Schultz, Sarbanes, Welch, Speier, Kelly, DeSaulnier, 

Plaskett, Khanna, Ocasio-Cortez, Pressley, Tlaib, Jordan, Amash, 

Gosar, Massie, Meadows, Hice, Grothman, Comer, Cloud, Gibbs, 

Higgins, Norman, Roy, Miller, Green, and Armstrong. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The committee will come to order. Without 

objection, the chair is authorized to declare a recess at any time. 

I will now recognize myself for an opening Statement. 

Today, we are holding a hearing on H.R. 1, the For the People 

Act. H.R. 1, introduced by my distinguished colleague, Congressman John Sarbanes of Maryland, a senior member of our committee. We thank Congressman Sarbanes for his—not only for his 

vision, but for his tenacity, and for putting his blood, his sweat, his 

tears into this over several years. He has compiled one of the boldest reform packages to be considered in the history of this body. 

This sweeping legislation will cleanup corruption in government, 

fight secret money in politics, and make it easier for American citizens across this great country to vote. I believe that we should be 

doing everything in our power to make it easier for eligible American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to vote, not making it harder. We should be making it more convenient, not less. 

We should be encouraging more people to cast their votes, not 

fewer. We should be promoting early voting, absentee voting, voting by mail, and other ways to help citizens cast their ballots, not 

rolling back these very important programs. 

Unfortunately, some people disagree, including most Republicans. They think we should make it harder to vote. They think 

we should make it more difficult by cutting back on early voting, 

eliminating polling places, and taking other steps to reduce the 

number of people who do vote. Especially troubling, in some cases, 

they have engaged in illegal efforts to suppress the vote that target 

minority communities. 

For example, North Carolina drew legislative lines, and the 4th 

District Circuit Court of Appeals found that regardingthe African 

Americans, and I quote, ‘‘the lines were drawn with almost surgical 
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precision,’’ that is, to suppress the vote. Georgia kept eligible individuals off the rolls and caused widespread problems with wait 

times and absentee ballots, particularly in areas with significant 

minority populations. 

Kansas moved to the outskirts of town, the one and only polling 

place for 27,000 residents of Dodge City, most of whom were minorities. There’s something wrong with that picture. H.R. 1 would 

address many of these problems. The bill would institute procedures to automatically register eligible voters and put in place protections to keep them on the correct voting rolls. It would provide 

for expanded early voting and absentee voting and give additional 

funding to States to maintain enough polling sites so everyone can 

easily cast their ballot. 

Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, has described H.R. 1 

as, and I quote, ‘‘a power grab by Democrats.’’ He’s right about one 

thing, it is a power grab, but it’s not by Democrats, it is by American citizens who voted for reform in this last election, and sent the 

clear message that they want to exercise their constitutional right 

to vote without interference. 

Today, our hearing will focus on the part of H.R. 1 that is within 

our jurisdiction, Title VIII, which puts in place strong new reforms 

for the executive branch. For example, Title VIII includes a bill 

that I introduced, called the executive branch Ethics Reform Act. 

It would ban senior officials from accepting, quote, ‘‘golden parachute,’’ unquote, payments from private sector employers in exchange for their government service. This would have prevented 

Gary Cohn from receiving more than $100 million in accelerated 

payments from Goldman Sachs, while leading the Trump administration’s efforts to slash corporate taxes. 

Title VIII also includes another bill I introduced, the Transition 

Team Ethics Improvement Act, with Senator Carper and Senator 

Warren. This legislation would require transition teams to have 

ethics plans in place, and make those plans publicly available. Title 

VIII also would prohibit senior Federal employees from working on 

matters that affect the financial interest of their former employers 

or prospective employers. They could obtain waivers for this requirement, but those waivers would have to be made public. 

Title VIII also would make clear that Congress expects the President to divest his business holdings, just as every single President 

since Jimmy Carter has done, and place them in an independent 

and truly blind trust. Both Democratic and Republican ethics experts warned President Trump to do this years ago, but he refused. 

They warned that every decision he made could be questioned. The 

American people would rightly wonder whether he was serving the 

Nation’s interest, or his own financial interests. Unfortunately, 

that is exactly what has happened over the past two years. 

The American people gave this Congress and this committee a 

mandate to restore our democracy and cleanup our government. 

They want greater transparency. They want greater accountability 

in government. H.R. 1 makes good on that promise. It is a broad 

and brave step toward restoring a government that works for the 

people. 

Now, it gives me great honor to recognize the author of the bill 

for two minutes, Mr. Sarbanes. 
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Mr. SARBANES. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your having this hearing on H.R. 1. I also want to salute 

some of the new members on the dais here, because they came with 

this message of reform pinned to their chest as a class. Americans 

from across the political spectrum want a democracy that works for 

them, a democracy where big money doesn’t dominate the political 

debate, where access to the ballot box is ensured for all citizens; 

and where public servants work for the public interest. 

Like any system, our republic requires regular maintenance, 

without it, the gears grind down, the operating systems fail, and 

the people’s democratic will is ultimately compromised. This is 

what has happened to our democratic institutions over the past few 

decades. We have failed to beat back the new and inventive ways 

that big money has found to corrupt our politics. We have failed to 

modernize our election system, and we have failed to implement 

meaningful ethics rules. 

No wonder the public’s faith in elected representatives is flagging, why confidence in our democratic institutions is near historic 

lows, and why cynicism is so high. H.R. 1, the For the People Act, 

is about giving Americans their republic back...by fighting back 

against big money and politics, ensuring all Americans can vote, 

and ending partisan gerrymandering, and enacting tough new anticorruption measures. 

Today’s hearing, Mr. Chairman, will be an opportunity to examine the imperative for, and the design of, anti-corruption measures 

that are included in H.R. 1. I very much look forward to that discussion. 

Mr. Chairman, H.R. 1 will give Americans their power back and 

our democracy: the power of the ballot box; the power of political 

voice; and the power of accountable representative democracy. Put 

plainly, these reforms are not partisan, they are patriotic. We can 

and must do better to work together to repair our democratic institutions. Many of the provisions in here actually incorporate bills 

that have had bipartisan support in years past. 

I hope my colleagues on the other side of the dais will join us 

in the effort to strengthen our democracy. Thank you Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. I yield to the distinguished member, Mr. 

Lynch, one minute. 

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My legislation 

that is incorporated in this bill, my bill, H.R. 391, is the White 

House Ethics Transparency Act which would simply require the 

Trump administration and future administrations to automatically 

disclose ethics waivers that they have issued to executive branch 

officials. These waivers allow former lobbyists, industry attorneys 

and consultants, who previously worked for the private sector and 

present a significant conflict of interest with their positions in the 

executive branch, to, nevertheless, participate in matters in which 

their prior employers, or clients, have a stake. Pursuant to the bill, 

disclosures must be submitted to the independent Office of Government Ethics within 30 days and be publicly posted on the White 

House and OGE websites. 

Mr. Shaub is well-aware of this, one of our witnesses. Early on, 

we had—the White House just refused to say whether and when 
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they had given waivers to the various lobbyists to go to work in his 

administration. So the inclusion of this section of the bill will prevent that from happening in the future. 

So, with that, I yield back and I thank you for the time. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. I yield the final two minutes to Mr. 

Raskin of Maryland. 

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Chairman, thank you. With your leadership, 

with the robust new majority in the House of Representatives, it’s 

a new day in Washington. A great Republican President, Abraham 

Lincoln, spoke of government of the people, by the people, and for 

the people, and that’s always been the tantalizing dream of America. It is our role as Congress to guarantee that we are a government of the people. 

But today, the executive branch is drowning in big money corruption, self-dealing, and lawlessness. They said they were going to 

drain the swamp, Mr. Chairman. They moved into the swamp, they 

built a hotel on it, and started renting out rooms to foreign princes 

and kings and governments. It is our job to restore government by 

the people in America, which is why I’m thrilled to introduce the 

executive branch Comprehensive Enforcement Act with Senator 

Blumenthal on the Senate side. It will give subpoena power to the 

Office of Government Ethics. It will allow formal proceedings to 

take place there; it makes clear that it extends to all White House 

personnel, as well as the executive branch agencies; it authorizes 

the Office of Government Ethics to order corrective actions, like divestiture, blind trusts and recusal; and impose appropriate administrative penalties where members of the executive branch are 

trampling our laws. 

It protects the independence of the Office of Government Ethics 

by providing that the director can be removed only for cause. So 

it strengthens the independence of the Office of Government Ethics 

to make sure that we can ferret out the corruption, which is now 

pervasive throughout the executive branch of government in the 

Trump administration. 

I yield back to you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. I now yield to the 

distinguished gentleman from Ohio, the ranking member of our full 

committee, Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank our witnesses as well for being here. Normally, when you start a new Congress, the majority gives the designation of H.R. 1 to its key priority. In the last Congress, the H.R. 1 was the most significant tax 

reform, tax cut package in a generation, returned millions of the 

dollars to Americans, simplified our Tax Code, and was one of the 

key reasons, I think, we’ve seen 5 million new jobs added to our 

economy in the last couple of years. That bill, the Tax Cuts and Job 

Act, was bold, realistic, and it was signed into law just over a year 

ago. 

I think it has also helped create the lowest unemployment in 50 

years, an economy that is moving in exactly the direction we want. 

This Congress, the Democrats’ H.R. 1, is the so-called For the People Act. A more accurate title would be ‘‘For the people who want 

Democrats to win elections from now on.’’ The bill includes a laundry list of tired proposals designed to benefit the majority by tilting 
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the playing field in their favor. It’s not a stretch to label many of 

these proposals radical. You can laugh, but it’s true. 

H.R. 1 would steer potentially billions of dollars to political allies 

in the name of campaign finance empowerment, restrict Americans’ 

right to free speech, and exact political retribution on the President 

of the United States. Unfortunately, this isn’t all that surprising. 

This is just the latest in a series of attacks by the Democrats to 

stifle the free exchange of ideas. 

In 2013, we learned that the IRS targeted conservatives for their 

political beliefs during the 2012 election cycle. Systematically, for 

a sustained period of time, they went after people for their conservative beliefs, plan in place, targeted people, they did it. The gross 

abuse of power would have continued if not for the efforts of this 

committee. 

In 2014, the Obama Administration doubled down and attempted 

to use the IRS rulemaking process to gut the ability of social welfare organizations to participate in public debate. Congress has so 

far prevented this regulation from going into effect, but H.R. 1 

would change that. 

Furthermore, this bill would roll back another critical victory for 

privacy and free speech secured just last summer. Following efforts 

by this committee and others, the IRS changed its policy as it relates to Schedule B information. Schedule B contains personal information like names, addresses, and the amounts donated to nonprofit entities. Even though this information is supposed to remain 

private under current law, States and Federal Government have 

leaked these personal details in the past. In changing its policy, the 

IRS noted that there had been at least 14 breaches resulting in the 

unauthorized disclosure of Schedule B information just since 2010. 

The result was everyday Americans receiving death threats, and 

mail containing white powder, all because—all because someone 

disagreed with what they believe, and who they gave their hardearned money to. 

The reason that the protection of Schedule B information is important has nothing to do with the vast conspiracies on the right 

or the left, the so-called dark money issue; rather, it dates back to 

the Supreme Court’s 1958 decision, critical decision, the NAACP v. 

Alabama, which formally recognized the freedom of association and 

prevented the NAACP from being compelled to turn over information about its members. 

Look, I haven’t even gotten to all the other problems with this 

bill. I mean, this bill’s mandatory early—I mean, talk about violation of the Tenth Amendment in our Federal systems. Mandatory 

early voting, mandatory voting by mail, felons can vote. How about 

public financing of campaigns? The taxpayers have to pay for the 

politicians’ campaigns. Think about this, taxpayers have to pay for 

the same politicians who created the swamp, who are in the 

swamp, so that they can get reelected. This is what this legislation 

does. 

There’s much that can be done to improve the functioning of 

transparency and effectiveness of the Federal Government. However, this 571-page bill reads more like a wish list for the Democratic Party than an honest attempt at reform. I fear that this legislation is a sign our friends in the majority want to play games, 
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engage in political theater to start this Congress, rather than use 

this time to work constructively to find solutions for hardworking 

Americans that sent us here. 

Mr. Chairman, I would like to yield—I think we have a few more 

minutes left. I want to first yield to the gentleman, if I could, from 

Tennessee, Mr. Green, for two minutes. 

Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and ranking member. I 

am outraged out at House Resolution 1, which really should be 

called the Fill the Swamp Act. It seems every year that passes 

more and more power is shifted away from the people and into the 

hands of wealthy elites in Washington. These politicians and bureaucrats can’t help themselves from micromanaging more and 

more of our everyday lives, from roads and bridges, firearms, relationships with our doctors, even our toilets. These, freedom-and 

federalism-hating politicians can’t seem to help themselves. 

And now—now they want to decide how we can run our elections 

in Tennessee. You want to tell Tennessee to enact same-day voter 

registration with no time for verification? Do you want to tell Tennessee we can’t require IDs to be shown at the polls, increasing the 

likelihood of voter fraud? You want to tell Tennessee that some unaccountable commission gets to draw our districts? You want to tell 

Tennessee it has to subsidize far left-leaning candidates in other 

States with our taxpayer dollars? How dare you. How dare you tell 

Tennessee what we can do with our elections. 

This bill is wrong. It is a power grab. Politicians—politicians that 

want to give the Federal Government more power. Does the majority party care about voter fraud? Well, then, let’s allow States to 

have voter identification laws. Do the Democrats suddenly care by 

foreign interference in our elections? Well, then, why are they on 

allowing illegal immigrants to vote? The hypocrisy is mind-boggling. The fact remains that there is no constitutional authority for 

the Federal Government to come down and seize control of elections in Tennessee. 

The Constitution creates a Federalist system with power dispersed amongst the people. I will fight to ensure it always does. I 

will keep my oath to uphold the Constitution and my promise to 

Tennesseeans to drain the swamp. Thank you, I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to recognize the gentleman from Texas for two minutes. 

Mr. ROY. Thank you to the distinguished ranking member. I’d 

like to co-sponsor the remarks from my friend from Tennessee. I 

wholeheartedly endorse all that he just said, as well as what Mr. 

Jordan just said. 

One question that I would be asking as we look into all of this 

is, why are we so divided? Why are we so divided as a Nation? I 

would suggest to you, in significant part, is because we try to govern from Washington 320, 330 million people with solutions here 

from the swamp in direct contradiction to the very republic our 

Founders gave us, looking ahead at knowing what it would look 

like if we tried to do that. We are a republic. We are a republic 

for a reason. We have a structure of government for a reason. 

That structure of government serves to preserve our inalienable 

God-given rights. That structure of government has served well to 

do those things. That structure of government recognizes the im-
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portance of States and the decisionmaking process across the vast 

majority of the issues we’re supposed to deal with. When we take 

our eye off the ball of our core constitutional function, we don’t do 

those functions well. We end up with a $1 trillion deficit this year 

piling on top of $22 trillion of national debt. And, yes, both parties 

are a part of that problem. 

We end up immersed in foreign wars that continue, as the President pointed out last night. We end up with spiraling healthcare 

costs because a President immersed us into healthcare from Washington instead of allowing the people in markets and States to 

function. And now we want to extend into every aspect of every 

issue of voting, issues that are supposed to be left to the States so 

that the people in the States can decide who they want to send to 

Washington, whether they are Senators, or whether they’re in the 

Congress. 

We would undermine the very structure and the core of this government further if we pursue this path down H.R. 1. Thank you. 

Mr. JORDAN. Mr. Chairman, for our remaining two minutes, I 

would like to recognize the gentleman from Georgia. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the ranking member. I join with my colleagues 

in just being extremely alarmed by H.R. 1. It is virtually 600 

pages, and almost every page has issues of great concerns. Just one 

small part of that, the chairman mentioned a while ago, the automatic voter registration. It forces States to automatically register 

people, which may sound good on the surface, but what this will 

do is open the floodgates for fraudulent voting by illegal individuals 

in this country, and here is how. Here is what happens. 

These illegals who come into this country use government services and programs, and under H.R. 1, the information collected by 

these services and programs would automatically be transferred to 

election officials for registration. There’s only one safeguard in H.R. 

1, and that is, for the illegal alien to publicly declare that they are 

here illegally, and they are not eligible to vote. How can we really 

expect that to happen? It’s not going to happen for them to draw 

attention to themselves, and identify themselves as being here illegally, and therefore, ineligible to vote. 

So simultaneously when an illegal alien fails to decline—fails to 

recognize it, they are here illegally and they’re ineligible to vote, 

despite the ineligibility, they cannot be prosecuted. So this bill is 

just going to make it extremely difficult to maintain accurate voting records. It’s going to open the floodgate for fraud. So what we 

basically have here is a proposal that will lead to more illegal 

aliens registering to vote, making it virtually impossible to prosecute them for doing so, and making it difficult for States to clean 

up their voter lists. In the process, what that does to the American 

citizen, the voter, is it waters down the power of their vote by allowing illegals to do so. It makes those who are eligible, their vote, 

to have less impact. So I’m very concerned. I thank the gentleman, 

and I yield back. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you. I want to thank all of our 

members for your Statements. Now, all members will have 10 legislative days in which to submit opening Statements for the record. 
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Ladies and gentlemen, today we welcome five distinguished witnesses to our committee: Mr. Walter Staub is the former director 

of the Office of Government Ethics, and now serves as a senior advisor for Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. 

Ms. Karen Hobert Flynn is the president of Common Cause, a 

nonpartisan grassroots organization dedicated to upholding the 

core values of American democracy. 

Mr. Rudy Mehrbani is the former director of the Office of Presidential Personnel, and now serves as a senior counsel at the Brennan Center for Justice. 

Mr. Scott Amey is the general counsel for the Project on Government Oversight. 

Finally, Mr. Bradley Smith, is the chairman of the Institute for 

Free Speech. 

Pursuant to committee rules, all witnesses who appear before our 

committee must do so under oath. I now ask each of you to stand 

and raise your right hand to take the oath. 

Do you solemnly swear that the testimony you’re about to give 

will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so 

help you God? Everybody has now answered yes, and let the record 

reflect that. 

I will now recognize each witness to present their testimony. I 

want to remind the witnesses that we have your written testimony 

before us, so you don’t have to read it all, we have it. And I ask 

you to do me a favor, since we have five witnesses and we have 

a lot of members wanting to ask questions, that you obey the 

lights. You’ll get a warning light, and then when it says red, I 

would appreciate it if you would let us—that you would stop and 

let us move on to the next witness. 

So we’re going with Mr. Staub first—Mr. Amey. 

STATEMENT OF SCOTT AMEY, GENERAL COUNSEL, PROJECT 

ON GOVERNMENT OVERSIGHT 

Mr. AMEY. Thank you. I want to thank Chairman Cummings, 

Ranking Member Jordan, and the committee for asking the Project 

on Government Oversight, POGO, to testify about executive branch 

ethics. 

I am Scott Amey, POGO’s general counsel. POGO is a nonpartisan, independent watchdog that investigates and exposes 

waste, corruption, and abuse of power. H.R. 1, which POGO supports, is an opportunity to make a good—make good on the bipartisan work that this committee has performed and to reform the 

ethics system to meet old and emerging challenges. 

We support stronger laws to slow the revolving door, improve the 

Office of Government Ethics, expand ethics restrictions to senior 

level officials. Title VIII and H.R. 1 is a step forward in improving 

consistency in enforcement, but more importantly, to reduce improper influence over government decisions, missions, programs, 

and spending that are often contrary to the public’s interest. 

Groups at this table have assembled for over a decade to correct 

problems creating by the revolving door in cozy relationships that 

result in an unlevel playing field. POGO published reports on the 

revolving door in 2004, 2005, and one just last year. The 2018 report showed that lobbying was the occupation of choice when offi-
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cials left government service. A job that relies less on management 

skills and more on your connections back inside of the government. 

Despite the focus on the revolving door coming and going from 

the Department of Defense, the problems exist governmentwide, 

and concerns exist about having a personal or private interest, 

being lenient toward or favoring past or future employers, and 

gaining an unfair competitive advantage, all of which are the detriment to the public. 

H.R. 1 would close the gaps in ethics and conflict-of-interest 

standards, especially the provisions in Title VIII. POGO particularly supports the provisions in Title VIII related to making the Office of Government Ethics more independent, slowing program and 

procurement officials from heading to companies they worked with 

or oversaw while in government service, codifying the Presidential 

ethics pledges that have come out since 1993, prohibiting a bonus 

for accepting a government position. This really came to light during the Obama Administration when Wall Street executives revolved into government, expanding cooling off periods when coming 

and leaving the government, and increasing transparency. With the 

limited time, I will briefly highlight the top three. 

First, the Office of Government Ethics should become an independent agency with new authorities to ensure consistent enforcement of ethics laws governmentwide. H.R. 1 would provide the 

OGE director, when appropriate, approval over resolutions, and 

any recusals, exemptions, or waivers from ethics rules; increase 

transparency; give OGE improved investigative power; and grant 

OGE the authority to issue administrative and legal remedies 

when the ethics violation is found. 

We support the provisions to add for-cause removal for the OGE 

director. For-cause removal will preserve the agency’s independence, and help with continuity after turnovers in between administrations. We have heard stories of pressure coming from the top on 

the Office of Government Ethics, as well as agency ethics officials, 

and that must end. 

Second, amending the Procurement Integrity Act is essential. We 

need to strike the provision in the law allowing former program 

and procurement officials to work for companies they contracted 

with or oversaw, so long as they go to a different part of the company. We can’t risk allowing officials to leverage their relationship 

with the company for future employment, calling into question the 

decisions that they made while they were in government. Additionally, those officials should not be allowed to access their former colleagues, which can create an unfair competitive advantage. 

Darleen Druyun, a senior Air Force acquisition official, left government and took a position with Boeing’s missile division. Prior 

to leaving government service, she played a role in the award of 

a $20 billion contract to Boeing for refueling tankers. In her plea 

agreement, she Stated that she agreed to a higher price, even 

though she believed it was not appropriate, as a parting gift to 

Boeing. Her cozy relationship also included helping her daughter 

keep a job with the Boeing company. The existing laws allowed 

Darleen Druyun to accept a job with Boeing. Druyun eventually 

pled guilty to a separate ethics violation and served nine months 

in prison. These violations were not exposed by ethics officials or 
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IGs. It was Senator McCain who found them while investigating 

the tanker deal, and he became concerned with the blatant revolving door concerns. 

Third, H.R. 1 will codify the ethics pledge process that has been 

ordered by Presidents since 1993. POGO supports making the 

pledge law, because otherwise, ethics orders only exist at the whim 

of each President. Making the pledge law would add continuity 

within the ethics community and prevent the pledge from being revoked on the President’s last day in office, as was the case with 

President Clinton. 

In 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson issued an executive order, 

stating in part, ‘‘Every citizen is entitled to complete confidence in 

the integrity of his or her government.’’ President Johnson’s order 

is a foundation for our ethics system today. Our support for Title 

VIII of H.R. 1 and the improvements that I have detailed for you 

today are both realistic and necessary to prevent conflicts of interest. 

H.R. 1 is a step forward in reducing improper influence over our 

government and the bad deals that harm the public. 

Thank you for inviting me to testify today. I look forward to answering the questions from the members of the committee and 

working with the entire committee to further explore how Federal 

ethics and conflict of interest systems can be improved. Thank you. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Amey follows:] 
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Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Ms. Hobert Flynn. 

STATEMENT OF KAREN HOBERT FLYNN, PRESIDENT, 

COMMON CAUSE 

Mrs. Hobert Flynn. Thank you, Chairman Cummings, Ranking 

Member Jordan, and members of the committee, for holding this 

critically important hearing. I’d also like to thank Congressman 

Sarbanes for his leadership championing the For the People Act as 

the type of bold, innovative package of solutions that can restore 

people’s trust in our government. One final note of thanks to House 

Speaker Pelosi for her commitment for making this her first order 

of business in the new Congress. 

My name is Karen Hobert Flynn, and I’m president of Common 

Cause, a national nonpartisan watchdog organization with 1.2 million supporters. For nearly 50 years, we have been working to 

strengthen the people’s voice in their democracy. I’m here to testify 

in support of For the People Act. 

First, I want to say that Americans have not been waiting for 

Washington to fix what ails them in our democracy. We have been 

working at the State and local level with many other groups to 

pass significant pro-democracy reforms. This is the second consecutive election cycle where voters have passed 95 percent of the democracy reforms on the ballot. 

In 2018, voters in 20 red, blue, and purple States and localities 

have passed democracy reforms with strong support from Republicans, Independent, and Democratic voters. This includes voting 

rights restoration in Florida, same-day voter registration in Maryland. It includes independent redistricting commissions in Colorado, Michigan, and redistricting reform in Utah, automatic voter 

registration in Nevada and Michigan, and independent ethics commission in New Mexico, and an anti-corruption package in Missouri. 

I should note that also these kinds of reforms and many embodied in H.R. 1, campaign finance disclosure, ethics reforms, and 

others, also passed with bipartisan support in State legislatures. 

The reforms embodied in H.R. 1 are not lofty and tested ideas; 

most are pragmatic solutions that are already working in a city or 

State somewhere in this country. These solutions are proven to 

work, and, in many cases, save taxpayers money. 

The timing of this legislation has never been more important as 

Americans grow more frustrated and cynical about our State of politics. While every Presidential administration, in our Nation’s history, has had various ethical challenges, we have never seen so 

many corruption scandals and appalling lack of concern for the 

ethic rules that should govern our executive branch than with this 

administration. 

We have a series of reports that detail dozens and dozens of ethical challenges and conflicts of interest that have plagued this administration in the last two years. The American people want 

transparency, honesty, and accountability from its elected representatives. They do not want their elected leaders to use their 

public office for private gain to enrich their businesses, their 

wealthy donors, their family, or themselves. 
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We believe tough ethics laws like the ones that we’re talking 

about here today with the strength in Office of Government Ethics 

that has independent oversight and investigative and enforcement 

tools can help us prevent the incessant assault on our democratic 

values and institutions to self-government. 

My written testimony outlines our support for all the measures 

before the committee today, and I’ll just add two more comments. 

One is, I agree with Chairman Cummings that on Election Day, we 

should make Election Day a holiday. We have found, as we do election protection, nonpartisan election protection across the country, 

that with aging infrastructure and machines—machines malfunctioning, and a lack of polls—poll workers, that people have long 

lines up to 4 hours. Many working Americans can’t afford to take 

4 hours off of their day in order to vote. So making it a holiday 

would make a huge difference. 

In addition, we strongly support the conflicts from Political 

Fundraising Act, because Americans deserve to know whether people nominated to serve in the executive branch have raised money, 

or benefited from special interest money from the industries they 

are supposed to regulate. There are currently no requirements for 

Presidential appointees to disclose whether they have solicited 

funds or contributed funds for political purposes to PACs, superPACs, 501(c)(4)’s, or 501(c)(6) business associations, and it’s a significant gap that we think should be closed. 

We don’t work on these issues just to look good, we pass reforms 

so that the government can be more responsive to the needs of everyday Americans. You will hear some who benefit from the current system, use tired arguments that defend the current system 

saying it works fine. The American people do not believe that our 

current system is just fine. 

You will also hear people talking about the First Amendment to 

justify billionaires, corporations, and special interest spending millions of dollars in politics, while our children, our families, and 

schools and communities, and our environment all suffer. Polls 

show that people want bold ethics and transparency reforms, and 

they want to clean up our system and give people more voice in our 

democracy. 

We look forward to working with this committee. We believe that 

this is a strong package. There are always elements that can be 

strengthened. We look forward to the questions ahead. Thank you. 

[Prepared Statement of Mrs. Hobert Flynn follows:] 
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Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MEHRBANI. 

STATEMENT OF RUDY MEHRBANI, SPITZER FELLOW AND 

SENIOR COUNSEL, BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE 

Mr. MEHRBANI. I would like thank Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, and the entire committee, for the opportunity 

to testify today in support of House Resolution 1, the For the People Act. The Brennan Center enthusiastically supports H.R. 1, it 

would be historic legislation. It addresses longstanding problems 

with our system of self-government, long lines, vast sums of money 

of dark money, harmful rules and practices that make it harder for 

many, especially voters of color, to cast their ballot, the ongoing 

challenges of gerrymandering, inadequate election administration, 

and at-risk technology. It addresses these issues with 

groundbreaking reforms that are proven to work. Automatic voter 

registration, small donor matching, the Voter Rights Act, redistricting commissions, early voting, election security and more. 

It is thus fitting that this bill is the very first introduced in this 

Congress. Today, I will focus on Title VIII of the Act, ethics reform 

for the President, Vice President, and Federal officers and employees. The reforms respond to the erosion of ethical guardrails in government that we have seen over a number of years. They are a 

strong first step to restoring public faith in accountable and ethical 

government. 

We have long assumed that all Presidential administrations 

would follow longstanding ethics practices and ideals that aren’t required by law. For example, following precedent established by 

their predecessors over the last 40-odd years to publicly release 

their tax returns; voluntarily comply with conflicts of interest law 

that apply to other executive branch employees by divesting from 

potentially conflicting assets, or keeping their assets in a qualified 

blind trust; strive to avoid the appearance of improper or undue influence of outside interests in the way their administration has formulated official policy, or strive to fully enforce existing ethics 

laws. 

Unfortunately, these commonsense practices that Presidents 

from both parties followed for decades can no longer be taken for 

granted. This means that new laws are needed to compel a commitment to ethics and ensure accountability. As I detail in my written 

testimony, when President’s and agency heads do not lead on ethics 

issues, they can result in serious ethical lapses: the improper use 

of government positions; running afoul of other laws like appropriations laws; and violations of revolving-door prohibitions. This results in an incredible waste of taxpayer resources, and it seriously 

harms public trust and faith in government. From my experience 

in government, Presidential leadership on ethics issues filters down 

throughout an administration. When I ran the Presidential Personnel Office, we followed certain practices, not just because of my 

office’s commitment, but because President Obama demanded that 

we have an ethical personnel process. That meant that we worked 

collaboratively with the Office of Government Ethics, and strengthened post-employment lobbying restrictions, even if that wasn’t 

technically required by law. 
49 

Some have said that more robust ethics rules would deter talented individuals from serving in government. But many of the reforms in H.R. 1 have long been voluntarily followed by administrations. Some administrations, like the one that I served in, went further and supplemented those rules. What was the result? A historic 

number of Americans expressing interest to serve in an administration; arguably, the most diverse administration in history, and appointees who, on average, served in their positions substantially 

longer than their predecessors. Strong ethics laws, in short, help 

recruitment. 

The recent poll showed only a third of Americans trust government to do what is right, a decline of 14 percent from 2017. More 

than three-quarters of voters ranked corruption in government as 

a top issue in the 2018 election. With almost a third calling it the 

most important issue. At the same time, we know Americans are 

yearning for solutions to these problems, and real action on those 

solutions. 

This Congress was elected with the highest voter turn-out in a 

midterm since 1914. Many of you were elected with a pledge to reform democracy. And in States across the country, major ballot 

measures were passed by large bipartisan margins to implement 

bold and creative reform. Voters spoke clearly. The best way to respond to a tax on democracy is to strengthen it, which is exactly 

what H.R. 1 does. We urge to you to pass it. 

Thank you, and I look forward to answering your questions. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Mehrbani follows:] 
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Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Shaub. 

STATEMENT OF WALTER M. SHAUB, JR., SENIOR ADVISOR, 

CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBILITY AND ETHICS IN WASHINGTON 

Mr. SHAUB. Chairman Cummings, Ranking Member Jordan, and 

members of the committee, thank you for inviting me to talk about 

the ethics reforms in H.R. 1. I served in the Office of Government 

Ethics as director, and before that, as a career ethics official. In my 

14 years there, I have been intimately involved in protecting the 

principle that public service is a public trust. 

Based on this experience, I know how urgently we need reform, 

and that’s why I support H.R. 1. The executive branch ethics program focuses on prevention. OGE has no real enforcement authority. In theory, OGE can order officials to cease ongoing violations, 

but statutory limitations prevent an effective use of this authority. 

OGE can ask agencies to conduct investigations and can request 

copies of records, but it has no power to do anything if they ignore 

these requests. 

Lacking enforcement tools, OGE relies on the director’s ability to 

persuade or shame officials into doing the right thing. This was 

never ideal, but it worked fairly well for four decades. During my 

time in government, Presidents Bush and Obama were reliable 

supporters of OGE. They showed that government ethics is not a 

partisan issue. 

We now find ourselves in an ethics crisis. The trigger was President Trump’s refusal to divest his conflicting financial interests. 

This radical departure from ethical norms leaves the public with no 

way of knowing how personal interests are affecting public policy. 

What we do know only raises questions. 

For example, questions surround President Trump’s response 

when individuals associated with the Saudi Government murdered 

a Washington Post journalist, a resident of my home State. We can 

only wonder if President Trump’s financial interests influenced the 

handling of sanctions on certain Russian businesses. Did they affect his decision to help Chinese telecom giant ZTE? Why did the 

administration scrap the plan to move FBI’s headquarters? Was it 

because President Trump didn’t want a competitor moving in so 

close to his D.C. hotel? These are just a few examples. 

And the President’s disinterest in ethics has infected his appointees. The heads of six agencies have stepped down under a 

cloud of ethics issues. At least seven other appointees resigned 

under the taint of an investigation, ethics issues, or security clearance concerns. The Office of Special Counsel has found that nine 

of his appointees violated the Hatch Act, and there are dozens of 

pending ethics-related investigations. 

H.R. 1 kicks off what I hope will be a wave of reform. It focuses 

not just on the current crisis, but also issues that predate this administration. For example, H.R. 1 addresses big payouts to incoming officials. These golden parachutes raise concerns about an employee appointee’s loyalty to a former employer. 

When former Treasury Secretary Jack Lew left Wall Street to 

join the State Department, he received a large bonus. His employment agreement let him keep that bonus specifically because he 

landed a high-level government job. I’m glad to see a provision in 
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H.R. 1 addressing this issue, and my written testimony offers a 

suggestion for strengthening it further. 

H.R. 1 would also make OGE more independent. Like the heads 

of MSPB and OSC, OGE’s director would be allowed to communicate directly with Congress and would be removable only for 

cause. Rather than depending on other agencies, OGE would be 

able to conduct meaningful inquiries by issuing subpoenas. H.R. 1 

would increase the transparency of waivers which can undermine 

the ethics program if granted improperly. The public needs to know 

about waivers. 

Before leaving OGE, I exposed questionable practices involving 

the issuance of undated, unsigned, and retroactive waivers, some 

of which seemed designed to paper over ethics violations. 

I’ll close by emphasizing that what’s at stake is the very integrity 

of government. The Supreme Court has warned one that a conflict 

of interest is an evil that endangers the very fabric of a democratic 

society. The Court explained that democracy is effective only if people have faith in those who govern. We need ethics reform before 

the public’s trust in government is shattered beyond repair. I urge 

you to pass H.R. 1. 

Thank you again for inviting me, and I’m happy to answer any 

questions the committee may have today. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Shaub follows:] 
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Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Smith. 

STATEMENT OF BRADLEY A. SMITH, CHAIRMAN, INSTITUTE 

FOR FREE SPEECH 

Mr. SMITH. Thank you, Chairman Cummings, Mr. Jordan, and 

members of the committee. The Institute for Free Speech has been 

producing detailed analyses of the many sections of this, the chairman called it a sweeping bill, 570 pages, some of those are available here today. 

I’m going to focus very briefly on two aspects of this bill, with 

which I have particular expertise as former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, and as the author of the leading academic analysis of super-PAC and coordinated spending, and the author of many of the FEC’s current coordination rules. 

Since its inception, the Federal Election Commission has been a 

bipartisan agency. This is at the insistence of people such as Democratic Representative Wayne Hayes and Democratic Senator Alan 

Cranston, who warned, we must not allow the FEC to become a 

tool for harassment by future imperial Presidents who may seek to 

repeat the abuses of Watergate. 

Subtitle A of Title VI of H.R. 1 would replace the six-member bipartisan FEC, with a five-member panel subject to partisan control. 

In theory, only two members could come from any one party requiring a fifth seat to be held by an Independent, but this is a fig leaf. 

In fact, the FEC has an Independent now, but it’s understood that 

Commissioner Stephen Walther was appointed at the behest of 

former Democratic Senate Leader Harry Reid, who Mr. Walther 

had represented in election matters. And it’s understood that he 

holds a Democratic seat. 

Under H.R. 1, Senator Bernie Sanders, for example, a front-runner for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2020, could be 

appointed as a, quote, ‘‘Independent.’’ Any President could find a 

nominal Independent to reflect his party’s views creating a partisan majority on the Commission. Further, H.R. 1 gives vast new 

powers to FEC chairman, justifying fully the title of Speech Czar. 

The chair would be the sole power to determine the agency budget, 

to subpoena witnesses, to compel testimony and reports, and to appoint the staff director, who oversees, among other things, the 

FEC’s audit division. 

This is a prescription for partisan control and abuse. I assume 

the majority knows that, and that is why this provision of the bill, 

unlike the others, does not take effect until 2021. The majority has 

no intention of allowing President Trump to appoint all five commissioners, including the powerful chair. 

Now, the claim was made that a partisan-controlled commission 

is necessary to restore integrity to election enforcement. This has 

it exactly backward. The only reason that the FEC has any credibility is its bipartisan makeup. Under Title VI, the person elected 

in 2020 will appoint all five members of the commission, including 

the powerful chair, which will have the power to write and then rewrite new rules with an eye toward the 2022 midterms, the 2024 

and 2028 Presidential elections. 

Now, some of you may consider this a feature rather than a bug, 

but be careful what you wish for, you didn’t think Trump would 
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win in 2016 either. Subtitle B of Title VI is called Stopping SuperPAC Candidate Coordination. The sponsors and drafters are either 

being intentionally disingenuous here, or they simply do not understand what has been put in their own legislation. 

Nothing in Subtitle B, nothing limits its reach to super-PACs, it 

applies to every union, trade association, advocacy group, and unincorporated association in the country. It applies to Planned Parenthood and Right to Life, to the NAACP and the ACLU, to the National Federation of Independent Business, and to the Brady Campaign for Gun Safety. It even applies to individual citizens who 

seek to participate in public discussion. 

Nothing—this cannot be said often enough—limits it to superPACs. Through the interplay of its definitions of coordination and 

coordinated spenders, the law’s treatment—traditional treatment of 

coordinating spending as a contribution to a candidate and current 

contribution limits in the law, Subtitle B will actually have the effect of banning, not limiting, but actually banning a great deal of 

speech that was legal even before the Supreme Court’s decisions in 

Citizens United v. FEC and Buckley v. Valeo. 

So, again, this law goes backward to outlaw speech that was always legal in American history even before the Citizens United decision. As the full text of my prepared remarks explains in greater 

details these problems of Title VI, but in a nutshell, Title VI should 

be called the Alien—the New Alien and Sedition Act. 

With just a few seconds remaining, let me add only on Title VIII, 

this seems to be one of the least harmful provisions of the bill, but 

that is not to say that it is not like some of the other provisions, 

a bit of overkill. It’s interesting to me that it does not include, as 

covered individuals, people who have previously lobbied for cities 

and counties and local government units, and it would normally be 

the case that those groups lobby extensively in Congress, and perhaps should be also checked for conflict of interest. 

I also question the assumption of the bill, which seems to be that 

anybody with a past experience in the private sector is somehow 

dangerous and should have a legal conflict of interest defined by 

law before they even take office. I think that’s overkill and inappropriate. 

Thank you very much for your time. I’m free to answer any questions. 

[Prepared Statement of Mr. Smith follows:] 
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Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much to all of our witnesses, and thank you for staying within the time limit. I will now 

yield five minutes to the distinguished lady from Michigan, Ms. 

Tlaib. 

Ms. TLAIB. Thank you so much, Chairman, and thank you so 

much to Chairman Sarbanes for his incredible leadership on this 

issue. I think For the People, H.R. 1, is important in trying to restore public trust and to this institution. I know I’m a freshman, 

I’m new, I think a lot of people know that I really truly believe in 

the rule of law and believe in trying to restore to the core center 

of getting people to understand this body here works for them. 

So as a new Member, you know, I see now why a lot of my residents are really taken aback by this process and not feeling like 

it belongs to them. Through the chair, we all know this is a very 

critical issue. I think both Republicans and Democrats alike see 

this as a critical issue in taking corruption out of government. So 

for me, as you said about strengthening this, but more importantly, 

you know, in the first two years in office, I think the President 

made 281 visits to properties he still profits from. 

More than 150 political committees, including campaigns and party committees have spent nearly $5 million at Trump businesses since he became President. At least 13 special interest 

groups have lobbied the White House around the same time they 

also did business with the Trump organization. 

I can go on, I can submit this to record, but as a person that’s 

coming here as a brand new Member, I cannot believe this is not 

illegal already. That this is not something that we push up against, 

and say, Enough. Because as we step into here, we work for the 

people. We have to check our businesses, we have to check our personal and professional conflicts. Any lawyer across this country will 

tell you, it is dangerous to allow any sort of conflict to exist while 

you’re trying to serve others, especially in a public position like 

this. 

I have seen modern Presidents, both parties, before this President, address these potential conflict of interests by adhering to all 

ethical norms and traditions that resulted in the sale of their financial interest, completely divesting in their foreign and domestic 

investments. I’m really taken aback by the fact that we still have 

to currently now fight for something that is so critically important 

in restoring public trust. That now we’re setting a precedent that 

it’s okay for a President not to divest. That it’s okay that I have— 

Gary Cohn, President Trump’s Director of National Economic 

Council, received more than $100 million like payments from Goldman Sachs before he came in to work for Trump—for the President, I’m sorry, Chairman. 

So one of the things that I’m taken aback by is like, you know, 

we’re talking in the good—my good colleague from Ohio mentioned 

the original H.R. 1 tax break. Who works on that? Because back 

home in the district, they call that a payout. They really do. They 

know who was behind the scenes running that and pushing that 

forward. 

So my question to you is, how can we move because this shouldhave, could-have, maybe, and all these kind—to me that doesn’t go 

far enough to starting to make people feel like this is their House, 
185 

that this Congress belongs to them. Because right now all they see 

is people that are at the top that make millions of dollars that are 

completely disconnected with the American people. And I can tell 

you, every single day from underemployment to poverty in my district, we’re feeling like here we don’t have a voice. 

So with that, Mr. Shaub, I really would love to hear, how do you 

think we can really strengthen this, and where the dangerous 

precedent is, because more and more, we’re now seeing other people interested, former CEOs, others, interested in becoming President of the United States. 

Mr. SHAUB. You know, I applaud the bill for including a Statement of Congress that the President should divest. I think that 

takes a step toward reestablishing the norm, and it would have 

been helpful to me as director of OGE to be able to point to that. 

I personally would like to see it go further and require divestiture, 

because we have a situation now where people who seek to influence the government can funnel bags of cash to the President 

through his various properties. 

You have government contractors, charities, businesses, associations, politicians, political parties, political groups, using his facilities and paying just absolutely gobs of cash for the privilege of hobnobbing with the President. Unfortunately, the President has done 

nothing to discourage this. He didn’t even try to mitigate it by saying, I and my appointees will refuse to attend events at my properties, to discourage people from holding them there because they 

would lose access to the government by having the event there. Instead, there seems to be this embrace and this encouragement, and 

the sense on the part of interested parties that they have to engage 

in this to even be on an even footing with their competitors. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Chairman. 

Ms. TLAIB. Can I reclaim my time? 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentlelady has about 5 seconds, but go 

ahead. 

Ms. TLAIB. Oh, I just want—the constituent you spoke about, do 

you know in 2017, for example, Saudi lobbyists spent $217,000 to 

reserve rooms at Trump-owned hotels. And that, to me, makes you 

pause about your constituent being killed by that government. 

Mr. SHAUB. I do know that, yes. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Mr. Chairman, I would just point out to the chairman, the witness may want to clarify his remarks when he’s saying 

‘‘gobs of cash.’’ I don’t know that he would have any proof, and 

since he’s under oath, I don’t know that he would want to make 

that type of Statement. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Well, I will allow the gentleman, if you 

want to clarify what you meant by ‘‘gobs of cash.’’ 

Mr. SHAUB. Representative Meadows, what I mean is that people 

are paying money to the Trump organization to use his facilities, 

and the direct beneficiary of that money is President Trump, because he’s the beneficiary of the trust that holds that. So the 

money is flowing to President Trump, and the steps he’s taken to 

step back from it have had absolutely zero effect in any way to diminish the financial interest in the money that comes through. So 

I do, indeed, mean that this is a funnel for money, but—— 
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Mr. MEADOWS. You didn’t mean cash? 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes, I don’t mean they are handing it directly to him. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The gentleman has defined it, thank you. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. We will now hear from Mr. Gosar for five 

minutes. 

Mr. GOSAR. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

I must have been living in the twilight zone for the first six years 

of my first eight years. Fast and Furious, Operation Choke Point, 

Benghazi, IRS targeting, the intimidation of the press with James 

Rosen and Sharyl Attkisson, Uranium 1, the unmasking of American citizens, and out-of-control DOJ. Really? Really? 

Mr. Smith, I’m going to concentrate with you. H.R. 1 expands the 

definition of foreign national. Do you think, however, that it would 

make sense to strengthen the disclosure requirements in order to 

prevent foreign nationals from potentially funneling hundreds of 

millions of dollars to the U.S. campaigns? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, the difficult question is always how exactly does 

one intend to do this. And one of the things that you have to keep 

in mind is that most regulations that would be imposed will be felt 

by American citizens. The vast majority of people who have to comply will be American citizens. So, when we engage in this type of 

thinking, we need to be, you know, careful that we’re not giving up 

our own rights. You know, we fought the cold war without surrendering our own rights, and now the fact that, you know, we’re 

afraid of, you know, the rump State of the former Soviet Union is 

going to somehow destroy America and so now we should rush to 

throw away hard-won protections—I think Mr. Jordan talked about 

them in the cases like the NAACP v. Alabama. We need to be careful. So I do think foreign engagement poses a different issue, but 

kind of a scattershot approach that mainly hits American citizens 

is unwise. 

Mr. GOSAR. You know, I agree with you, and let’s just tailor that 

aspect. Do you think amending the Federal Election Campaign Act 

of 1971 to require what is already required of American citizens, 

the disclosure of the credit verification value, or the CVV, and a 

legal billing address, for all loaned contributions would help ensure 

that the credit cards are registered to someone who actually lives 

in the United States? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, one thing you could do, for example—most campaigns for years did this voluntarily, and this became something of 

an issue because the Obama campaigns did not—was to put checks 

in place on credit cards, in particular, prepaid credit cards. That 

is the kind of thing that could be done by regulation through the 

FEC or I suppose by statue if there were a desire to do that, to ensure that those credit cards were tied to a U.S. individual, not just 

sort of handed out to whoever wants to use prepaid credit cards. 

Mr. GOSAR. Well, and these are two great ideas, a CVV and a 

billing address. It would actually make sure that somebody’s actually living in this country, wouldn’t you agree. 

Mr. SMITH. You’re aware that people don’t have to live in this 

country. 

Mr. GOSAR. Oh, I understand. 

Mr. SMITH. U.S. citizens live abroad and so on. 
187 

Mr. GOSAR. This definitely is a means of calibration that would 

stop some of the illegal contributions. 

Mr. SMITH. It would probably be a safeguard. Again, one that 

most campaigns have followed and one that could be enacted, I 

think, either by regulation or statue. 

Mr. GOSAR. You know, in the last administration, we saw multiple examples of average American citizens being targeted for their 

political beliefs, most notably the IRS and FBI targeting political 

opponents. With that in mind, H.R. 1 would create a partisan 

FEC—I think you addressed that—that could use the power of the 

Federal Government to quell speech that disagrees with it. What 

effects do you think this will have on free speech and discourse? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, you know, I called it the new alien and sedition 

act, so I think that’s a pretty strong Statement to put in very general terms. One of the things that has been an issue at the FEC 

and in enforcement in the States as well is the use of these complaint processes as political weapons in and of themselves. It often 

doesn’t matter if you actually even prove a violation; you simply 

start the investigation process. Responding to an FEC investigation 

can be very costly. The investigation is intrusive. They can go into 

your strategies and tactics to tie up campaign time, to get bad 

press, and so on. So often it was said the punishment is the process 

rather than any fine that’s meted out at the end in part because 

you quite likely did nothing wrong. So very definitely there can be 

a chilling effect here, and that chilling effect is most pronounced 

on small grassroots campaigns which don’t have the lobbyists and 

the lawyers and so on who know these complex regulations and can 

deal with them easily. 

Mr. GOSAR. So two quick questions. Can you explain what ethics 

reform, FEC restructuring, and a new Federal holiday all have in 

common? 

Mr. SMITH. I suppose they all deal in some way with the Federal 

Government, but this is certainly a grab bag of bills. I would actually suggest that one of the best things the majority could do would 

be to divide this bill into its component parts so that they could be 

focused on one at a time. Many of them are only in the most vague 

sense related. 

Mr. GOSAR. One last question. Why do you think my good friend 

from Maryland chose to combine such different topics into one bill? 

You started in on it, so—— 

Mr. SMITH. I think that would probably be a question better directed to your good friend from Maryland. I’m not going to try to 

read his mind. 

Mr. GOSAR. I thank the gentleman. 

I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. I yield to the distinguished lady from New 

York, Mrs. Maloney, for five minutes. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Thank you, and I thank you and Mr. Sarbanes 

for your selfless, devoted work on H.R. 1 over many years. 

Mr. Amey, I’d like to ask you about Presidential contracts, the 

ability of the President and Vice President now under the law to 

compete against the Members of Congress—to compete for properties that other Federal employees and Members of Congress are 

barred by law from entering into contracts or leases. And I want 
188 

to speak to the Presidential Conflicts of Interest Act, which is part 

of Intro 1, which would put a restriction on the President and the 

Vice President in entering into any contracts, which happens to be 

the standards for Members of Congress and Federal employees. 

Would you agree with the intent of Intro 1’s specific proposal on 

Presidential conflicts of interest? 

Mr. AMEY. Yes, Congresswoman. Obviously, you’re talking about 

the General Services Agency’s lease with President Trump and the 

Trump Hotel here in Washington D.C. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Yes, sir. 

Mr. AMEY. There is a provision in that lease, you know, that is 

up for debate. Obviously, the GSA and their legal counsel have had 

different feelings than a lot of people on this side of the table have 

had about the interpretation of that lease provision. The one problem and why H.R. 1 on this specific provision is necessary is it was 

in about 1994 that the Federal Acquisition Regulation stripped the 

provision that was called the Officials Not Benefit provision, and 

so it was in one of the acquisition reform bills, Federal Acquisition 

Reform Act or the Services Acquisition Reform Act, but that provision was stripped out, so it’s no longer in the FAR. 

So I think it’s important to put back, and you raise a good point. 

That provision actually mentioned Members of Congress at that 

time, and that has continued for Members of Congress but hasn’t 

affected other people in the executive branch, and so I do think it’s 

necessary. 

Mrs. MALONEY. Well, as many of my colleagues know, in 2017, 

the members of this committee, the Democrats, literally sued for 

information about the lease and contract between the President’s 

hotel here, the Washington, DC, hotel and the lease with the old 

office building. And we were told then by the general accounting 

services, the General Services Administration, that we were not entitled to exercise our oversight and responsibilities of reviewing 

this lease. They barred us from getting this information. So we are 

literally still in court trying to obtain this. Many of us feel that this 

is a glaring conflict of interest. Why shouldn’t the Oversight Committee have access to leases and contracts that we want to question 

even if it includes the President of the United States? Now, in this 

case of the Trump International Hotel, the President is both the 

landlord and the tenant, and he ultimately also oversees GSA, the 

agency that was responsible for enforcing this lease, this contract. 

How can Congress, Mr. Amey, or the American people be sure that 

GSA is really acting impartially in carrying out the law when they 

are really interpreting what their supervisor—— 

Mr. AMEY. Well, when you have someone that’s the landlord, the 

tenant, the judge, and the jury, and obviously appointed the head 

of the General Services Administration, then, at that point, it is a 

major conflict of interest. There are also some concerns because the 

Trump children were involved in the negotiation of that lease, and 

I’m actually outraged at the fact that the GSA hasn’t turned over 

the information to Congress. That’s where it is important. That’s 

where transparency when it comes to government ethics matters, 

that we should be seeing as much information about that to remove 

the appearance of a conflict of interest but also to ensure that 

there’s not an actual conflict of interest that needs to be resolved. 
189 

Mrs. MALONEY. Okay. Now, in this particular lease for the Old 

Post Office building, it explicitly prohibited an elected official from 

being a party, but GSA failed to enforce it, and I would say that 

there would definitely be an impact, and I’ll ask Mr. Mehrbani. 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Mehrbani. 

Mrs. MALONEY. There could be a definite conflict of interest that 

could have a freezing effect on competition. How many people want 

to compete against the President of the United States for a lease 

or a contract? Wouldn’t you agree that that would be a chilling effect on any competition? What would be the effect of this going forward? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. I would agree with that, Congresswoman, and as 

you know, the inspector general of the General Services Administration recently released a report that was critical of GSA’s analysis of the validity of this lease for improperly omitting constitutional issues from their analysis. And to me, that raises the question of whether there was improper influence or at least the specter 

of self-dealing to the public that greatly undermines public trust. 

It’s also one of the reasons why I should say that the National 

Task Force for Democracy and Rule of Law, which is a Brennan 

Center initiative that includes some of your former colleagues in a 

bipartisan group of former Republicans and Democrats, and they’ve 

proposed extending the existing prohibition and the conflicts of interest law to the President and Vice President to avoid specific instances like this. 

Mrs. MALONEY. And that’s what H.R. 1 will do, and I strongly 

support it and urge its passage. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. The distinguished gentleman from North 

Carolina, Mr. Meadows. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank all of you 

for your testimony. 

Mr. Mehrbani, I guess you’re in favor of matching dollars, using 

taxpayer dollars to match small donations as is outlined in H.R. 1. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. The Brennan Center does support the proposal 

in H.R. 1, which is modeled after an existing proposal that has existed for years in New York which multiple—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Well, I’ve only got five minutes. Yes or no. Do you 

support it? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So I guess here’s the interesting fact that I just 

find just fascinating: A Democrat bill, H.R. 1, would actually use 

taxpayer dollars to reelect the Freedom Caucus chairman. I 

would—under their bill, I would get almost $4 million of taxpayer 

dollars, and I would say I don’t see any of my constituents in the 

audience here. I can’t imagine that they would be happy with taxpayer dollars being used to reelect a Freedom Caucus chairman. Do 

you not see a problem when we use taxpayer dollars to reelect individual Members of Congress? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. If I may. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I mean, would you support me financially? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. I would support spending the equivalent that 

H.R. 1 would require, which I think is a dollar per citizen every 

year over 10 years. 
190 

Mr. MEADOWS. It’s a matching deal. We’ve done the math. It’s $3.8 million that I would get because I’m one of the top 10 in terms 

of small dollar donations in Congress. I would get $3.8 million 

under this bill for reelection. I cannot find anyone who holds government accountable that would think that that would be a wise 

use of taxpayer dollars. Would you? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Sir, campaigns need to be funded from somewhere. 

Mr. MEADOWS. I agree, but not my taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be 

going to it, sir. 

Mr. Shaub, let me come to you. Are you in support of H.R. 1’s 

investigative mandate for OGE? 

Mr. SHAUB. You know, I—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. You were in the job. 

Mr. SHAUB. I have said publicly that I’d prefer to see an inspector general that has global authority over every agency that doesn’t 

have an inspector general and have supplemental ethics authority 

upon referral to OGE. That’s a proposal I’ve presented to former 

Chairman Gowdy and current Chairman Cummings. I do support 

the current bill because I don’t think—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. But it has investigative authority. I’ve gone 

through it, Mr. Shaub, and let me tell you why I’m concerned. Because you came before my committee—— 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS [continuing]. and you gave sworn testimony—— 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes, I did. 

Mr. MEADOWS [continuing]. which is exactly opposite of H.R. 1, 

and yet here you are today espousing its merits, and I can’t find 

why all of a sudden you would have this newfound interest to have 

investigative authority if it were not directed at the current President of the United States. 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes. I have two Statements about that. One is I don’t 

think it creates the kind of investigative authority that an inspector general does, so I don’t think all investigative authority is created equally—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. I agree with that. 

Mr. SHAUB [continuing]. but it does create some. My views on 

that have changed. But this proposal—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. With this President? 

Mr. SHAUB. This proposal would not apply only to this President. 

It would apply to the next President. 

Mr. MEADOWS. No. Listen. It’s not my first rodeo; it’s not yours, 

either. But what I’m saying is I find it extremely hypocritical that 

you would come here today, having sworn under oath that this was 

not the way to go when there was a different President in the 

White House, and then here today—and followed it up with a letter. I mean, we’ve got numerous quotes from you over and over and 

over again which would undermine H.R. 1, and yet here you are 

today supporting that. How do you have this evolution in such a 

short period of time, Mr. Shaub? 

Mr. SHAUB. Well, first of all, I was telling the truth then, and 

I’m telling the truth now, so let’s be clear about that. I did disagree 

with the idea of investigative authority back then. I’ve now sat for 

two years and just watched—— 
191 

Mr. MEADOWS. So you were just wrong back then. 

Mr. SHAUB. No, I wasn’t. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Because I was suggesting that you should have 

the investigative authority, and you said, quote—let me quote you. 

Hold on - 

Mr. SHAUB. No. I recall you suggested—— 

Mr. MEADOWS. Let me quote you here. I said, ‘‘So you do not 

want the authority to be able to investigate?’’ 

‘‘No, I don’t think so.’’ 

I said, ‘‘You don’t want it,’’ and, quote, ‘‘Well, I don’t think we 

should have it. What I might want one way or another is not relevant as it would not be the right thing,’’ closed quote. All of a sudden today you’re having an epiphany, and it’s changing, Mr. 

Shaub? 

Mr. SHAUB. No, it’s not all of a sudden at all. It’s after watching 

for two years somebody proved to me that the executive branch 

ethics program was much weaker and much more fragile than I 

ever thought it was. Frankly, I was naive. I never imagined the 

President could come in and refuse to eliminate his conflicts of interest, have appointees who are completely disinterested in government ethics, and have, with all respect, a Congress refuse to exercise oversight over them in that respect. So, in the absence of any 

other avenue, I do now believe that the Office of Government Ethics is going to have to fill the gap. 

Mr. MEADOWS. But, Mr. Shaub, that was precisely the point I 

made in 2015, and you disagreed with me then. 

I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SHAUB. I’ll just say you were right. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. MEADOWS. We can agree on that. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

We’ll now hear from Ms. Norton of the District of Columbia. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and unrelated to my question, I do want to thank Mr. Sarbanes for the findings in H.R. 1 regarding the D.C. Statehood Act because these findings simply speak for themselves. People I represent pay the highest taxes per capita in the United States. We do vote the committee 

of the whole but have no final vote on the house floor. I’m grateful 

to have a vote in this committee, and I thank you, Chairman Cummings, for agreeing to hold a hearing on this bill. 

But I want to speak about the parts of H.R. 1 which simply go 

to transparency. I think my first question is to Mrs. Hobert Flynn, 

but I honestly would like to hear Mr. Smith’s view of this question. 

The Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, and her family have donated millions of dollars to organizations who lobby for education 

policy. Do either of you think that the public has a right to know 

if the Secretary has donated substantially to organizations, her 

background in donating that could now influence her policies as 

Secretary? First, Ms. Flynn, and I’d like to hear Mr. Smith on this 

question. 

Mrs. Hobert Flynn. Thank you. You know, Education Secretary 

Betsy DeVos and her family have given large sums of money to influence politics at all levels of government, including pressing for 
192 

school voucher programs, something she’s clearly very supportive 

of. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, DeVos and her 

family have donated over $20 million to Republican candidates, 

party committees, PACs, and super-PACs, and much of that political spending has been focused on education as she now influences 

an Education Secretary. You know, to me, I think it’s important 

when the Senate is looking at the nomination, when the American 

people are paying attention, it’s an important part of the equation 

that helps shed light both on issues that she cares about and also 

her investment in that. In fact, she gave an interview in Roll Call 

where she said she, quote, decided to—decided, quote, ‘‘to stop taking offense at the suggestion that we are buying influence.’’ Quote, 

‘‘Now I simply concede the point,’’ she wrote 20 years ago, ‘‘they are 

right. We do expect some things in return. We expect to foster a 

conservative governing philosophy consisting of limited government 

and respect for traditional American values.’’ So I think it’s important for the nomination process to have a fuller picture of where 

their fundraising and political spending is going. 

Ms. NORTON. Mr. Smith, how could that do any harm? How can 

it do anything but good, the more information we have? 

Mr. SMITH. I am, I have to say, shocked—shocked—to discover 

that the Republican appointee to Secretary of Education has been 

a Republican who has donated to Republican candidates and 

causes and that her viewpoints—— 

Ms. NORTON. So would you be shocked for us to know, for the 

public to know about that background history as she takes office? 

Mr. SMITH. I think that, as Ms. Hobert Flynn said, I agree that’s 

something that certainly Senators could ask during the confirmation process. I find it hard to believe that there’s an ethical conflict 

in somebody—— 

Ms. NORTON. There may not be . Reclaiming my time. I’m not 

implying an ethical conflict, and my questions about transparency 

are simply going to that, you know. Let it all hang out, and then 

let everybody make their own judgment. Let the committee make 

its own judgment. Let the public make its own judgment. 

Mr. SMITH. I have a number of questions about your personal life 

that I would be interested in, but I won’t ask them here today. 

Ms. NORTON. Well, come on and go straight ahead. 

Mr. SMITH. You know—— 

Ms. NORTON. The point is it’s not her personal life that I’m asking about, Mr. Smith. What we’re asking about is her donations of 

money. 

Mr. SMITH. These are not—— 

Ms. NORTON. Donations of money in ways that could reflect on 

a trust she’s now been given as part of her enforcement activities. 

So it’s not about just let it all hang out about my personal life. It’s 

about the relevance to what it is she is enforcing. She is enforcing 

education policy. She’s had a known not only position but given 

millions of dollars in ways that may conflict with parts of that policy. As I indicated when I opened this line of questioning, it’s only 

about transparency. 

Let me go on to ask about the Conflicts of Political Fundraising 

Act. I’m a co-sponsor of that. It’s also in H.R. 1. It simply requires—— 
193 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Your time has expired. 

Ms. NORTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Amash. 

Mr. AMASH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I yield to the ranking member, Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. JORDAN. I thank the gentleman for yielding. 

Professor Smith, does H.R. 1 require States to offer early voting? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Does H.R. 1, Professor, require States to offer no excuse absentee voting? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Does H.R. 1 require paid leave for Federal Workers 

to be poll workers? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Does H.R. 1 require States to let released felons 

vote? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe it does. 

Mr. JORDAN. Does H.R. 1 require taxpayers to finance campaigns? 

Mr. SMITH. Definitely. 

Mr. JORDAN. Definitely. Does H.R. 1 require taxpayers—as Mr. 

Meadows was alluding to just a few minutes ago, does H.R. 1 require taxpayers pay for the campaigns of candidates they oppose? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. For example, under the system, if I were to con- tribute $10 to the reelection campaign of the President, the folks 

on this side of the aisle would collectively and with others contribute $6 or something like that. 

Mr. JORDAN. Yep. Does H.R. 1 require States to have same-day 

registration for voters? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe it does. 

Mr. JORDAN. Does H.R. 1 require automatic voter registration? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe that’s correct. 

Mr. JORDAN. Does H.R. 1 encourage States to pre-register 16- 

year-olds? 

Mr. SMITH. That I don’t know off the top of my head. 

Mr. JORDAN. I’ll tell you that one. It does. 

Mr. SMITH. I’ll take your word for it. 

Mr. JORDAN. I appreciate that. Professor, does H.R. 1 require 

election day to be a Federal holiday if you work for the Federal 

Government? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, it does. 

Mr. JORDAN. And does H.R. 1 require the outing of donors, a direct violation of freedom of association. You give to a campaign; it 

permits that through the disclosure you’re going to be outed. 

Mr. SMITH. A great many provisions require a tremendous 

amount of outing of a great many donors. 

Mr. JORDAN. Does H.R. 1 make the bipartisan FEC a partisan organization? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe that it effectively does. 

Mr. JORDAN. Yes. And the example—I liked the example you 

used. We’ll take the U.S. Senate. Let’s say Mitch McConnell and 

Ted Cruz are the Republicans. Let’s say Cory Booker and Kamala 

Harris are the Democrats, and then the independent is Bernie 

Sanders. That’s supposed to be balanced, right? 
194 

Mr. SMITH. That would work, yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. That would work. That’s exactly what the majority 

intends for it to be in 2021, something like that. Maybe not those 

people, but I think people understand what we’re getting at here. 

Does H.R. 1 require—does H.R. 1 limit free speech? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe that it does in significant ways, as I pointed 

out in my testimony, in ways that it was not limited even before 

some of the Supreme Court decisions that H.R. 1 purports to want 

to overturn. 

Mr. JORDAN. So let me take a whack at a little summary here, 

Professor. H.R. 1 requires taxpayers to pay for a holiday on election 

day for government workers. H.R. 1 requires taxpayers to pay for 

six days of paid leave for government workers who want to be poll 

workers. H.R. 1 requires taxpayers to pay for politicians’ campaigns, and if those same taxpayers give to some organization, 

some C–4, they can be outed under H.R. 1 so that the left can or 

anyone can harass them and their family. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Such a deal for the taxpayer, right? 

Mr. SMITH. I’ll leave that judgment to you folks who get to vote 

on it. 

Mr. JORDAN. I mean, this is exactly where H.R. 1 sends us, and 

that’s why we’re opposed to it, and that’s why we’re going to keep 

fighting it. That’s why we’re saying the things we’re staying. So 

anything I’m missing in my summary there, Professor? Anything 

you’d like to add? 

Mr. SMITH. I would only add that I think the disclosure provisions are often worse than people think because they’re defining as 

political activity things that have never been defined as political 

before, and you run the risk of regulations swallowing up the entire 

discourse in which the public engages. So I would really say I think 

the provisions are worse than people think and that they’re often 

hidden through the complex interrelationships of—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Give me an example. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, one example would be if an organization, for example, were to hire somebody who had previously been an intern, 

a paid intern for a Member of Congress, that organization would 

then be prohibited from making any communications that were 

deemed to promote, attack, support, or oppose that candidate, and 

that vague term could apply to almost anything, praising the candidate for introducing a bill, criticizing the Congressman for opposing a bill, whatever it might be. 

Mr. JORDAN. Wow. That would put the whole consulting business 

in this town out of business. 

Mr. SMITH. It’s not just the consulting, of course. It puts out of 

business all of the interest groups—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Of course. 

Mr. SMITH [continuing]. and all of the civic groups that people 

belong to. 

Mr. JORDAN. I appreciate it. 

Mr. Chairman, I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

I’m going to yield myself a few minutes. 
195 

One of the things, Ms. Hobert and Mr. Mehrbani, that gave me 

chills when I read it was the 2016 opinion of the Fourth Circuit 

Court of Appeals. You know, we’re sitting around here acting like 

it’s not an inalienable right to be able to vote. It’s something they 

said that is chilling, and we can argue back and forth all we want. 

They talked about the legislature down there in North Carolina, 

and this is a quote from the fourth circuit. These are Federal 

judges. They said before enacting that law, the legislature requested data on the use by race of a number of voting practices. 

Upon receipt of the race data, the general assembly enacted legislation that restricted—come on. You’re talking about an inalienable 

rights—that restricted voting and registration in five different 

ways, all of which disproportionately affected African Americans. 

They went on to say—this is the fourth circuit. I didn’t say this. 

The Federal court said it. They said in response to claims that intentional racial discrimination animated its action. The State offered only meager justifications, although the new provisions target—and this is what the court said—although the new provisions 

target African Americans with almost surgical precision. They constitute inapt remedies for the problems assertedly justifying them 

and, in fact, impose cures for problems that did not even exist. 

They went on to say: Thus, the asserted justifications cannot and 

do not conceal the State’s true motivation, end of quote. 

The reason why that quote means so much to me is that one year 

ago today, on my mother’s dying bed at 92 years old, former sharecropper, her last words were: Do not let them take our votes away 

from us. 

They had fought, she had fought and seen people harmed, beaten 

trying to vote. Talk about inalienable rights. Voting is crucial, and 

I don’t give a damn how you look at it. There are efforts to stop 

people from voting. That’s not right. This is not Russia. This is the 

United States of America. I will fight until the death to make sure 

every citizen, whether they’re Green Party, whether they’re Freedom Party, whether they’re Democrats, whether they’re Republicans, whoever, has that right to vote. Because it is the essence of 

our democracy, and we can play around and act like it’s not, and 

guess what? I want to be clear that when they look back on this 

moment 200 years from now, that there are those of us who stood 

up and were able to stay they stood up and said we will defend the 

right to vote. Because you know what the problem is? For so many 

people, their rights are pulled away from them. Then they got to 

put in laws to get them back. Pulled away from them. What does 

that mean? They cannot progress rapidly. They cannot progress 

with the rest of society. All they’re trying to do is trying to control 

their own destiny. I’d just like to hear your comments, Ms. Hobert 

and Mr. Mehrbani, on the fourth circuit’s opinion. 

Mrs. Hobert Flynn. So we have seen since 2010 a number of 

States move efforts to shut down opportunities for people to vote. 

We’ve seen proof of citizenship laws, photo ID. We’ve seen early 

voting days repealed. We have seen States that have election day 

registration repealed, all in efforts to make it difficult for people to 

vote. A lot of this is focused on so-called in-person voter fraud, 

which there is a 0.0003 percent chance that that happens. It is a 

very rare thing. So what we have is all these measures that are 
196 

trying to tamp down on something that isn’t happening out there, 

and the end result is we see many people purged from voter rolls 

and other things with the thought that they’re going to be addressing something that isn’t happening very frequently. 

So that is a real challenge and one that we’ve seen in States 

across the country. The reforms in H.R. 1, to put in place early voting, to deal with voting machines so that they’re working and functioning, to add poll workers where we have a real shortage of poll 

workers so people aren’t standing in line and leaving. All of these 

things are put in place to help create opportunities for people to 

vote. 

Election day registration is a perfect antidote to a purge so that 

you can show up on election day; if you see that there’s a problem, 

then you can register vote and vote on that day. That’s why it’s so 

important to be looking at these reforms. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Mehrbani. 

Mr. MEHRBANI. The one thing I want to add to that is these reforms not just make it easier for people to vote and are proven to 

increase turnout and participation; they actually increase the accuracy of the rolls. So what we’re hearing as reasons not to adopt 

things like automatic voter registration, same-day voter registration. As was said earlier, these are reforms that already exist in 

States across the country, and the Brennan Center has studied the 

implementation of them, and they’ve shown to increase the accuracy of the poll and to even decrease existing errors in the system. 

I just want to say, Mr. Chairman, I appreciate your telling that 

incredibly personal story and the impact that it had on me personally and I’m sure on everyone who was listening. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Hice. 

Mr. HICE. I thank the chairman. 

I would just—Mr. Chairman, all of us want integrity at the voting booth, but if you are somehow implying that only Republicans 

have been engaged in voter fraud, I challenge that and take great 

offense at it. 

We just saw in Texas tens of thousands of illegal aliens voting, 

and this is an issue that goes far and wide. It is not on one side 

of the aisle, sir, and I would like that to stand corrected. This bill 

does not—— 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Will the gentleman yield? 

Mr. HICE. Yes, sir. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. I’ll give you your second back. 

Nobody said that. I didn’t say that. I quoted the court, and I did 

not just blame Republicans or anybody. All I know, I was trying 

to make it clear that it has been made far difficult for people who 

look like me to be able to vote, period, and we all need to be addressing that. That’s what I was trying to say. 

Mr. HICE. Reclaiming my time. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. If you took it any other way, I did not intend it that way. 

Mr. HICE. It was certainly implied that way, Mr. Chairman. I accept what you just said. 

My contention across the board, however, H.R. 1 does not address this problem. It makes the potential for voter fraud even a 
197 

greater possibility. This is not a solution to the problem that all of 

us in this room are concerned about. 

Mr. Smith, I’d like to go to you. Should taxpayers be required to 

pay for political speech? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, I think there are a couple of points there. One 

is sort of a moral point that was raised earlier by Mr. Meadows 

and by Mr. Jordan, that there’s something sort of deeply wrong 

about forcing people to fund the political campaigns of candidates 

they greatly abhor, but there’s also a practical problem here. 

Mr. HICE. Well, let me go on. All right. So yes or no, should—— 

Mr. SMITH. I mean, I think clearly not. 

Mr. HICE. Okay. 

Mr. SMITH. There is a practical problem as well; it is not just an 

ideological problem. 

Mr. HICE. Well, absolutely. Maybe we’ll have time to get into 

some of that. So they should not be required to pay for political 

speech. I’m assuming you would also agree that they should not be 

required to pay for political speech that they disagree with. 

Mr. SMITH. Well, in particular, yes. 

Mr. HICE. All right. Our colleagues on the other side have pointed to so-called success in expanding public funding of election in 

places like Arizona, Maine, New York, and so forth. So far as you’re 

aware, have these programs been successful? 

Mr. SMITH. No. Typically the measure they use for that is how 

many candidates choose to take the money. So they’re kind of saying: Well, if the government offers you free money and you take it, 

wow, the program was successful. But in terms of quality of governance, almost all the claims do not come true. We’re told that it 

would elect more minorities; that has not been the case. To elect 

more women, that’s not been the case. You don’t see much difference in the makeup of legislators. Certainly I don’t think people 

look at, you know, New York City and say: Wow, now that they’ve 

had this matching program there, they’re well governed, you know, 

or better governed than in the past. 

Mr. HICE. So have these programs been successful in preventing 

corruption? 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t see any way they have. In fact, they’re often 

an avenue for corruption because, again, you have things that were 

previously private money people, you know—if a candidate wants 

to waste money, he can do it. Now it’s public money. If he diverts 

it to personal use, it creates a greater scandal. 

Mr. HICE. Do these programs really limit the influence of special 

interests groups? 

Mr. SMITH. I’ve not seen that at all in part because particularly 

with these matching funds types of things, groups that are well organized to go out and solicit large amounts of small contributions 

can do that. They also invite fraud in the sense that, in the past, 

you know, a person might contribute 250-or $500,000 but now he 

tries to get a bunch of other people to each contribute an amount 

below the matching amount and give them money to make the contributions because then you up the matches. So they’re really sort 

of invitation to corruption. 
198 

Mr. HICE. You touched on this a while ago. I’d like for you to go 

a little bit further. But what will this program do to public discourse and free speech? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, public financing programs I think are not helpful for free speech in part because again, they tend to be avenues 

for corruption in many ways. We also find there are studies that 

show that the small donors that are often solicited for these things 

actually extend to be more partisan donors than sort of more institutional people so that they tend to lead to further polarization of 

the political system. 

Mr. HICE. Okay.. One last question. Going back, it was interesting to me when you mentioned the five-member versus six-member on the FEC. Can you elaborate on that, why six members, in 

your opinion, is the appropriate way to go, as opposed to five? 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. It’s a unique mission in the sense that it directly regulates elections and who’s going to win those offices or 

can have that effect. So it’s always required four votes on a sixmember commission; that is, you had to have some measure of bipartisanship. Once you go to a five-member commission, you’ll lose 

that requirement of bipartisanship. Furthermore, it will totally go 

away because the chair, again, will have this tremendous authority 

on his own, even if all the Commissioners oppose him, to subpoena 

people and launch investigations and so on. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Raskin of Maryland for five minutes. 

Mr. RASKIN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to first start by 

applauding the sentiments that you just expressed. There’s been a 

profound struggle for the right to vote in American history. We 

began with the vast majority of people in our country not having 

the right to vote, but through political struggle and constitutional 

change, we’ve enlarged the electorate to include African Americans 

and to include women, to include 18-year-olds. We’ve dismantled 

the property and wealth qualifications, and at every turn, there 

have been forces of conservatism and reaction that have tried to 

stop the changes, oftentimes claiming fraud, oftentimes claiming 

that the people newly enfranchised weren’t really, truly deserving 

voters. So we’re seeing the same historic process reenacted right 

now. 

But that’s just the first part of the issue. Once we get people 

elected to office, there’s the problem of the agency of people who 

go into government. The Founders of the Constitution wrote in Article I, section 9, the Emoluments Clause to make sure that the 

President and other Federal officials would not be on the take from 

foreign powers, kings, princes, and governments, would accept no 

money at all, no payments whatsoever, no offices, no titles, no 

emoluments. And, yet, with that signal original breach, that original sin, this administration basically opened the floodgates on corruption in Washington and then appointed a fox to preside over 

every henhouse in Washington, every regulatory agency taken over 

by a regulated industry. 

So we need to protect the right to vote against these constant efforts to take people’s right to vote away, and we need to make sure 

that the people come to work in Washington are actually serving 
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the American people. And that’s what part of this legislation is all 

about. It’s about strengthening the Office of Government Ethics, 

and it includes the executive branch Comprehensive Ethics Enforcement Act, which I’m proud to introduce on the House side 

along with Senator Blumenthal on the Senate side. One of the 

things it would do is to provide the Director of the Office of Government Ethics with the same authority that the inspectors general 

have to subpoena documents, and I’m wondering, Mr. Amey, starting with you, how would this help the work of the OGE Director, 

and can you give us some examples of what that might mean? 

Mr. AMEY. Well, specifically, I mean, that’s one of the problems. 

The OGE currently has some authority, very limited authorities to 

conduct investigations, hold a hearing, and ask government officials to come in and testify. But that needs to be strengthened. We 

have found that OGE is really a paper tiger. Without this authority, it’s very difficult. The ethics system is really based on self-policing, you know, from day one. I mean, it’s up to a government official to come to an ethics officer and disclose certain things. During 

the confirmation process, it’s up to them to go to OGE and make 

certain disclosures. And that’s where at least allowing OGE to subpoena and hold the proper investigation with the proper information in front of them will instill the fact that, you know, we’re trying to get to the conflicts of interest and whatever waivers, 

recusals, or exemptions apply to make it more transparent so we’re 

aware of those conflicts and we can handle them in due course. 

Mr. RASKIN. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Shaub, you testified before this committee in 2015 while you 

were the Director of Office of Government Ethics, and during that 

hearing, Mr. Chaffetz, who was then the chairman of the committee, was frustrated with some of your testimony because OGE 

was not doing its own investigations, and he thought it was toothless. He said, and I quote: And I’m just suggesting that you’re just 

shuffling paperwork. If you’re just taking everything at face value 

and then reprinting and putting it on the shelf, what good are you? 

Why should we even have you if you’re not going to actually review 

them and hold people accountable and do an investigation? 

H.R. 1 would, in fact, give OGE precisely the authority to do 

meaningful investigations that Chairman Chaffetz and our counterparts on the other side of the aisle were demanding. Isn’t that 

right? 

Mr. SHAUB. I think that’s absolutely right. At the time, I tried 

to explain that, as a practical matter, despite the appearance of 

language that might look like investigative authority in the current 

version of the Ethics in Government Act, OGE was powerless to actually conduct any kind of investigation. This bill would change 

that. 

Mr. RASKIN. I wonder if you would give us a sense of this culture 

of corruption and lawlessness which now permeates Washington. 

Most people would be astounded to know that people come to 

Washington, go into a Federal agency, not in order to pursue the 

common good and protect the public interest but in order to pursue 

other agendas. Can you suggest from your wide experience in this 

field what those other agendas might be? 
200 

Mr. SHAUB. Well, I think one of the concerns that we look at is 

the types of loyalties that they have, and the goal of any ethics program should be to ensure that the loyalty of the government officials is only to the people they serve and not to companies for 

which they previously lobbied or previously served as a high-level 

executive or anything like that. 

Mr. RASKIN. Mr. Amey, I’ll go to you. 

Mr. AMEY. If I may, I think the one problem that we’ve seen with 

the ethics system is, even if you look at OGE’s prosecution surveys 

or if you would go back through the Public Integrity Section at the 

Department of Justice, most of it is low-hanging fruit. I mean, most 

of it is low-level people that are, you know, handling a contract or 

doing something. As you go up the chain of command, the ethics 

laws kind of dwindle off, and I truly believe it’s kind of a catchme-if-you-can system these days. 

Mr. RASKIN. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. Thank you very much. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Mr. Comer for five minutes. 

Mr. COMER. Thank you. 

Chairman Cummings, I don’t want to make it harder for people 

to vote. I just want to make sure that elections are fair and that 

only eligible voters vote. I’m from rural Kentucky. Many elections 

this past election cycle were decided by 10 votes or less. 

But I have a huge problem with the proposal for same-day voter 

registration. What I witnessed in California this past Federal election cycle with the questionable ballot harvesting gave me grave 

concerns about the integrity of our elections and who is actually 

casting votes in some States that have passed this type of version 

of election reform. 

So I want to ask my first question to Mr. Smith and to touch 

upon what Congressman Hice mentioned. This proposal, one of the 

things it does is it removes the standard of the chairman and vice 

chairman being from separate parties. In Kentucky, we have a 

Board of Elections, and it’s split down the middle. Kentucky, it’s is 

half Republican, half Democrat. How might consolidating power in 

the hands of a single party and a chairman of a single party undermine the legitimacy of the Federal Election Commission? 

Mr. SMITH. As I mentioned earlier, historically it’s required bipartisanship. There has to be some degree of buy-in from one commissioner who has identified with the other side of the aisle, and 

that disappears here. As somebody pointed out, in theory, the independent commissioner doesn’t need to be truly independent. But 

it’s even worse than that, actually, because if the President simply 

doesn’t fill certain positions, then a three-member quorum which 

could be two members of one party and one independent or something could be free to launch whatever investigations it chose, pass 

the regulations. The regulations that you pass, of course, can be 

terribly biased in favor of one party or the other. But also the enforcement process, the priorities you choose, how you choose to go 

after people, whether you choose to pursue certain folks, can be 

very damaging. As I pointed out, oftentimes, the punishment is in 

the process itself. You get bad press. Your resources become tied 

up. And this can be on charges that are very bogus, that have almost no real foundation in fact. 
201 

So a partisan FEC is a very dangerous potential weapon, and it’s 

worth noting that groups—you know, from time to time, the FEC 

will get criticized. Republicans will say something like: You know, 

this is a biased agency. 

And the very first response that always comes out of the mouth 

of people like some of the organizations represented down the table 

here is: It requires some degree of bipartisanship, right? 

See, they themselves know that that’s really the only thing that 

gives the agency its legitimacy is that bipartisan makeup. 

Mr. HICE. Right. To followup on that, this proposal, H.R. 1, also 

allows the general counsel to initiate an investigation without bipartisan support and issue subpoenas on his own authority. Does 

the bill provide sufficient checks on the general counsel to make 

sure this significant authority is not abused? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, I don’t think—there is the possibility for the 

Commission to override the general counsel’s actions, but if the 

Commission doesn’t act, doesn’t have enough time to act for some 

reason or another, can’t muster a quorum, the general counsel can 

simply plow ahead. Plus, it allows the Commissioners themselves 

to dodge any responsibility. They can simply not vote and let the 

general counsel’s recommendation move forward. And note that 

first general counsel will be appointed by the chair with concurrence of two of the Commissioners. He has to have concurrence of 

two others for this, but those will all be people appointed by this 

first President who makes that appointment. And once he’s in, he 

can stay in indefinitely, unless you can muster a majority to vote 

him out. 

Mr. HICE. Let me ask you this last question. The asserted purpose of H.R. 1 is to increase transparency in the electoral process. 

I think we would all support that. But in what way does creating 

a secretive taxpayer-funded blue ribbon panel to lobby the President about whom to appoint to the FEC increase transparency? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, this is a fascinating little part of the bill. One 

part of the bill requires the creation of this blue ribbon panel that’s 

supposed to make recommendations to the President as to whom 

he ought to appoint to the FEC. It’s not quite clear what the purpose of the panel is since they don’t have binding authority, but it 

is very interesting that the first thing the bill does, then, is take 

this body out of the requirements of the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which exists precisely to make sure that it operates 

transparently, and it allows it to operate in secret. 

Mr. HICE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Chairman CUMMINGS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Rouda. 

Mr. ROUDA. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your 

comments earlier. A clear reminder for all of us here as to what 

our obligations are to all Americans. In 2010, Citizens United was 

settled by the Supreme Court. In that decision, the majority made 

it very clear that they did not think that decision would have virtually any impact on dark soft money coming into the election process. The reality is, in that same year, there was approximately 

$140 million of dark money that came into the election process. 

Yet, in 2016, it was $1.6 billion—$1.6 billion. All because the Supreme Court decision basically said corporations are people too. 
202 

And I don’t know about you, but personally, I have never held 

hands with a corporation. I’ve never dated a corporation. I’ve never 

made out with a corporation. And I’m pretty sure no one else in 

this room has either. We know that dark money leads to undue influence at best and, at worst, outright corruption. 

At the end of the Constitutional Convention in 1787 in Philadelphia at Independence Hall, 11 years after the Declaration of Independence was adopted by our Founders, Benjamin Franklin was 

exiting the building. And a citizen came up to him and asked him, 

Mr. Franklin, what kind of government do we have? And he answered and said: A republic if you can keep it. 

Let that be a reminder to all of us as we contemplate the amount 

of dark money and soft money coming into our government and the 

ethics that can be corrupted by it, that this is something that our 

Founders never envisioned. Now more than ever, we do need to restore decency, transparency, and responsibility by introducing ethics reforms for the President, Vice President, and all Federal officers and employees. 

This administration has had at best a very awkward relationship 

with ethics and integrity. We must make sure the President and 

his family members do not use the Presidency to enrich themselves 

at the expense of the American people. I know every single one of 

my colleagues here didn’t come to Congress to get rich. They came 

here because they believe in America, in putting service above self, 

and country over party. We can do that by passing commonsense 

reforms to our political system. Let’s work together to reduce the 

influence of big money in politics, strengthen our rules for public 

service. 

With that, I’d like to ask Mr. Shaub, does current law prohibit 

all Federal employees from taking official actions to benefit their 

own financial interests, and if so, what gray areas still exist that 

need to be addressed? 

Mr. SHAUB. Well, I think the biggest gap is that it doesn’t cover 

the President or Vice President, and it’s important to remember 

that that exemption was not supposed to be some kind of perk of 

high office, but rather, a recognition that a President can’t really 

recuse, not participate in urgent matters of State which is why divestiture was always the practice until now. 

I think there are other conflicts of interest in the form of these 

golden parachutes were people are not sufficiently kept out of matters affecting those companies that give them big payouts. And I 

think that there’s an oversight problem that’s become apparent 

that there just is a limited ability to be able to get into the matter 

and find the information because OGE doesn’t have the authority 

to do it, and I think this bill addresses that. 

Mr. ROUDA. Yes, please. 

Mr. AMEY. Congressman, I just also want to point out the fact 

that obviously there are some constitutional issues with applying 

certain ethics rules and regulations to the President. Some of those 

have been handled, and I think the provision in H.R. 1 that specifically talks about this that was the sense of Congress in the rules 

don’t apply but they should act as if they do actually follows the 

precedent of, in 1974, of Assistant Attorney General Scalia in 

which he said the rules don’t apply, but it’s good policy and that 
203 

the exemptions to them when they don’t apply should be common— 

you know, like, should be common and should be transparent so 

that we can follow that and be aware of it. 

And so, you know, this isn’t a partisan issue. The bill actually 

has come out where OLC and the Department of Justice has said 

that has been the precedent for this, you know, for 30, 40 years. 

Mr. ROUDA. Thank you very much. 

I yield back. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Mr. Cloud, you’re next. 

Mr. CLOUD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

There’s no doubt that government is broken. This Congress, I can 

tell you especially after being here for six months, my thoughts on 

that matter have only been confirmed. 

But for all what we’ll assume are the best intentions, historically 

centralizing power has only led to more corruption. I think a great 

example of this was how we saw the IRS weaponized against 

groups that didn’t agree with the political leaning at the time. I’m 

also puzzled by the kind of thinking that says, well, we don’t trust 

government, so let’s give them more power. I think that the Founders understood this in creating a Federalist republic form of government. 

And, Mr. Smith, that brings me to a question. You mentioned in 

your testimony—I believe I counted 28 times you mentioned the 

word unconstitutional. Could you speak to some of your concerns 

with this bill in reference to the Constitution? 

Mr. SMITH. Sure. And I’ll focus on the speech parts because 

that’s what the Institution for Free Speech does—the Institute for 

Free Speech. One of the things it does, for example, is it would regulate speech that uses the term—it uses the term promotes, supports, attacks, or opposes a candidate. That term is extremely 

vague. It’s not really clear what it means. If somebody were to— 

if a union were to take out an ad saying it’s unfair that Federal 

employees should have to be laid off during a shutdown, you know, 

tell President Trump to open—reopen the government, is that attacking President Trump or not? The Supreme Court has long said 

you have to have a clear standard so that people know what they 

can say and what they don’t when they have to start reporting to 

the Federal Government, when their ability to finance ads is limited in different ways. So that’s one thing, the vagueness of that 

phrase and another phrase. 

Another example would be that the bill presumes that certain 

people are coordinated, coordinating their activities with candidates even if they are not actually, in fact, coordinating their activities with candidates. I used an example earlier in response to 

one of your colleagues noting that, for example, if you had a former 

intern, paid intern go off and work for a citizens’ group and they 

had concerns about the bill, about some bill, they would be prohibited from advertising on that because anything they did would be 

considered coordinated even if it wasn’t, and because they’re a corporation, they can’t do coordinated expenditures at all. This would 

mean, for example, if somebody were to leave the minority staff 

and go to the majority staff and go to work for the ACLU, at that 

point the ACLU would have to be quiet on any kind of legislation 

they might want to comment on. That’s clearly unconstitutional 
204 

under a case called Colorado Republican Campaign Committee. 

The Supreme Court said you can’t presume coordination. People actually have to engage in coordination before you can tell them that 

you can limit their political speech. So those would be just two 

quick examples of where I think the bill clearly goes off the rails 

and into the teeth of existing constitutional law. 

Mr. CLOUD. Thank you. This bill also purports to limit foreign influence in elections. Could you speak to how this limits foreign interference, namely, to illegal immigration, illegal immigrants voting in our elections? 

Mr. SMITH. I’m really not prepared to talk about how it pertains. 

Obviously illegal immigrants are not allowed to vote in U.S. elections. And, you know, because we’re a speech organization, we’ve 

not really commented much on the voting rights provisions of the 

bill. 

I will say the one thing that’s often overlooked is the issue is not 

really that illegal immigrants might vote in elections. I think the 

more legitimate concern is that illegal immigrants then count in 

the census, and thus, they inflate the congressional representation 

of areas in which they tend to settle. And it’s no secret that those 

areas have tended to be in recent years areas represented by 

Democrats. So essentially it’s a way that you kind of boost Democratic representation because these nonvoters are included in the 

population. Now, that may not be an inherently wrong thing. 

There’s different theories of regulation or representation, but that 

is the effect there. 

Mr. CLOUD. Well, can you speak to any certain provisions in this 

bill that might secure the vote for citizens? 

Mr. SMITH. Secure the vote for citizens? 

Mr. CLOUD. Yes. 

Mr. SMITH. I’m not quite sure I follow that. Sorry, Congressman. 

Mr. CLOUD. Any provisions in the bill that ensure that only citizens are voting in our elections. 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t think there are any that take that approach 

at all. Indeed, to the extent people are worried about that, the bill 

probably has provisions that cut the other direction. 

Mr. CLOUD. Okay. Could you then address whether or not minority groups would be—have their vote count more or less should illegal immigrants be invited to vote? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, I’m not sure it would change whether other 

votes would count more or less. It would have an impact, of course, 

on the makeup of the electorate, and that would obviously have an 

impact on who wins elections at some point. 

Mr. CLOUD. Okay. Thank you. I yield back. 

Mr. DESAULNIER . Thank you, Mr. Cloud. 

Next up is Ms. Wasserman Schultz. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ . Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My question is for Mr. Shaub. The Presidential Transition Act allows candidates for the incoming Commander in Chief to submit 

transition team members who would be eligible to receive selected 

security clearances, and the current process is clearly very flawed. 

I think you referenced that in your opening remarks. There is really no transparency and a risk of compromising our national security. 
205 

And we’ve got familiar facts here. The Trump transition team requested a security clearance for his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and 

that gave him access to classified information that we now know 

he should not have had. His history of failing to report meetings, 

extensive business relationships should and apparently did raise 

red flags that he could potentially be compromised. And just a couple of weeks ago we learned that Federal specialists proposed rejecting his application because of concerns about his family business and his foreign contacts, travel, and meetings that he had 

during the campaign and that he could potentially be subject to 

undue influence. 

Now we know that those same specialists were overruled by their 

politically appointed supervisor, Mr. Carl Kline. And in fact, Mr. 

Chairman, as I’m sure you’re aware, Mr. Kline overruled 30 such 

clearances, which is an unprecedented amount. Apparently there 

had only been one prior overruling, I think, in the history of that 

process. 

Now, for the record, the committee might recall I actually proposed two amendments in the appropriations bill in 2017 to revoke 

Mr. Kushner’s security clearance because he repeatedly violated 

the rules and didn’t report meetings that he had had because he 

forgot about them. I don’t know about you, but I generally remember the foreign contact meetings, and I have a record of them. I 

don’t just forget them and repeatedly have to amend applications. 

Most people wouldn’t. 

So it strained credulity to suggest that these were meetings that 

he didn’t remember. So we can’t have the fox watching the hen 

house any longer. And this bill at least takes a step toward transparency. But how can we ensure that these overrulings are no 

longer allowed, and what steps do you think need to be taken to 

be sure that people in the White House and the executive branch 

who should not have security clearances don’t have them, can’t get 

them, and have them revoked when they have been temporarily 

granted? 

Mr. SHAUB. Well, I think that—turning first to your comments 

about the transition team, I think it’s very important that this bill 

addresses ethics for the transition team. It’s well established that 

it’s not governmental, yet it does receive governmental funds; it’s 

full of people who are about to become government officials; and it’s 

full of people who are getting access to information. 

In terms of the security clearance process, I don’t have specific 

recommendations on that. That’s not my specialty. It is important, 

however, to depoliticize it as much as possible and take steps to 

make sure that there isn’t political interference in the security 

clearance process. I also think in this case we have a nepotism 

problem where you’ve got an individual who repeatedly amended 

his security clearance form. I have never in all my years seen as 

many amendments to a financial disclosure form as he had to 

make, and I think that this is the kind of thing that would ordinarily potentially lead to either a termination or a revocation of security clearance. But you’ve got a President’s son-in-law in office, 

which is another majority departure from the prior 50 years of governmental practice. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you. 
206 

Yes, Mr. Mehrbani. 

Mr. MEHRBANI. If I just may say on security clearances, having 

worked on hundreds of these, not once out of all of my experience 

in the White House do I recall overruling the decisions of a career 

professional, and I think making sure that that process is led by 

career professionals is one way to prevent that from occurring. 

Another way, especially for those who are nominated to Senateconfirmed positions, is ensuring that their background investigations are fully completed before those folks are nominated and considered by the Senate. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Mr. Mehrbani, if I can ask you since 

you do have experience in reviewing those security clearances, why 

do you think that—why did you not—do you not recall any of the 

clearances you reviewed being overruled? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. I don’t recall any being overruled. 

Ms. Wasserman Schultz. But for—I mean, for what valid reason 

would there be to overrule a recommendation that someone not be 

granted a security clearance? What’s the risk of doing that? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. So I never viewed myself as an expert, and it requires expert experience and training to understand the different 

factors that go into conducting a background investigation, what 

factors should be considered derogatory and potentially put an individual at risk of compromise or other ways put national security 

at risk. And so I deferred to the professionals who did that for 

many years. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. So it’s your opinion that potentially 

national security is jeopardized with the overruling of these recommendations? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. I do think it puts national security at risk, yes. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you, Mr. Mehrbani. 

Ms. WASSERMAN SCHULTZ. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I yield 

back. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. I recognize Mr. Armstrong for his five minutes. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

My question is for Mr. Smith. First, do you know the only State 

in the country without voter registration? 

Mr. SMITH. No. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. Well, I’m going to give everybody a little trivia 

lesson. It’s North Dakota. 

Mr. SMITH. That was my guess, but I’m under oath. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. One of the things I think we run into when we 

do Federal one-size-fits-all piece of legislation is maybe the negative disparate impact it would have on certain rural States that do 

things in a very unique way, which we’re very proud of. North Dakota is the only State in the country without voter registration. We 

have an incredibly robust rural voting program. 

We have voting—counties that vote exclusively by mail, and we 

have developed these programs with input from our citizens, our 

electorate, our county officials and dealing with those issues. We 

currently have no-excuse absentee ballot—absentee voting. We 

allow felons to vote immediately upon release from prison. Our poll 

workers are almost exclusively volunteers across the entire State. 

So, in short, we have the best and easiest voting booth access in 

the entire country, and we are incredibly proud of that. We also are 
207 

set up somewhat uniquely in that we have cities, counties, legislative districts, and one very big congressional district. 

But we have also gone through a lot of different issues, and one 

of the questions I have is: Each of these counties interacts differently with their voters based on the resources available to them. 

And if I read this bill, it requires mandatory 15-day early voting. 

Is that correct? 

Mr. SMITH. That’s my understanding. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. So what if you’re an exclusively vote-by-mail 

county? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, I’m not sure what you mean. I mean, if you’re 

an exclusively vote-by-mail county, you have a long period to vote, 

generally. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. So, in some of our counties, we actually go earlier than 15 days; some of them we go shorter, but we have extended hours to like 10 p.m. So, when we do mandatory early voting, is that required in each district or each precinct or—I mean, 

we set things up differently; like, in our larger city, we have five 

legislative districts, but our early voting is at one or two locations 

in that city. 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, as I understand the bill, it would require all citizens have an opportunity for early voting. I am not aware if it 

specifies all the polling locations where those have to take place. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. And we have gone through significant affidavit 

reform in our State and have dealt with these issues both at the 

county level, the local level, and the State level, and we have 

worked forward to require all different forms of ID, whether they’re 

student IDs, and created mechanisms where somebody can come to 

the polling place with an ID and a different address, and we just 

do things that way. 

But what we have gotten away from is the affidavit process. And 

the reason we have gotten away from it is we have found through 

a volunteer voting in excess of—we have found that there has 

never been any mechanism to check an absentee ballot after it’s 

been submitted to whichever district it is. Now, this would require 

the absentee ballot process to come back—or the affidavit process 

to come back into place, correct? 

Mr. SMITH. That would be my understanding, yes. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. And we—and this might be a little change, but 

it’s really important to the voters in North Dakota. So we start our 

absent—our early voting process I think for military deployed overseas as early as August. And we have, as I said, no-excuse absentee 

ballots. But what we require is that our ballots are postmarked the 

day before the election. 

And in North Dakota, we really, really try to make sure the election is over on election day. North Dakotans don’t understand how 

an election can change by 12,000, 13,000, 14,000 votes in the two 

to three weeks after an election day. Now, I’m not in the business 

of telling people in California or somewhere else how to do their 

voting laws, but that just is something that is not appropriate here. 

And this would require ballots to be postmarked up until election 

day, correct? 

Mr. SMITH. That’s correct. 
208 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. So, when we are implementing laws at the Federal level to deal with perceived or real problems in other areas of 

the country, I think we run into serious concerns about particularly 

rural districts who deal with these issues. Right now in our State 

legislature, we have a bill moving in place where county auditors 

and State legislators are dealing with voting precincts in particular 

counties, and it’s a very unique North Dakota problem. And I 

would just caution everybody here to remember that those issues 

and those challenges are better suited to be dealt with by the people who are closest to their communities and dealing with the 

issues we face. 

And when we deal with these laws at this level, we turn this into 

something that we can’t control at our local level. And we have 

unique challenges in North Dakota that other people don’t. 

Mr. SMITH. It’s worth noting, Mr. Armstrong, that there actually 

are no Federal elections; there are States elections for Federal office, and you made that point very well. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I yield back. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you, Mr. Armstrong. The gentleman 

from Maryland, Mr. Sarbanes. 

Mr. SARBANES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank the 

panel. 

I wish Congressman Meadows were still here because I’m delighted that he’s thinking of stepping into the small donor matching system that is proposed in H.R. 1. Because when you step into 

that system, you step into a system that is owned by the people. 

This is why it’s in the bill because the public is tired of feeling like 

their elections, their system, their government, their democracy is 

owned by special interests, big corporations, Wall Street, oil and 

gas industry, super-PACs, lobbyists, everybody but them. This is 

the power move. They want to own their democracy again. And all 

across the country, as you pointed out, citizens are stepping up and 

taking that power back by creating these systems where they’re the 

owners, the rightful owners of their own democracy. And they can 

get that back, Mr. Mehrbani, I think you said, for a dollar a year— 

$1 a year. 

Mr. MEHRBANI. That’s right. 

Mr. SARBANES. Per citizen. To ransom your democracy back from 

the people who have taken it hostage, so you can call the shots. So 

I would love for Congressman Meadows to step into that system. 

I’d like every Member—it’s a voluntary system; you don’t have to 

do it. But I’d like every person to step into that system because 

that’s owned by the people. That’s the whole idea. 

People are sick and tired of being sick and tired, to use Fannie 

Lou Hamer’s words, at a system that is run by somebody else. So 

that’s the argument for that system. Now, let me get to a couple 

of other things that have been mentioned here in the three minutes 

and 15 seconds that I have. 

Somebody said at the outset that this was theater. I think the 

ranking member said maybe it was theater. This is not theater. 

We’re trying to set the table on the democracy, make people feel 

more empowered, like their voice counts and they’re not locked out 

and left out of their own democracy and their own government and 

their own republic. That’s why we’re doing this. 
209 

Somebody said, why are we hooking all these things together? 

Voting, ethics, campaign finance. Because the people have told us: 

If you just do one and you don’t do the others, we’re still frozen out; 

the system is still rigged. You fix the voting stuff, but if you go to 

Washington and nobody is behaving themselves, that doesn’t solve 

the problem. Or you fix the ethics part, but we’re still—the system 

is still owned by the big money and the special interests because 

they’re the ones that are underwriting the campaigns, then we’re 

still left out; the system is still rigged. You got to do all of these 

things together to reset the democracy in a place where it respects 

the average citizen out there, who right now is sitting in their 

kitchen, they’re looking at the TV screen, they’re hearing about billionaires and super-PACs who are making decisions inside conference rooms somewhere on K Street that affect their lives. And 

all they’re saying is: We want back in. We’re tired of sitting out 

here with our noses pressed against the window looking in on the 

democracy that we have no impact on. That’s why we’re linking all 

of these things together: to reset the table so the special interests 

aren’t the ones that are calling the shots. 

Is voter fraud the problem? Mr. Smith would think you—would 

have you think so. Voter fraud is not the problem. We know the 

statistics on voter fraud; they’re microscopic. Voter suppression is 

the problem, the obstacle course that has been set up that makes 

it so difficult for people to register and get to the polls, and then 

it demoralizes them. And they stay home; it’s not worth it. 

We have to fix that. As Congressman Cummings said, that’s the 

baseline. The most powerful form of protest and engagement an 

American citizen has is the right to vote. But too many people in 

too many parts of this country still can’t get to the ballot box. 

That’s all it’s about: Coordination. Violating free speech. We can 

have sensible coordination rules so the super-PACs aren’t coordinating with candidates and violating the campaign contribution 

limits and so forth. We can do that. We can protect free speech 

while actually giving more speech back to people who are denied 

it right now. That is not a problem. 

We’re not outing donors. The provisions of transparency in this 

bill are targeted to mega donors who give more than $10,000, who 

right now are hidden behind this Russian doll kind of structure 

where you can’t see who it is. Who’s behind the curtain? Who’s putting all this money in the campaigns? The public wants to know 

that. That’s reasonable. Let them see what’s happening to their 

own democracy and give them their power back. That’s what H.R. 

1 is, For the People. That’s how we designed it. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. ARMSTRONG. I yield back my time. 

Mr. SMITH. Mr. Chairman, if I may, because Mr. Sarbanes specifically referenced something and said that I said this. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Very quickly. 

Mr. SMITH. In a very loud voice. I have not addressed the question of voter fraud. That’s not what the Institute for Free Speech 

does. And I just want to make that clear that he’s imputed to me 

comments that I did not make. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you, Mr. Smith. 

Mr. Grothman from Wisconsin. 
210 

Mr. GROTHMAN. A few questions. I’ll start out with Mr. Smith 

again since he’s all warmed up. H.R. 1 is a big bill, and it takes 

a lot of time to go through it. Do you think the public will be able 

to read and understand how this bill affects their ability to participate in political discourse? 

Mr. SMITH. I’m sorry. I didn’t quite catch the operative verb in 

that question. Was it—— 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Do you believe members of the public will be 

able to read and understand—— 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t think they would have the faintest idea. 

Again, one of the problems anytime I think you put together a 570- 

page sort of omnibus bill is that it becomes very hard for people 

to grasp what it is that’s going on, including I would suspect Members. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Do you think more careful drafting could solve 

that problem? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, I think that splitting the bill up would allow 

it to be considered in its component parts, and people might decide 

some parts are worth keeping and some are not. I think do think 

there was a certain amount of carelessness in drafting or, again, 

perhaps some disingenuity. I mean, when you have a section titled 

Preventing Super PAC-Candidate Coordination that applies to 

every citizen in the United States, not just super-PACs, that seems 

to be some kind of drafting problem. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Just a general question. You know, I can’t 

tell you—you know, probably the most powerful special interest in 

every election is the media. And I can’t tell you how many times 

I’m told: You know, you can do this or you can’t do that because 

this is the way it’s going to be spun in the newspapers or spun on 

TV. 

I don’t have an answer to this question, but when I look, there’s 

a study that shows—when you look at like journalism, communication, tenure-track professors, 20 Democrats for every 1 tenure-track 

position. And it just dominates this building as people try to form 

their press releases or Statements not to get in trouble with the 

media. 

Do any of you have any suggestions as to what we can do, or is 

it just something we’re going to have to deal with a situation in 

which apparently 95 percent of the professors, tenure-track professors in journalism and communications, where the people who, you 

know, determine how what we do here is reported, are Democrat 

in nature. Does anybody have any—would you agree with me that 

it’s hard to have fair elections as long as that happens, and is there 

anything we can do about it? 

Mr. SMITH. It’s clear—I’ll go ahead and take the first stab at it. 

It’s clear that the media has a tremendous amount of influence in 

elections, and they remain largely unregulated by this. And I’m not 

sure that you decrease that influence by putting limits on what 

groups of people can say and what citizens, you know, in the country operating through the groups they join can say and do. 

I will personally say and I have often said in the context of elections, is the current system perfect? Is it perfect to have a system 

in which people are relatively free to participate and give money? 

Well, it’s not perfect, but as Churchill once said, it seems to be bet-
211 

ter than all of the alternatives. And that’s somewhat true here as 

well. As much as the biased media may be a problem, the alternatives are probably not better. And I think this is something that 

each side would do very well to remember from time to time: that 

the world is not perfect and we’re not going to have perfect elections. We try to do the best elections we can, and for most of our 

history, that has meant entirely unregulated elections, and I don’t 

think we have much to show for the last 40 years of very heavy 

regulation. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. I agree with you. The government shouldn’t be 

weighing in on regulating what people can say or what type of people are hired, but given that I assume the majority of these tenuretrack people work for public universities, I just wondered if there’s 

a—I mean, a lot of people feel there is an unfairness out of there, 

you know, that you have to overcome not only your opponent, but 

the mainstream media. No one knows suggestions how to deal with 

it. 

Okay. I’ll go to something else, and people always ask me why 

we don’t talk about this: the influence of money in elections. During the last administration, we had a situation in which the Secretary of State’s husband was paid a half a million dollars on a 

speech in Russia. And, you know, I don’t think there’d be any question if the Secretary of State herself had accepted $500,000, but do 

you think that we should begin to regulate the size of checks people 

are getting from spouses of relevant figures? Would that cause people to have more confidence in what goes on? 

Mr. SMITH. I always think the detail or the devil is in the details, 

but I will say that too often the response has been to put limits 

on the American people, you know, rather than say maybe the limit 

should be on the people who are actually serving in government, 

including their families having to give something up. 

Mr. GROTHMAN. Okay. Thank you very much. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you. 

Next up is the gentlelady from California, Ms. Speier. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

This is a great segue. Mr. Smith just suggested that maybe the 

families of people in government should have some restrictions on 

their income. And I’d like to draw attention to Mr. Shaub, who has 

been of great service to our country, and to all of you for your presentations here today. 

But Ivanka Trump, who last I noted was the daughter of the 

President of the United States, has businesses. And she was granted 34 trademarks in China after her father was elected and she became a member of the administration. These trademarks were 

granted during a period of economic tension between the United 

States and China and coincided with the Trump administration’s 

lifting a ban on U.S. sales of technology to Chinese firm ZTE, 

which violated U.S. sanctions with illegal sales to Iran. 

Mr. Shaub, what are the risks to the American people about 

these kinds of conflicts of interests? 

Mr. SHAUB. Well, I think these and all conflicts of interests create the risk of a divided loyalty. The American people ought to be 

able to confidence that their leaders in Washington are serving 

their best interests and not their own person financial interest. I 
212 

think the situation got worst when the President departed from 

past traditional interpretation of the nepotism law, which for 50 

years and at least I believe four OLC pieces of guidance had told 

President’s they couldn’t do that, and the consequence has been 

that she’s been allowed by the White House to retain the types of 

assets that even this White House is not allowing other people 

other than her husband to retain. 

Ms. SPEIER. So strengthening the antinepotism laws would be a 

key component if we’re trying to clean up the mess that is in the 

White House right now? 

Mr. SHAUB. I absolutely think so. 

Ms. SPEIER. Thank you. 

Mrs. Flynn, I serve on the Intelligence Committee, and I’m deeply troubled at what appears to be Russian engagement through 

501(c)(4)’s in this country, whether it’s the NRA or other nonprofits 

that are created for the express purpose here in the United States 

to lobby on behalf of Russia as it related to the Magnitsky Act. 

So right now there is no limitation on how much money can be 

contributed by a foreign government entity to a 501(c)(4). Is that 

correct? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. I believe that is, yes. 

Ms. SPEIER. And there is no disclosure required as well. Is that 

correct? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. I believe that’s right. 

Ms. SPEIER. So, in your estimation, would it be prudent for us 

to, one, limit the amount of contributions that a foreign individual 

can make to a 501(c)(4) and, two, that all of that be subject to disclosure? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. I think it would be very important—you 

know, there are limits—there are bans on foreign nationals giving 

money in campaign contributions, and I think we should be looking 

at those kind of limits for—and then certainly disclosure for contributions to 501(c)(4)’s. 

Ms. SPEIER. There are four Cabinet officials in this administration—the Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Veterans Affairs, Interior, and the EPA Administrator—who have all resigned 

amid evidence that they had forced American taxpayers to foot the 

bill for extravagant and unnecessary travel expenses. 

And I would like to ask Mr. Mehrbani if you can speak to the 

impact these resignations have had on the ability of the executive 

branch agencies to function effectively and how we can relieve ourselves of the abuse that some of these Secretaries of various Cabinet posts were engaged in? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Thank you. I’m going to refer back to something 

that I think multiple members of this panel said earlier, which is 

that leadership on ethics issues really sets the tone, from my experience, for the rest of staff at an agency. And that leadership 

should actually be coming from the White House. And there have 

been multiple practices over, spanning multiple decades by Republican and Democratic administrations and Presidents that have 

done just that to make sure that they are avoiding even the perception of a conflict of interest or using their position for private gain. 

That’s a bedrock principle in our democracy. And the bill, the H.R. 

1, enshrines many of these practices into law and I think would 
213 

serve as the good first step for preventing some of what we’ve seen 

over the last couple of years. 

Ms. SPEIER. I yield back. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you. 

I now recognize Mr. Higgins from Louisiana. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Chairman, in the spirit of bipartisanship, let me say I agree 

that H.R. 1 should be divided into its component parts because perhaps it could be argued that there’s some worthwhile legislation 

written in here. But as a totality of circumstance, one word describes this thing: wrong. Just wrong. 

This bill is exactly reflective of why our Founding Fathers passionately debated after the Revolutionary War prior to the formation of our Federalist Society and central government, it passionately debated whether or not this thing could even work. If we 

could have a Federalist Society and a union of States with a strong 

central government and still maintain individual rights and freedoms. 

My colleague across the aisle mentioned Russia. Russia has been 

mentioned several times today. This bill resembles Russian Government policy. Most of us here have taken an oath before we became Congressmen and Congresswomen. I took an oath as an 

Army soldier. I took an oath as a police officer, a sheriff’s deputy. 

You panelists before us are courageous to come before this committee where many very serious decisions will be made, debates 

shall be engaged. But most of you have taken an oath as well. 

And may I say that the oaths that I took in my life were not to 

a company commander or a general or a sheriff or a chief or a marshal; they were to the Constitutionalist principles that my oath 

represented. 

Mr. Smith, does our First Amendment protect freedom of speech? 

Mr. SMITH. I think that goes without saying. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Does H.R. 1 abridge the freedom of speech? 

Mr. SMITH. Pardon. Pardon, I didn’t hear that. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Would you agree that H.R. 1 abridges the freedom 

of speech? 

Mr. SMITH. Oh, yes, yes. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Absolutely. It gives almost total partisan government control over the freedom of political speech in a representative republic where these freedoms have been paid for by the blood 

of patriots past. Are we worthy to be the Americans that occupy 

this body? Did our Founders intend, Mr. Smith, for there to be an 

expiration date on our First Amendment rights? Any panelist? 

Mr. SMITH. No. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Of course not. That expiration date will come if 

H.R. 1 passes. 

Mr. Smith, I’d like to ask you, according to the tone that my colleagues have expressed here, Americans watching this would think 

that they stand for the abolishment of big money in political campaigns. According to my research, the Association of Trial Lawyers 

gave Democrat candidates in 2018 $2.2 million while they gave Republicans candidates about 130 grand. This is not a bill of the people, by the people, and for the people; it’s a bill of trial lawyers, 

for trial lawyers, and by trial lawyers. 
214 

It greatly restricts the freedoms of speech of Americans assembled as nonprofit organizations or individual citizens. It hides behind titles that are quite misleading in an era when we know that 

many Americans that have the right to vote yes, but don’t get past 

headlines. 

I’d like to specifically ask in my time remaining, Mr. Smith, for 

you to address, explain to us all, please, what coordinated spenders 

are—this is quite troubling to me. I’ve read your testimony and 

those of your colleagues, the panelists. Incorporated nonprofits, defined as coordinated speakers, would be banned from spending 

money on speech. 

This is directly contrary to judicial decisions past. Please, in my 

remaining time, 40 seconds, explain to America what that is. 

Mr. SMITH. In my prepared remarks, I have a number of examples, and the way this works is, of course, most groups that people 

belong to, the ACLU, the NRA, Right to Life, Planned Parenthood, 

the NAACP, are incorporated, and if corporations can’t make any 

coordinated expenditures because those are treated as contributions—and so just to give some examples, if a member were to purchase a ticket to a fundraiser for one of these organizations for 

$100 or $150 and, five years later, that member declared his candidacy for the Senate, that organization could not make any expenditures, not only directly advocating his election or defeat, but 

even talking about the candidate in ways that might be deemed by 

someone to be—— 

Mr. HIGGINS. In my remaining 5 seconds, yes or no, would this 

have a chilling effect on the freedom of speech of Americans assembled from sea to shining sea? 

Mr. SMITH. Absolutely. 

Mr. HIGGINS. I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. I thank the gentleman. I thank you for taking 

our allotted time. 

I now recognize myself for five minutes. 

This is a fascinating conversation. I want to thank Mr. Sarbanes 

for his leadership on this. He’s put incredible hours into it, and I 

appreciate it. I’ve seen him in action across the country talking to 

electeds of both parties. 

What this really is about is power. Mrs. Hobert Flynn, in 1970, 

when John Gardner started your organization, a Republican who 

served a Democratic administration, it was about power then; it’s 

about power now. And we’ve grown. Clearly, there is growing research that says that Congress does not reflect the average person, 

and it reflects more people who contribute and have influence on 

both sides. 

From my opinion and many others, that has contributed significantly to our income inequality and the lack of opportunity, particularly for younger people. Would you address sort of the historical perspective from Common Cause and John Gardner’s admonition, which is, as you recall, holding power accountable over time? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. Yes. Thank you. You know, the challenge 

here is that what we’re talking about is the ability of wealthy interests to speak louder than the rest of the American people, and 

that’s what we object to. What we are doing is not actually putting 

in place anything that violates anybody’s freedom of speech. We’re 
215 

talking about simple things like disclosure, a voluntary system of 

small donor reform. 

Candidates do not have to participate. And the fact is, you know, 

how this will be funded depends on the system. In Connecticut, 

they used unclaimed assets to fund the public financing system. 

The difference is that people who are not wealthy and not connected to special interests can run for office. They have a competitive chance. They don’t have to be connected to wealthy interests. 

And then, once elected, they are free to serve based on what their 

constituents want, and they don’t have wealthy interests coming up 

and saying: Hey, this is what I need you to do; I need this tax 

break or something else. 

It frees them. 

And so what you see in those kinds of systems is that people govern differently. I saw a palpable difference with lobbyists who were 

treated by freshman who ran under the program, they didn’t think 

they were powerful; they treated them: You can tell me information, but you have no control, no monetary control. 

So they can enact what is best in the best interests of their citizens. 

Those are the kinds of things we need to look at. A comprehensive approach also deals with ethics. So you may have this system 

set up that people can choose to run in or not, but if, in the end, 

they’re taking money through the backdoor and gifts and money 

that goes to their businesses, they still could have corruption problems. So you need to look more broadly at these issues. 

You also need not only to lift the voice of small donors but lift 

the voice of all Americans so that they can vote and have a voice 

in their democracy. And so that’s why you see these voting measures that are so incredibly important to make it easier, and actually it ends up saving money when you move to online voter registration. There are checks in place so that you’re not capturing illegal immigrants in voting. 

So what we want to see is a chance to have, you know, independent agencies, and the Federal Election Commission is one that 

is flawed, that has not worked, and you’ve had Republicans block 

enforcement of the law. We need agencies that enforce the law with 

integrity. And so you can have things like blue ribbon commissions 

like they talk about in this bill. There are other models to look at 

in Wisconsin with the Government Accountability Board; in Connecticut, with bipartisan and independence involved. So it is a holistic approach to try and ensure that people’s voices are heard in 

our democracy. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Just an editorial comment. I’m constantly reminded as a former history major, the history around us when 

Teddy Roosevelt talked about the malefactors of great wealth, and 

the influence of trusts in the Congress. And what that led to is the 

inequality that we now rival at this point in time. 

Mr. Shaub, just briefly, could you elaborate on the positive aspects of making you, your former position, directly be able to respond, to report to Congress and some trouble we have had with 

OGE getting written responses that both the Republicans and 

Democrats have been frustrated by? 
216 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes, I think one of the problems is that OGE’s two 

sister agencies, the Merit Systems Protection Board and the Office 

of Special Counsel, can communicate directly with Congress, but 

OGE has to go through the political approval process through the 

White House’s Office of Management and Budget, which means 

that OGE doesn’t have the ability to alert Congress of problems or 

give them answers to the information they’re seeking. And we’ve 

seen inspectors general and those other two agencies I’ve mentioned use this ability to great effect to protect the government’s integrity. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. Thank you. 

I yield the remainder of my time. Our next speaker is Mr. Gibbs 

from Texas—Ohio. 

Mr. GIBBS. Ohio. Texas is a great State, though. 

Mr. DESAULNIER. It’s hard to miss. Ohio. 

Mr. GIBBS. Thank you to our witnesses. First of all, I want to 

say, on Ohio, I think the process is working pretty good. I know 

Mrs. Flynn talked about long lines. A number of years ago, when 

I was in the State senate, we passed some legislation, no-excuse 

absentee ballots; voting, you can get 30 days before the election. A 

lot of people are doing that. You don’t—so there’s no—we don’t 

have lines anymore, and we don’t need a Federal holiday so you 

can go vote. You got 30 days to go vote. If you can’t vote in 30 days 

by mail or by absentee, that just raises a lot of interesting questions about your voting, your abilities. 

Also, in Ohio, the secretary of State, the practice has been to 

send out two or three weeks before absentee ballots will be mailed 

out to every registered voter in Ohio saying: Hey, if you want to 

let us know; here is an application for an absentee ballot. Send it 

in; we’ll send you an absentee ballot. 

Pretty simple. 

So, Mr. Smith, going through, I got some questions here. It is my 

understanding that this bill authorizes a three-judge panel here in 

the U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia to redraw congressional districts in the States. Is that in the bill? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe that’s correct, but again, that’s outside of 

the area that I’m most focused on. 

Mr. GIBBS. Okay. It’s just bizarre that we have federalism and 

States’ rights, that we’d have a three-judge panel here in Washington, DC, a one-size-fits-all for all the rest of the 50 States. So 

that’s a big problem with the bill. 

Also, as we have a discussion that authorizes Federal employees, 

the poll workers, and pay them and all that. We obviously don’t 

need that in Ohio. We have a good system, a bipartisan system. 

And every county board has two Republicans, two Democrats, and 

at every precinct that the polls workers, it’s 50/50 bipartisan. When 

they count the ballots, it’s all bipartisan, and that’s probably why 

you haven’t heard a lot of problems in Ohio, like other States. 

Mr. GIBBS. You know, it’s also interesting what we saw—what 

the IRS did a few years ago targeting conservative groups. Mr. 

Smith, do you think that this bill would actually open up a can of 

worms or give more empowerment to bureaucrats here in Washington, DC, where we can see abuse of that type in the future? 
217 

Mr. SMITH. We often say, you know, the purpose of disclosure is 

for the people to monitor their government, but it’s not for the government to monitor their people. And this gives a lot more information to government. And a lot of it is intended, you know, opens 

up the possibility of that sort of retaliation or, alternatively, the online harassment and so on that private individuals can engage in. 

Mr. GIBBS. I appreciate that. 

Mr. SMITH. That’s a long way of saying yes. 

Mr. GIBBS. I got that. Also, in the bill, as was talked up by my 

colleague Mr. Meadows from North Carolina, the 6-to–1 payment 

of Federal taxpayer dollars. So, if you have a $200 contribution, 

you get $1,200 taxpayer dollars. I don’t see how that is a good 

thing, where in the Constitution or anywhere it says that. I could 

be a taxpayer; I don’t want my money going to my opponent, say, 

my tax dollars. So it’s a big fundamental problem with that. I have 

major concerns, and I think that opens up a can of worms that is 

really a huge problem. 

I also wanted to ask: You hear so much attack on political action 

committees, PACs. Mr. Smith, you may be the best one to answer 

this, I don’t know, anybody that wants to answer it. Where do political actions committees get their money? 

Mr. SMITH. Political action committees get their money from individuals, traditional PACs do. Now, super-PACs, as they’re called, 

can take money from corporations and unions, but they are not 

able to contribute directly to candidates or to coordinate anything 

with candidates. 

Mr. GIBBS. I appreciate that. I make the point because I got attacked because I take political action money, but it comes from 

businesses in my district, a lot of it. It comes from associations. 

You know, everybody has somebody lobbying for them in D.C. If 

you’re a member of a retirement association, any organization, you 

got a lobbyist here. 

Mr. SMITH. And to be more precise, if I could interrupt, Congressman. It actually comes from the involuntary contributions 

from the employees of those businesses and trade associations. 

Mr. GIBBS. That’s absolutely right, unlike another entity on the 

labor side that’s not voluntary. So that’s a point that I think is 

really important that needs to be made, that this money is coming—that people voluntarily support, they could be insurance 

agents supporting the company they work for; they could be members of a farm organization, supporting what the organization is 

out there advocating for, and they support that. If they didn’t support it, they wouldn’t give the money because it’s voluntary. So this 

attack on this and then to put the provision in this bill, if you take 

political action money—I believe it’s in the bill—you don’t get the 

6-to–1 match. I believe that’s correct in the bill. So it’s definitely 

a partisan bill and targeted for their partisan activities. 

I yield back. 

Mr. SARBANES.[Presiding.] The chair recognizes Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for five minutes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you, Chair. So let’s play a game. 

Let’s play a lightning round game. I’m going to be the bad guy, 

which I’m sure half the room would agree with anyway, and I want 

to get away with as much bad things as possible, ideally to enrich 
218 

myself and advance my interest, even if that means putting my interests ahead of the American people. 

So, Mrs. Hobert Flynn—oh and, by the way, I have enlisted all 

of you as my coconspirators, so you’re going to help me legally get 

away with all of this. So, Mrs. Hobert Flynn, I want to run. If I 

want to run a campaign that is entirely funded by corporate political action committees, is there anything that legally prevents me 

from doing that? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. No. 

MS. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Okay. So there’s nothing stopping me from 

being entirely funded by corporate PACs, say, from the fossil fuel 

industry, the healthcare industry, Big Pharma; I’m entirely 100 

percent lobbyist PAC funded. Okay. So let’s say I’m a really, really 

bad guy, and let’s say I have some skeletons in my closet that I 

need to cover up so that I can get elected. 

Mr. Smith, is it true that you wrote this article, this opinion 

piece for The Washington Post entitled ‘‘Those payments to women 

were unseemly. That doesn’t mean they were illegal’’? 

Mr. SMITH. I can’t see the piece, but I wrote a piece under that 

headline in the Post, so I assume that’s right. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Okay. Great. So green light for hush money. 

I can do all sorts of terrible things. It’s totally legal right now for 

me to pay people off. And that is considered speech. That money 

is considered speech. So I use my special-interest-dark-money-funded campaign to pay off folks that I need to pay off and get elected. 

So now I’m elected, and now I’m in, I’ve got the power to draft, 

lobby, and shape the laws that govern the United States of America. Fabulous. 

Now, is there any hard limit that I have, perhaps Mrs. Hobert 

Flynn, is there any hard limit that I have in terms of what legislation I’m allowed to touch? Are there any limits on the laws that 

I can write or influence, especially if I’m—based on the special interest funds that I accepted to finance my campaign and get me 

elected in the first place? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. There’s no limit. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. So there’s none. So I can be totally funded 

by oil and gas. I can be totally funded by Big Pharma, come in, 

write Big Pharma laws, and there’s no limits to that whatsoever? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. That’s right. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Okay. So—awesome. Now, Mr. Mehrbani, 

the last thing I want to do is get rich with as little work possible. 

That’s really what I’m trying to do as the bad guy, right? So is 

there anything preventing me from holding stocks, say, in an oil or 

gas company and then writing laws to deregulate that industry and 

cause—you know, that could potentially cause the stock value to 

soar and accrue a lot of money in that time? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. You could do that. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. So I could do that. I could do that now with 

the way our current laws are set up? Yes? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Yes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Okay. Great. 

So my last question is—or one of my last questions, I guess I’d 

say, is it possible that any elements of this story apply to our current government and our current public servants right now? 
219 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Yes. 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. Yes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. So we have a system that is fundamentally 

broken. We have these influences existing in this body, which 

means that these influences are here in this committee shaping the 

questions that are being asked of you all right now. Would you say 

that that’s correct, Mr. Mehrbani or Mr. Shaub? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Yes. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. All right. So one last thing. 

Mr. Shaub, in relation to congressional oversight that we have, 

the limits that are placed on me as a Congresswoman compared to 

the executive branch and compared to say the President of the 

United States, would you say that Congress has the same sort of 

standard of accountability, is there more teeth in that regulation 

in Congress on the President, or would you say it’s about even or 

more so on the Federal? 

Mr. SHAUB. In terms of laws that apply to the President? 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Uh-huh. 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes, there’s almost no laws at all that apply to the 

President. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. So I’m being held and every person in the 

body is being held to a higher ethical standard than the President 

of the United States? 

Mr. SHAUB. That’s right because there are some Ethics Committee rules that apply to you. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. And it’s already super legal, as we have 

seen, for me to be a pretty bad guy. So it’s even easier for the 

President of the United States to be one, I would assume? 

Mr. SHAUB. That’s right. 

Ms. OCASIO-CORTEZ. Thank you very much. 

Mr. SARBANES. Mr. Roy of Texas is recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. ROY. Thank you, Chairman. 

Mr. Smith, I wondered if you might have any comments on the 

questioning by my colleague from New York. You seem to have a 

few notes you were writing down. Do you have anything you want 

to say after that discussion? 

Mr. SMITH. Well, I would say there are a couple things, for example, that would not be—she asked, is there anything that could 

apply here? There are certain things that could not apply here. For 

example, the whole point of article that she held up that I wrote 

said that you cannot use your campaign funds to make those kinds 

of payments; that would be illegal personal use. 

Campaign funds are not dark money. They are totally disclosed, 

so they are not dark money. It’s worth noting, by the way, that earlier it was mentioned that dark money constituted about $1.7 billion. I believe that figure is incorrect by a factor of about a 500 percent. Dark money constitutes about 2 to 4 percent of the total 

spending in U.S. elections and has always been involved in U.S. 

elections. 

So those are just a couple of points. I did kind of chuckle at the 

question, is it possible—asked of us—that these influences are— 

that this money is influencing the questioning here. To that, I’d say 

that’s something you have to ask yourselves if you’re being influ-
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enced and see what you think. If you are, you might question yourselves. If you’re not, you might question this hearing. 

Mr. ROY. A couple of questions about super-PACs, as they are 

often referred to. Are Federal candidates allowed to coordinate directly with the super-PAC or have anything to do legally with its 

formation? 

Mr. SMITH. No, they are not at the current time. 

Mr. ROY. With respect to super-PACs, is this a particularly partisan problem, or would you say both parties have super-PACs 

funding elections and funding candidacies? 

Mr. SMITH. Both do, I believe. I’m not 100 percent sure on this. 

I believe historically they have leaned more Republican but in the 

last election cycle leaned more Democratic. I’m not 100 percent 

sure of that, but it’s certainly a bipartisan issue. 

Mr. ROY. So, if we deploy the famous ‘‘let me google that for you’’ 

and we got this to come up to say, well, a bunch of headlines you 

googled that say Democrat super-PAC spending $3 million for 

Menendez in New Jersey; super-PAC money dominated 2018 election in Colorado, and Democrats controlled in the cash race; Democratic super-PAC translates ads to Spanish after seeing election 

day search trends, and if we went through and through and 

through, we would see that this is not a particularly partisan question or problem; it’s just a baseline. Is that right, Mr. Smith? 

Mr. SMITH. I think that’s right. 

Mr. ROY. And when we think about what we’re dealing with with 

respect to campaign finance, are you familiar with doxing? 

Mr. SMITH. In the sense of outing people online, if that’s what 

you’re referring, yes, generally. 

Mr. ROY. So, for example, are you familiar with a Twitter account called Every Trump Donor? 

Mr. SMITH. No, I’m not. 

Mr. ROY. Which tweeted out one by one the names, hometowns, 

occupations, employers of people who contributed as little as $200 

to the President’s campaign, each tweet following a particular formula. My point being and the question for you is: When we talk 

about campaign disclosures, are we aware of the negative impacts 

that you have on forcing American citizens in exercising their free 

speech to have that information be disclosed? Whether that’s good 

policy or not might be debatable, but are there negative consequences to that with respect to free speech, given you’re an expert on free speech? 

Mr. SMITH. There are. And there are definitely studies that have 

shown that disclosure does tend to decrease participation. Now, 

that doesn’t mean, as you point out, that it’s not worth it, but it 

certainly has costs. So we have to be careful in how broad we let 

that disclosure become. 

Mr. ROY. Thank you. 

Mrs. Hobert Flynn, just a quick question. Did I hear correctly 

earlier in one of your exchanges with one of my colleagues here 

that you consider proof of citizenship as one of the barriers to voting or one of the obstacles for people to be able to vote, a proof of 

citizenship, is that one of the ones that you outlined? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. Yes. That it appeared—it is used, you 

know, at many polling places that people just attest to that. To 
221 

have to come up with the paperwork is a burden for many Americans. 

Mr. ROY. As well as you outlined photo ID, early voting changes, 

if you’re restricting early voting from being longer to shorter and 

election day registration, that’s the position. And the reason I ask 

is because, when we look at obstacles to voting, we know that the 

Voting Rights Act was a paramount piece of legislation to ensure 

people have access to the polls. We also know that the Voting 

Rights Act ran into constitutional problems in Shelby County v. 

Holder, for very good reason. If you look at what the majority 

wrote, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 employed extraordinary measures to address an extraordinary problem, in the face of 

unremitting and ingenious defiance of citizens constitutionally protected right to vote, section 5 was necessary to give effect to the 

15th Amendment in particular regions of the country. This is South 

Carolina v. Katzenbach. 

And today, this is now Justice Thomas writing in a concurrence: 

Today our Nation has changed. The conditions that originally justified section five no longer characterize voting in the covered jurisdictions. 

Mr. Smith, are you aware that, in this legislation, there is an attempt to bring section 5 back with respect to preclearance, and 

could you comment at all on that and what that might mean? 

Mr. SMITH. As you are out of time, I’ll just note that, yes, that 

is true. And I think that the Supreme Court’s concern was that the 

formula applied from data from 1964 and simply needs to have updated to reflect modern realities, and this bill I don’t believe makes 

any effort to do that. 

Mr. ROY. That is correct. Thank you. 

Mr. SARBANES. Congresswoman Pressley of Massachusetts is recognized for five minutes. 

Ms. PRESSLEY. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

This has been a very interesting hearing. Charges of radicalism, 

accusations of motives of partisanship, but never a peep or outrage 

about partisan gerrymandering which has benefited your party for 

decades. That is really convenient and rich and hypocritical. 

H.R. 1 has been described as a wish list by the Democrats. Well, 

you’ve got us there: a wish list for an inclusive expanded democracy and electorate. 

Characterizations of H.R. 1 as a power grab. You got us again. 

Guilty. We wouldn’t have to grab back the power for the people if 

through policy you weren’t complicit in or perpetuating the disenfranchisement and marginalization of the people and disproportionately people of color and disproportionately Black people. 

Representative John Lewis reminds us that if your vote didn’t 

matter, they wouldn’t work so hard to take it from you. This is the 

House of Representatives. We are sent here as Representatives of 

our districts and a greater democracy. And at the core of democracy 

and the root word of ‘‘demos’’ is to engage more voices, to engage 

more voices and to empower them in this democracy. 

I am really at a loss for words. I am embarrassed and hurt by 

the dog whistles, by the vitriol and the venom in this space, and 

the smugness. It is stunning and unconscionable. 
222 

Disappointment and outrage about a Federal holiday for election 

day, early voting, and mail-in voting, the rights of formally incarcerated restored. According to the Sentencing Project, 6.1 million 

Americans have lost their right to vote due to felony disenfranchisement laws, laws that disproportionately impact communities 

of color. 

Ms. Flynn, the United States ranks 26th among the lowest of all 

established democracies around the world in voter turnout. Certainly belies characterizations of American exceptionalism. Could 

you speak to the passage of H.R. 1 and the establishment of a Federal voting holiday, how this would help to broaden turnout, particularly for voters who have historically been disenfranchised? 

Could you also speak to how many developed countries follow this 

practice, and how it has impacted their turnout? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. Yes. I apologize. I do not have information—but I will share it with the committee—about other countries. 

But I will say that a Federal holiday can make a huge difference 

for many Americans who cannot afford to take a day off of work 

to get to the polls, or as we have seen, Common Cause and the 

Lawyer’s Committee and many other voting rights groups, to election protection during the election season. And we saw long lines 

in States across the country. 

We had machines that were breaking down or switching votes. 

We had machines that did not work, and so people have long lines. 

People cannot afford—many people cannot afford to wait in line for 

three, four, five hours at a polling place. Many have to get back to 

work. 

Ms. PRESSLEY. Thank you. 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. So a Federal holiday would make a big difference. 

Ms. PRESSLEY. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Amey, so we have spoken a great deal about lobbying corruption. I’d like to speak about the corruption of contractors. Mr. 

Amey, in your written testimony, you discuss the crisis of the 

rampant revolving door where ranking officials commonly enter 

cushy jobs for the very contractors they were charged with overseeing on behalf of taxpayers. 

Last year, your organization issued an investigative report that 

Tracey Valerio, former senior official for ICE, less than three 

months after leaving government service, she was hired by the 

GEO Group, ICE’s largest single private prison and detention center, which brought in more than $327 million in the last year 

alone. She even served as an expert witness for the company in a 

lawsuit that alleged violations of minimum wage laws and other inhumane treatment of immigrant detainees. 

Mr. Amey, in your expert opinion, is it ethical for a senior government contracting office to go work for the very entity she was 

overseeing just months before? 

Mr. AMEY. The quick answer is no. And that’s—the law is created that has cooling-off periods, and so there’s no cooling-off period, a one-year, a two-year, or a permanent ban. H.R. 1 would 

move a lot of those to two years, I think which would be beneficial. 

There’s even disagreement in our community whether one year— 
223 

you know, what is the appropriate time to kind of cool off so that 

your contacts aren’t there? 

But this is also something that President Trump brought up. 

When he was a candidate, he talked about, I think it was Boeing 

at the time, but he went on record saying that people who give contracts should never be able to work for that defense contractor. 

This isn’t a bipartisan—this is a bipartisan issue. This is something we can resolve. The laws are already on the books. We just 

need some extensions and some tweaking of those to improve them 

and allow people to cool off and not be able to provide a competitive 

advantage to their new employer or favor them as they’re in office 

and they’re walking out the door. 

Ms. PRESSLEY. So you do believe that extending this cooling-off 

period and strengthening these prohibitions would protect the integrity of the process and help to rein in these flagrant abuses? 

Mr. AMEY. One hundred percent. And one of the nice things with 

H.R. 1 is there’s an extension of a cooling-off period for people coming into government service. Currently it exists, and it’s one year. 

This will move it to 2, and I think that’s probably a better place 

to be, that you shouldn’t be handling issues that involve your 

former employer or clients. 

Ms. PRESSLEY. One final question. How might these cozy relationships between government officials and corporate leaders or 

private contractors help to boost profits for these prison and detention centers? 

Mr. AMEY. Well, certainly they go with a lot of information when 

they go over to the private sector, but it also allows them to get 

back into their former office and within their former agency and 

call on them. As you were just pointing out, access is everything 

in this town. And so if you can get your phone calls answered, if 

you can get emails read, if you can get meetings, at that point, not 

only with Members of Congress but with agency heads, that can 

determine who gets contracts. I mean, it does trickle down from the 

top, and we need to make sure that we prevent as many, like, actual and also appearances of conflicts of interest we can. 

Ms. PRESSLEY. Thank you so much. I yield. 

Ms. HILL.[Presiding.] Sorry. This is my first time up here. 

I’d like to recognize Mrs. Miller from West Virginia for five minutes. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you, Madam Chairman. 

To all of you, thank you so much for being here today. 

Mr. Smith, in your testimony, you discussed the language utilized by groups that mention either Federal candidates or elected 

officials which promotes, attacks, supports, or opposes, otherwise 

known as PASO. It is my understanding that H.R. 1 uses this highly subjective qualifier as a standard for all communications. 

With that in mind, given the broad use of PASO in H.R. 1, what 

kind of chilling effect do you believe this will have on free speech 

in our country? 

Mr. SMITH. I think it will have a substantial chilling effect, and 

I think that’s why the Supreme Court in a number of opinions dating back for almost a half a century has said that the standards 

used to regulate speech have to be clear and closely tied to elections, that this kind of vague standard does not work. For a long 
224 

time, they used the standard of express advocacy. You had to say 

vote for or vote against, support, defeat. Later, the Court expanded 

that a little bit to anything that was susceptible of no other reasonable meaning than a request to vote for a candidate and, even 

then, only if it erred within 60 days of an election. So I think this 

kind of broad standard is almost certainly unconstitutional, and it’s 

unconstitutional precisely because it chills so much speech that 

goes outside of efforts to elect candidates, our ability just to talk 

about issues and civic affairs. 

Mrs. MILLER. Well, that pretty much the leads into my second 

question which was what impact would the passage of this legislation have on those groups that are not political but may put out 

policy-oriented communications? 

Mr. SMITH. It would be very serious, and I’ve given a number of 

examples in the written testimony. I will just say that I should add 

to this, of course, that the bill includes personal liability for officers 

and directors of some of these organizations. So, you know, you almost have to be crazy to let your organization get anywhere close 

to this promote/support/attack/oppose standard. And, again, what 

does that mean? I suggest, you know, again, a government union 

might take out an ad maybe in a month, right or three weeks from 

now saying: Don’t let President Trump—we shouldn’t have to pay 

because he wants his wall in Mexico, you know, so tell him to reopen the government. 

Is that an attack on President Trump? That’s the kind of thing 

that folks would not know and would make people very hesitant to 

run that kind of an ad. 

Mrs. MILLER. So it is a personal risk as well? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes. Yes. Not only a risk, plus, it would be a risk, 

by the way, as well to the tax status of some of the organizations 

involved. Many of these organizations might have some type of tax 

status. 501(c)(3) organizations would have to be very careful because if they engage in speech that is now defined as political 

speech, 501(c)(3) organizations can’t engage in political speech. 

They would jeopardize their tax-exempt status. So that’s another 

reason that these organizations would stay far clear of commenting 

on any kind of public issue. 

Mrs. MILLER. Thank you very much. I yield back my time. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Would the gentlewoman yield? 

Ms. HILL. I yield to—wait. I’m sorry. Yes, I yield. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Okay. I thank the chairman. I thank the chairman. 

I want to commend, and actually, Ms. Flynn, I want to come to 

you briefly. You’re a nonpartisan group. Is that correct? 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. Yes, it is. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. Mr. Shaub, you are here representing 

CREW. Is that correct? 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. You’re a nonpartisan group? 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. So is there anything to be learned by your board 

members and who they contribute to and—because you say you’re 

nonpartisan, yet, Mr. Shaub, if I look at all your board and who 

they contribute to, I think the lone donation to a Republican was 
225 

$250 to John McCain. But yet hundreds of thousands of dollars 

from your board members to all kinds of Democrat operatives and 

causes across the way. So is there anything to be drawn from your 

board supporting those causes to suggest that you’re partisan or 

not? 

Mr. SHAUB. No. No. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. So I’m confused a little bit, Mr. Shaub. 

If we can’t draw that conclusion, then how in the world can we 

draw conclusions about other related entities in the government 

based on their association or lack thereof of other individuals? 

Mr. SHAUB. Entities in the government? 

Mr. MEADOWS. Yes. I mean, you’re making all kinds of accusations that—with the chairwoman’s permission, let me finish the 

one question very quickly. 

So, in that, your board is inherently left-leaning based on their 

political contributions, and you’re saying that that has no input or 

direction on what your organization stands for. Is that your sworn 

testimony here today? 

Mr. SHAUB. It’s a nonpartisan group, yes. 

Mr. MEADOWS. All right. I yield back. 

Ms. HILL. Mr. Khanna from California is recognized for five minutes. 

Mr. KHANNA. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

I want to thank John Sarbanes and Chairman Cummings for 

their leadership. 

Mr. Smith, you’re a student of history, I can tell, so I want to 

read you a quote and see if you can guess which President said 

this: It is well to provide that corporations shall not contribute to 

Presidential or national campaigns and, furthermore, to provide 

the publication of both contributions and expenditures. However, 

no such law would hamper an unscrupulous man of unlimited 

means from buying his way into office. There is a very radical 

measure which would, I believe, work to substantial improvement 

in our system of conducting a campaign, although I am well aware 

that it will take some time for people. So to familiarize themselves 

with such a proposal, the need for collecting large campaign funds 

would vanish if Congress provided an appropriation for the proper 

and legitimate expenses of campaigns. 

‘‘Campaigns’’ was a paraphrase, but that’s the point. Do you 

know who said that? 

Mr. SMITH. I believe that’s Teddy Roosevelt. 

Mr. KHANNA. It is Teddy Roosevelt. Do you disagree with Teddy 

Roosevelt? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, I do. 

Mr. KHANNA. Do you disagree with the establishment of the public funding for Presidential campaigns? 

Mr. SMITH. I do think that has been ineffective and not a good 

idea. I also disagree with Ben Tillman who sponsored the original 

Tillman Act for T.R. 

Mr. KHANNA. Did President Reagan participate under the Presidential funding campaign? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, he did. 
226 

Mr. KHANNA. Would you say that it’s fair to say there were some 

strong conservatives elected under the Presidential funding campaign? 

Mr. SMITH. Yes, there were. 

Mr. KHANNA. I was struck by your Statement that, quote, the 

subsidy will most likely drive donors away from moderating forces 

exerted by parties. 

Is it your view—and I mean, it’s a legitimate view, that there’s 

a debate in democracy. My view is the American people are really 

smart, great, and I trust the popular will. Is it your view that the 

donors, which are 5 percent, sort of have an elite sort of a Republican function to moderate the will of the American public? 

Mr. SMITH. No. My view is the public is very smart too, which 

is why I trust them at the ballot box to make good decisions. 

Mr. KHANNA. But why do you say—you don’t say the voters will 

have a moderating force. You’re saying that the donors are going 

to have this moderating force. I just want to see what particular 

attributes do you give these donors? I mean, look, Our Founders, 

there were some Founders who believe that there should elites who 

put a check on the popular will. And I just, I mean, it would an 

honest view if you said people who give 2,700 or 5,400 have—that 

in your view, they’re smarter or better and that they need to have 

a check on Americans. And my view is that Americans are very 

smart, and I trust them more. 

Mr. SMITH. It’s not really necessary for you to put words in my 

mouth, Mr. Khanna. I did not say those things. 

But what I do think is the case is that there’s empirical evidence 

that shows that small donors tend to be more polarized than large 

donors, and that’s just a question of empirical evidence. Now, if you 

want to ignore the facts, you’re free to do that. That doesn’t mean 

that donors or the public are stupid. Voters are very smart, and 

again, I trust them at the ballot box to make the right decisions. 

Mr. KHANNA. But why do you think that we need large donors 

to have an influence? I guess that’s my question. I mean, you’re basically saying they’re 5 percent of the country we can agree that 

have these large donors. You’re saying they have a force for good 

in our democracy. 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t think that we need them to play that role. I 

think that, on the other hand, the idea that we’re going to benefit 

simply by trying to make sure that we do a 6-to–1 match for small 

donors is not going to have the results that people think it will 

have. 

Mr. KHANNA. I’m not talking about that. I’m just trying to understand your view because I think this is what drives a lot of the 

view. It’s that there are fundamentally people who believe that 

these 5 percent of donors have some influence on our democracy 

that you say is less polarizing. I mean, what does that mean? Why 

is it that we can’t—— 

Mr. SMITH. My view is that it is generally a matter of bad policy 

and tremendous risk and a violation of the First Amendment to try 

to limit people’s ability to speak out, to contribute to candidates, 

to join groups that engage in the political process. 

Mr. KHANNA. But you think that Theodore Roosevelt was violating the First Amendment as well? 
227 

Mr. SMITH. I think he was incorrect, yes. 

Mr. KHANNA. But just on this modernization. I mean, forget the 

First Amendment argument. I want to understand the polarization 

argument. 

Mr. SMITH. Uh-huh. 

Mr. KHANNA. Why is that you think 95 percent of the country 

needs to be moderated? I mean, what is it—— 

Mr. SMITH. I don’t think that. What I think and what the empirical evidence shows is that is small donors, which is a small percentage of the total country, tend to be more polarizing in their 

views and in their donations than are others. Ask—— 

Mr. KHANNA. No, but if you have public financing, you wouldn’t 

have largest donors. Then is your only concern the First Amendment concern, or do you think that these large donors are playing 

some positive influence in our democracy? 

Mr. SMITH. No, I don’t think they’re playing a particularly positive influence. In some cases, they are, by the way, and in some 

cases, they’re not. I don’t think as a group they are uniformly playing a positive role or a negative, just I don’t think small donors are 

uniformly playing a positive role or a negative role, and I don’t 

think every member of this committee is uniformly positive or negative. We’re individuals. We play individual roles. 

Mr. KHANNA. Thank you. 

Ms. HILL. I recognize Mr. Jordan from Ohio for five minutes. 

Mr. JORDAN. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Mr. Shaub, how long were you at OGE? 

Mr. SHAUB. A total of just short of 14 years. 

Mr. JORDAN. And how long were you the chairman? 

Mr. SHAUB. Well, I was never—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Director. Excuse me. 

Mr. SHAUB. Director? Four and a half, I think. 

Mr. JORDAN. Four and a half years as director. And when did 

that end? 

Mr. SHAUB. July 2017. I don’t remember the exact date. 

Mr. JORDAN. So the end of the Trump administration, you were 

still functioning as Director for six months, seven months. Okay. 

Tell me exactly how things work at OGE. You provide counsel and 

advice to folks in the executive branch of the government on ethical 

concerns they may have. Do they come to you, or do you go to 

them? How does it typically work? 

Mr. SHAUB. It typically works—you know, you’re talking about 

the prevention mechanism. It typically works that the official initiates the interaction and comes seeking guidance for something that 

they want to do, or to find out if they, you know, need to do something. The only other way where it comes involuntary is through 

the financial disclosure system where they’re required to file these 

reports. OGE reviews them and often works back and forth 

with—— 

Mr. JORDAN. How did it work with the President of the United 

States? Did his lawyers come to you, or did you look into his financial disclosures or both? 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes. They came to us. We had been working with 

them since—well, I’m not sure when he first became a candidate. 

It was—— 
228 

Mr. JORDAN. His lawyers reached out to you at some point while 

he was a candidate and then continued to reach out to you while 

he was President-elect and I assume while he was President. 

Mr. SHAUB. That’s right. 

Mr. JORDAN. All three stages. 

Mr. SHAUB. That’s right. 

Mr. JORDAN. And on November 30, 2016, while it was then President-elect Trump, you did a series of tweets about your interactions 

with the President’s legal team. Is that accurate? 

Mr. SHAUB. We—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I’ve got them right here. I’ll read them if you want. 

Mr. SHAUB. No, no. I’m trying—it’s the characterization of about 

their what? 

Mr. JORDAN. Their interactions with OGE. 

Mr. SHAUB. And I believe they were about divestiture and about 

our encouraging them to divest. 

Mr. JORDAN. Did you send them out on your official account? 

Mr. SHAUB. My official, no. We sent them out on the Office of 

Government Ethics official account. 

Mr. JORDAN. That’s what I mean, right. 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. You tweeted these out? 

Mr. SHAUB. That’s right. 

Mr. JORDAN. Had you ever tweeted out anything dealing with 

anyone else who had sought your counsel and advice? 

Mr. SHAUB. We’d only had the account for about three years, and 

I don’t think we—— 

Mr. JORDAN. It’s a yes or no question. So the only guy you ever 

tweeted about who you had been dealing was the President-elect of 

the United States of America, right? 

Mr. SHAUB. Yes. 

Mr. JORDAN. You said things like this: We told your counsel we 

would sing your praises if you divested. We meant it. 

You’re tweeting out for the whole world private conversations 

you’ve had with someone who sought your advice, their legal counsel. You said: As we discussed with your counsel, divestiture is a 

way to resolve these conflicts. 

Then you did this one: OGE applauds the total, in parentheses, 

divestiture decision—mocking the President-elect. 

Mr. SHAUB. No. We were not mocking. 

Mr. JORDAN. Then why did you put it in parentheses? 

Mr. SHAUB. Because it was, I think, a quote. 

Mr. JORDAN. You said you had never done this before, never 

tweeted out about anyone else in the executive branch who sought 

your advice and counsel on how they can deal with ethical issues. 

This was the only individual you ever tweeted out about. 

Mr. SHAUB. I think that’s a mischaracterization to describe it as 

confidential advice. OGE’s position that a President should—— 

Mr. JORDAN. I didn’t saying anything about confidential. All I 

said is this the only guy you ever tweeted about? 

Mr. SHAUB. All right. I thought I heard you said confidential at 

one point. 

Mr. JORDAN. I did not. And you said you did tweet about the 

President-elect, no one else. 
229 

Mr. SHAUB. That’s right. 

Mr. JORDAN. Do you find that unusual? 

Mr. SHAUB. Do I find it—I find everything about the past two 

and a half years unusual. 

Mr. JORDAN. No, no, no. I’m not saying that. Do you find it unusual that—what I’m saying is—well, let’s say it this way: Do you 

think it was a professional decision that the guy who is the head 

of the Office of Government Ethics, when you’re going to give information to the public only about one individual, and you’ve never 

done it in your 14 years at OGE and four years as Director? 

Mr. SHAUB. Well again, you said disclosed information. I didn’t 

share information. This was from 1983, was when OGE—— 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, wait. What were you trying to convey? What 

were you trying to convey in these tweets? 

Mr. SHAUB. That the President should divest as OGE had been 

telling him. 

Mr. JORDAN. Couldn’t you tell his lawyers? 

Mr. SHAUB. We did tell his lawyers. 

Mr. JORDAN. Well, then why did you tweet about it? 

Mr. SHAUB. We had reached a dead end, and I wasn’t convinced 

that our communications were reaching him. 

Mr. JORDAN. You’re talking to his lawyers. His lawyers reached 

out to you first. You’re communicating the advice that you think 

is what they need to do, and yet you go tweet about it? 

Mr. SHAUB. We were trying to nudge him toward with divestiture. He had just issued a Statement that he was going to achieve 

total—you have the phrase there. I don’t have the phrase, and I 

don’t want to say it wrong. 

Mr. JORDAN. OGE applauds the total divestiture decision. Bravo. 

Mr. SHAUB. He said something like completely separate or completely resolve conflicts of interest. I don’t want to claim I remember the quote exactly, and so what we were trying to do—we had 

two choices: interpret that as unclear or give him—I mean, you 

know, doubt him or give him the benefit of the doubt that what he 

said was true. We made a decision to choose to take him at his 

exact literal words because only divestiture—— 

Mr. JORDAN. You made a decision to tweet out conversations you 

had with the President-elect’s counsel when they were seeking advice and guidance from you, and you had never, ever done that before. 

Ms. HILL. Thank you, Mr. Jordan. 

I recognize myself for five minutes, and I’d like to yield two minutes to Ms. Tlaib from Michigan. 

Ms. TLAIB. Thank you, Chairwoman Hill. 

It’s wonderful seeing you up there. I really appreciate this. You 

know, at this very moment I’m thinking about my teenage son who 

would be saying—we’re talking about tweets right now, and he 

would say, ‘‘Seriously?’’ 

But I just really want to talk about something incredibly serious 

which is the law the land: the United States Constitution. We all 

have a duty do uphold it. We’re here to serve the American people, 

not this President. We serve them before anyone. And I just know 

since the Ethics in Government Act of 1978 was passed, Presidents 

of both parties have established blind trusts or limited their hold-
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ings to the U.S. Treasuries, diversified mutual funds, all the assets, 

because of conflict of interest. And you just talked about divestiture. This is the Emolument Clause. This is an incredibly important clause that really protects the American people. No matter 

who is there, Republican, Democrat, it doesn’t matter because it’s 

really important to take that kind of influence out because everyone knows being President is a temporary gig because what happens afterwards, right? 

You have someone that is still running The Trump Organization, 

many of them in the Cabinet right now and serving out of the 

White House. I am really asking for all of you to, please, even if 

it’s just for a few seconds, to talk about the Emolument Clause, 

why it’s there, and why it’s important to really reiterate this because even beyond H.R. 1, this is current law now, and we’re not 

upholding that law. We’re not taking our oath that we just took 

five weeks ago seriously when we say this, and I’ll tell you: I don’t 

care if it was—is a Democrat thing or—I don’t care. This is important to me that someone is making decisions based on the American people and not the best interests of a profit in mind or best 

interests of their company which they’re going to go back after 

leaving that White House, go back into that. It is so critically important that we uphold the Emolument Clause. I would really like 

for you to speak about that. 

Mr. SHAUB. Well, you know, the Founders of our Republic created a foundational document, the United States Constitution, and 

we’ve heard a lot today about the importance of that Constitution. 

The only conflict of interest provision that they felt they needed to 

include in that foundational document were the two Emoluments 

Clauses. And, you know, frankly, I wish they had put a whole lot 

more in, but those are the two they gave us, and those are the two 

that they felt were preeminent and needed to be in there. 

Ms. HILL. One brief second. 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Well, I was just going to say that I think the 

Emoluments Clause stands for the principle against self-dealing 

and using a public position to benefit yourself individually. I think 

you can draw connections from the Ethics in Government Act and 

other laws that have been passed on a bipartisan basis directly to 

the Emoluments Clause and other constitutional provisions, so it’s 

something that we think about often. 

Ms. HILL. Reclaiming my time. I just want to finish this by saying that I ran for Congress, and I know many of my colleagues did, 

because I believed that our political system was broken and in 

large part due to a complete lack of trust by our citizens in our government and in our democracy and that restoring that trust has to 

be our top priority. So I have a question for all of you, and I want 

to make sure that Mr. Smith answers this. Do you believe that increased transparency would help restore that trust? 

Mr. SMITH. If you want to start with me, I would not agree with 

that as a blanket assertion. 

Ms. HILL. You don’t believe that transparency—— 

Mr. SMITH. I think there are cases where it does, and there are 

cases where it does not. 

Ms. HILL. Can you give me one example where transparency 

would not restore trust in democracy? 
231 

Mr. SMITH. Well, for example, I think sometimes debates of this 

very organization are best held in private where you can stake out 

positions, give and take without having every absolutely conversation, for example, made public. I think, for example, that if people 

contribute small amounts to grassroots organizations, no, the public doesn’t need to know that, and the harm outweighs the benefits, 

the threats to people, the fact that they often withdraw from political participation. So it’s a case-by-case matter. 

Ms. HILL. I’m not suggesting in any way that people need to hear 

every conversation. I’m saying the general mechanisms of transparency that we’re asking for here in this bill is—— 

Mr. SMITH. Some of the transparency here is bad. I’ve outlined 

in that in my testimony. 

Ms. HILL. Okay. I’ll move on to the next. 

Do you believe that transparency helps restore faith in democracy? 

Mr. SHAUB. I think it’s probably the most important tool we have 

to assure the American people that their leaders are acting in their 

interests. 

Ms. HILL. Great. Do you all agree? 

Mr. MEHRBANI. Yes. Sunlight is a good prophylactic. 

Mrs. HOBERT FLYNN. Yes. And both in ethics measures and campaign finance reform measures as well. 

Ms. HILL. Mr. Smith, do you believe at least that making it easier to vote would restore trust in our democracy? 

Mr. SMITH. I think generally you don’t want obstacles placed in 

the way of voting, but I don’t think, again, everything making it 

easier to vote. For example, I would not favor having early voting 

begin a year before the election. So some things, yes, and some 

things, no. 

Ms. HILL. What about making it national holiday to vote? 

Mr. SMITH. Making it a national holiday? Let’s put it this way. 

I don’t think that’s a real problem or that it has been shown to increase turnout or make it a whole lot easier to vote when it has 

been tried. 

Ms. HILL. Well, I would say that for working class people who 

don’t get paid time off, it would make it harder to try. 

Mr. SMITH. It may, but I don’t think the empirical data shows 

that it has an affect there. 

Ms. HILL. Okay. Well, I would like to say that the former General Counsel and Acting Director of the Office of Government Ethics Don Fox sent a letter to the committee in support of H.R. 1. 

Public Citizen, the Declaration for American Democracy Coalition, 

and Indivisible have also written Statements in support, all of 

which I’m adding to the record. 

[The information is provided in the Apendix section.] 

Mr. AMEY. Madam Chair. 

Ms. HILL. Mr. Amey, I recognize you. 

Mr. AMEY. I just want to go back to the transparency. Obviously, 

I’m a big yes. And I just want to say it’s not only for the American 

people, but it’s Congress. Earlier today we heard I think it was 

Congresswoman Maloney mention that documents haven’t been 

turned over to Congress. We found an ethics waiver that goes back 

to 2003, and it was an ethics waiver for someone over at HHS, at 
232 

CMS, that was working on the Medicare or Medicaid part B portion 

of the healthcare bill. There was a gentleman there that received 

a waiver, and it was a general waiver, and that’s why putting 

waivers out and making them publicly available are important. But 

this Congress voted on that bill and supported it, and that gentleman refused to let a member of the staff turn over information 

to Members of Congress, and guess what? Within days, he went 

and worked for a lobbying shop and went to work for a company 

or a firm that represented drug companies. And so I just—it is important for the American public, but it is also important for the 

Senate and the House of Representatives to also have faith in the 

government and what information they’re getting from government 

employees. 

Ms. HILL. Thank you. 

Mr. MEADOWS. Madam Chair, I ask unanimous consent that the 

record reflects that the President of the United States has consistently throughout his tenure donated his Presidential salary back to 

Federal agencies, as recent as this last quarter. And since much of 

this discussion is about his private benefit by his position, I want 

the record to reflect that he actually donates back his salary to 

Federal agencies. 

I ask unanimous consent. 

Ms. HILL. If there’s no objection, so ordered. 

Ms. HILL. I would like to close by thanking all of our witnesses 

again for participating today. It was helpful to hear the expertise 

of our witnesses and why Congress should take action on H.R. 1. 

H.R. 1 is a comprehensive package of reforms that we desperately 

need. And speaking as a recent citizen and not a Member of Congress, I strongly stand in support of this and, in fact, was running 

on these issues long before I knew that this was coming in the form 

of a package, and I know that that’s the case for many of my colleagues as well. 

The reforms in the jurisdiction of this committee would make the 

executive branch more accountable and transparent. I urge all 

members of the committee to work with us in moving this legislation forward. 

With that, the committee stands adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 1:30 p.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

APPENDIX 
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