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[Congressional Bills 105th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 290 Introduced in House (IH)]

105th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 290

         Relating to a question of the privileges of the House.

_______________________________________________________________________

                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                            October 30, 1997

   Mr. Menendez submitted the following resolution; which failed of 
                                adoption

_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION

 
         Relating to a question of the privileges of the House.

Whereas Loretta Sanchez was issued a certificate of election as the duly elected 
        Member of Congress from the 46th District of California by the Secretary 
        of State of California and was seated by the United States House of 
        Representatives on January 7, 1997;
Whereas a Notice of Contest of Election was filed with the Clerk of the House by 
        Mr. Robert Dornan on December 26, 1996;
Whereas the allegations made by Mr. Robert Dornan have been found to be largely 
        without merit, including his charges of improper voting from a business, 
        rather than a resident address, underage voting, double voting, and 
        charges of unusually large numbers of individuals voting from the same 
        address;
Whereas it was found that voting from the same address included a Marine 
        barracks and the domicile of nuns, that business addresses were legal 
        residences for the individuals, including the zookeeper of the Santa Ana 
        Zoo, that duplicate voting was by different individuals and those 
        accused of underage voting were of age;
Whereas the Committee on House Oversight has issued unprecedented subpoenas to 
        the Immigration and Naturalization Service to compare their records with 
        Orange County voter registration records, the first time in any election 
        in the history of the United States that the Immigration and 
        Naturalization Service has been asked by Congress to verify the 
        citizenship of voters;
Whereas the privacy rights of United States citizens have been violated by the 
        committee's improper use of those Immigration and Naturalization Service 
        records;
Whereas the Immigration and Naturalization Service itself has questioned the 
        validity and accuracy of the committee's use of Immigration and 
        Naturalization Service documents;
Whereas the Immigration and Naturalization Service has complied with the 
        committee's request and, at the committee's request, has been doing a 
        manual check of its paper files and providing worksheets containing 
        supplemental information on that manual check to the Committee on House 
        Oversight for over five months;
Whereas the Committee on House Oversight subpoenaed the records seized by the 
        District Attorney of Orange County on February 13, 1997, and has 
        received and reviewed all records pertaining to registration efforts of 
        that group;
Whereas some members of the House Oversight committee are now seeking a 
        duplicate and dilatory review of materials already in the committee's 
        possession by the Secretary of State of California;
Whereas the Task Force on the Contested Election in the 46th District of 
        California and the committee have been reviewing these materials and has 
        all the information it needs regarding who voted in the 46th District 
        and all the information it needs to make a judgment concerning those 
        votes;
Whereas the Committee on House Oversight has, after over nine months of review 
        and investigation failed to produce or present any credible evidence to 
        change the outcome of the election of Congresswoman Sanchez and is now, 
        in place of producing such credible evidence, pursuing never-ending and 
        unsubstantiated areas of review;
Whereas contestant Robert Dornan has after nearly one year not shown or provided 
        any credible evidence sufficient to demonstrate that the outcome of the 
        election is other than Congresswoman Sanchez' election to the Congress; 
        and
Whereas the Committee on House Oversight should complete its review of this 
        matter and bring this contest to an end: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That unless the Committee on House Oversight has sooner 
reported a recommendation for its final disposition, the contest in the 
46th District of California is dismissed upon the expiration of October 
31, 1997.
                                 <all>
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