IV

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;
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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;
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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

1 Resolved, That unless the Committee on House Over2 sight has sooner reported a recommendation for its final

3 disposition, the contest in the 46th District of California

4 is dismissed upon the expiration of October 31, 1997.

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