IV 
113TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 504 
Raising a question of the privileges of the House. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 6, 2014 
Ms. FUDGE submitted the following resolution; which was laid on the table 
RESOLUTION 
Raising a question of the privileges of the House. 
Whereas on March 5, 2014, during a hearing before the 
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, 
Committee Chairman Darrell E. Issa gave a statement 
and then posed ten questions to former Internal Revenue 
Service official Lois Lerner, who stated that she was in-
voking her Fifth Amendment right not to testify; 
Whereas the Committee’s Ranking Member, Rep. Elijah E. 
Cummings, clearly sought recognition to take his turn for 
questions under Committee and House Rules; 
Whereas, Chairman Issa then quickly adjourned the hearing 
and refused to allow him to make any statement or ask 
any questions; 
Whereas Ranking Member Cummings protested immediately, 
stating: ‘‘Mr. Chairman, you cannot run a Committee 
like this. You just cannot do this. This is, we are better 
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than that as a country, we are better than that as a 
Committee.’’ 
Whereas, Chairman Issa then returned and allowed Ranking 
Member Cummings to begin his statement, but when it 
became clear that Chairman Issa did not want to hear 
what Ranking Member Cummings was saying, turned off 
Ranking Member Cummings’ microphone, ordered Re-
publican staff to ‘‘close it down,’’ and repeatedly signaled 
to end the hearing with his hand across his neck; 
Whereas Ranking Member Cummings objected again, stating: 
‘‘You cannot have a one-sided investigation. There is ab-
solutely something wrong with that’’; 
Whereas Chairman Issa made a statement of his own and 
posed questions during the hearing, but refused to allow 
other members of the Committee, and in particular the 
Ranking Member who had sought recognition, to make 
statements under the five-minute rule in violation of 
House Rule XI; 
Whereas Chairman Issa instructed the microphones to be 
turned off and adjourned the hearing without a vote or 
a unanimous consent agreement in violation of Rule XVI 
because he did not want to permit Ranking Member 
Cummings to speak; 
Whereas Chairman Issa’s abusive behavior on March 5 is 
part of a continuing pattern in which he has routinely ex-
cluded members of the Committee from investigative 
meetings, and has routinely provided information to the 
press before sharing it with Committee members; 
Whereas Chairman Issa has violated Clause 1 of Rule XXIII 
of the Code of Official Conduct which states that ‘‘A 
Member, Delegate, Resident Commissioner, officer or em-
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ployee of the House shall behave at all times in a manner 
that shall reflect creditably on the House’’: Now, there-
fore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives strongly 
condemns the offensive and disrespectful manner in which 
Chairman Darrell E. Issa conducted the hearing of the 
House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform 
on March 5, 2014, during which he turned off the micro-
phones of the Ranking Member while he was speaking and 
adjourned the hearing without a vote or a unanimous con-
sent agreement. 
Æ 
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