Date: 1997-11-04
Speaker: EDDIE BERNICE (democrat)
Chamber: H

JOHNSON Texas. Mr. Speaker. pursuant to claus 2 of rule IX. I hereby give notice of m intention to offer a resolution whic raises a question of the privileges the House. The form of the resolution is as fo lows: Whereas. Loretta Sanchez was issued a ce tificate of election as the duly elected Men ber of Congress from the 46th District California by the Secretary of State of Cal fornia and was seated by the U.S. House Representatives on January 7. 1997. and Whereas A Notice of Contest of Electic was filed with the Clerk of the House by M Robert Dornan on December 26. 1996. and Whereas the Task Force on the ContestA Election in the 46th District of Californ met on February 26. 1997 in Washington. D.1 on April 19. 1997 in Orange County. CalifornJ and October 24. 1997 in Washington. D.C.. ar Whereas the allegations made by Mr. Rol ert Dornan have been largely found to t without merit: charges of improper votie from a business. rather than a resident a dress. underage voting. double voting. ar charges of unusually large number of Ind viduals voting from the same address. It wE found that voting from the same address ii cluded a Marines barracks and the domicil .of nuns. the business addresses were legi residences for the individuals. including th zoo keeper of the Santa Ana zoo. that dupl cate voting was by different individuals an those accused of underage voting were age. and Whereas the Committee on House Ovei sight has issued unprecedented subpoenas t the Immigration and Naturalization Servic to compare their records with Orange Cour ty voter registration records. the first tim in any election in the history of the Unite States that the INS has been asked by Cor gress to verify the citizenship of voters. an Whereas the INS has complied with th Committees request and. at the Commil tees request. has been doing a manual chec of its paper files and providing worksheet containing supplemental information o that manual check to the Committee o House Oversight for over five months. and Whereas the Committee on House Ovei sight. subpoenaed the records seized by th District Attorney of Orange County on Fel ruary 13. 1997 and has received and reviewe all records pertaining to registration effort of that group. and Whereas the House Oversight Committee I now pursuing a duplicate and dilatory reviei of materials already in the Committees pof session by the Secretary of State of Califol nia. and Whereas the Task Force on the Conteste Election in the 46th District of Californi and the Committee have been reviewin these materials and has all the informatio: it needs regarding who voted in the 46th Dis trict and all the information it needs t make judgments concerning those votes. an. Whereas the Committee on House Over sight has after over nine months of reviei and investigation failed to present credibl evidence to change the outcome of the elec tion of Congresswoman Sanchez and is pur suing - never ending and unsubstantiatei areas of review. and Whereas. Contestant Robert Dornan ha not shown or provided credible evidence tha the outcome of the election is other thai 0 Congresswoman Sanchezs election to the G Congress. and F Whereas. the U.S. taxpayers have spent more than $500.000 on an investigation which has not provided any credible evidence to )f overturn this election. se Whereas. the Committee on House Overy sight should complete its review of this math ter and bring this contest to an end and now of 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 r- dismissed upon the expiration of November 7. n- 1997. :f The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without Df objection. the Chairs previous citation of the disposition of this matter under on rule IX will be entered ifto the RECORD at this point.