A Complex Profile Of A Congressman Essay

, Research Paper

When you think of psycho-conservatives and tenacious Republican partisanship, names like Newt Gingrich and Henry Hyde come to mind but the name Dan Burton should definitely be on top of that list. Dan Burton, the Republican chair of the Government Reform committee and the representative of District #6 of Indiana has the reputation of a pit-bull in Congress. Burton was the House Republicans point man in the 1997 investigation of political fundraising that focuses on money brought in by President Clinton s re-election campaign. This task gave him yet another crack at exposing misdeeds of the Clinton presidency in which he has already accused of ethics lapses. Many Democrats fear Dan Burton s attack-dog style because they know that he will not rest until he has uncovered the truth. In fact, Burton spent the first four years of the Clinton administration attacking the Democratic president with more tenacity than the most partisan of his GOP colleagues. He infuriated Democrats and shocked a large number of Republicans with his July 1994 floor speech when he questioned White House Deputy Council Vincent W. Foster s apparent suicide. The speach which proposed that he was murdered for the sake of a cover-up was one of the highlights of Burton s career in the House minority. Burton contended that the body was moved, there were hairs on his shirt that did not belong to him when he was found dead, and that there were carpet and other wool fibers found on his body. Another time that Burton made the news was last year when he called Clinton a scumbag in public .

This guy hates Clinton and he doesn t hide his desire to get rid of him at all! The Republicans entrusted him with unprecedented powers to subpoena Democrats, and access to as much as $15 million for a witch-hunt style investigation. Burton declared that the White House is actually behind all the leeks that seem damaging to the White House.

In truth, there is nobody more persistent and diligent that Dan Burton. It seems that if you look through Burton s files for the 105th Congress everyday he made another move! His main focus was to get Clinton through Attorney General Janet Reno. He wrote her a myriad of letters telling her to have an independent council set up to investigate the President s actions (sound like Henry Hyde.). When she delayed, he wrote her more and more letters, some filled with accusations that she potentially misleading Congress and the American people for the sake of protecting the president. He also publicly accused her of breaking the law to protect the President. When an independent council was set up only to investigate only certain White House phone calls, Burton wasn t yet satisfied and didn t even think of releasing the pressure. He said Nothing short of an independent council for this whole investigation will suffice! He filed a report that revealed the failure of Democratic entities to return roughly 1.8$ million in illegal and suspect contributions from 1992-1996 in addition to a separate allegation of the taking of more than $1.7 million in illegal contributions. Even after that Chairman Burton said This is an interim report, our investigation will continue .

It is not even necessary to mention that Burton votes extremely conservatively and did so in the many votes concerning Clinton s impeachment. He voted YEA on the release of the Starr Report, on the initiation of impeachment Inquiry, whether to actually vote on impeachment, and on all 4 Articles of Impeachment votes (in short; perjury, obstruction of justice, the misuse of his power and abuse of his office). (In other words, when the we learned that the entire impeachment proceedings were only continuing because of a group of stubborn Republicans trying to get Clinton, we were talking about Burton)!

His key votes in the last few years include a YEA to banning partial birth abortions, approving the farm bill, denying public education to illegal immigrants, repealing the ban on certain assault-style weapons, approving a balanced-budget constitutional amendment, relaxing the Clean Water Act regulations, reducing projected Medicare spending, approving of GOP budget with tax and spending cuts and a NEA to increasing minimum wage, freezing defense spending, opposing limits on environmental regulations. As is blatantly obvious, you can t vote more Republicanly than that!

When the 106th Congress began recently, it was Burton s task to appoint subcommittee chairmen of his newly-renamed House committee on Government Reform. He appointed Rep. Joe Scarborough to chair the subcommittee on House Civil Service, Rep. Dan Miller, to chair the subcommittee on the census, Rep. Christopher Shays to head the subcommittee on National Security, Veterans affairs, and International Relations, and Rep. John L. Mica to be the chairmen of the subcommittee on Criminal Justice, Drug Policy, and Human Resources. Every single one of these chairmen were heavy duty conservative Republicans.

In January 1997, Burton voted against the reprimanding and $300, 000 penalty the House Ethics Committee recommended for his fellow soldier Speaker Newt Gingrich for violating House rules. In fact, in response to the Democratic-filed charges, Burton decided to strike back and he introduced a resolution to penalize law-makers who submit frivolous allegations to the Ethics Committee (H.RES.79). (One of the Democrats favorite pas