Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you, Dr. Shapiro, for appearing here again today.
I just have a few comments, and perhaps you can comment on my comments. They are not so much questions, just some observations.
I think every member on this committee and in the House should be concerned about the way the code of conduct has been administered. The way it is now, any member or even any private citizen can lay a complaint against us, and we can have these allegations plastered in the media. As you know, any elected person is not only judged by the Board of Internal Economy when they've done something wrong, they're not only judged by the criminal courts as to whether they've done something wrong; they're also judged by the court of public opinion.
The way this case was handled, in my estimation, is very much along the lines of someone standing up in a public meeting and asking you as the person presenting when you stopped kicking puppies or beating your wife or whatever. The allegation that wrongdoing has taken place is immediately in the public realm. I don't have to explain all the things that are wrong with that, but the very first thing is that the person who has been charged has never had an opportunity to explain the situation. Whether the specifics of the act say this is exactly how it should be administered, I would think that natural justice and fairness should prevail.
If a private citizen wants to say, for instance, that a member has been using his constituency office for something other than constituency business—let's say he's been holding fundraisers in his constituency office—the first thing he does is to notify the Speaker or the whip of the party, or both, and the Speaker then takes some disciplinary action. But the first thing the Speaker does is to notify the member that a complaint has been raised against him.
Those are my comments.