only committee in congress that is evenly divided with republicans and democrats regardless who is in the majority. that s to us the fairest place for it to be to have the authority. it is on its own entity on the outside. the public can still register a complaint and they ll still investigate. it sets a time frame for how long the investigations can go on. martha: it started a conversation that may be distracting to your agenda and a problem you have. before i let you go quickly tell me the first regulation you ll try to repeal. we ll start reforming the v.a. committee. when you look at the v.a. process. our troops and our veterans have not been treated correctly. this is a place that we are serious about looking at. a place where we worked with the trump administration and it will be our first action today. martha: we look forward to hearing more about it. thank you very much. see you next time. thank you. bill: it has been a record year in the city of chicago and
administration that isn t sworn in yet and it will be very quick to make that process be as smooth as possible. actually have a healthcare system that works. martha: more to come on that as you say as everybody gets put in place. it will be fascinating to watch how you try to make that transition and leave people in a position where they have healthcare. we ll be watching that. i want to ask you about the house ethics committee. there is a lot of attention being given to that. you did not want them to dissolve this independent entity that would help to oversee ethics in the house. how did that go through? there is a lot of misinformation about this. i didn t want to do it in the manner in which it was going. remember, there are two ethics committees. one inside congress and one that was designed for the public to register any complaint on the outside regarding a member of congress. then that committee would actually look at it and they had two options. they would send it to the eth
send it for further investigation. all those things stay in place. really what s happening is these are just reforms to this ethics committee and a lot of these reforms were brought forward on a bipartisan basis when democrats on the other side of the aisle. martha: sounds like you are changing your tune. are you in favor of the dissolving the independent entity? it won t be dissolved. i wasn t in favor of moving forward because i thought we should take it by itself in a bipartisan manner. people on both sides support the reform. martha: it will be inside the congress rather than outside? no, it won t be on the inside of congress. still on the outside of congress. every entity across america has somebody to oversee it from an accountability process. we made that the ethics committee. the ethics committee is the
democratic mayors under a democratic president why have they seen the statistics they have and why chicago has seen the statistics it has? it is not a federal issue although the federal government does have a sig significant role to play. i strongly urge president-elect trump to sit down in the mayor of chicago. this isn t the time to sit there and play partisan blame games but try to figure out what is going on and solve it. mothers are losing their children on a daily basis and it is inexcusable. martha: i think everybody agrees on that. the work is cut out for them in the city of chicago and the rate has gone up in other cities across the country whether it s improved in the two big cities you mentioned. it is a nation-wide issue. julie and guy, thank you. bill: jenna lee is coming up next. preview of happening now. new congress is sworn in
115th congress in just a little while this morning. speaking of that, things kick off on capitol hill a few hours from now. law makesers will gavel in for the first time in 2017. those just elected in the sweeping results that happened in november are about to take their new positions. there will be votes for house speaker and then the work will get underway. they are planning a very aggressive first 100 days agenda on everything from trade to tax reform. we ll get some information on that from kevin mccarthy, repealing obamacare is on the docket. some democrats have plans of their own and roadblocks they want to show in the way and slow down confirmations of several of donald trump s cabinet positions. we ll get much more as we speak to the majority leading coming up in a little while at the bottom of the hour. bill: no shortage of topics. wow, 10 minutes past. top democrats and hillary clinton promising a smooth transition of power, remember this? we must except this result and t