[Congressional Bills 109th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H. Res. 253 Laid on Table in House (LTH)]







109th CONGRESS
  1st Session
H. RES. 253

           Raising a question of the privileges of the House.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                              May 3, 2005

 Mr. Conyers submitted the following resolution; which was laid on the 
                                 table


_______________________________________________________________________

                               RESOLUTION


 
           Raising a question of the privileges of the House.

Whereas the Committee on the Judiciary conducted a markup of the bill H.R. 748, 
        the ``Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act,'' on Wednesday, April 
        13, 2005 and ordered the bill reported on that same day;
Whereas the Committee on the Judiciary subsequently reported H.R. 748 to the 
        House on Thursday, April 21, 2005, with an accompanying report 
        designated House Report 109-51;
Whereas, during the markup of H.R. 748, Representatives Nadler, Scott, and 
        Jackson-Lee offered in good faith a total of five amendments to the 
        bill, all of which failed on party-line votes;
Whereas, because Representatives Nadler, Scott, and Jackson-Lee called for 
        recorded votes on their amendments, under section 3(b) of Rule XIII, the 
        votes were published in House Report 109-51;
Whereas, although it is the long and established practice in House reports to 
        describe recorded votes with objective, nonargumentative captions, the 
        Committee on the Judiciary majority departed from this practice in House 
        Report 109-51 by captioning these five amendments with inflammatory, 
        inaccurate captions implying that these three Members of Congress 
        condoned the criminal behavior of ``sexual predators'';
Whereas, as one example, while an objective, nonargumentative description of one 
        of Representative Nadler's amendments would read, ``exempts a 
        grandparent or adult sibling from the criminal and civil provisions of 
        the bill,'' and is in fact the language the Committee on the Judiciary 
        used to caption this amendment in past reports on this legislation, the 
        caption in House Report 109-51 was instead, ``Mr. Nadler offered an 
        amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution 
        under the bill if they were grandparents or adult siblings of a minor.'' 
        (Similar problems occurred in describing amendments offered by 
        Representatives Scott and Jackson-Lee.);
Whereas, when Representative Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of the Committee on the 
        Judiciary, was asked about this language and given the opportunity to 
        correct it, both in the Committee on Rules and on the House floor, he 
        instead explained that it was his purpose and intention to include these 
        derogatory and inaccurate captions in House Report 109-51;
Whereas committee reports are official congressional documents to which American 
        citizens will refer when seeking to interpret the bills they accompany;
Whereas, although the committee markup and reporting process gives Members ample 
        opportunity to debate, characterize, and criticize each other's views, 
        committees have a ministerial, institutional responsibility to 
        accurately report the proceedings of committee activities;
Whereas the vote captions published in House Report 109-51 appear to be 
        purposefully inaccurate and misleading, and therefore belittle the 
        dignity of the House and undermine the integrity of the proceedings of 
        the House; and
Whereas this unprecedented manipulation of a traditionally nonpartisan portion 
        of a committee report constitutes an abuse of power by the majority of 
        the Committee on the Judiciary: Now, therefore, be it
    Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
            (1) finds that the Committee on the Judiciary purposefully 
        and deliberately mischaracterized the above-mentioned votes in 
        House Report 109-51; and
            (2) directs the chairman of such committee to report to the 
        House a supplement to House Report 109-51 that corrects the 
        record by describing the five amendments with nonargumentative, 
        objective captions.
                                 <all>