[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 97 (Friday, July 22, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: July 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. WALKER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I would inquire of the gentleman from 
Missouri [Mr. Gephardt], the distinguished majority leader, if we might 
ascertain the schedule for the upcoming week.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALKER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  Mr. Speaker, obviously votes are finished for today. On Monday, July 
25, the House will meet at 10:30 for morning hour. The House will meet 
at noon and will have 10 bills on suspension which are listed on the 
sheet which the gentleman, I believe, has in front of him. I would 
suspect votes will not begin until 5 p.m. on Monday, and I would expect 
three or four votes. There will be votes on suspensions expected.
  There are likely to be two votes, one vote on a motion to instruct 
and a motion to close in conference.
  On Tuesday, July 26, and the balance of the week, the House will meet 
at 10 a.m. On Tuesday the House will recess immediately and reconvene 
at approximately 11 a.m. to receive His Majesty, Hussein I, King of the 
Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, and His Excellency, Yitzhak Rabin, Prime 
Minister of Israel, in a joint meeting.
  Following the joint meeting, Mr. Speaker, the House will reconvene 
for legislative business, and the business we will consider on that day 
and the rest of the week is the California Desert Protection Act, the 
Export Administration Act, the Environmental Technologies Act, and the 
National park Concessions Policy Reform Act; a bill to provide for the 
management of The Presidio, the Small Business Reauthorization Act of 
1994, the Social Security Administrative Reform Act of 1994, the 
Community Development Financial Institutions Interstate Bank Branching 
Conference Report, subject to a rule, and the Omnibus Crime Control Act 
Conference Report, subject to a rule.
  Also, Mr. Speaker, motions to go to conference on appropriation bills 
are expected and, obviously, other conference reports could be brought 
up at any time.
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his explanation. I 
do have a couple of questions.
  Mr. Speaker, it does not appear to me as though there is probably 
enough on the schedule on Monday to get us to 5 o'clock when voting 
would start. Is it the intention of the House to recess at some point 
Monday afternoon in order to get there?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. If the gentleman will yield, it would be our intent to 
go to special orders if that happens, or to talk with the other side 
about a recess or whatever would be needed to get us to that time. We 
obviously want to start at that time to allow Members from the faraway 
areas to be able to get here.

  Mr. WALKER. A further question, Mr. Speaker. On Tuesday evening it 
has been related to me that there are a couple of events going on, 
including a state dinner at the White House. Is there an intention of 
getting the House out in reasonably good time on Tuesday evening so 
Members can help with those events?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. That is correct.
  Mr. WALKER. Also, Mr. Speaker, the Environmental Technologies Act of 
1994 is out of my committee. Is that something where once we take it 
up, we are going to take it up and go through to completion on it? I 
have been told that that might be used as filler. Can the gentleman 
from Missouri give me some idea of what the intention is on that bill?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. If the gentleman will continue to yield, the gentleman 
knows that that is an important piece of legislation. It would never be 
characterized as filler. We are going to try to get it done.
  Mr. WALKER. We are going to try to get it done. I thank the 
gentleman.
  Mr. Speaker, I have a couple of other issues. The gentleman has the 
Omnibus crime report or Omnibus crime control bill on the calendar. 
Does that mean that the contentions with regard to racial justice and 
some of those issues are now worked out and we can count on that bill 
coming up next week?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. If the gentleman will yield further, the gentleman 
knows the conference has to work its will on that and a variety of 
other issues. I hope they can do that successfully and produce 
legislation that can pass on the floor of both Houses. We hope that 
will happen.
  Mr. WALKER. However, there is some degree of confidence that all that 
has been worked out? That is the reason why it is on the schedule?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. If the gentleman will yield, we have wanted for some 
time to bring a crime conference report. We feel we are close to that 
point. We feel sometime next week that ought to be able to be 
accomplished.
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I see nothing on here relating to anything 
moving on a health care bill. It is not on the schedule for next week. 
Is that something that might get up in the near future? There are a 
number of us who believe that we ought to be able to at least see 
something on that before we vote on it.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. If the gentleman will yield, we still believe and hope 
that a health care bill can be brought to the floor of the House in the 
second weekend in August, and we obviously will be consulting with the 
other side about that eventuality and about how that might occur.
  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALKER. I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, as the distinguished majority leader 
knows, the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Michel] and I sent a letter to 
the gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt] and to the Speaker about 2 
weeks ago, asking that there be 10 legislative days from the time the 
gentleman completes the bill until he wants to bring it to the floor, 
and suggesting that any bills that would be made in order ought to be 
printed at the same time and have time for the country to look at them. 
There are articles in the Wall Street Journal and in the New York Times 
and in the Washington Post this morning that are of concern to people 
who want to know the details.
  I guess, Mr. Speaker, my question to the gentleman would be, can we 
get a commitment that either the actual legislative language might be 
printed by, say, Monday a week before the vote, or that we would 
consider some other process, one which I will suggest in a special 
order, which would be that we bring the bill to the floor and get a 
rule voted on just before we leave, but then vote on the bill the week 
we come back in September?
  My concern is, Mr. Speaker, that I am just now discovering things 
that are in the bill from the Committee on Ways and Means that we did 
not even know about, and I think it would be very inappropriate to 
bring life and death for every American and 14 percent of our Gross 
National Product to the floor without people having had a chance to 
read it and study it, and without the country looking at it.
  Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman if he could assure the House 
that we would have actual legislative language, at least 10 days before 
the bill would be voted on, so experts could look at it around the 
country, so people could look at it? It there any assurance the 
gentleman can give us about actual legislative language, not just 
principles, and how much lead time we would have before the vote?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GINGRICH. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, we have had this conversation. We did 
receive the letter. We hope to have a meeting with the gentleman from 
Georgia [Mr. Gingrich] and the distinguished minority leader at the 
earliest possible moment to discuss how to do this.
  The general idea that the gentleman from Georgia is presenting, I 
believe, is a sound idea. There is no intention here to bring to the 
floor something that people have not had a chance to read and 
understand and discuss, and we will try to meet that kind of a 
schedule. I cannot tell the gentleman a guarantee today that it will 
actually be 10 days, but the general idea of what he is expressing is 
appreciated by this Member.
  Mr. GINGRICH. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. 
Walker] will yield further let me just ask, I know you cannot make 
policy on the floor today, but I do think there is some virtue to the 
concept that if we cannot get the bills reported out in a way that 
everybody can look at them in an orderly manner, that we seriously 
consider reporting the various bills, locking them in place by passing 
a rule, then giving the country a break so that Members could go home 
with a commitment to vote the first 2 days we come back. After all, 
there are not going to be any conference meetings. There is nothing 
going to be done during the break. I am very worried, because this bill 
is so complex. I say this on both sides. I think we should have an 
obligation to produce a bill on the same date, and we should have our 
bill locked in, just as yours would be. I do not think that this should 
be setting you up for us to try to write a different bill.

                              {time}  1420

  I am just very worried that this is all going to slide, that writing 
the language, getting Congressional Budget Office scoring, knowing what 
we are going to be doing is going to be impossible, we are going to end 
up in a mess here.
  I do want to suggest, and I will do a special order on this, in terms 
of the dignity of the House and protecting the American people--
offering the bills, getting them printed, making them available and 
locking them in the last 2 or 3 days before the recess, then voting as 
soon as we come back--something like that, I would just say if we 
cannot get the bills out the first 2 or 3 days of the week before, we 
might consider something in order to ensure the American people 
actually know the technical details of what is in the bill. I just 
offer that as an idea.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALKER. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, the distinguished majority leader knows I 
have asked this question a couple of times before, and I will continue 
to ask it until we finally get it resolved.
  In 1993 we established the Joint Committee on the Reorganization of 
Congress. It was our hope that before the committee went out of 
existence on December 31, 1993, that we would have voted on that 
package here on the House floor and we were promised when that did not 
take place that we would have it voted on early spring of this year, 
late spring, early summer, and here we are charging towards the Labor 
Day break and we have had indications that we might be doing what the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Hamilton] and I virulently oppose, breaking 
up the legislation, which many of us feel in a bipartisan way should be 
maintained intact.
  We all know that the issue of congressional compliance is a real hot 
button with a lot of people out there and so the prospect of breaking 
that out from the reforms that I believe are very important and that 
the American people want to see us support is very, very sad news for 
me. I wondered if my friend could enlighten us as to where we stand on 
the issue of congressional reform.

  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, it may be an 
attempt to break out part of it and have it considered first but then 
have a date certain in September when the rest of it would be 
considered and it would all be joined up into one piece of legislation.
  Mr. DREIER. I ask the gentleman, what is the advantage of that? A 
number of us have said we want to keep the issue, H.R. 3901, of 
congressional reform in one single package. If we are not talking about 
bringing it up until after the Labor Day district work period, I do not 
see any reason for us to address it in that manner.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. If the gentleman will yield, as the gentleman knows, 
certainly with the California desert bill, we have had bills that are 
considered in different time phases. This is a large bill, it has a lot 
of different parts to it. I am not suggesting we make it part of the 
California desert bill.
  Mr. DREIER. Although I suspect some of my colleagues might want to 
send my congressional reform package out to the California desert.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. It may bloom in the desert, who knows. In any event, 
there is no intent here to break things up and jettison things. There 
may be an attempt to do this in a phased way and to get the whole thing 
done. We are committed to getting the whole package up and decided.
  Mr. DREIER. We have pretty well concluded that breaking it up is no 
more than a divide-and-conquer strategy. We all know there are many 
people here who thrive on the status quo, who do not want to have 
meaningful reform. That is why I continue to be disturbed about the 
prospect of breaking it up.
  Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALKER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if I may inquire of the 
distinguished majority leader, I believe the rules indicate that in a 
joint session Tuesday, all committee action stops. Is that true?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. That is correct.
  Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Does that mean that the Whitewater 
hearings, so-called, in the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban 
Development would stop as well?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. We will consult with the chairman. My understanding 
generally is that we will have a break in the action in committees 
during the joint session for the King of Jordan and the Prime Minister 
of Israel. The distinguished chairman of the committee is here.
  Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALKER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, let me reply to the distinguished leader 
and my colleague from Texas.
  My understanding of the rules is that both in the case of joint 
sessions as well as meetings of the respective caucuses of the party, 
we suspend committee meetings or hearings pending the ability of the 
members of the caucuses to attend the committee hearing.
  So we would--under the rule as I understand it--recess, or maybe 
happily adjourn, as of 11 a.m. Tuesday, July 26. But it would be our 
intention that we would comply with the rules and allow the members of 
the committee to attend the joint session.
  Mr. SAM JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, I 
would hope we would not adjourn. I would hope that we would be able to 
make up the lost time. I am sure that is the objective, to put 
everything out in the open.
  Mr. GONZALEZ. If the gentleman will yield, I think the gentleman 
realizes, for instance, on the markup in full committee of this bill we 
just passed out, it lasted from 9:30 in the morning until 10:30 at 
night. We got the bill out.
  In this case, we do not know. Because we are scoping out the proper 
dimensions under the House-passed resolution, I think it is House 
Resolution 694, and the agreement of the leaders, which agreement 
reflects predominantly the minority leader's decisions with respect to 
scope, whether we want to call it narrow or broad, it would be my 
intention that we would expedite the hearings, proceed in regular order 
and in accordance strictly with the rules and with no intent to either 
delay, obstruct, or hinder other than carrying out the mission that has 
been entrusted to this committee.
  Let me assure the gentleman, he is a member of the committee, he 
realizes that we have always been respectful of every member, whether 
he is a senior member or the brand-new member, and his right to 
participate. We also have the mandated requirement under rule X of the 
5-minute rule where every member will have 5 minutes to ask questions. 
I hope I have answered that.
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his explanation. I 
would just say when the gentleman used the word ``adjourn,'' I think 
some of us would find it to be a very troubling situation if the 
committee because of the joint session were to adjourn and then not go 
back to its work on the Whitewater investigation later on in the day.
  Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. WALKER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. GONZALEZ. Mr. Speaker, let me allay the gentleman's fear. That is 
not what I meant by adjournment. I meant hopefully, given good will, 
comity and harmony, we could terminate that first session by 11 a.m. If 
not, we proceed as long as necessary.
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  Two other questions. On campaign reform, we do not see any indication 
on the schedule that a campaign reform bill is moving. Have the 
differences been worked out in such a way that a campaign reform bill 
might find its way or a conference report might find its way to the 
floor?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. If the gentleman will yield, we are working hard on 
that conference. We hope to bring it to a conclusion soon. It may be on 
the schedule soon thereafter.
  Mr. WALKER. As I understand it, there is not a conference even 
meeting at this point.
  Mr. GEPHARDT. I understand it. We are having preconference meetings 
and trying to get ready for a conference.
  Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, finally on appropriation bills, there are a 
number of those that I think are eligible at this point to go to 
conference.
  Are we likely to see appropriation bills with potential motions to 
instruct before the House next week?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. If the gentleman will yield, it is our expectation, and 
there are seven passed House and Senate at this point: Treasury, 
energy, foreign operations, military construction, agriculture, 
District of Columbia, transportation. They are all eligible to be 
called up.
  Mr. WALKER. Would the gentleman expect some of those might come to 
the floor before going to conference next week?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Yes.
  Mr. WALKER. I thank the gentleman.

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