[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 111 (Thursday, August 11, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 11, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      WHAT THE REPUBLICANS DID VOTE FOR OVER THE PAST FIVE DECADES

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Lehman). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Ehlers] is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. EHLERS. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I addressed the topic of health 
care reform and much along the lines Mr. Hoekstra has just elucidated, 
but I also pointed out a very important aspect of it. In the limited 
time available yesterday I could not do justice to the subject. Several 
Members have asked me to give more detail on the issue.
  The point I was making is that the process that has been set up to 
handle health care reform is a process that basically eliminates the 
opportunity for Republicans, and particularly the freshman Republicans, 
to have an input into the process.
  The freshman Republicans came here with an idea of reforming the way 
Congress operates. They are very interested in contributing to the 
process and representing their constituents in the process.
  But what particularly dismayed me was to find out a few days ago that 
the Vice President of the United States made the comment that the 
Republicans did not vote for social security, they did not vote for 
Medicare and they are not going to vote for health care so, ``We should 
ignore them in the process.''
  Furthermore I have heard that comment in the well of the House by a 
number of speakers over the past few days, making much the same point 
and trying to justify the fact that Republicans have been shut out of 
the process.
  Now, I am not a terribly partisan person, never have been, and I do 
not suspect I ever will be.
  I am actively interested in participating in the health care debate 
as a bipartisan coalition working on health care reform. I happen to 
think there is a great deal we can do in this country to insure that 
everyone has access to health care and that they get quality health 
care.
  But in particular I want to respond to the comments that I have heard 
made in the well of the House by some of my colleagues from across the 
aisle in which they have said the Republicans did not participate in 
passing social security.
  If you look at the first line of the chart, you see that is simply 
not correct. In fact, in 1935, when the Social Security Act was passed, 
83 percent of the sitting Republicans in the House of Representatives 
voted for the bill.

  When you go down some of the other major acts passed over the past 
half century, the Federal Highway Act, more Republicans than Democrats 
voted for it; Civil Rights Act, 81 percent of the Republicans voted for 
that landmark legislation, almost 20 percent more than voted for it 
from the party on the other side of the aisle.
  Medicare, where we appear not to have voted, 47 percent of the 
Republicans vote for it. So on down to the Clean Air Act Amendments and 
Water Pollution Control Act.
  So you can see, if we follow the course we are on now when we 
consider the health care bills next week, as Mr. Hoekstra just said, we 
spend just 8 days on it, it is going to be a Democratic bill, passed 
with Democrat votes, and the last line will become accurate. You might 
get a few Republican votes, but by and large you can expect 83 percent 
of the Democrats to vote for it and 2 percent of the Republicans if it 
passes.
  I think that would be a very bad precedent. I think history shows 
Republicans are eager to participate in these debates, to provide input 
and to be contributors to the process and to the content.
  I hope that we can follow that same process here. But as Mr. Hoekstra 
said, let us make it 8 weeks, not 8 days.
  Let us have an opportunity for an open debate on the floor of this 
Chamber. Let us have an opportunity for a rule that will allow us to 
offer amendments to improve it, because we are sincerely and earnestly 
interested in improving it.
  I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. ARMEY. I want to thank the gentleman for bringing this special 
order and this special information to our attention.
  It is extremely important to me that we focus on this. What we were 
running into today in our political discourses is that the word 
bipartisan is being used more as an indictment rather than as a 
strategy. And here your historical evidence demonstrates some of the 
facts that are being told are simply not true.
  I was particularly impressed with the fact that if you go to the 
Civil Rights Act--and many times I have been told how we Republicans 
did not vote for the Civil Rights Act--81 percent of the Republican 
Members of House voted for the bill, 63 percent of the Democrats voted 
for the bill. I believe there was a Democrat majority, clearly a much 
greater number of Democrats voted against the civil rights bill, they 
voted with Bull Conner, who stood on the bridge in Alabama and beat 
people with a club and then represented the State of Alabama as a 
national committeeman to the national Democrat convention.

                              {time}  1810

  Now I understand that the health care bill is up, but if there is a 
bipartisan bill that wins, I promise you there will be a greater 
percentage of Republican votes than there will be Democrat votes for a 
bipartisan bill.
  Mr. Speaker, if I may, I just wish to conclude by thanking the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] for his comments, and also I want to 
thank the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Penny] who compiled many of 
these statistics originally, and I wanted to give him credit for that. 
I think the figures speak for themselves, and they demonstrate that the 
minority party is anxious and willing to participate in the major 
issues of the day, and we hope we will have an opportunity to do that 
in the health care debate.

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