[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 118 (Friday, August 19, 1994)]
[House]
[Page H]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 19, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. GEPHARDT asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. GEPHARDT. Mr. Speaker, I take this time to inform the Members of 
our plan for the rest of the day and possibly tomorrow.
  Mr. Speaker, we have been consulting with the minority and members of 
the committee and others that have been involved with the crime 
legislation, and we believe that it is possible, with some luck, this 
afternoon to try to resolve some remaining issues and to try to get to 
conference later today, and with the help of the Chair and the ranking 
member and members of the committee, and obviously the Senate conferees 
at that point, to be able to bring back a bill that might be able to 
command a majority of votes in the House on tomorrow.
  We are going to work very hard to do that. It may be that we cannot 
finish that, and we will give Members 2 hours or 3 hours notice once it 
is determined that we cannot go forward, or, obviously, if we are 
moving forward, we will be moving toward a conclusion tomorrow.
  Our plan would be to meet at noon tomorrow. For this purpose Members 
should expect to be here at noon tomorrow to vote on the crime bill 
conference report.
  In a moment, if there are not more questions, I will ask unanimous 
consent to go to conference.
  Mr. MICHEL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. I yield to the gentleman from Illinois.
  Mr. MICHEL. Only that I might advise Members, and particularly on our 
side, as contentious as the issue is, that the Speaker has consented to 
include our former Governor, Mike Castle, as a conferee, because he has 
been in counsel with a number of those Members on our side who have 
maybe little differing views than the majority on our side, but, 
nonetheless, are important to be aired. So we are going to have a voice 
in the conference.
  The distinguished chairman of the committee, I am sure, will 
certainly allow those expressions to be made in what would be 
considered to be an open conference, but narrowed down to the scope of 
the issues that are really at hand, as distinguished from just a wide 
open conference where we could not tell if we will be out of here by 
Christmas. That would be nonsensical at this juncture. We have had 
enough discussion here I think to have those issues narrowed down 
pretty finitely on both sides.
  As the distinguished majority leader says, you know, working in good 
faith, nothing ventured, nothing gained. And the sooner we get started, 
the sooner and better I think we can eventually get it resolved.
  My concern to having any further delay is once you go over the 
weekend, you can just eat up all next week, believe me. So you are 
better off, in my judgment, doing the very best we can, and everybody 
praying that they can get some agreement. It is possible they will not, 
but if you never get started, you will never get anywhere.
  So I would certainly support what the distinguished majority leader 
said, and I appreciate the cooperation of the Speaker in meeting our 
requests.
  Unless there are any other inquiries?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. I would just inform Members that if these unanimous 
requests are approved, there will not be further votes this afternoon, 
pending the outcome of this bill that is under consideration right now. 
However, if the unanimous-consent requests are not approved, we would 
have two additional votes to try to recommit the bill to conference.
  Mr. SOLOMON. If the gentleman will yield, the gentleman has a second 
unanimous-consent request. If I might just clarify, since there are 
many people on different sides of this issue, and it might relieve 
their concerns a little bit, the second request that the majority 
leader is going to make is going to waive the two-thirds requirement 
that a rule could be brought up the same day, that being tomorrow, the 
same day.
  In that unanimous-consent request, it will state clearly that this is 
only waiving the two-thirds for a conference report to come to the 
floor that is agreed to by the minority. Should that conference report 
not be agreed to by the minority, then the two-thirds waiver would not 
be in effect.
  So I just wanted to make that clear. I believe we are going to 
support both those unanimous-consent requests on this side of the aisle 
then. Is that your understanding?
  Mr. GEPHARDT. That is my understanding. Obviously the gentleman 
understands if we come to an agreement, we would need to bring that up 
tomorrow. If we cannot come to an agreement, we would have to go into 
next week and go through the normal procedure to do that.
  Mr. SOLOMON. I thank the gentleman for clearing that up.

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