[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 8 (Friday, January 13, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H238-H239]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. BONIOR asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I would engage the distinguished majority 
leader in a colloquy on the schedule next week.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. ARMEY. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. Speaker, next week the House will not be in session on Monday in 
observance of the Martin Luther King holiday.
  We will meet on Tuesday. At the request of the minority we will meet 
at 9:30 for morning hour. We will consider one suspension, S. 2, the 
Congressional Accountability Act.
  We intend to ask, by unanimous consent, to deal with accrued leave on 
Tuesday, but I must advise the minority, we are still working out the 
details. We are working with the minority. We think we are very likely 
able to raise that point also on Tuesday.
  If votes are ordered on Tuesday, they will be detained until after 5 
o'clock.
  On Wednesday we will be in pro forma session, beginning at 11 
o'clock.
  Thursday, the House will meet at 10 o'clock and consider the rule on 
H.R. 5, unfunded mandates legislation. Pending passage of the rule, we 
will proceed to 2 hours of general debate on H.R. 5.
  On Friday, the House will meet at 10 o'clock and take up amendments 
to H.R. 5, and early, as promised,
 the House will adjourn by approximately 3 o'clock on Friday.

  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I would pose this concern to my friend, the 
gentleman from Texas. Over the years we have on this side of the aisle, 
when we were in the majority, had a tradition of notifying the minority 
of our schedule on Thursday. There have been exceptions to that, but 
they were extremely rare. We have consistently over the years paid the 
minority the courtesy of providing them with information in advance.
  This information that my friend, the gentleman from Texas, is giving 
us this morning is new. We just received this information. I would hope 
in the future that we would have the ability to know further in advance 
what the schedule will be for the following week.
  The second point I would make to the gentleman is that I am 
disappointed that the accrued leave bill is not before us today. I hope 
that we will have it before us on Tuesday, and we will be able to vote 
on it. The people who have earned these leave days by the sweat of 
their brow, by working for this institution, deserve to know that they 
will have what is coming to them, and what they have earned, so I hope 
that we will move forward on this Tuesday. We will be extremely 
disappointed if that does not happen.
  Mr. THOMAS of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from California.
  Mr. THOMAS of California. The gentleman needs to know that this side 
was ready and willing to take up the accrued leave, which the gentleman 
from California intended not just to cover committee Members but 
personal staff as well, since I was concerned about the separation that 
was occurring between the way in which committee staff were being 
handled and Members' offices were being handled.
  However, it came to our attention late yesterday that Members on the 
gentleman's side of the aisle, while he was still the majority, had 
dismissed some people on the 1st, 2d, and 3d of January.
  The motion that we had instructed was at the beginning of the time 
that we became the majority, so the delay between today and Tuesday is 
to accommodate your side of the aisle, to make sure no one is left out 
of the accrued leave.
  We are working out an amendment which will extend the time frame into 
the 103d Congress, covering those employees on the 1st, 2d, and 3d. So 
the delay is to make sure that everyone is accommodated. That is the 
reason for the delay.
  Mr. BONIOR. I thank my colleague for the explanation. I was not aware 
of that. I was aware that the gentleman from California [Mr. Fazio] had 
signed off on the legislation, and the gentleman from Arizona [Mr. 
Pastor] came all the way in from Arizona to do it today, so you can 
imagine the disappointment on our side when we heard that it was not 
happening.
  We will look into the gentleman's concerns, and I thank him for 
clarifying that.
  I would also ask my friend, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey], 
when we do the balanced budget amendment, when it goes to the Committee 
on Rules, does the distinguished majority leader anticipate an open 
rule on that particular piece of legislation as the gentleman from 
Illinois [Mr. Hyde], the chairman of the committee, has suggested?
  Mr. ARMEY. If the gentleman will continue to yield, to return to an 
earlier point, there is a whip notice that is going out perhaps as we 
speak to notify Members of the schedule for next week.
  These are extraordinary times, and I can assure the gentleman that as 
we proceed with the rest of the year, we will do our very best to 
minimize the gentleman's disappointments.

                              {time}  1040

  We are working on the rule for the balanced budget amendment, and to 
this point we have determined that we will be asking a preprinting 
requirement. We are most likely to not allow amendments except 
amendments in the nature of a substitute.
  If the gentleman has any further questions, the distinguished 
chairman of the Committee on Rules I am sure would be more than happy 
to address them.
  Mr. BONIOR. I do have further questions I would ask my friend from 
New York if he intends to limit the number of amendments in the nature 
of a substitute or are we going to have an open expression of a variety 
of different substitutes on this particular piece of legislation?
   [[Page H239]] Mr. SOLOMON. I would say to my good friend that the 
gentleman knows that under former Presidents of the Democrat majority 
rule when we have had constitutional amendments come to the floor, we 
are following generally the same procedure, because it is so terribly 
complex. I would hope that we could entertain any legitimate substitute 
and have it made in order. However, there is going to be a constraint 
of time. Probably an ample number of amendments might be three or four 
on your side and possibly one on our side that may not be supported by 
the Republican leadership necessarily.
  We want to be fair to everyone. We want to give everybody their fair 
shot. I would hope that that is the procedure we could arrive at.
  We are going to be holding that hearing, incidentally, on Monday, 
January 23, that is a week from Monday, at 1 p.m. Again we hope that 
the membership will come up and we can discuss it and we would be glad 
to consult with the minority.
  Mr. BONIOR. Does the gentleman intend to employ a procedure known as 
king-of-the-hill or queen-of-the-hill or do you plan on inventing a new 
procedure for us and surprising us?
  Mr. SOLOMON. The gentleman knows that this gentleman has always been 
opposed to king-of-the-hill, where a substitute or an amendment could 
pass not having received the largest number of votes. That is not going 
to happen anymore. If we have any procedure at all, it will be the fair 
procedure of the substitute passing with the most votes wins. That is 
the way it should be on the floor of this House, and that is the way it 
should be in any committee.
  Mr. BONIOR. I thank my colleague from New York and my friend from 
Texas.


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