[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 53 (Wednesday, March 22, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H3426-H3427]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




 MOTION SEEKING PERMISSION FOR ALL COMMITTEES AND SUBCOMMITTEES TO SIT 
  ON TOMORROW AND FOR THE BALANCE OF THE WEEK DURING THE 5-MINUTE RULE

  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I move that all committees of the House and 
their subcommittees be permitted to sit on tomorrow and for the balance 
of the week while the House is meeting in the Committee of the Whole 
House on the State of the Union under the 5-minute rule.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gillmor). The gentleman from Texas [Mr. 
Armey] is recognized for 1 hour.


                         parliamentary inquiry

  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman will state it.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, will the minority be granted the customary 
30 minutes of debate time on this motion?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] has 1 
hour of debate time, and he may yield if he chooses.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey].
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, yes, it is true I do have an hour's time. I 
do not intend to use that whole hour. I will, of course, yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] for 
purposes of debate only.
  That being the case, Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may 
consume.
  Mr. Speaker, let me say very quickly we are coming to the end of a 
very long and arduous work period in the House of Representatives. We 
have produced good legislation for the American people, and it is to 
the credit of the hard work of people on both sides of the aisle that 
we have managed to do so well for this period of time. We have a short 
period of time left and a few very important items left on our agenda 
for this first 100 days, and we will indeed be working very hard for 
the next 3 weeks.
  It is my obligation, my duty, to once again prevail upon the Members 
of the House on both sides of the aisle to work, as it were, double 
time, time and a half, for just a few more weeks so that we can finish 
that.
  I understand that this is a hardship on the Members. I understand 
that it is difficult for the Members. But I also have to remember our 
resolve to complete this legislative agenda in this assigned time.
  That being case, Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 minutes of debate time to 
the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] for purposes of debate only.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve that balance of my time.
  Mr. BONIOR. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Texas for yielding 
this time to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman allowing us some time to 
debate this. I think it is important to debate this this morning 
because since the beginning of this Congress, the Democrats, I think, 
have made a good-faith effort to work with my friend from Texas, Mr. 
Armey, and the other leaders of his party in cases where a waiver is 
needed for the committees to meet under the 5-minute rule.
  Now, such waivers, I might add, clearly violate the spirit of the 
Republican rules package, which is supposed to block committee hearings 
while important votes are occurring on the House floor. But we have 
tried, week after week, religiously to work with the Republicans to 
work out accommodations, and in every single case we have agreed with 
the Republican request, after we have had a time of consultation. But 
today, really, frankly, Mr. Speaker, marks a very low point in our 
relationship on this issue. Today, the House is likely to have rollcall 
votes every 20 minutes until 8 o'clock this evening, whenever we decide 
to call it a day, every 20 minutes we will be having a vote on this 
floor on an amendment, on one of the most important bills that this 
Congress will consider, the welfare reform proposal.

                              {time}  1100

  Yet the Republicans want to hold markups in committees. We object to 
this request for obvious reasons. Members cannot be in two places at 
once.
  Mr. speaker, it takes 10 minutes to get over here, it takes 10 
minutes to get back, and, by the time that occurs, we are into another 
vote. It makes no sense whatsoever.
  Many of my colleagues on this side of the aisle, and I am sure on the 
other side as well, have a deep interest in this legislation and want 
to be here because it affects their constituencies in very special 
ways, and this rule does not allow them to participate in the debate on 
the House floor and yet do the work that they were assigned to do as 
committee people.
  So we have made the request, and of course the response has been very 
simple: ``If you don't agree with our plan, well, we'll do it anyway.'' 
That is what this is all about; so much for consultation, Mr. Speaker.
  I am really disappointed that my friends on the other side have 
violated their own pledge on opening day which calls for the rules 
which requires us 
[[Page H3427]] not to do what we are apparently about to do, and so I 
would just say to my colleagues, we really need to be here, engaged on 
the floor today on this important bill. We don't need to be running 
back and forth getting exercise, because that's about all we're going 
to get. We're not going to have good dialog in committee with 20-minute 
votes, and I hope that we, in fact, Mr. Speaker, will vote against this 
motion and pay attention to the important business of welfare reform on 
this House floor.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. BONIOR. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. 
Bonior] for strongly objecting to the motion, and I find that, of the 
amendments offered, we have a few by Democratic Members who may very 
well be required, instead of being over here at the time to offer their 
amendment, may have to be in committee and markup up, may have an 
amendment in that committee, and I ask, how can you do an amendment in 
committee in an office building at the same time you're doing an 
amendment on the floor?
  I say:
  At the same time you can't do it. It's a physical impossibility, and 
I think that this legislation that we have before us, even though I 
strongly object to it and I hope Members do vote against the rule, and 
perhaps, if we defeat the rule, then we can come back and have some 
little bit better from the gentleman from New York. I'm sure that the 
gentleman from New York will permit a few more Democratic amendments. 
He hasn't got very many; I fine 5 out of the 30-some.
  Mr. Speaker, I would like to say the gentleman from Michigan has the 
time, and I would just like to say that I can well remember, and I am 
sure that the people on the other side can well remember, back on
 January 4 when we adopted these great rules that the majority said we 
had to have to make this Congress more open and more responsive to the 
public, and yet right here today again we are violating those rules.

  Members said from the majority, ``Well, we shouldn't have proxy 
voting.'' They said, ``No, you shouldn't have that, shouldn't be able 
to do that. You should be able to be in committee and on the House 
floor at the time when you're required to be there, so we won't 
schedule. We are going to have a computerized scheduling system so that 
people won't have to be in committee and be on the floor at the same 
time.''
  And yet we have a motion right here now by the gentleman from Texas 
[Mr. Armey] that says specifically that we are going to be able, they 
are going to be required, Members are going to be required, to be in 
committee and on the floor at the same time, so it is just the opposite 
of what we were told on January 4, and I appreciate the gentleman from 
Michigan yielding to me.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I withdraw the motion.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Gillmor). The motion offered by the 
gentleman from Texas [Mr. Armey] has been withdrawn.

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