[Congressional Record Volume 141, Number 200 (Friday, December 15, 1995)]
[House]
[Pages H14960-H14961]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. ARMEY asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I see my friend, the gentleman from Maryland 
[Mr. Hoyer].
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ARMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I was going to seek recognition and yield to 
the majority leader, but he preempted me.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I would like to preface my remarks by 
apologizing to the gentleman from Maryland [Mr. Hoyer]. I am sure he 
knows that it gave me no joy to do so.
  Mr. HOYER. It does not give me much salve, Mr. Speaker, but I 
appreciate the observation.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, this is the last scheduled vote for the day. 
I am sorry to tell the Members that I cannot at this time make any 
definitive announcement with respect to the rest of the day. We have 
many things under consideration. It is possible that we will have 
another vote which would be, indeed, an important vote, before the day 
is over.
  It is still our hope that we can find a basis by which we could 
expeditiously get to that point, to have that vote, and under 
conditions that the Members might feel comfortable with and be free to 
depart for their own districts for the weekend. We are working toward 
that objective, and as soon as we have the alternatives fully examined 
and brought out, we will come back either to present them or to make 
another announcement. So if the Members can please allow me to beg 
their indulgence we will, in just a few minutes, after some cleanup 
work, take a recess subject to the call of the Chair and try to get 
this done as quickly as we can.

  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, the initial observation I would like to make, 
Mr. Speaker, we on this side are very concerned that we stay in 
whatever negotiations are necessary to try to overcome this impasse and 
to accomplish the work that is before us. We are also very concerned, 
of course, that we give notice to the country and to its workers that 
they in fact will be working on Monday and that government will be 
operating on Monday.
  Can the gentleman tell me whether or not at some point in time today 
his side intends to offer a CR which will ensure that happening?
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, we are working on 
different alternatives. Mr. Speaker, as you might guess, we were 
bitterly disappointed in the offer the President's team made today. We 
find the President's budget proposal to give us scant little with which 
to work. We do understand the stress of the circumstance that has been 
brought about by that meager offering. We do have a fairly good measure 
of the will of the body on both sides of the issue of the possible 
continuing resolution. We are trying to sort all that out and see what, 
if anything, we can present to the body before the day's end.
  Mr. Speaker, we simply do not wish to make any definitive action 
until we are fully satisfied we have fully examined all of the options.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, the 
gentleman from Missouri [Mr. Gephardt] and the gentleman from Wisconsin 
[Mr. Obey] have what we call a clean continuing resolution. Obviously, 
that would require unanimous consent. Obviously, neither would be 
recognized for the purposes of offering that unless there was agreement 
on both sides, but we on this side would hope that the leadership would 
seriously consider realizing that there were negotiations that went on 
some weekends ago when this impasse last occurred on November 13. 
Whether or not we can get that resolution up----

[[Page H14961]]

  Mr. ARMEY. Reclaiming my time, Mr. Speaker, I do appreciate the 
sentiment of the gentleman. I must say in all candor that the 
President's offering was so meager that I do not believe a clean 
continuing resolution is an option under consideration.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ARMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. VOLKMER. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman, as I understood it, his 
earlier announcement was that in a short period of time we would go 
into recess.
  Is the gentleman planning to, along with that notification of recess, 
give us, give Members the notification time frame for which we will be 
back; in other words, 15 minutes, 2 hours, 1 hour? Or are we just 
dangling out here?
  Mr. ARMEY. Obviously there will be a recess, subject to the call of 
the Chair, and we will work as quickly as we can, and certainly every 
Member will have the 15-minute notice.
  Mr. VOLKMER. You are going to leave it at 15 minutes?
  Mr. ARMEY. Fifteen.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. ARMEY. I yield to the gentleman from Virginia.
  Mr. MORAN. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the majority leader, the 
gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton], the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
[Mr. Gekas], the gentleman from Florida [Mr. Mica], and myself and 
several others have proposed legislation that we understand was 
acceptable to the leadership that would avoid a situation that occurred 
last time we had a Government shutdown with Federal employees, where 
Federal employees were paid for not working. This legislation would 
ensure that at least they work and then be subsequently reimbursed. We 
understood that that might be put on an expeditious track.
  Could the gentleman clarify that situation and give us some idea 
whether we would be able to expect that?
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, if I may clarify the situation, the 
gentleman's optimism, I am sure, is understandable. I think the 
gentleman, though, is excessively optimistic to report that the option 
that he referred to is acceptable to the leadership at this time, but I 
can report that it is one of the matters that is being considered. As 
soon as we can resolve it, we will be back with an announcement.
  Mr. HOYER. If the gentleman will yield again, there are a number of 
Members perhaps on both sides, I have not seen the list, who are 
interested in doing special orders, either 5-minute or hour special 
orders. I am wondering whether or not you intend, as we have done in 
the past, to go into special orders and then if we run out of special 
orders, to recess at that points in time? In other words, will there be 
a provision at the end of our business to allow for special orders?

  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, let me just say to the gentleman that that is 
a very difficult question to address, since we do not know exactly 
under what parliamentary basis we may end our business for the day. So 
let me just say I full respect the Members' interests in special 
orders, and we certainly would not engage in a parliamentary option 
that would have as an objective to prevent special orders. It is not 
inconceivable that special orders could be, or the loss of special 
orders could be the consequence of a necessary parliamentary method 
that we may use later, so again, I would just ask the gentleman if he 
could just be patient and trust me. We will try to get it worked out.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I would say to the gentleman, I respect the 
gentleman and like him. I want him to know that I continue that.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, before I suffer any more abuse, I yield back 
the balance of my time.
  Mr. HOYER. Seriously, Mr. Speaker, before the gentleman yields back 
his time, my point was that historically, in many instances, what we do 
is we go to special orders while we wait for the negotiations or other 
items to go on. If special orders concludes and there is still a reason 
that the majority would want to stay here pending negotiations, or 
perhaps come back to the floor to do additional legislative business, 
to have that time filled up by Members on both sides of the aisle going 
back and forth who want to do special orders.

                              {time}  1445

  My question was a legitimate question, since as we do have Members 
who had signed up to do special orders, whether or not they might 
accomplish that objective within the time frame that we are waiting for 
the negotiations or other decisions to be made by the leadership.
  Mr. ARMEY. Mr. Speaker, I will get back to the gentleman on that.
  Mr. Speaker, for the time being, at least, let me yield back the 
balance of my time.

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