[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 89 (Monday, June 23, 1997)]
[House]
[Pages H4138-H4139]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         LEGISLATION PREVENTING GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWNS NECESSARY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 21, 1997 the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Gekas] is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. GEKAS. Mr. Speaker, it is no secret by now to most of the Members 
of the House that for some 8 years I have been introducing legislation 
on a regular basis, appearing in many different forums, presenting 
myself and the proposition in front of the Committee on Rules, both 
when it was controlled by the Democrats and now by the Republicans, to 
press the point that we need legislation to prevent Government 
shutdowns.
  Now that has, of course, been a phenomenon that we have tested in the

[[Page H4139]]

Congress many times. Not just this last time, which received such 
notoriety in this last session of Congress, but seven times before that 
since I have been a Member of Congress, eight times since I have come 
to the Congress. Not only that, but we have been operating on temporary 
funding resolutions when the government is about to shut down 53 times 
during the course of the incumbency which I so pleasurably try to serve 
for the people of my district.
  What am I trying to do again? I have reintroduced the legislation for 
this term. Now, an important thing and a surprising thing happened this 
time around. The Republican leadership decided that they were going to 
embrace my prevent-shutdown-legislation, and so very competently, very 
properly, they added this prevent-shutdown-legislation to the 
supplemental appropriations bill that comes up every year in one form 
or another, and this time the supplementals included aid to Bosnia, not 
to Bosnia, but to our efforts in Bosnia, and disaster relief, long 
term, for the people who are afflicted by the floods of the Midwest, in 
the Midwest just very recently.
  Here is what galls me, Mr. Speaker, and I must spread this on the 
Record again. The President vetoed the bill, the supplemental 
appropriations, because it had in his words in the veto message, the 
extraneous provisions of prevent-shutdown-legislation; while at the 
same time he said in 1996, in his weekly radio address to the Nation in 
January of that year, ``It is deeply wrong to shut the Government down 
under the illusion that somehow it will affect the decisions that I 
would make on specific issues. It is wrong to shut the Government 
down.''
  This is what President Clinton said. Then when he vetoes the 
supplemental appropriations, in which there was a prevent-shutdown-
provision, he says, ``I urge the Congress to remove these extraneous 
provisions,'' meaning the shutdown legislation and a census provision, 
``and to send me,'' now, get this, Mr. Speaker, this is important; and 
the President says, ``and send me a straightforward disaster relief 
bill that I can sign promptly.''
  Straightforward disaster relief bill, in his language, means one that 
does not contain the prevent-shutdown-legislation which I offered and 
which was adopted by the House.
  Now, here is the rub. In this bill that he finally signed after we, 
the Republicans, removed the shutdown legislation that had passed the 
House in order to achieve a compromise and allow the disaster relief 
bill to be signed, in the final bill that was signed were provisions 
like this: $3 million for allocation by the Attorney General to the 
appropriate unit of Government in Ogden, UT, for necessary expenses for 
the Winter Olympic Games. I ask, Mr. Speaker, what does that have to do 
with disaster relief?
  Now, the President signed the bill that had Winter Olympics funding 
in it, even though, in my judgment, please correct me if I am wrong, 
that is extraneous to disaster relief, but did not allow through his 
veto the inclusion of prevent-shutdown-legislation which he says is 
extraneous to disaster relief.
  Now, Mr. Speaker, he signed the bill that had marine mammal 
protection in it. Now, what does this have to do with disaster relief? 
I say, Mr. Speaker, that mammal protection, although laudable in its 
own right, just like shutdown legislation, prevent-shutdown-
legislation, was extraneous to disaster relief. But the President 
vetoed a measure because it had prevent-shutdown-legislation which he 
calls extraneous, and signed the bill that contained mammal protection 
as part of disaster relief.
  Is that an extraneous provision, Mr. Speaker? This is double talk, 
Mr. Speaker. We need provisions to prevent the shutdown of Government, 
and I aim to do it time and time again until the Congress and the 
President come to terms.

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