[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 37 (Friday, March 27, 1998)]
[House]
[Page H1688]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H1688]]
              DEMOCRACY DENIED IN HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

  (Mr. TURNER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. TURNER. Mr. Speaker, the effort in the House of Representatives 
to reform campaign finance laws in this country has died today without 
a single word of debate being spoken. It died by a procedural move on 
the part of the Republican leadership to place this very critical issue 
on a suspension calendar, a calendar normally reserved for bills that 
are not of great controversy, that require two-thirds vote for passage, 
bills that normally would be heard in an uncontested manner. Yet, the 
most important issue of campaign finance reform was placed on that 
calendar for this next Monday before the House of Representatives.
  It is a tragedy that with hundreds of thousands of hours of effort 
being put in in the last 15 months in this Congress to study the abuses 
of campaign finance, committee hearings that have taken place in the 
committee I serve on, the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight, 
hearings in the Committee on House Oversight, and the pledge by the 
Republican leadership to allow this House to have an open and 
bipartisan debate, that has been denied by a procedural move that will 
not allow this House to completely debate that bill.

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