[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 138 (Tuesday, October 6, 1998)]
[House]
[Pages H9626-H9628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 4(b) OF RULE XI WITH RESPECT TO
CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 575 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 575
Resolved, That the requirement of clause 4(b) of rule XI
for a two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee
on Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is
waived with respect to any resolution reported from that
committee before the legislative day of October 11, 1998,
providing for consideration or disposition of any of the
following:
(1) A bill or joint resolution making general
appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 1999,
any amendment thereto, any conference report thereon, or any
amendment reported in disagreement from a conference thereon.
(2) A bill or joint resolution that includes provisions
making continuing appropriations for fiscal year 1999, any
amendment thereto, any conference report thereon, or any
amendment reported in disagreement from a conference thereon.
Sec. 2. It shall be in order at any time before October 11,
1998, for the Speaker to entertain motions to suspend the
rules, provided that the object of any such motion is
announced from the floor at least two hours before the motion
is offered. In scheduling the consideration of legislation
under this authority, the Speaker or his designee shall
consult with the Minority Leader or his designee.
{time} 1345
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Blunt). The gentlewoman from North
Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) is recognized for 1 hour.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, for the purposes of debate only, I yield
the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr.
Moakley), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume.
During consideration of this resolution, all time is yielded for the
purpose of debate only.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Committee on Rules met and reported H.
Res. 575 providing for expedited procedures in the House. The
resolution waives clause 4(b) of Rule XI, requiring a two-thirds vote
to consider a rule on the same day it is reported from the Committee on
Rules.
The resolution applies the waiver to any special rule reported before
October 11, 1998, providing for a consideration or disposition of a
bill or joint resolution, making general appropriations for the fiscal
year ending September 30, 1999, any amendment thereto, any conference
report thereon, and any amendment reported in disagreement from a
conference thereon.
The resolution also applies a waiver to any special rule reported
before October 11, 1998, providing for consideration or disposition of
a bill or joint resolution, making continuing appropriations for the
fiscal year ending September 30, 1999, any amendment thereto, any
conference report thereon, and any amendment reported in disagreement
from a conference thereon.
Finally, the resolution allows at any time before October 11, 1998,
for the Speaker to entertain motions to suspend the rules, provided
that the object of any such motion is announced from the floor at least
2 hours before the motion is offered, and that in the scheduling of
legislation under this authority, the Speaker or his designee shall
consult with the minority leader or his designee.
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, we are in the last days of the
legislative session. House Resolution 575, short and simple, allows the
House to complete its work for the year in a timely manner.
House rule 27 normally limits House consideration of suspension bills
to Mondays and Tuesdays. But now, in the final weeks of the session,
there is no reason to put off noncontroversial legislation until next
year.
In addition, H. Res. 575 allows for the same-day consideration of
urgent appropriations bills. Without congressional action, the funding
for many
[[Page H9627]]
Federal agencies will expire on October 9. While the House and Senate
continue to negotiate spending priorities, it is important that the
House be able to act immediately to pass any measure that keeps the
government working for the taxpayers.
H. Res. 575 is a reasonable measure that will allow us to finish our
work for the year on time.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my dear friend, the gentlewoman
from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick) for yielding me the customary half-
hour.
Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, the fiscal year started just 6 days ago and my
Republican colleagues have not finished, have not finished, 9 of the 13
appropriations bills. So unless this Congress gets to work on something
other than investigating, the Federal Government may end up closing up
for business.
This rule will enable them to bring up appropriations conference
bills and continuing resolutions more quickly, but it could reduce the
amount of time that Members have to read through these bills before
they go to a vote. But, Mr. Speaker, without martial law, conference
reports have to be available for at least 3 days before they are
considered on the House floor. Otherwise, we may have only moments to
look over very important appropriations conference reports as they come
up for votes, and as members of the minority party, that is just
unacceptable.
Mr. Speaker, the rule we are considering today is limited to the
appropriations conference reports and it is further limited to the end
of this week. This rule will also enable my Republican colleagues to
bring up suspension bills with 2 hours notice. Mr. Speaker, they asked
for this authority last week and they promised 2 hours notice, and they
kept their promise, and I feel that they will keep their promise this
time.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Indiana (Mr. McIntosh).
Mr. McINTOSH. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me
this time.
I rise today with some serious questions about this rule, chiefly
focusing not on the question of suspensions which I think many Members
would like to have in this what is hopefully our final week here; not
on the question of most of the bills that will be coming out, but a
question on what is being labeled the omnibus appropriations bill, the
final, large bill that will supposedly wrap all of those that we have
not been able to pass in this House and the Senate and have signed by
the President into one large spending package.
In previous years, that bill has been used to negotiate a lot of
different issues, some of them having to do with spending, some of them
having to do with totally extraneous matters, some of them having to do
with tax cuts, which this House passed a little over a week ago.
Unfortunately, it appears to me that right now, the likelihood of that
bill coming out in a way that Republicans, conservative Republicans in
particular, can be proud about is very nil, because the President has
already indicated he is looking for a veto fight. He is hoping to veto
that large spending bill, as he has indicated he will do with the
agriculture appropriations bill that was passed in this House last
Friday, simply to have more spending and to have his priorities in the
way this government is operated. Many of us fear that that may be only
part of the motive for why he would veto that and possibly engage in a
strategy where he might shut down parts of the government in order to
have that type of disagreement over priorities in that bill.
Mr. Speaker, conservatives want to avoid that type of shutdown. We
also want to avoid a bill that would give away many of the priorities
that this Republican Congress has laid out in the last 8 months.
Let me mention for the body some of those priorities that are at
stake in this bill. The reason I talk about this bill and the rule is
this rule would waive the 24-hour notice for consideration of that
bill. So I think it is important that we know what we may be waiving
notice about in order to allow us in a rush to leave town to give up on
some of these important policy issues.
The first would have to do with the spending caps that were
negotiated last year in the budget agreement. There is already on the
table proposals from somewhere between $9 billion to $15 billion
additional spending beyond those caps. In the agriculture bill, we in
this Congress spend $4 billion above those caps. The President in his
veto message indicates he wants to spend an additional $3 billion or $4
billion. So the total will be somewhere between $15 billion and $25
billion in one year above the budget deal that was agreed to just one
year ago.
The second issue is on IMF spending, whether we will provide funds
for the IMF to the full $18 billion. These are technically loans, but
many of us realize that they may never be paid back, and so therefore,
the American taxpayer will be paying the bill.
Another key issue is what we do on the so-called Mexico City policy,
the question of whether this government will spend United States
taxpayer funds in order to support lobbying for abortions around the
world.
A fourth issue that is of importance to us is whether we will have a
policy of national testing in our schools or whether we will continue
the policy that says, we cannot spend taxpayer dollars to develop that
national test here in Washington; we see testing as better done by the
States and local community schools.
Other issues of importance will be the choice provision in the D.C.
bill that allows scholarships to go to parents here in the District of
Columbia so that they can afford to send their children to a good
school; the ban on needle exchanges in drug programs that this House
has passed; the ban on adoptions by 2 unmarried individuals for the
District of Columbia. The question of whether there will be parental
notification, which this House has not yet been able to address because
we have not been able to bring the Labor-HHS Appropriations bill to the
floor, and we hear rumors that perhaps that will never come to the
floor, it will be part of this omnibus bill, presumably without that
parental notification provision that the committee put into its draft
of that bill.
So there are many weighty issues that will be resolved in these final
days in negotiations between the White House, the Senate, and the House
leadership, and there are many of us who have grave concerns about how
those issues will be resolved.
One of the things that we have as a concern about this rule is
whether we will have sufficient time to know what it is we will be
voting on in this final day of this session. How will those issues be
resolved? Will we bust the budget caps? Will we give $18 billion to the
IMF of American taxpayer dollars? Will we allow needle exchanges in
this country? Those are issues that we need to know about before we can
make our decisions on how to vote on that final bill.
So, Mr. Speaker, I have grave reservations about that provision in
this rule that governs our processes for the remaining days of this
session. As I say, the other provisions in it, particularly allowing
suspensions to occur, I fully support, and those of us on the
Conservative Action Team fully support. But I think we need to have
answers on how we as a body will be notified about these contentious
issues with enough time to make our decisions on how we would vote in
the final days of this session.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume
to tell the gentleman that I share his concerns and very much hope that
we can deal with those issues in a way that is satisfactory to all of
us.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mrs. MYRICK. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I
move the previous question on the resolution.
The previous question was ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. MOAKLEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the
[[Page H9628]]
point of order that a quorum is not present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Evidently a quorum is not present.
The Sergeant at Arms will notify absent Members.
The vote was taken by electronic device, and there were--yeas 218,
nays 206, not voting 10, as follows:
[Roll No. 484]
YEAS--218
Aderholt
Archer
Armey
Bachus
Baker
Ballenger
Barr
Barrett (NE)
Bartlett
Barton
Bass
Bateman
Bereuter
Bilbray
Bilirakis
Bliley
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bono
Brady (TX)
Bryant
Bunning
Burr
Burton
Buyer
Callahan
Camp
Campbell
Canady
Cannon
Castle
Chabot
Chambliss
Chenoweth
Christensen
Coble
Coburn
Collins
Combest
Cook
Cooksey
Cox
Crane
Crapo
Cubin
Cunningham
Deal
DeLay
Diaz-Balart
Dickey
Doolittle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Ehlers
Ehrlich
Emerson
English
Ensign
Everett
Ewing
Fawell
Foley
Forbes
Fossella
Fowler
Fox
Franks (NJ)
Frelinghuysen
Gallegly
Ganske
Gekas
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gilman
Goodlatte
Goodling
Goss
Graham
Granger
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Hansen
Hastert
Hastings (WA)
Hayworth
Hefley
Herger
Hill
Hilleary
Hobson
Hoekstra
Horn
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Hutchinson
Hyde
Inglis
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Johnson, Sam
Jones
Kasich
Kelly
Kim
King (NY)
Kingston
Klug
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Largent
Latham
LaTourette
Lazio
Leach
Lewis (CA)
Lewis (KY)
Livingston
LoBiondo
Lucas
Manzullo
McCollum
McCrery
McDade
McHugh
McInnis
McIntosh
McKeon
Metcalf
Mica
Miller (FL)
Moran (KS)
Morella
Myrick
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nussle
Oxley
Packard
Pappas
Parker
Paul
Paxon
Pease
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Redmond
Regula
Riley
Rogan
Rogers
Rohrabacher
Ros-Lehtinen
Roukema
Royce
Ryun
Salmon
Sanford
Saxton
Scarborough
Schaefer, Dan
Schaffer, Bob
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shaw
Shays
Shimkus
Shuster
Skeen
Smith (MI)
Smith (NJ)
Smith (OR)
Smith (TX)
Smith, Linda
Snowbarger
Solomon
Souder
Spence
Stump
Sununu
Talent
Tauzin
Taylor (NC)
Thomas
Thornberry
Thune
Upton
Walsh
Wamp
Watkins
Watts (OK)
Weldon (FL)
Weldon (PA)
Weller
White
Whitfield
Wicker
Wilson
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NAYS--206
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Allen
Andrews
Baesler
Baldacci
Barcia
Barrett (WI)
Becerra
Bentsen
Berman
Berry
Bishop
Blagojevich
Blumenauer
Bonior
Borski
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown (CA)
Brown (FL)
Brown (OH)
Capps
Cardin
Carson
Clay
Clayton
Clyburn
Condit
Conyers
Costello
Coyne
Cramer
Cummings
Danner
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Dixon
Doggett
Dooley
Doyle
Edwards
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Fazio
Filner
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Furse
Gejdenson
Gephardt
Gonzalez
Goode
Gordon
Green
Gutierrez
Hall (OH)
Hall (TX)
Hamilton
Harman
Hastings (FL)
Hefner
Hilliard
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Holden
Hooley
Hoyer
Istook
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
John
Johnson (WI)
Johnson, E. B.
Kanjorski
Kaptur
Kennedy (MA)
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kind (WI)
Kleczka
Klink
Kucinich
LaFalce
Lampson
Lantos
Lee
Levin
Lewis (GA)
Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
Luther
Maloney (CT)
Maloney (NY)
Manton
Markey
Martinez
Mascara
Matsui
McCarthy (MO)
McCarthy (NY)
McDermott
McGovern
McHale
McIntyre
McKinney
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Millender-McDonald
Miller (CA)
Minge
Mink
Moakley
Mollohan
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Nadler
Neal
Neumann
Oberstar
Obey
Olver
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Pickett
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Rivers
Rodriguez
Roemer
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Rush
Sabo
Sanchez
Sanders
Sandlin
Sawyer
Schumer
Scott
Serrano
Sherman
Sisisky
Skaggs
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith, Adam
Snyder
Spratt
Stabenow
Stark
Stenholm
Stokes
Strickland
Stupak
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thompson
Thurman
Tiahrt
Tierney
Torres
Towns
Traficant
Turner
Velazquez
Vento
Visclosky
Waters
Watt (NC)
Waxman
Wexler
Weygand
Wise
Woolsey
Wynn
Yates
NOT VOTING--10
Calvert
Clement
Davis (VA)
Kennelly
Kilpatrick
Linder
Poshard
Pryce (OH)
Riggs
Stearns
{time} 1418
Messrs. EVANS, HEFNER, and STRICKLAND, and Ms. WOOLSEY changed their
vote from ``yea'' to ``nay.''
So the resolution was agreed to.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________