[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 110 (Friday, July 30, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H6739-H6740]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WAIVING SECTION 132 OF LEGISLATIVE REORGANIZATION ACT OF 1946
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I
call up House Resolution 266 and ask for its immediate consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 266
Resolved, That upon the adoption of this resolution it
shall be in order to consider in the House a concurrent
resolution waiving the requirements in section 132 of the
Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 that the Congress
adjourn sine die not later than July 31, 1999. The concurrent
resolution shall be considered as read for amendment and
shall not be subject to debate. The previous question shall
be considered as ordered on the concurrent resolution to
final adoption without intervening motion.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The gentleman from California
(Mr. Dreier) is recognized for 1 hour.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the
customary 30 minutes to my very good friend, the gentleman from Dallas,
TX (Mr. Frost), pending which I yield myself such time as I may
consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is
for the purpose of debate only.
(Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his
remarks and include extraneous material.)
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, this rule simply makes in order a concurrent
resolution waiving the requirement in section 132 of the Legislative
Reorganization Act of 1946 that Congress adjourn sine die no later than
July 31.
As my friend from Dallas knows, this requirement that Congress
adjourn by the end of July is a relic of a bygone era, although many of
us wish we actually could adjourn by July 31. The last time that the
Congress did it was July 31, 1956.
In fact, a decade ago, my friend from Boston, the distinguished
ranking minority member of the Committee on Rules, tried desperately to
repeal section 132, going so far as to get legislation passed in the
House, only to have it not considered by our friends in the other body.
I hope we can actually resurrect that effort in a bipartisan way and I
hope that we can move ahead with this rule in a very timely manner.
I urge its adoption.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. FROST. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California for
yielding me the customary half-hour, and I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I support this rule and the resolution allowing the
House to
[[Page H6740]]
continue to work beyond the statutory deadline of July 31.
We have a lot more work to do and the American people want us to get
it done.
The American people want us to pass a Patients' Bill of Rights to
ensure no one is denied medical services regardless of the bottom line.
The American people want us to pass campaign finance reform to take
our political system back from the powerful special interests and give
it to the American citizens.
The American people want us to protect Social Security and Medicare
before they collapse beginning in the year 2015.
The American people want us to finish the Juvenile Justice bill in
order to get the funding in place now to protect our schools before
classes start up in the fall.
Although we only have another week before Congress goes into recess,
I hope my Republican colleagues will consider taking up these important
issues before any others.
I urge my colleagues to support this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Following last November's election, many people predicted that our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle, especially here in the
House, would focus their energies on partisan attacks rather than
legislative accomplishments.
Rather than engage in partisan battles, we on this side have focused
on a straightforward plan of what we call governing conservatism. It is
designed to address the critical national issues such as saving Social
Security and Medicare, restoring our national defense, improving public
education for our children and providing tax relief to the hardworking
Americans who have created a $3 trillion surplus.
I am very proud to report that we have in the past 6 months made real
progress on each of these important fronts, often with very strong
support from our friends on the other side of the aisle.
The House has passed, as we all know, Social Security lockbox to make
sure that every dollar in payroll taxes is set aside to save Social
Security and Medicare. The President recently came on board with his
announcement of support of the concept that we have been pushing for
quite a while.
We passed the National Missile Defense Act, an emergency defense
spending bill and legislation to address the lax security at our
Nation's nuclear labs, all three of them moving forward on national
security and military readiness priority agendas. I am happy to say
that the President has been largely supportive of all three of those
measures.
We have passed the Education Flexibility Act to allow the States to
be creative and use Federal education assistance to craft effective
local solutions to education needs, and I am very happy that the
President signed that into law.
Now we are moving forward to provide meaningful tax relief to
American families, that question that was raised by my friend from
Dallas just a few minutes ago.
Just like our Social Security lockbox, ballistic missile defense and
education flexibility, we are going to continue to do our doggonedest
to work with the President to make sure that we can provide legislation
that proceeds with our legislative goals and at the same time gains his
signature.
Mr. Speaker, while this majority prefers bipartisan accomplishments,
we are equally prepared to deal with partisan attack and obstructionism
if that does in fact take place.
Unfortunately, the minority leader recently made it completely clear
that stopping the Congress from getting things done in order to win
back the five seats that people have talked about in next year's
election is the number one, top priority for our friends. The thing
that is troubling is that the idea of writing off the next 15 months in
the name of partisanship is both disappointing and surprising. We are
going to stick with the people's business, getting things done for the
country.
In just the past few weeks, we are proud of the historic bipartisan
Y2K litigation reform that I and a few of my colleagues had introduced
back on February 23, have been working on for over a year. We e-mailed
that bill down to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the President signed it
into law.
As we all know, the House, with a very bipartisan majority, passed
the Africa trade bill; and just this week, something I have spent many
years working on, year after year, and I hope someday we will be able
to end the annual battle on maintaining something that the President
wanted and we provided even more Republicans for it this year, and,
that is, maintaining normal trade relations with the People's Republic
of China.
{time} 1430
We are also on track to meet the pledge of the gentleman from
Illinois (Mr. Hastert), very close to it at least, by getting 12 of 13
appropriation bills done before we adjourn next Friday. Most of those
appropriation bills have passed that we have gotten through so far with
again strong bipartisan majorities.
So, Mr. Speaker, let me just say that this majority is moving the
ball forward on key priorities of the American people. We are very
proud of the things that we have been able to do by gaining bipartisan
support for what have been our legislative initiatives. Again, whenever
we possibly can, we are going to continue to seek support from our
colleagues on the other side of the aisle. But remember, if they do, in
fact, subscribe to what was outlined by the minority leader in that
Washington Post article last week; and they want to obstruct our
efforts here, we are willing to fight hard to make sure that we get the
people's work done, and with that I will, as we continue with what I
hope will only be 1 week beyond the stated goal, at least until we
adjourn in August, I will urge support of this rule.
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 resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 266, I call up
the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 168) waiving the requirement of
section 132 of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 that the
Congress adjourn sine die not later than July 31, 1999, and ask for its
immediate consideration in the House.
The Clerk read the title of the concurrent resolution.
The text of House Concurrent Resolution 168 is as follows:
H. Con. Res. 168
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That, notwithstanding the provisions of section
132(a) of the Legislative Reorganization Act of 1946 (2
U.S.C. 198(a)), the House of Representatives and the Senate
shall not adjourn for a period in excess of three days, or
adjourn sine die, until both Houses of Congress have adopted
a concurrent resolution providing either for an adjournment
(in excess of three days) to a day certain or for adjournment
sine die.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to House Resolution 266, the
concurrent resolution is considered as read, is not debatable, and the
previous question is ordered to final adoption without intervening
motion.
The question is on the concurrent resolution.
The concurrent resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
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