[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 34 (Thursday, March 23, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H1330]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[[Page H1330]]
                COMMENTS ON SELECTION OF HOUSE CHAPLAIN

  Mr. BLILEY. Mr. Speaker, I, too, was not prepared to speak today, by 
I think the record does need some correction.
  We met, as my cochair, the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy), 
said, we had endless meetings. We narrowed the 38 to 17. We narrowed 
those to six. Then we decided, we at the next meeting, we would reduce 
the six to three. We interviewed the 17, and then we re-interviewed the 
six.
  We decided that we would send them, and ``we'' as a group, without 
instructions from the leadership on either side of the aisle, that we 
would send the names to the leadership unranked, and, as the Speaker 
said, in alphabetic order. And that is exactly what we did.
  Now, the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) and I met with the 
Speaker, the majority leader and the minority leader in the Speaker's 
rooms, and we presented the three names. The gentleman from North 
Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy) and I both said we personally thought that Father 
O'Brien was the best. But that was our personal opinion, that was not 
the statement from the committee. The committee clearly intended that 
the decision be made by the three leaders, without any bias for what we 
had done. Our job was to go out and advertise, bring in applicants, 
interview them, narrow the field to three, and send the names up to be 
picked by the leadership.
  This Speaker should be commended for opening the process. Three of 
the last four Democrat Speakers were Catholic. They never considered a 
priest. Over 50 years of the last 60-some in the history of this House, 
the Democrat party has been in charge. They never considered a priest.
  So I think that we have said enough. The record was we did not rank 
these people, and the decision was to be made by the leadership without 
bias.

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