[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 124 (Thursday, September 26, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6768-H6769]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Ms. PELOSI asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I take this time for the purposes of 
inquiring

[[Page H6769]]

about the schedule of next week, and I yield to the distinguished 
gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  I am pleased to announce that the House has completed its legislative 
business for the week. The House will next meet for legislative 
business on Tuesday, October 1 at 10:30 a.m. for morning hour and 12 
o'clock noon for legislative business. The majority leader will 
schedule a number of measures under suspension of the rules, a list of 
which will be distributed to the Members' offices tomorrow. Recorded 
votes on Tuesday will be postponed until 6:30 p.m.
  For Wednesday and the balance of the week, the majority leader has 
scheduled the following measures for consideration in the House:
  H. Res. 559, a House resolution on expedited special elections;
  H. Res. 543, expressing the sense of the House that Congress should 
complete action on H.R. 4019, making marriage penalty tax relief 
permanent; a continuing resolutions; and S. 2690, the Pledge of 
Allegiance Reaffirmation Act; and Conferees are also working hard to 
complete work on the Bob Stump National Defense Authorization Act 
conference report. It is our hope that the conference report will be 
available for consideration in the House next week as well.
  I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman.
  From what I can tell from what he read, next week we will have 
another week of heavy lifting: a House resolution on special elections, 
sense of the Congress on making tax relief permanent, a continuing 
resolution reflecting the fact that we have not finished our business, 
and the Pledge of Allegiance Reaffirmation Act.
  We all want to reaffirm our Pledge of Allegiance, but we can do that 
by pledging allegiance not only to the Flag but to the American people. 
They are still crying out for us to take action, to grow the economy, 
to create jobs, to educate our children, to provide a prescription drug 
benefit, access to health care, protect Social Security, preserve 
Medicare, give us a prescription drug benefit under Medicare; and we 
are having resolutions and hoping to complete our work on the defense 
bill.
  I have some questions for the gentleman. Will the resolution on Iraq 
be brought up on the floor next week? If not, when do you think it will 
be brought up?
  Mr. Speaker, I yield to the distinguished gentleman.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, in response to my friend, the gentlewoman 
from California (Ms. Pelosi), I would like to say that on the list of 
things she mentioned, the House of Representatives passed virtually all 
of that legislation, sent it to the Senate. We would like to see it 
come back and would like to take final action on it and hope that the 
conference reports on defense and military construction and other 
conference reports would produce some of that work next week.
  In terms of Iraq, there is hard work on a bipartisan bicameral basis 
to get a resolution that I personally would be pleased to see come to 
the House next week, but we are working hard to have a resolution that 
has broad agreement to deal with this very important question.
  Ms. PELOSI. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman. Can the distinguished 
gentleman inform us when H.R. 3450, to reauthorize community health 
centers, might be scheduled? Twelve million Americans who are served by 
the centers are waiting to hear. I was hoping it might be a suspension 
on Tuesday.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, at the gentlewoman's request, I am told it 
will be on suspension on Tuesday, and I look forward to seeing that 
bill come to the floor as well.
  Ms. PELOSI. To the best of the gentleman's knowledge, will there be 
votes next Friday?
  Mr. BLUNT. I think there very likely will be votes next Friday; and 
certainly if we are able to move on the Iraq resolution, there will 
definitely be votes on Friday.
  Ms. PELOSI. We have given up Monday of next week already?
  Mr. BLUNT. We are working Tuesday, not Monday.
  Ms. PELOSI. What is the leader's latest prediction on when the House 
will adjourn before the election? Closer to October 11 or 18? And when 
do you believe we will return for a lame duck session?
  Mr. BLUNT. I am certainly in no position to predict that. I think 
there is a discussion with the leaders on both sides of the building. 
We want to adjourn, of course, in conjunction with our friends on the 
other side of the building. I would anticipate that the continuing 
resolution next week will go through the 11th; and hopefully by the 
time we get into that period, we will have either resolved some of the 
appropriations concerns, or we will be looking at the time between now 
and the election in a more definite way.
  Ms. PELOSI. I certainly hope so. And I hope that we can work together 
to pass more of these appropriations bills. We have taken them up in 
committee. Some of them are ready. In fact, the distinguished chairman 
of the Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related 
Programs last Thursday on the floor asked when his bill would be taken 
up. We are working on transportation, but we passed District of 
Columbia today. So many of these bills are ripe for coming to the 
floor. That is why I am disappointed not to see them on the schedule 
because when we pass up votes on Monday, I remind my colleagues that is 
September 30, the last day of the fiscal year, Mr. Speaker, and once 
again there are no appropriations bills scheduled to be on the floor. 
We used to say, and you know the expression, you are a young man, 
``Thank God it's Friday.'' Around here it is ``Thank God it's 
Thursday.'' Now the Republican leadership is giving us a work week that 
ends on Thursday afternoon. I am sure hard-working Americans who are 
holding down two jobs to support their families and work more than 40 
hours a week would appreciate a schedule like this.
  We spent weeks telling the other body that they have made no progress 
taking care of business we think they should be doing, and yet we have 
neglected so many of our own responsibilities. We have eight 
appropriations bills to fund the entire government that the House has 
yet to consider: education, veterans' medical care, transportation, 
agriculture, energy. The list goes on and on. And the disappointment is 
that these are being held up because an element, not the entire, but an 
element in the Republican Party wants to cut $7 billion out of 
education and you do not have the votes to do that; so you cannot bring 
it to the floor and therefore we are engaged in this business of one CR 
after another.
  I thank the gentleman for the information.

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