[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 16 (Wednesday, January 29, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H224-H229]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
APPOINTMENT OF CONFEREES ON H.J. RES. 2, FURTHER CONTINUING
APPROPRIATIONS, FISCAL YEAR 2003
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take
from the Speaker's table the joint resolution (H.J. Res. 2) making
further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2003, and for other
purposes, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate
amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.
[[Page H225]]
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Florida?
There was no objection.
Motion to Instruct Offered by Mr. Obey
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct conferees.
The Clerk read as follows:
Mr. OBEY moves that the managers on the part of the House
at the conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses
on the Senate amendment to the joint resolution, H.J. Res. 2,
be instructed to agree to the highest level of funding within
the scope of conference (1) for the programs within the
jurisdiction of the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human
Services, Education and Related Agencies, including advance
appropriations in the Senate amendment, and (2) for veterans'
medical care and to insist that, within the scope of
conference, no item requested by the President for homeland
security (as identified in the OMB submission titled
``Homeland Security Funding'') be funded below the level of
the President's request.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under clause 7 of rule XXII, the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young)
each will control 30 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 10 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, Article I of the Constitution states that no money can
be drawn from the Treasury except by act of Congress.
{time} 1230
That is the essence of the separation and balance of power in this
government. It is the core function of this body. It is what makes this
a legislative body, not a Soviet-style rubber stamp.
So let me ask what some Members might find to be a somewhat
embarrassing question: How did the House of Representatives get through
an entire session of Congress last year without ever even calling up
for debate Senate appropriation bills that fund more than three-
quarters of the government outside of the Department of Defense? Now I
am not asking why we failed to pass the bills. There can be numerous
answers to that question. I am not asking why we did not complete the
conference report. That could easily be blamed on the intransigence or
inaction of the other body.
What I am asking is how could be we fail to even call up for debate
on this floor, on this floor, the basic pieces of legislation to fund
the government when that is our fundamental responsibility as an
institution.
Mr. Speaker, this is the 108th Congress. This is the 215th year in
which this body has gathered to perform our duties under the
Constitution. As a result, it is quite difficult to do something in
Congress that has never been done before, but I think this body in the
last Congress actually succeeded in that respect. The House Republican
leadership never even let these bills out of committee, never debated
on the House floor whether the amounts requested or the sums
recommended by the committee were too much or too little, never allowed
the elected representatives of the American people to vote on any of
these matters.
The result, the party that is oh, so noisy in talking about
accountability for teachers and schools is oh, so silent when it comes
to the accountability of Members of Congress. You cannot be held
accountable for the choices you never make, and that is the game that
has gone on here for almost a year.
Mr. Speaker, how can there be a more fundamental breakdown of the
institution? What a disgrace. What was it that we did all year that was
so important we could not at least call these bills up?
I want to make it quite clear, there is one person in this
institution who I am not referring to, and that is the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Young), the chairman of the Committee on Appropriations,
who has gone to the mat time and time again to try to get this House to
meet its responsibilities. He has spoken on the subject often and
eloquently, and it is in spite of his very considerable efforts that we
find ourselves where we are today.
In my mind there is one issue at the bottom of this: the majority
party leadership in this House abandoned its central responsibility
under the Constitution and to the American people in order to get
political cover on one issue. They love to talk the talk on education,
but they are not willing to walk the walk. They are not willing to put
their money where their mouths are. Oh, yes, they like to visit
schools. They like to read to children when the cameras are around; and
oh, they love to make TV ads about how important education is and how
much they care about it. They like to vote for big, expensive
authorization programs creating new major responsibilities for local
boards to meet, and they like to promise huge sums of Federal money to
pay for them. They love to do all of those things.
There is only one thing that they apparently cannot and will not do,
and that is pay the bill afterwards. Now most people have seen a con
artist in action, at least in the movies. They have the capacity to
seem in almost every respect to be someone quite different from whom
they really are. That is what the majority party has done over the last
several years with respect to education. Of course, the only time they
get caught at the game is when the appropriations bills are on the
floor. That is the one point in time when all of the pretty images fall
apart, all of photo ops, press releases and slick TV ads, that is the
time when they do not run true; and that is why this day has been
delayed for almost 8 months, well after the election, well after the
opportunity of the American people to measure whether the rhetoric
coming out of the Congress and this administration has anything
whatsoever to do with the reality as far as education is concerned.
Unfortunately, even now we do not have an appropriate bill in front
of us. We do not have specific funding levels proposed for specific
programs. We have the most confusing hodgepodge of numbers it would be
possible to concoct, and a motion to go to conference on those numbers.
That is an open invitation to have a small group of people bring back
an all-or-nothing omnibus package so big and so complex and so late in
the year that we can claim that we just had to vote for it, even though
it is on a program-by-program basis 180 degrees at variance with what a
large majority of this body claims to support.
Today I want to give this House an opportunity to send a different
message to the conference. I want to give Members on the other side of
the aisle who truly believe what they say about resources in the
classroom, better teachers, small classes, stronger curriculum a chance
to stand up and say to Mitch Daniels and their leadership here in the
House that they are for real, that they insist on a bottom line that is
much higher for education than the numbers that my friend, the
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), has been given to work with.
Our motion to instruct simply says that the allocation to the bill
that contains education funding shall not be smaller when the bill
comes back to the House than the sums contained in the Senate bill. If
we take all of the increases the Senate says it would like to make in
that bill, we find ourselves $9.55 billion over the level the House has
allocated to the Regula bill. Even after we subtract the remarkable
across-the-board cuts contained in the Senate package, this bill is
about $5.7 billion above House levels. CBO has not scored it yet, and
so we do not have precise numbers; but that is about where we believe
the Senate ends up.
We are asking that the House direct its conferees to begin this
conference by agreeing with the Senate on that overall funding level.
It is not at the level of increase in our schools that we have provided
in any of the last 6 years. It would mean that the result of all of the
time and debate we spent in enacting No Child Left Behind would be to
scale back the funds that we are sending to schools. It is not the
level that we can and should provide, but under the rules we are
working under it is the best we can do; and it is without any question
the least we should do. I would simply note, by the way, that the
bludgeoning-nature of the across-the-board cuts provided by the Senate
has resulted in unacceptable damage to a number of other crucial
activities in areas such as health and science.
There are two other parts to this motion. One is that the level of
funds for homeland security activities in this package shall not fall
below the levels requested by the President so far as it
[[Page H226]]
is possible within the scope of the conference. Yesterday, I catalogued
just how inadequate the President's budget is for homeland security,
for port protection, for first responders. But the Senate's across-the-
board cuts have taken more than a billion dollars from homeland
security activities. Our intent is to restore those funds. It, at the
very least, will make clear that the education funds will not be coming
from homeland security.
Finally, we have a crisis in veterans' medical care. The across-the-
board cuts in the Senate bill significantly exacerbates that crisis. We
direct in this motion the conferees to go to the highest possible level
for veterans' medical care that is within the scope of the conference.
I will be very blunt about this instruction. If anyone votes for it,
they are setting parameters on the conference that do not permit the
conference to come back within the allocation that Mitch Daniels and
the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Nussle) have established. This motion says
to them that the line that they have drawn in the sand for education
and other domestic needs is unrealistic. We need to move on and resolve
these differences, and we need to support local schools. This is not
the end of the process; this is step one.
If a majority of this body votes to agree with the Senate that we
need this $5.7 billion increase for education, and the Congress then
agrees to a conference report that rejects the position taken by both
Houses, the American people will then know exactly what is going on
around here. They are going to know at that point exactly how phony all
of these press releases and TV ads on education have been.
Mr. Speaker, no one should vote for this motion if they intend to
vote for a later conference report that scales back funding for the
very education programs we are trying to protect by this motion. That
would be an act of hypocrisy that would be startling even by the
standards of this town.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the effort that the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) is making here, and I would say that these are
some of the items that we will definitely be dealing with as we go to
conference.
But for those Members who have followed the budget and the
appropriations process for fiscal year 2003, they will recognize that
we really have accomplished somewhat of a miracle to be where we are
today, ready to appoint conferees so we can go to conference with the
Senate.
If we agreed with the bill that the other body has sent to us as an
amendment to our continuing resolution, we could just agree to their
amendment today and our business for fiscal year 2003 would be
concluded, and I would tell Members that I do not think the gentleman
from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I could be happier if that were the case.
But the fact is, as we study that bill, it is not a bill that we can
agree with; so it is essential that we go to conference.
The Senate had to reduce the bills that they had reported from their
committee by $9 billion just to get to the top number that a majority
of Members have agreed to. In addition to that, they are going to have
to make some additional changes because even though they are at the top
number, there are many things in the bills that our committee reported
that are not in their bill, and they have included things in their bill
that were not in our bill, so we have a lot of work to do.
So as we go to conference, we need flexibility. We need to be able to
negotiate, to move, to make decisions, and to bring back to this House
a responsible omnibus appropriations bill, for fiscal year 2003 and
conclude the business for fiscal year 2003 because fiscal year 2004 is
approaching us like a runaway train, and thus we will be beginning
fiscal year 2004 activities almost immediately.
The gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) does not need to have this
motion to instruct conferees. He and I will lead a very strong
conference team to meet with our counterparts in the other body. I will
be speaking for the majority side, and the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) will be speaking for the minority side. He and I are
partners. We will go into this conference knowing where we want to end
up and knowing what we have to do to end up there.
We actually do not need a motion to instruct conferees. If for some
reason the conference committee got bogged down, maybe we would need a
motion to instruct, but I do not think that is going to happen. I have
worked very closely with the chairman of the Senate Committee on
Appropriations, and we believe that we have the ability to reach
agreements on very difficult decisions. Because of that, I think today
is not a good time to instruct conferees. I would say at a later date
if that becomes necessary that maybe I would agree to it. Today I ask
Members to reject this motion to instruct.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. I yield to the gentleman from Massachusetts.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, after listening to the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), it sounded like the gentleman was
saying that the conferees would be himself and the gentleman from
Wisconsin. I want to say if that is the deal, if there are going to be
two conferees, the chairman and the ranking minority member of the
Committee on Appropriations, I would urge the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) to withdraw the motion to instruct because if those are the
two Members, as the gentleman said, I would have complete confidence in
them. Pending that, if the gentleman would just confirm that he said
the conferees will be himself and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Obey), I am ready to go home.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from
Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) for his comments. At one point I actually
suggested that we keep our side of the conference very, very small,
meaning the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and myself, and maybe
one other be conferees, but that did not work.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman would
continue to yield, the ``maybe one other'' just ruined it.
{time} 1245
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I think I said all that needs to
be said, and I would like to advise the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr.
Obey), my friend, I really do not have any other speakers on the
subject; so I am going to reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 6 minutes to the gentleman from
Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished minority whip.
Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this
time.
Mr. Speaker, the hollow promises must end. Last night President Bush
said, and I quote, ``Whatever action is required, whenever action is
necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American
people.'' That was correct that he said that. Last year he said,
``Whatever it costs to defend our country, we will pay.'' I think he
was right to say that. The late fees, however, on those promises are
piling up.
My friends on the other side of the aisle, not, by the way, members
of the Committee on Appropriations, and not under the leadership of the
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young), who does an extraordinary job in
our committee, but some of my friends on the other side of the aisle
are licking their chops at the smorgasbord of tax cuts that would
fatten the wealthy and leave scraps for most Americans and force our
children to pay the bill. But they do not want to spend resources now
that are needed for Federal agencies to respond to terrorist threats.
The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) tried to bring that to their attention. Nor will they honor
the bipartisan pledge to improve our educational system.
Within the limits of parliamentary procedures, we are limited in what
can be offered in this motion. However, its purpose is critical. It is
time to leave the hot air behind and the rhetoric behind and to live up
to our commitment and the expectations of those who sent us here. It is
time to live up to our commitment to indeed leave no child behind.
We made a promise to help schools implement reforms to meet higher
[[Page H227]]
standards. We have asked States and local school districts to do the
work, and we must show that we were serious, that we meant what we
said, that we will put the Nation's money where the Nation's heart is.
The House bill is $5.7 billion less than the other body's funding for
the No Child Left Behind Act. If we pursue that number, we will leave
millions of children behind.
This is simply inadequate, inadequate to help local school districts
meet the new mandates we insisted upon just last year. Title I is
intended to help disadvantaged students meet high academic standards, a
critical objective. Ten million children are eligible for Title I
services. Again, the House only meets two-thirds of the $16 billion we
need. I say to my friends, that is saying to over 3 million children in
America there is no room in this rich inn. The other body provides an
additional $500 million, and we ought to give them at least that level
so that we leave no child behind.
The other body also provides $2 billion more in IDEA grants, children
with disabilities who seek an education. We promised the States we
would participate; $2 billion light are we. The House level provides
less than half of the Federal contribution toward the added cost of
special education that is authorized under IDEA. Again, we as the
representatives of the American people need to ensure the fact that
America lives up to its promises.
We must not forget our veterans either. Over 310,000 veterans are on
waiting lists for medical care, and many veterans are waiting as long
as 6 months for an appointment to see a doctor. To a person last night
we stood and cheered and clapped with respect and appreciation for
those who serve us in uniform both here and abroad. Should we do any
less for them when they are through their active service but need the
health care we have promised? It is an outrage to not do so. Freedom's
defenders deserve better. We must fully fund VA medical care. We do not
do it.
Finally, with regard to homeland security, the Council on Foreign
Relations reported last October that we are ``dangerously unprepared to
prevent and respond to a catastrophic terrorist attack on U.S. soil.''
The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and the gentleman from Wisconsin
(Mr. Obey) pleaded with the President of the United States to respond
to this vulnerability. The cost of addressing our vulnerabilities is a
mere fraction of the President's $674 billion tax cut.
I was elected to State Senate in 1966. Ted Agnew, who was then the
county executive of Baltimore County, elected Governor that same year,
and in the inaugural address he said this: That the price of progress
far exceeds the cost of failure. The billions of dollars that were
suggested by the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) and by the
gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) could save us tens of billions of
dollars, as the President said, in preventing just one catastrophic
event.
I hope my colleagues will support this motion. I hope my colleagues
will stand and say we promise and we talk, but this motion says we are
also prepared to take the walk. I believe Americans are prepared to
take that walk as well.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from Massachusetts, the new ranking member of the Committee
on Financial Services.
Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for
yielding me this time. I have to say with respect to the gentleman from
Florida (Mr. Young) even if the conference was not just himself and the
gentleman from Wisconsin, if it was just himself, many on our side
would not be so nervous, but he is for all dedication not autonomous,
less autonomous, less nearly autonomous than he used to be under the
current regime, and we fear that the instructions he will be getting
from the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue will outweigh commitments
that we think ought to be made to the people we are here to serve.
I wish we were not dealing with all of these issues in one
instruction motion, but it must be repeated again. The way in which
this House leadership has chosen to deal with the appropriations
process this year has been one of the most thorough degradations of the
democratic process I have ever seen. And people have said, well, but
the Senate did not pass a budget. What does that have to do with the
constitutional right of this body to pass appropriations bills?
We, in fact, passed two appropriations bills for defense. There was
no obstacle there, and there was no obstacle with the other
appropriations bills except the political reality that by the time you
get through financing two wars with three tax cuts, you do not have
enough money left to meet fundamental social obligations.
And what the gentleman from Wisconsin is trying to do and he says, in
a burst of reasonableness, within the scope of conference, indeed I
think that might be the part of it to which the other side objects the
most, because staying within the scope of the conference has rarely
been their practice in recent years, but the gentleman from Wisconsin
has correctly in parliamentary terms framed his motion, and he says we
would have liked even more in some of these areas. At least let us go
to the level that the Republican-controlled United States Senate voted
for.
What happens if we do not do that? Veterans get a good deal of
rhetoric from this institution. I wish they got 25 percent as much help
as they get rhetoric. In the New England region Category 8 veterans
have been shut off altogether because we cannot afford it because we
have got to do a big tax cut, because we have other priorities. The
gentleman from Wisconsin's motion is giving a chance to say do that.
I will say this: If people do not vote for the gentleman's motion,
and if, as he stressed, even more importantly they do not vote for a
conference report that reaches that level, if they vote for a
conference report that has less than that, then any of them who then
talk about how sorry they are that veterans' medical care is being cut
are indeed guilty of the grossest form of hypocrisy, as the gentleman
from Wisconsin said.
There are other areas we cannot touch here because of the
unwillingness of the majority to let the normal process go forward. The
Securities and Exchange Commission even at the Senate level will be
substantially below what the President said they should get when he
signed the corporate responsibility bill. The last time we debated
this, the gentleman from Virginia, who is a subcommittee chairman, said
to me, ``I am introducing a bill to give them the money.'' He
introduced the bill. It remains introduced. It has not been voted on.
It has not been acted on.
Housing is also significantly underfunded, and there will be terrible
problems in public housing, in Section 8.
But in the areas of the gentleman's motion, health care for veterans,
research at NIH, and education, a failure not simply to vote for this
instruction motion, because I am not sure that we may not be able to
rope-a-dope here, in which people will vote for an instruction motion
and then act contrary to it, and try and get coverage because they
voted for the instruction motion, if we do not have an appropriation
that at least reaches these levels for the National Institutes for
Health, for education, for veterans care, then we will have really
thoroughly failed in our obligation to the American people.
We passed an education bill, and we cheered for it, and now we have
imposed on the localities without giving them the money. We have done
this time and time again. The gentleman from Wisconsin's motion and its
being taken seriously by the conference committee is the minimum that
decency requires, and I wish I was not skeptical that we will achieve
it.
I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished
gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the ranking member of
the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
(Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California asked and was given permission to
revise and extend his remarks.)
Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong
support of the Obey motion because it keeps a promise with the American
public. It keeps a promise with America's schoolchildren, and it keeps
a promise with the parents of those children and the
[[Page H228]]
teachers that teach them. And that promise was made by the President of
the United States, that promise was made by the Congress of the United
States, that in the process of enacting the most far-reaching reforms
in the Federal role in education in this country, that we would fully
fund the means by which the States and localities and school districts
could carry out those reforms. But almost before the ink was dry, the
President submitted a budget that, in fact, made cuts in that education
promise.
Last night the President talked about the accomplishments that he had
had. He talked about setting standards and having young children
achieve those standards. That is the promise, but it is not happening.
It is not happening in this country, and now it is even under greater
threat because of the cuts that are taking place in education because
of the economic distress in our country and the budgetary distress in
our States.
The question for us is whether or not we will help these school
districts carry out these reforms so that these children can have a
higher level of achievement, a higher level of accomplishment, and a
better chance of participating in the American dream. That is what the
Obey amendment is about. That is what this vote is about. It is about
whether or not this Congress will redeem that promise on behalf of
America's schoolchildren.
We cannot have a freeze on those, as the House appropriations bill
did. We cannot have the measly increase that the Senate has suggested.
What, in fact, we need is to add this additional $5.7 billion so that
the promise of no child left behind is, in fact, a reality. And it is
important because States are required under this law to do many things
differently, many things better than they have done in the past, and we
believe, and most educators believe, that the result will be that
America's schoolchildren will have a higher level of accomplishment,
will have a higher level of performance. By the same token, those very
same independent observers of the American education system understand
that if the resources are not there, this promise will be hollow.
{time} 1300
The President made the promise, the President should keep the
promise, and the Congress of the United States should help him to keep
that promise by passing the Obey motion to instruct.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.
Mr. Speaker, yesterday this House refused to provide the financial
assistance necessary to our local firemen and policemen and other first
responders whose responsibility it is to be our first line of defense
against terrorist attacks in communities throughout this country.
Today I would hope that the House would not take action to deny the
health care resources that American veterans need and deserve. I would
hope we would not deny them the funds that those veterans need in order
to avoid the kind of service cutoffs that we have seen the VA announce
over recent weeks.
I know the name of the game on the part of the White House and the
majority party leadership is to preserve every possible dollar on the
table for tax cuts, a huge percentage of which are aimed at the most
well-off 1 percent of the folks in our society who make more than
$300,000. I understand that that is the name of the game. But in my
view, while I certainly wish those folks well and while I think they
ought to share in the same tax cuts provided other people, I think that
veterans need VA health care more than someone who is earning $500,000
a year needs to have an extra jumbo-sized tax cut.
So I would simply ask Members of this House, do not, please, pose for
political ``holy pictures'' by having photo ops at local schools, if
the only thing you are willing to send those local schools is a new set
of mandates without the money to help pay for them. Do not do that.
School districts are in too big a squeeze and State governments with
their financial problems are in too big a squeeze already.
All we are asking you to do is, within the possibilities presented by
this conference report, we are asking you to vote for the maximum
amount possible in order to come closer than we will otherwise come to
meeting the promises so far unfulfilled of the No Child Left Behind
Act.
I urge a ``yes'' vote on the motion to instruct.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. YOUNG of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my
time.
Mr. Speaker, I want to make the case very strongly that a ``no'' vote
on this motion to instruct does not deny any of the things that have
been discussed today. It does not approve them; it does not deny them.
A ``no'' vote allows us to have total flexibility as the gentleman from
Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) and I lead this conference committee into a final
solution for fiscal year 2003.
I listened to the debate, and I have a hard time disagreeing with
things that I have heard. But as I said, a ``no'' vote does not deny
any of that.
So, Mr. Speaker, I would ask my colleagues to reject this motion to
instruct. Let us go to conference, and let us bring the best bill that
we possibly can back here for consideration by the House.
Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back
the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered on the motion.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). The question is on the motion
to instruct offered by the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey).
The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that
the ayes appeared to have it.
Mr. OBEY. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a
quorum is not present and make the 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 200,
nays 209, not voting 25, as follows:
[Roll No. 17]
YEAS--200
Abercrombie
Ackerman
Alexander
Allen
Andrews
Baca
Baird
Baldwin
Ballance
Bell
Berkley
Berman
Berry
Bishop (GA)
Bishop (NY)
Blumenauer
Boswell
Boucher
Boyd
Brady (PA)
Brown (OH)
Brown, Corrine
Capps
Capuano
Cardin
Cardoza
Carson (IN)
Carson (OK)
Case
Clay
Clyburn
Cooper
Costello
Cramer
Crowley
Cummings
Davis (AL)
Davis (CA)
Davis (FL)
Davis (IL)
Davis (TN)
DeFazio
DeGette
Delahunt
DeLauro
Deutsch
Dicks
Dingell
Doggett
Dooley (CA)
Doyle
Edwards
Emanuel
Engel
Eshoo
Etheridge
Evans
Farr
Fattah
Filner
Ford
Frank (MA)
Frost
Gonzalez
Gordon
Green (TX)
Grijalva
Gutierrez
Hall
Harman
Hill
Hinchey
Hinojosa
Hoeffel
Holden
Holt
Honda
Hooley (OR)
Hoyer
Inslee
Israel
Jackson (IL)
Jackson-Lee (TX)
Jefferson
John
Jones (OH)
Kanjorski
Kelly
Kennedy (RI)
Kildee
Kilpatrick
Kind
Kleczka
Kucinich
Lampson
Langevin
Lantos
Larsen (WA)
Larson (CT)
Leach
Lee
Levin
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Lipinski
Lofgren
Lowey
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Lynch
Majette
Maloney
Markey
Marshall
Matheson
Matsui
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McCarthy (NY)
McCollum
McDermott
McGovern
McIntyre
McNulty
Meehan
Meek (FL)
Meeks (NY)
Menendez
Michaud
Millender-McDonald
Miller (NC)
Miller, George
Mollohan
Moore
Moran (VA)
Murtha
Nadler
Napolitano
Neal (MA)
Oberstar
Obey
Ortiz
Owens
Pallone
Pascrell
Pastor
Payne
Pelosi
Peterson (MN)
Pomeroy
Price (NC)
Rahall
Rangel
Reyes
Rodriguez
Ross
Rothman
Roybal-Allard
Ruppersberger
Rush
Ryan (OH)
Sabo
Sanchez, Linda T.
Sanchez, Loretta
Sanders
Sandlin
Schakowsky
Schiff
Scott (GA)
Scott (VA)
Serrano
Sherman
Skelton
Slaughter
Smith (WA)
Snyder
Solis
Spratt
Stark
Stenholm
Strickland
Stupak
Tanner
Tauscher
Taylor (MS)
Thompson (CA)
Thompson (MS)
Tierney
Turner (TX)
Udall (CO)
Udall (NM)
Van Hollen
Velazquez
Visclosky
Waters
Watson
Watt
Waxman
Weiner
Wexler
Woolsey
Wu
Wynn
NAYS--209
Aderholt
Akin
Bachus
Baker
Ballenger
Barrett (SC)
Bartlett (MD)
Barton (TX)
Bass
Beauprez
Bereuter
Biggert
Bilirakis
Bishop (UT)
Blackburn
[[Page H229]]
Blunt
Boehlert
Boehner
Bonilla
Bonner
Bono
Boozman
Bradley (NH)
Brady (TX)
Brown (SC)
Brown-Waite, Ginny
Burgess
Burns
Burr
Buyer
Calvert
Cannon
Cantor
Capito
Carter
Castle
Chabot
Chocola
Coble
Cole
Collins
Cox
Crane
Crenshaw
Culberson
Cunningham
Davis, Jo Ann
Davis, Tom
Deal (GA)
DeLay
DeMint
Diaz-Balart, L.
Diaz-Balart, M.
Doolittle
Dreier
Duncan
Dunn
Emerson
English
Everett
Feeney
Ferguson
Flake
Fletcher
Foley
Forbes
Fossella
Franks (AZ)
Frelinghuysen
Garrett (NJ)
Gerlach
Gibbons
Gilchrest
Gillmor
Gingrey
Goode
Goodlatte
Goss
Granger
Graves
Green (WI)
Greenwood
Gutknecht
Harris
Hart
Hastings (WA)
Hayes
Hayworth
Hefley
Hensarling
Hobson
Hostettler
Houghton
Hulshof
Hunter
Hyde
Isakson
Issa
Istook
Janklow
Jenkins
Johnson (CT)
Johnson (IL)
Johnson, Sam
Jones (NC)
Keller
Kennedy (MN)
King (IA)
King (NY)
Kingston
Kirk
Kline
Knollenberg
Kolbe
LaHood
Latham
LaTourette
Lewis (KY)
Linder
LoBiondo
Lucas (OK)
Manzullo
McCotter
McCrery
McHugh
McInnis
McKeon
Mica
Miller (FL)
Miller (MI)
Miller, Gary
Moran (KS)
Murphy
Musgrave
Myrick
Nethercutt
Ney
Northup
Norwood
Nunes
Nussle
Osborne
Ose
Otter
Oxley
Paul
Pearce
Pence
Peterson (PA)
Petri
Pickering
Pitts
Platts
Pombo
Porter
Portman
Pryce (OH)
Putnam
Quinn
Radanovich
Ramstad
Regula
Rehberg
Renzi
Reynolds
Rogers (AL)
Rogers (KY)
Rogers (MI)
Rohrabacher
Royce
Ryan (WI)
Ryun (KS)
Saxton
Schrock
Sensenbrenner
Sessions
Shadegg
Shays
Sherwood
Shimkus
Shuster
Simmons
Simpson
Smith (NJ)
Souder
Stearns
Sullivan
Sweeney
Tancredo
Tauzin
Taylor (NC)
Terry
Thomas
Thornberry
Tiberi
Toomey
Turner (OH)
Upton
Vitter
Walden (OR)
Walsh
Wamp
Weldon (FL)
Weller
Whitfield
Wicker
Wolf
Young (AK)
Young (FL)
NOT VOTING--25
Becerra
Burton (IN)
Camp
Combest
Conyers
Cubin
Ehlers
Gallegly
Gephardt
Hastings (FL)
Herger
Hoekstra
Johnson, E.B.
Kaptur
Lewis (CA)
Olver
Ros-Lehtinen
Shaw
Smith (MI)
Smith (TX)
Tiahrt
Towns
Weldon (PA)
Wilson (NM)
Wilson (SC)
Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Isakson). The Chair would advise Members
that there are 2 minutes remaining on this vote.
{time} 1324
Messrs. KINGSTON, TAUZIN, BARTON of Texas, SAXTON, KING of New York,
and Mrs. BONO and Mrs. NORTHUP changed their vote from ``yea'' to
``nay.''
So the motion to instruct was rejected.
The result of the vote was announced as above recorded.
A motion to recommit was laid on the table.
Stated for:
Ms. EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I was unable to vote
on rollcall No. 17, motion to go to conference on House Joint
Resolution 2, because I am still recovering from surgery. Had I been
present, I would have voted ``yea'' on rollcall No. 17.
Mr. BECERRA. Mr. Speaker, on Wednesday, January 29, 2003, I was
unavoidably detained, and therefore unable to cast my floor vote on
rollcall No. 17, the Motion to Instruct Conferees on H.J. Res. 2.
Had I been present for the vote, I would have voted ``yea'' on
rollcall vote 17.
Stated against:
Mr. WILSON of South Carolina. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 17 I was
unavoidably detained as my pager did not work.
Had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''
Mr. TIAHRT. Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 17 I was unavoidably
detained and missed the vote.
Had I been here I would have voted ``nay.''
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the Chair appoints the
following conferees:
Messrs. Young of Florida, Regula, Rogers of Kentucky, Wolf, Kolbe,
Walsh, Taylor of North Carolina, Hobson, Istook, Bonilla, Knollenberg,
Kingston, Obey, Murtha, Dicks, Sabo, Mollohan, Ms. Kaptur, Mr.
Visclosky, Mrs. Lowey, Mr. Serrano and Mr. Moran of Virginia.
There was no objection.
____________________