[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 54 (Thursday, April 28, 2005)]
[House]
[Pages H2702-H2703]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




   ANNOUNCEMENT OF INTENTION TO OFFER RESOLUTION RAISING QUESTION OF 
                        PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSE

  Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 2(a)(1) of rule IX, I 
rise to give notice of my intent to raise a question of the privileges 
of the House.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the resolution be 
considered as read and printed in the Record.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under rule IX, a resolution offered from the 
floor by a Member other than the majority leader or the minority leader 
as a question of the privileges of the House has immediate precedence 
only at a time designated by the Chair within 2 legislative days after 
the resolution is properly noticed.
  Pending that designation, the form of the resolution noticed by the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers) will appear in the Record at this 
point.
  The form of the resolution is as follows:

                               H. Res. --

       Whereas the Committee on the Judiciary conducted a markup 
     of the bill H.R. 748, the ``Child Interstate Abortion 
     Notification Act,'' on Wednesday, April 13, 2005 and ordered 
     the bill reported on that same day;
       Whereas the Committee on the Judiciary subsequently 
     reported H.R. 748 to the House on Thursday, April 21, 2005, 
     with an accompanying report designated House Report 109-51;
       Whereas, during the markup of H.R. 748, Representatives 
     Nadler, Scott, and Jackson-Lee offered in good faith a total 
     of five amendments to the bill, all of which failed on party-
     line votes;
       Whereas, because Representatives Nadler, Scott, and 
     Jackson-Lee called for recorded votes on their amendments, 
     under section 3(b) of Rule XIII, the votes were published in 
     House Report 109-51;
       Whereas, although it is the long and established practice 
     in House reports to describe recorded votes with objective, 
     nonargumentative captions, the Committee on the Judiciary 
     majority departed from this practice in House Report 109-51 
     by captioning these five amendments with inflammatory, 
     inaccurate captions implying that these three Members of 
     Congress condoned the criminal behavior of ``sexual 
     predators'';
       Whereas, as one example, while an objective, 
     nonargumentative description of one of

[[Page H2703]]

     Representative Nadler's amendments would read, ``exempts a 
     grandparent or adult sibling from the criminal and civil 
     provisions of the bill,'' and is in fact the language the 
     Committee on the Judiciary used to caption this amendment in 
     past reports on this legislation, the caption in House Report 
     109-51 was instead, ``Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that 
     would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under 
     the bill if they were grandparents or adult siblings of a 
     minor.'' (Similar problems occured in describing amendments 
     offered by Representatives Scott and Jackson-Lee);
       Whereas, when Representative Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of 
     the Committee on the Judiciary, was asked about this language 
     and given the opportunity to correct it, both in the 
     Committee on Rules and on the House floor, he instead 
     explained that it was his purpose and intention to include 
     these derogatory and inaccurate captions in House Report 109-
     51;
       Whereas, committee reports are official congressional 
     documents to which American citizens will refer when seeking 
     to interpret the bills they accompany;
       Whereas, although the committee markup and reporting 
     process gives Members ample opportunity to debate, 
     characterize, and criticize each other's views, committees 
     have a ministerial, institutional responsibility to 
     accurately report the proceedings of committee activities;
       Whereas the vote captions published in House Report 109-51 
     appear to be purposefully inaccurate and misleading, and 
     therefore belittle the dignity of the House and undermine the 
     integrity of the proceedings of the House; and
       Whereas this unprecedented manipulation of a traditionally 
     nonpartisan portion of a committee report constitutes an 
     abuse of power by the majority of the Committee on the 
     Judiciary: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the House of Representatives--
       (1) finds that the Committee on the Judiciary purposefully 
     and deliberately mischaracterized the above-mentioned votes 
     in House Report 109-51; and
       (2) directs the chairman of such committee to report to the 
     House a supplement to House Report 109-51 that corrects the 
     record by describing the five amendments with 
     nonargumentative, objective captions.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair will not at this point determine 
whether the resolution constitutes a question of privilege. That 
determination will be made at the time designated for consideration of 
the resolution.

                          ____________________