[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 195 (Wednesday, December 19, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H16858-H16860]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
WAIVING REQUIREMENT OF CLAUSE 6(a) OF RULE XIII WITH RESPECT TO
CONSIDERATION OF CERTAIN RESOLUTIONS
Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on
Rules, I call up House Resolution 876 and ask for its immediate
consideration.
The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:
H. Res. 876
Resolved, That the requirement of clause 6(a) of rule XIII
for a two-thirds vote to consider a report from the Committee
on Rules on the same day it is presented to the House is
waived with respect to any resolution reported on or before
the legislative day of December 19, 2007, providing for
consideration or disposition of any of the following
measures:
(1) A bill relating to the Children's Health Insurance
Program, or an amendment thereto.
(2) A bill relating to Medicare, or an amendment thereto.
(3) A bill relating to the alternative minimum tax, or an
amendment thereto.
(4) A joint resolution making further continuing
appropriations for the fiscal year 2008, or an amendment
thereto.
(5) The bill (H.R. 2764) making appropriations for the
Department of State, foreign operations, and related programs
for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2008, and for other
purposes, or an amendment thereto.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Vermont is recognized for
1 hour.
Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only,
I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Sessions). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for
debate only.
General Leave
Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their
remarks and insert extraneous material in the Record.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Vermont?
There was no objection.
Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I
may consume.
Madam Speaker, H. Res. 876 waives a requirement of clause 6(a) of
rule XIII. That rule, as you know, requires a two-thirds vote to
consider a rule on the same day it is reported from the Rules
Committee. This will allow for the same-day consideration, today, of
any resolution reported on or before the legislative day of December
19, 2007. It provides for the consideration or disposition of, one, a
bill relating to the Children's Health Insurance Program and a bill
relating to Medicare, something that at this point is moot in view of
earlier proceedings today. But it also has an application on a bill
relating to the alternative minimum tax; a joint resolution making
further continuing appropriations for fiscal year 2008, the so-called
CR; and the bill, H.R. 2764, making appropriations for the Department
of State, foreign operations, and related programs for the fiscal year
ending September 30, 2008, the so-called omnibus appropriations bill.
With passage of this rule, it allows the House to move one step
closer to passing this omnibus appropriations bill that will fund the
government outside of the Department of Defense. That, of course, we
have already completed our work on and it has been signed into law by
the President. And it will provide for funding for the entire fiscal
year of 2008. It will also take us one step forward towards considering
and passing a patch for the alternative minimum tax, which will affect,
unnecessarily and unwisely, 23 million American families. They would be
subject to paying a tax that was never intended for middle-class
working families.
All of these bills, obviously, are crucially important pieces of
legislation that Congress must act on before we go home, and we owe it,
obviously, to the American people to get this work done.
The omnibus bill is going to reject enormous cuts that had been
proposed by the President in his draft budget, cuts to essential
domestic priorities such as health care, education, law enforcement,
homeland security, highway infrastructure, and renewable energy
programs. That omnibus bill instead does invest in crucial domestic
priorities: medical research to study diseases like Alzheimer's,
cancer, Parkinson's, and diabetes; health care access, including
programs like the Community Health Centers that provide more access to
health care to underinsured Americans. Small rural hospitals will be
helped. Special education, teacher quality grants, afterschool
programs, and Head Start; Pell Grants and other student aid programs;
technical training at high schools and community colleges; State and
local law enforcement for communities across the country; Homeland
Security grants to help fight in the war on terror. This meets the
guaranteed levels for higher infrastructure and adds funding to our
Nation's bridges. It also provides funding for solar energy, wind
energy, biofuels and energy efficiency with a careful blend of new
scientific investments and conservation efforts.
[[Page H16859]]
This same-day rule will take us one step closer to completing our
work this year.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SESSIONS. I want to thank the gentleman, my friend from Vermont,
for yielding. And, Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
``I rise in strong opposition to this martial law rule and in
opposition to the outrageous process that continues to plague the
United States House of Representatives. We have before us a martial law
rule that allows the leadership to once again ignore the rules of the
House and the procedures and the traditions of this House. Martial law
is no way to run a democracy no matter what your ideology, no matter
what your party affiliation.''
Madam Speaker, those are not my words nor are they the words of my
Republican colleague from the Rules Committee, Congressman Lincoln
Diaz-Balart, who spoke these same words on the floor on Monday. They
are not the words of my staff or some journalist who is covering the
Democrat majority heavy-handed floor tactics. No. These are the clear
and clever words of the gentleman from Massachusetts, our Rules
Committee colleague, Jim McGovern. He spoke these words on several
occasions last year regarding what was then eloquently called ``martial
law rule.''
I will also use this opportunity to point out another comment that
the gentleman from Massachusetts made about martial law rules.
{time} 1200
His quote is particularly interesting because it was given to each of
us on this floor last year on December 6, just a month before the
Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, well after the
election. He spoke about how the Democrats proposed to run the House,
which today stands in sharp contrast to what they are actually doing.
About 1 year ago, the gentleman from Massachusetts said, ``Mr.
Speaker, there is a better way to run this body. The truth, Mr.
Speaker, is that the American people expect and deserve better. That is
why the 110th Congress must be different. I believe we need to
rediscover openness and fairness in the House. We must insist on full
and fair debate on the issues that come before this body.''
Now, I and all of my Republican colleagues must ask, a year into the
new Democrat majority, where is the openness and fairness that Mr.
McGovern spoke about? Where is the openness on the energy bill rule
where over 90 amendments were prevented from being considered on the
House floor, including a Republican substitute? Where was that openness
when we considered SCHIP reauthorization and, what, we had a closed
rule?
I can help my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to find out
because I know exactly where it is; they left it off on the campaign
trail. This, like their promises to disclose earmarks and to run the
most ethical and open Congress in history, was an empty promise. It is
an empty promise which is becoming more and more evident from the
opening day of this new majority, when the Democrats wrote into the
rules of the House closed rules for consideration of the first six
bills that we were to take up, in effect, discharging the Rules
Committee from its duties and setting a new partisan tone for this
Congress. Not much has changed since then, Madam Speaker.
Lacking the courage of their convictions to change what they
perceived to be problems with how Republicans ran the House, the
Democrat remedy for changing unfair practices in the Rules Committee
was to have no Rules Committee at all. And that trend of closing down
the House to Members that started back then, sadly, continues to this
day.
Madam Speaker, there is a better way to run this body. The truth is
is that the American people expect and deserve better. That's why the
110th Congress must be different. I believe we must and we need to
rediscover openness and fairness in this House. We must insist on full
and fair debate on the issues that come before this body.
Oh, by the way, following the rules of the House of at least
presenting a bill 24 hours before it comes to the House floor would be
a great place to start, because I know it's on the Speaker's Web site
saying that that's the way we should operate. We're still waiting.
Madam Speaker, a year ago at this time, despite the House passing all
but one of our spending bills, Democrats were on the campaign trail
railing against Republican leadership, calling it a ``do-nothing''
Congress. Well, if last year was a failure because of Congress' ability
to get all but one appropriations bill to the President for his
signature on time, then what does that mean that this year we should
think about Democrats when Democrats have failed to get more than one
to the President after holding back popular bipartisan bills like
veterans funding for their own political partisan gamesmanship?
Madam Speaker, I agree with the Democrats of 2006, not the Democrats
of 2007. So, I rise in opposition to this martial law rule.
Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, we have no additional speakers
on this side. I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SESSIONS. Madam Speaker, I think we've said enough. I yield back
the balance of my time.
Mr. WELCH of Vermont. Madam Speaker, I thank my friend from Texas.
And I will respond and close.
A couple of things. First, let's be focused on the fact that the rule
that is going to be before the House really applies to two things:
consideration of the alternative minimum tax and consideration of the
omnibus appropriations bill. And the rule is being brought up for same
day consideration in recognition of the fact that there has been
enormous work on both sides on the AMT. There is nothing new. And, in
fact, the AMT bill that will be brought before the House for
consideration today corresponds with the view of the minority as to
that being passed without pay-fors.
And secondly, the omnibus appropriations bill is bringing before the
House appropriations that had been passed in 11 separate appropriations
bills but have now been consolidated as a result of the inability of
our friends in the Senate to pass those bills individually as we did
here in the House. So, there is nothing new that is coming up before
the Members of the House. It's just the convenience of being able to
act today rather than wait until tomorrow.
Secondly, my friend from Texas made some assertions about the conduct
of this House in application to the rules. You know, context is
everything. The reality is that virtually every piece of legislation
that has been brought before the floor has received bipartisan support.
Many of the items that the gentleman mentioned in the ``Six for '06''
legislative agenda, student loan cost reduction, price negotiations for
prescription drugs, the restoration of the PAYGO rule, these were
passed with overwhelming support on the Democratic side and substantial
support on the Republican side. When they got to the other body, the
Senate has been using, frankly, politics of obstruction to stop
virtually anything from being considered: the filibuster, the hold.
Every device available procedurally to avoid taking up a ``yes'' or
``no'' vote on a question has been employed by the Senate. And there is
a sense by many on our side that the criticism that my friend from
Texas is making that we have not done as much as we should in Congress,
despite the fact that we in the House have passed substantial
legislation helping the bottom line for American families, has been an
explicit strategy on the part of the other side to use every rule,
every device, every procedural opportunity basically to thwart passage
of legislation. And they have the full and complete support of the
President of the United States in that effort, who stands behind the
whole agenda with the veto pen.
And the President appears to many of us to be operating on a one-
third-plus-one approach where, as long as he can get his veto
sustained, he will be able to block passage of legislation the American
people need and then accuse the Congress of not getting anything done.
And I think most Americans see through that.
So, Madam Speaker, with the passage of this rule, the House will move
towards adjournment for this year and
[[Page H16860]]
have an opportunity to pass the omnibus appropriations bill and the AMT
fix.
I urge a ``yes'' vote on the previous question and the rule.
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the
previous question on the resolution.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Without objection, the previous question is
ordered.
There was no objection.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the resolution.
The resolution was agreed to.
A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.
____________________