[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.

                          ____________________