[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 149 (Thursday, October 15, 2009)]
[House]
[Pages H11430-H11432]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. McCARTHY of California asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentleman 
from Maryland, the majority leader, for the purpose of announcing next 
week's schedule.
  Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  On Monday, the House will not be in session. On Tuesday, the House 
will meet at 12:30 p.m. for morning-hour debate and 2 p.m. for 
legislative business with votes postponed until 6:30 p.m. On Wednesday 
and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business, 
and on Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.
  We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The 
complete list of suspension bills, as is the custom, will be announced 
by the close of business tomorrow.
  In addition, we will consider H.R. 3585, the Solar Technology and 
Roadmap Act of 2010, sponsored by Gabrielle Giffords, and H.R. 3619, 
the Coast Guard Authorization Act of 2010. In addition, we may consider 
Senate amendments to the House unemployment extension legislation, 
assuming that is passed by the Senate.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Reclaiming my time, I thank the majority 
leader for that information. And knowing from time to time we do this, 
in watching the colloquy that you do with our whip, Mr. Cantor, I know 
last week you told him not to expect the health care bill on the floor 
until the last week in October at the earliest.
  Do you still think this is the case, the last week of October?
  Mr. HOYER. I certainly think it's the case not to expect it before 
the last week in October.
  As I've indicated in the past, we intend to give 72 hours' notice of 
having the bill posted for the public and for Members prior to bringing 
it to the floor. We are still working to bring that bill to a point 
where CBO can give us a final score. We believe CBO is going to take 
probably a week to maybe a little longer than a week. So it certainly 
would not be before the last week in October, and it may well be the 
first week in November.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman.
  I just want to make sure I heard correctly. You will wait until the 
bill is scored and you will allow 72 hours for the public to also be 
able to view and read the bill; is that correct?
  Mr. HOYER. We will wait 72 hours until after the bill is posted. Now, 
I don't think I said that that necessarily will be after the scoring. 
But essentially, we don't think we're going to post the bill until the 
scoring. If, however, for some reason there was somewhat of a delay in 
scoring but we had the majority of it and posted the bill, the 72 hours 
will run from the posting of the bill.
  In addition, Mr. McCarthy, what I indicated last week, and we still 
will hold to, if there is a manager's amendment, as there may well be, 
we will also assure that there is 72 hours from the posting of the 
manager's amendment. Now, if the manager's amendment and the bill are 
posted at the same time, obviously that would be the same 72 hours. If, 
on the other hand, the manager's amendment is posted a day or so later, 
then the 72 hours would run from the posting of the manager's 
amendment.
  It is our intent to make sure that everybody has 72 hours to review 
whatever legislation and/or amendments will be considered on the floor.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman for that.
  The only thing I would follow up to that and ask, knowing some of the 
behavior on some of the other bills and some of the concerns that 
people had of when they were posted--some posted at 3 o'clock in the 
morning when the Rules Committee filed when it came to Energy and 
Commerce and the cap-and-trade bill--when you count the 72 hours, would 
this be like business hours? Like, if it's late into the night, can we 
wait until the morning so people will have the ability to start the 
clock?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. We're not going to do 72 business hours. We're going to do 
72 hours. We're going to have the full 3 days if people want to read 
the bill. If they want to read it at night, they can do that. If they 
want to read it on Saturday or Sunday, they can do that.
  But it was a good try.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I'll just ask the gentleman, knowing the 
size that this bill will be, one, to make sure that we have a scoring; 
two, the amount that the American public has been engaged in this 
process from the town hall meetings that many people have had and the 
knowledge of what they have in going forward and knowing the changes 
that have been talked about; but three, not from a Republican side or 
Democrat side, but truly, when I sat and listened to the town hall 
meetings, one of the frustrations they had with this House--I know 
people think process is wrong--is the transparency. And I applaud you 
for telling us the 72 hours. I would just ask the majority to be 
cognizant of what happens if you start the clock at 5 o'clock in the 
morning, you start the clock at 3 o'clock in the morning, the public 
has a real concern about that, and we would as well.
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Gladly.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate what the gentleman has said; however, the 
gentleman, I am sure understands, the overwhelming majority of this 
bill will have been on the Web site since July.

                              {time}  1645

  The overwhelming majority of this bill, it's going to be a new bill 
and will have a new number, but this has been probably the most 
transparent, reviewed bill in the 29 years that I have been in the 
House of Representatives, I will tell my friend. As you know, we've 
been working between the House and the Senate. I've had discussions 
with Mr. Cantor and others on your side. We haven't reached any 
agreement, as the gentleman knows. I'm sorry about that. But I want to 
say in all honesty, I can't remember a bill in my 29 years in the House 
of Representatives that has had more review, more discussion, more 
people involved in town meetings around this country, more discussion 
in the media, and has been longer on the Internet for review from 
beginning to end than this particular piece of legislation.
  So I think when we talk about transparency, this bill has probably 
been the most transparently considered bill that I have been involved 
in in my tenure here.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman.
  I do agree with the gentleman that the public has been very aware of 
this bill. The gentleman is saying that the majority of this bill is 
going to be the same as H.R. 3200, but you may change the number, and 
knowing that the public has----
  Mr. HOYER. Will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I yield.
  Mr. HOYER. I want to be accurate, and I want to characterize it as I 
did characterize it. Clearly, many of the proposals that came out of 
the Ways and Means Committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee and the 
Education and Labor Committee will be very much alike, or similar to, 
what will be in the bill that is put together

[[Page H11431]]

from those three committees. I think that would not come as a surprise 
to anybody.
  Will there be, as we put these together, some changes perhaps from 
what was in the original three bills? There may be. My point was, and I 
think it is valid, is that the overwhelming majority of the proposals 
that will ultimately end up either in the Senate or the House bill have 
been available to the public for a long period of time, either in the 
HELP bill out of the Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee of 
the Senate, or in the Senate Finance Committee, of course, has been a 
shorter time because they have just completed their work. But it is 
certainly not going to be H.R. 3200; it will be an amalgam, and it will 
have incorporated many of the additional thoughts and comments that 
we've received from the public during the month of August, September 
and frankly since July.
  I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman.
  The gentleman talks about the three committees, Ways and Means, the 
Energy and Commerce and the Education and Labor, and that bill that 
they took up was 3200. And you say there might be some other debate. 
Just to remind the gentleman, that bill didn't take effect, the actions 
within health care, until 2014, but the taxes and the Medicare cuts 
took effect next year. So I just want to stress the point that we have 
72 hours in making sure, in business time, that people can see it.
  The gentleman says it is going to change, and you have public out 
there, and the public has knowledge of H.R. 3200, that they can be able 
to see whatever changes. So very cognizant of not being someone running 
the clock late at night while people are sleeping, I understand time 
difference. I come from California. But the most open transparency we 
could would really be one that would bring respect back to this House.
  I thank the gentleman for talking about that.
  I do have another thing I would like to talk to the gentleman about. 
You always hear rumors. That's what's nice to have this colloquy, to 
try to make sure we get them, if they are right or if they are wrong. I 
have heard rumors during the week of a plan to attach that D.C. voting 
bill that we all know about to the Department of Defense appropriation 
conference report. That would be of concern to me because it would be 
showing a propensity to use our men and women in uniform to carry 
controversial legislation, much like a debate we had last week. So my 
question to you is, when do you expect this conference report to come 
to the floor?
  And the second part would be, will it include the D.C. voting bill as 
rumored?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I can't tell you when it will come to the floor. As you 
know, the Senate just passed it recently, the latter part of last week 
or the beginning of this week, I think, and we have not appointed 
conferees. So I can't give you the answer, really, to either question, 
because we don't have conferees appointed as it relates to the D.C. 
bill, as you know.
  We have talked about the Defense bill. We have an Armed Forces. The 
Armed Forces is dedicated to the defense of freedom and the 
preservation of democracy. We have lost over 4,500 troops in Iraq. The 
people of Baghdad can elect members of their parliament today because 
our young men and women, and some not so young, fought, and too many 
died so that the people of Baghdad could elect a voting member of their 
parliament.
  It is somewhat ironic that in the symbol of democracy around the 
world, that our fellow citizens, some 600,000 of them, don't have a 
voting representative in their parliament, the House of 
Representatives, the people's House. I think that's an egregious 
undermining of the principles for which our men and women fight, for 
which we stand and to which we have pledged support of our 
Constitution. Now whether or not that will be included in the Defense 
bill, it is about democracy. It is about participation. It is about 
respect.
  I will tell my friend, I don't know whether that's going to be. I've 
heard some discussion about that myself. But whether it is or not, I 
will tell my friend that I will continue to fight as hard as I can to 
try to figure out how I can bring that bill to the floor, get it to a 
vote, and give the people of the District of Columbia, our fellow 
citizens, the right to vote as the citizens in Baghdad can do, the 
citizens in Moscow can do, the citizens in every free country in the 
world except the United States of America, can do. I think that's a 
blot on our democracy. I would hope that we would erase that blot as 
soon as we can in any way that we can.
  I yield back to the gentleman and thank him for yielding.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I thank the gentleman for his passion and 
the answer, but should I take it that that is still a possibility, 
then?
  Mr. HOYER. Most things are possible.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. One thing I would offer to the gentleman, 
the passion which you started speaking when you talked about the 
troops, I will never question your passion for the troops. I haven't 
been in this House long. This is my third year. When I come into this 
building, I still get goose bumps. I know we have our philosophical 
differences. I think they are constructive. I think debates are 
constructive. But the one thing I firmly believe, when we talk about 
the Department of Defense, when we talk about the fact that we have men 
and women in harm's way, we should never play politics with it.
  I will make this pledge to you. When you talk Department of Defense 
and you talk about funding supplementals and others, I won't come here 
as a Republican, I will come here as an American. And the more ability 
that we have to not put anything within that, I would guarantee you, 
you would have a much greater ability to work together to make sure our 
men and women have whatever they need to carry out whatever mission.

  Mr. HOYER. Will my friend yield?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Gladly.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate that representation. I pose a question to my 
friend.
  Would he help me bring the District of Columbia bill to the floor as 
a clean bill on the question of whether the citizens of the District of 
Columbia's representative ought to be able to vote as every one of us 
can on this floor?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. If the gentleman from across the way in 
the majority would ever let me have the gavel, I will guarantee you, I 
could bring a lot of bills to the floor.
  Mr. HOYER. That was not an answer to my question, I respectfully 
suggest to you. It was a serious question.
  The reason the hate crime bill was on the armed services bill, which 
it shouldn't have been, it was because we couldn't get 60 votes to 
bring it up on the floor, notwithstanding the fact that the majority of 
the Senate and the majority of the House supported that bill.
  The gentleman talks, very persuasively in my view, about bringing up 
bills in the proper order. The problem is, very frankly, we don't have 
the Interior bill this week and we don't have some other bills because 
frankly we can't get 60 votes to consider them on the floor of the 
United States Senate. I think that is lamentable. It's also 
unfortunate.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I would add to the gentleman, I know you 
know numbers. You got elected majority leader. You have more than 218. 
There's 178 on this side. You have the power I never had when we were 
here to schedule this floor at any time. You have the power to schedule 
this floor. You have the power to move forward. When I asked you about 
at the very beginning as we talk about our troops, let's make sure we 
have a very clean bill is the desire on this side of the aisle.
  Mr. HOYER. Again, if you will yield, what I was responding to is your 
observation about a clean bill. My response was, would the gentleman 
work with me to perhaps get both of our sides to vote on a rule that 
provides for a clean consideration of whether or not the representative 
of 600,000 of our fellow citizens who live in the capital of the United 
States of America, the symbol of democracy throughout the world, but 
who do not have a voting representative, would my friend help me do 
that? Because I haven't been able to do it. With all that power you 
think I have and with the gavel that you think we have, we haven't been 
able to that.

[[Page H11432]]

  Would you help me do that?
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. To the gentleman, I will always help you 
work because you explain to me each and every day, and you show us each 
and every day from the committee to the bill we took up today on the 
floor when it came up about water. You have the power of the Rules 
Committee. If you can guarantee me that it's an open rule when it comes 
to the floor and has open debate, the idea that the Founding Fathers, 
the idea that the dome of this Capitol, it's the second dome, when did 
they start building it? During the Civil War, not even knowing if this 
country would come together. But the idea that the power of this floor, 
that the idea would be able to work----
  Mr. HOYER. Do you know who helped build this dome? Slaves. We thought 
that was wrong.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. The only person who could actually put 
the very top together was a slave, because we bought it from the 
French, and they wanted more money to put the directions together. A 
slave sat inside and put that monument together. And that's what this 
body was built on.
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. My comment is a very simple question, and you wanted to 
have an open rule.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I want an open rule. Is that unfair? We 
just talked about transparency, sir.
  Mr. HOYER. I'm talking about the Defense bill and your concern about 
D.C. vote being added to the Defense bill. My retort to you, because 
you wanted the Defense bill clean to deal just with the subject matter 
of defense. That's as I took your question. My response to you was, I 
think that's a good point.
  Would you help me, then, do the same for the D.C. bill, which also 
stands for democracy, clean, not obstructed by issues which are 
obviously very controversial, which are not consistent with considering 
simply the very simple, straightforward question, do the 600,000 
citizens of the District of Columbia, American citizens, our neighbors, 
have the right as our citizens have, of having us have a vote that 
counts on the floor of the House of Representatives? That's all I was 
responding to.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. And I was telling you, I will be more 
than glad to help you as long as it is a clean bill, that you have an 
open rule, the way the American public believes this floor is supposed 
to be run, that people could have power of the idea, could actually 
raise an issue and raise a debate.
  I thank the gentleman for the colloquy. But the one thing I would 
like to lead in with is the last couple of questions. This week the 
House overwhelmingly voted for the Barney Frank-authored Iran Sanctions 
Enabling Act. I know you put out a press release about the strong 
message to Tehran that unless it abides by its international norms, its 
economic isolation will continue. On the same day we passed the Frank 
bill, news reports from Moscow indicated that Russia has no stomach for 
further sanctions against Iran.
  Given your praise for the Frank bill and the fact that Russia feels 
unwilling to go along with new sanctions, is it your intention not to 
consider Chairman Howard Berman's Iran sanctions bill this year?
  Mr. HOYER. I expect to consider it. The chairman has announced that 
he expects to consider that, not next week but the week after. I have 
told the chairman, as I told Mr. Cantor last week, that I expect to 
bring it to the floor shortly after it's passed out of committee.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. So should I assume by the end of October, 
or am I missing something?
  Mr. HOYER. He says not next week but the week after. And whenever he 
passes it, I will bring it out shortly thereafter. So it could either 
be the last of October or the very first few days of November. So in 2 
or 3 weeks at the outside.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Let me make sure I hear you correctly. 
The committee says, the chairman, it will pass out within the next 2 
weeks approximately. And your pledge to the committee chairman was to 
bring it to the floor directly afterwards within that week?
  I yield.

                              {time}  1700

  Mr. HOYER. I don't know whether I made a pledge. I am very much for 
this. I am a cosponsor of that. I want to pass it as soon as possible.
  It's been the chairman's judgment as to when to bring it up. He is 
going to bring it up, and I am going to bring it as soon thereafter as 
is practical, which I suspect to be a matter of days. But if he passes 
it on Thursday and if we are not scheduled to be here on a Friday, I 
don't know that I will schedule Friday; we may pass it Tuesday, but I 
expect to pass it very shortly after it passes out of committee.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. I will make this pledge: I know you asked 
me for help. I will help you with this bill, too.
  Mr. HOYER. This bill, frankly, with all due respect, your help would 
be nice, but not needed. It's the other bill I need your help on.
  Mr. McCARTHY of California. Well, I thought that I would put that 
offer out there to you. When you bring it, I will be there to help you.
  I thank the gentleman for his time.

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