[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 149 (2003), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18841]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




    NOTICE OF INTENTION TO RAISE QUESTION OF PRIVILEGE OF THE HOUSE

  Mr. RANGEL. Mr. Speaker, I rise to give notice of my intention to 
raise a question of privilege under rule IX, and the form of the 
resolution is as follows:

        Whereas, during a meeting of the Committee on Ways and 
     Means on July 18, 2003, for the consideration of the bill 
     H.R. 1776, the chairman of the Committee on Ways and Means 
     offered an amendment in the nature of a substitute;
        Whereas during the reading of that amendment, the chairman 
     of the Committee on Ways and Means directed majority staff of 
     the committee to ask the United States Capitol Police to 
     remove minority party members of the committee from a room of 
     the committee during the meeting, causing the United States 
     Capitol Police thereupon to confront the minority party 
     members of the committee;
        Whereas pending a unanimous consent request to dispense 
     with the reading of that amendment, the chairman deliberately 
     and improperly refused to recognize a legitimate and timely 
     objection by a member of the committee;
       Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the House of 
     Representatives disapproves the manner in which 
     Representative Thomas summoned the United States Capitol 
     Police to evict minority party members of the Committee on 
     Ways and Means from using the library of the Committee on 
     Ways and Means, as well as the manner in which he conducted 
     the markup in the Committee on Ways and Means on July 18, 
     2003, and finds that the bill considered at that markup was 
     not validly ordered reported to the House.

  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 New York will appear in the Record at this point.
   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.

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