[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18252]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




             SUGGESTION FOR THE HOUSE REPUBLICAN LEADERSHIP

  (Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts asked and was given permission to address 
the House for 1 minute.)
  Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, while I am not an expert in 
time management, I do have a suggestion that would allow the House to 
better use its time.
  Last night we spent well over an hour here, a lot of very busy 
people, while the leadership variously cajoled, bribed, browbeat, et 
cetera, a few Republicans who wanted to have it both ways, who wanted 
to give people the impression they were opposed to CAFTA while they 
were ready to cave in for sufficient inducement.
  What we should have done, and I propose this for the future, is the 
next time we have one of those tough votes where they are going to have 
to do that with their Members, let us schedule an evacuation drill from 
the House.
  The fact is at the time the plane was flying over here and a roll 
call was open and we evacuated the House, it took about the same time 
as it took them to cajole and blackmail and browbeat their people last 
night.
  So why not do two things at once? The next time they know there is a 
bill they are going to cram down people's throats that they do not want 
to vote for and want to pretend to their voters they are against it, 
and it is going to take them an hour or 2 to find out ways to get them 
to help fool people, why not schedule in advance an evacuation drill, 
and that way we can kill two birds with one stone? And since people 
might not know it is a drill, they can threaten people who do not vote 
with them: They can make them stay here in case there is a plane crash.

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