[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 17]
[House]
[Pages 23283-23285]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                          LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM

  (Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Missouri (Mr. 
Blunt), the distinguished acting majority leader, for the purpose of 
inquiring about the schedule for the week to come.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding and would 
say that we intend to convene the House next Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. for 
morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. We will consider 
several measures under suspension of the rules. A final list of those 
bills will be sent to Members' offices by the end of the week. Any vote 
called on these measures on Tuesday will be rolled until 6:30 p.m.
  For Wednesday and the balance of the week, the House will consider 
additional legislation under suspension of the rules, as well as 
several measures under a rule. One will be the Federal Housing Finance 
Reform Act of 2005 that has just been discussed; two, the Lawsuit Abuse 
Reduction Act of 2005. The third bill that we would expect to see under 
a rule would be House Joint Resolution 65, which would be a resolution 
necessary under the Defense Base Closure Commission for the House to 
have a disapproval vote on the work of that commission, a vote that is 
required by the structure itself.

                              {time}  1215

  In addition to that we plan to consider an amendment to the fiscal 
year 2006 budget resolution that would outline plans for budgeting for 
the expenses associated with Hurricane Katrina.
  I would also like to announce at this time that the following Monday, 
while we have scheduled that as a workday, the following Monday, 
October 31, will be a day that we will not be in session. That allows 
Members to spend that day with their families, and for Members who want 
to take their children or their grandchildren trick or treating, that 
day is available for them to do that.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, on behalf of all the 
parents and grandparents, the acting majority leader and I had a brief 
conversation about my 3-year-old granddaughter, who this past weekend 
had the opportunity to show me the costume she is going to be wearing 
on trick or treat night, and she said, Hey, Pop, can you go with me? 
And I appreciate the gentleman's making that time available on behalf 
of his side and my side for all of us who might be doing that. That is 
a treat early, not a trick, and we appreciate that very much.
  First of all, Mr. Speaker, the leader heard me have the discussion 
with the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) of the Committee on Rules. 
I wonder if perhaps you could comment. We do not know the status of the 
manager's amendment, as the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) 
indicates. The acting majority leader does not know the status of the 
amendment, and I presume that is being worked on. But we have concerns 
that a very critically important provision of the bill, an overwhelming 
bipartisan bill, 65 to 7, might be changed and might have added to it a 
condition for the receipt of money by faith-based charitable 
organizations, nonprofit organizations to receive money to build 
housing; that if they received such money that a condition of the 
receipt of that money would be that they could not participate in voter 
registration efforts.
  We have a letter from Catholic bishops very concerned about that. 
Other faith-based organizations are very concerned about that. I am 
sure nonfaith-based organizations are concerned about that. And, 
obviously, if the position is left in place as it now exists or as it 
existed when it passed out of the House, we would think that, without 
that preclusion, without that condition attached, we would be obviously 
not offering an amendment because we all agree with that. On the other 
hand, if the manager's amendment somehow changes that and puts that 
condition into the bill, then we would very much hope, Mr. Speaker, 
that the majority would allow all the Members who think perhaps that 
condition should not be attached to the bill to have a free shot at 
making that policy judgment on a separate amendment rather than just as 
a vote against the manager's amendment, which

[[Page 23284]]

seems like somewhat not only a clumsy vehicle but very conflicted 
because there will be some issues in the manager's amendment, most of 
which I am sure the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank) and the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley) will probably agree on, but I would 
hope that the acting majority leader could work with the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Dreier), with his leadership to ensure that we have a 
freestanding debate on that issue. It is an important issue, and I 
think it will serve the House well if we do that.
  I would be glad to yield to my friend for any comments he might have.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my friend yielding to me.
  I listened particularly carefully to the gentleman from Texas' answer 
after the gentleman from Maryland said he might ask me the same 
question. I am not sure I can improve on his answer to any extent. I 
think that is the purpose for the Committee on Rules hearing to make 
that case.
  I believe there will be amendments allowed. I know there is a wide 
discussion that this new fund, a fund we have never had before, if we 
do create that fund, can be part of the solution to the impact of 
Hurricane Katrina and Rita and maybe even Wilma. So, assuming that 
Wilma creates a housing problem as well, for that to be included there 
would have to be some amendment, as the gentleman suggested, even 
though the bill, when it came out of the Committee on Financial 
Services weeks, I believe now even perhaps months ago, with a large 
vote, does need some adjustment because of circumstances that have 
occurred since then that both the ranking member and the chairman would 
be supporting.
  But that is the purpose of that hearing, and I thought that the 
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Sessions) made the case well, that the 
Committee on Rules will listen to those arguments and make that 
determination.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I think he made the case 
that they would listen and make a determination. We are hopeful that 
they will make a determination that if they are going to change the 
bill by the manager's amendment they will allow the full House to 
consider whether that change is appropriate. But I thank the gentleman 
for his information.
  Secondly, Mr. Speaker, if I can, we appreciate very much the action 
on Halloween, on that Monday, October 31. I think that was appropriate. 
As the gentleman knows, the following week, November 8 is election day 
for a lot of people: New York City, the State of California, obviously 
very large jurisdictions; Virginia, a major election going on there. 
All of us are watching that election go on. New Jersey gubernatorial, 
as is Virginia and Ohio. So a very large number of people in America 
will be confronting elections and, therefore, a large number of our 
Members.
  Has the majority considered the possibility of making sure that we do 
not have votes until later on in the day, Tuesday, so that we can free 
up our Members in those jurisdictions, A, to vote and, B, to 
participate to the extent that they feel it necessary to do so?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentleman yielding to me.
  The week that is in question there has, of course, been on the 
calendar for a while as a workweek. We would intend at this point to 
have the reconciliation items on the floor that week. It will be a very 
full week of work if we hope to get out of here by Thanksgiving, by 
November 18, as is still our principal goal if we find cooperation in 
the Senate on that. I think it is likely that we would stay with the 
regular schedule. We have elections in Missouri too on that day, and 
while I hope to be there part of the day on Monday, I have already 
voted absentee, and I assume many of our other Members have already 
taken that action as well.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for 
his information. Perhaps we can talk about that further. I understand 
the problem. We are running out of time. We have got to use the days 
that are available. That is a very practical problem. I did not have 
Missouri on my list, but obviously a large number of States. Maryland 
does not. Maryland does not have elections this Tuesday other than 
municipal elections, so that is not a real problem for our State. But I 
understand the time problem, and perhaps we can discuss it a little 
further and see if there are some other times that we might utilize.
  Finally, I would like to inquire further on the schedule for the 
balance of the year. Our target adjournment date, as I understand it, 
is November 18. I hope we can make that. As the gentleman pointed out, 
we do not have total control. The other body has to do things as well 
for us to get there.
  If we do not make November 18, am I correct that the week of 
Thanksgiving, the Members can be assured that they will not be here the 
week of Thanksgiving, and am I correct that the probability is that the 
week after Thanksgiving, which I think starts either the 28th or 29th, 
that Monday, would not be weeks that we would be here but that, if need 
be, the week after that and perhaps the week after that in December 
would be weeks that we would be utilizing?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding to me.
  We still are hopeful that November 18 could be the date. Our friends 
in the other body did indicate this week that they had work on schedule 
that would allow them to keep that date. I think it is reasonable to 
assume that some of the work we have to do jointly will stretch out to 
meet the time frame that they are here rather than the time frame that 
we are here, and we need to be aware of that. We are still hoping for 
November 18.
  The week after Thanksgiving, the week that starts on November 28 and 
ends on December 2, if we are still in session at the end of the month 
of November, we would not plan to work that week. Clearly, we do not 
plan to work Thanksgiving or the day after. If, in finishing this 
process up, November 19, November 20, November 21 would finish the 
process up, I would hate to suggest that we would not finish and get 
our work done, but certainly the November 28 to December 2 would be a 
date that I think he and I could right now announce to the Members that 
if they are planning family activities after Thanksgiving that even if 
we are still in session, we would not intend for that week to be a 
workweek.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his answer. I think 
that is very helpful for Members who are trying to plan.
  Mr. Speaker, the PATRIOT Act, we were told that we might go to 
conference on that bill this week. That did not happen. Does the 
gentleman know when we anticipate perhaps going to conference on the 
PATRIOT Act?
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, we 
are continuing to do work on getting ready for that conference. I would 
hope that that conference would occur at any time. I am confident that 
we will appoint conferees and have that conference completed before the 
law expires. So I think that in itself sets a fairly short deadline but 
would expect to see that happen in the near future as we thought it 
might even happen this week.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate his answer.
  Reclaiming my time, on appropriations conference reports, prior to 
the Thanksgiving recess, can he tell us how many he anticipates might 
be ready, obviously realizing that the other body's actions are 
difficult to determine, but does he have any thoughts on what 
appropriations conference reports we might be considering prior to the 
November 18 date?
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Missouri.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding and would 
say that it is still our goal to get out of here, to get the session 
completed by the Thanksgiving recess. In that case we would have all 
the bills completed.
  The Senate seems to have really gotten their appropriations process 
energized in a way that means a number of

[[Page 23285]]

bills will soon be ready for conference. As the gentleman knows, three 
of the bills have already been signed into law by the President. It is 
possible that we would have other additional conference reports next 
week.
  I am not trying to anticipate too much here, but I think the most 
likely conference that might be completed next week would be the 
conference that we just appointed conferees to, the agriculture 
conference, and have that bill as a fourth bill that was completed. But 
the Senate work that allows us to address these bills one at a time, 
which I know we all believe is the best way to do this work, has 
finally reached a point that bears some likelihood that all of that 
could happen and hopefully will happen by November 18.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his answer.
  Lastly, we were expecting today to have a budget amendment, or an 
amended budget, on the floor today. That did not happen. He referenced 
it in his opening discussion of the schedule.
  Does he expect that bill to come to the floor next week, and if so, 
does he expect it to call for reconciliation cuts above and beyond the 
$35 billion that was in the original budget?
  I yield to the gentleman.
  Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I think I announced earlier that I did expect that bill to be on the 
floor next week. And in addition, the change in the approach to that 
measure would be that it would include not only a higher goal for 
savings in the mandatory programs, an issue we do not take up very 
often in the House. I think this would be the second time in 10 years 
we have looked at mandatory savings, but also to include a commitment 
to revisit the discretionary part of the budget sometime between now 
and the end of the process and to work with the administration on 
reconciliation as well as looking at the authority for programs that we 
did not fund in this Congress and in several cases have not funded for 
some time and eliminate the authority for perhaps as many as 95 or more 
programs that are receiving no funding.

                              {time}  1230

  All four of those items would be in the budget resolution that the 
Committee on the Budget would bring to the floor.
  Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for that information.

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