[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 2]
[House]
[Page 1627]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                LOOKING FORWARD TO GREATER PARTICIPATION

  (Mr. KINGSTON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. KINGSTON. Madam Speaker, the Democrat Party has just ended its 6 
for 600 hours, or whatever they call it. I wish I had a clock at home 
that tracked hours the way the Democrats did. By that standard, I would 
be 25 years old, and probably look a lot better, as a matter of fact; 
more youthful.
  But I want to say this. The Democrats did this agenda based on kind 
of, you know, trite, older, more established, safer issues. There was 
no real reach for the sky here; no entitlement reform, no tax 
simplification, no energy independence. What they did also was cram 
down a bunch of things that bypassed the committee process, and I want 
to give a contrast with the Contract With America.
  The Contract With America was 24 pieces of legislation. The number of 
bills we had open to amendment was nine. The number of bills considered 
under a closed rule was only three. The numbers of bills considered 
under suspension of the rules was only two. The total number of 
Democrat amendments, 154, of which only 95 failed. Many, many Democrat 
amendments passed.
  I hope, as we go into your next 200 or 300 hours, that we can have a 
more participatory democracy.

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