[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 20]
[House]
[Pages 28300-28301]
[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, it is Thursday and it is a getaway day. I 
know everybody is concerned, because you talk to me from both sides of 
the aisle all the time about it, so I am well aware that people want to 
get out.
  I will be asking, and that is why I want to say this now, I will be 
asking the presiding officers to keep our votes to no more than 2 
minutes after the votes are to close, whether it is a 15-minute vote or 
a 5-minute vote. I think that will facilitate, hopefully, getting our 
work done.
  The reason I say it now, I want everybody to be on notice that we 
intend to do that so we don't catch you. What the pattern has been 
increasingly is that when we get to ``zero,'' there are almost 
invariably 175 Members who have not voted. I do it and I am sure 
everybody else does it. You look at the screen and you see 170 Members 
haven't voted, and you have plenty of time. I understand that. I 
understand it because that is what I do.
  The only way for us to overcome that is that 2 minutes after the 
vote, 17 minutes, we will close the vote. That will mean some of you 
may miss the votes and you will be angry with me. I want you to know 
ahead of time that I understand you will be angry with me, but at least 
I am telling you that is what our intention is to do.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Leader, as you are aware, many Members of the 
California delegation are in California today as a result of the 
wildfires.
  Mr. HOYER. Yes, I am aware of that.
  Mr. SESSIONS. It was very important for them to go back home and be 
with their constituents. Over 1 million people have been left homeless 
and have been evacuated. There was a request made of the Speaker and of 
the majority leader to please postpone votes and not to have the vote 
today. Those requests have been made directly to the leadership, and I 
would like it if you could please address that issue at this time.
  Mr. HOYER. Scheduling the House, as my good friend, Roy Blunt, and I 
have discussed, is very difficult. It is very difficult because we have 
435 Members. Obviously, all of us have responsibilities. We have 
families and we have issues that happen within our districts that 
require us from time to time to be in our districts.
  All of the California Members who talked to me, and some on the 
Republican side talked to me and some on the Democratic side talked to 
me, I urged them to be in California. That's where I would be. If I had 
a wildfire, a flood or a tornado in my district, I would be in my 
district.
  Today's vote on SCHIP, which is the only vote we will have when we 
get to it, is not in my opinion in doubt and would not be affected by 
the absences we may have.
  On this vote there were 55 people not voting. Obviously, there are 
not 55 people in California. We have a number of the Californians here. 
There are representations on your side of the aisle that there are 5 or 
6 Californians who might be there, and there are some on our side from 
Southern California who will also be there. Now, on the average day, we 
have 10 Members who are not here, give or take. Some for illness 
reasons and others for good reasons where they have determined they 
need to be someplace else. It is obvious we cannot cancel votes on 
those days.
  I will tell my friend that everybody knows we are not here tomorrow, 
and we are going to be hopefully through relatively early today. I 
don't know that there is something happening today that won't be true 
tomorrow. I do know that there is concern about proceeding on the SCHIP 
bill. I have made it clear, in August I made it clear that we have an 
agenda to accomplish. If we were meeting Friday, that might be a 
different story, but we are not meeting Friday. So tomorrow is 
available, Saturday is available, Sunday, Monday is available. I 
believe that Members ought to be with their constituents.

                              {time}  1045

  I don't believe they're going out there to fight the fire. They're 
going out to be with their constituents. That is appropriate. My point 
I think is clear. My point is clear.
  The objectives of the Members who are not here are understandable and 
appropriate, but what is not appropriate is for me to be put in the 
position or anybody who schedules on either side of the aisle to be put 
in the position of having our legislative process stopped when we 
essentially have only a few hours left to go and important legislation 
to consider.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the gentleman. I would like to resubmit a 
request to the gentleman now. I believe that this body is aware that 
last night we received a 293-page document that has not one cosponsor, 
is described as being the Senate's bill, not the House bill. We have 
not had an opportunity to go through the bill. The 24-hour rule 
evidently last night in Rules Committee was just completely 
obliterated.
  You have a request, a collegial request, from the Republicans who are 
in this body who recognize and understand the importance of SCHIP. We 
also recognize we have until November 16 before that deadline 
approaches. Both you and I and every Member of this body understands 
that this body would never allow SCHIP to collapse.
  I am respectfully asking on behalf of the minority and the 
collegiality of this body for you to please reconsider allowing us to 
end our business today and to come back and retake up this business on 
Tuesday, with not only a renewed spirit from the people who have gone 
to support the firefighters. You're right, they're not fighting the 
fire, but they do have a strong belief that what they have done is the 
right thing; and they would wish to participate fully in their 
constitutional duties. And I will re-ask the majority leader at this 
time from a collegial aspect.
  Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentlewoman from New Mexico.
  Mrs. WILSON of New Mexico. I thank the majority leader.
  I would also ask, we have had 55 Members who weren't here for the 
vote that we just had. This issue we're about to debate and vote on is 
one that's important to people on both sides of the aisle. This is an 
important vote and important debate, and I think people should have an 
opportunity to participate in that.
  All of us have had circumstances where there are disasters in our 
district and there are times when the leadership determines that the 
votes that are scheduled are of such sufficient gravity and importance 
that it makes sense to delay that.
  As the gentleman from Maryland knows, I supported the SCHIP bill. I 
think we need to reauthorize the SCHIP program, but I am reluctant to 
do that with so many Members gone and also with our Californians 
dealing with critical problems in their district.
  I would echo my colleague from Texas' sentiments and ask that the 
leadership consider delaying this vote and this debate until early next 
week.
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Mississippi.
  Mr. TAYLOR. I thank the gentleman for yielding.
  I guess of all the Members, I have been the closest to this situation 
with what happened in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. As you know, 
Katrina struck during the August recess, and shortly after the recess 
one of the first votes that was scheduled was the GO Zone legislation 
which was a very substantial piece of legislation on the part of our 
Nation to help the affected area.

[[Page 28301]]

  Given the severity of what happened in Mississippi, I made a 
conscious decision to stay in my district. I felt like that was the 
best thing to do. This body overwhelmingly passed the GO Zone 
legislation without me.
  To the gentleman's point, I have not had one complaint about staying 
in Mississippi, and I think your colleagues that you are concerned 
about will not get one complaint about missing a vote on something that 
is going to pass anyway. I did not ask to shut down the Congress 
because I needed to be in Mississippi; and, quite frankly, I don't 
think our California colleagues are really asking to shut down the 
Congress because they needed to be there. Their constituents will 
understand, just as my constituents understood.
  Mr. HOYER. I yield to the gentleman from Texas.
  Mr. SESSIONS. I thank the distinguished majority leader.
  In no way am I asking or are we seeking to shut down Congress. What 
we're attempting to do is to ask if the majority leader, from a 
collegial standpoint of understanding, that just as I came back to 
Texas to work to make sure that some 50,000 people from Katrina and 
that effort were taken care of in Dallas, Texas, where I literally 
helped spearhead our efforts, today there are approximately twice as 
many people who are displaced in California as there were by Katrina. 
And I believe it's honorable and respectful to ask that on behalf of my 
colleagues that we not take up this important legislation today, that 
we allow ourselves respectfully to adjourn and then come back on 
Tuesday, as we normally might, to handle this piece of legislation.
  And I will respectfully ask that on behalf of the minority at this 
time to the gentleman.
  Mr. HOYER. I want everybody to know that we're coming back on Monday. 
I don't want anybody to be confused that we're coming back on Monday at 
6:30; and we will not be here, I will be announcing later today, the 
next Friday, a week from tomorrow.
  Let me say to my friend that, as I said, I discussed with your 
leadership the difficulty of scheduling, not this particular item, 
although this was discussed, and the request was made.
  Every Member of this body knows that 435 people, as I said, everybody 
has very important things they have to do from time to time and that 
are appropriate to do on behalf of their constituents on behalf of 
fulfilling their duties. We missed unavoidably 2 legislative days as a 
result of the tragic deaths of 2 of our Members, which was inevitable, 
and we obviously appropriately canceled sessions on those days.
  This bill that we are considering is a very important bill. It needs 
to pass the House. It needs to pass the Senate. It needs to go to the 
President, and it needs to come back here. We have 3 weeks left to go 
between now and the 16th of November, to which the gentleman referred.
  The gentleman is well aware, I know my Republican colleagues in 
leadership are well aware, of how long it takes to get things through 
the Senate, for reasons that we all understand in terms of their 
necessity to get the appropriate votes.
  As a result, the time left to us is very short, and to not proceed 
today and to push this off till next week then pushes off to the week 
following when the Senate can consider this legislation, which then 
pushes it off to the last week that we'll be here for Presidential 
action. All of that is a constraint on the flexibility of scheduling.
  And again I will say that I understand absolutely the desire of the 
Californians to be where they are. I think it's appropriate to be where 
they are. My only point is that we're not meeting all week. There is 
some flexibility. They chose to go today. I do not criticize that 
decision on either side of the aisle. I simply say that it was not in 
consideration of, obviously, the business that we have to get done.
  And again I reiterate, in a collegial body, if I thought that the 
absence of your Members or our Members would make a difference on the 
outcome, but this bill had an overwhelming vote when it initially 
passed, an overwhelming vote, not the two-thirds, but an overwhelming 
vote. So I do not believe the absences of either party's Members will 
impact on the outcome of this vote. So I don't think we're prejudicing 
the outcome of the vote in any way.
  I yield to the gentleman from Washington State.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. I thank the majority leader for yielding.
  Talking about procedure today, I think probably the easiest way to 
resolve this is we're going to be debating the rule, and of course, if 
the rule goes down, then that would end the business of the day, and 
that would be the preferred option from this Member's point of view.
  In the event that doesn't happen, and we in fact then debate the 
SCHIP bill that we saw last night in Rules for the first time, I think 
it was filed at 7:17, but my point is that we could debate that, and we 
have 50 Members that are missing. There is a potential for you to roll 
the vote, not have the vote today but, in fact, roll the vote until 
next week. That way the debate will have been done. As my friend from 
Texas said, the issue does not expire until November 16.
  So that is an option, it seems to me, to ensure that everybody would 
have an option to at least vote on this issue.
  Mr. HOYER. Reclaiming my time, there are 13 Californians as I 
understand it who are not here, and that's a significant number, so I 
do not diminish the number; but I don't want anybody to belabor the 55 
to which I referred who did not vote. I don't know where the other 35 
Members were or are. I know there's a very important hearing going on, 
I haven't looked at the list expansively, a very important hearing 
going on that people don't want to have go on. I understand that.
  But if we delay the vote, then we might as well delay the bill 
because we will not get it moving towards the Senate and allow the 
Senate to act in a timely fashion. That's the problem.
  Mr. HASTINGS of Washington. Obviously that's an option. We are going 
to have debate on this, and this should be an option that I hope that 
the majority leader looks at.
  Mr. HOYER. I appreciate that, and we will take it under 
consideration. I know the spirit in which it's meant. I talked to the 
gentleman about trying to facilitate scheduling, and I think the 
gentleman is going to be pleased with what we're going to try to do 
next year to facilitate Members' ability to get back to their 
districts.

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