[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 13]
[House]
[Page 17052]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




APPROPRIATION BILLS UNDER CLOSED RULES: BAD PROCESS LEADS TO BAD POLICY

  (Mr. FLAKE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. FLAKE. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in protest of the way we're 
handling appropriation bills this year.
  Traditionally, appropriation bills have come to the floor under an 
open rule, allowing Members to offer as many amendments as they would 
like as long as they give notice of such amendments. Now we have this 
year a process of closed rules, where appropriation bills are brought 
to the floor under structured rules. Members are limited in the number 
of amendments they can bring forward. And we're told that we need to do 
this because Members will offer so many amendments that it will slow 
the process down.
  But when you have bills come to the floor with literally in some 
cases more than a thousand earmarks that have not been vetted by 
anybody, and obviously the Appropriations Committee is not vetting 
these earmarks, then we should have a process where people on the floor 
can at least see what's in these bills. We're not allowed to do that. 
We are bringing a bill to the floor today with just a few amendments 
that will be allowed to be offered.
  Mr. Speaker, we cannot continue to do this. We are told that people 
don't care about process. Perhaps they don't. But bad process leads to 
bad policy.

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