[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 159 (2013), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15617]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                            A LOST PRIVILEGE

  (Mr. KILDEE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, my constituents back home in Flint, Saginaw, 
and Bay City, Michigan, sent me here because they felt that I could 
represent them in a democratic body and protect their interests. 
Unfortunately, because of the willfulness and intransigence of some on 
the other side, we can't have a simple ``yes'' or ``no'' vote in this 
body to reopen government. Despite the fact that all Democrats and 
around 30 or so Republicans would be willing to take up the Senate-
passed bill to reopen government, we have not been given the 
opportunity to do that.
  What very few know--and I assume some on the other side may not even 
realize--is that the rule that was adopted here on October 1 takes away 
a longstanding privilege of Members of the House to call up a Senate 
bill in the event of a dispute between House and Senate versions of the 
same legislation. You have taken away that basic right that my voters 
and the Representatives of this body all should continue to possess in 
order to achieve or pursue your ideological goal of using a government 
shutdown to get what you can't get at the ballot box. This is wrong. It 
needs to end. We need to bring up the Senate-passed bill to reopen 
government today.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Ms. Foxx). Members are reminded to address 
their remarks to the Chair.

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