[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 160 (2014), Part 5]
[House]
[Pages 7044-7051]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




RESOLUTION RELATING TO THE CONSIDERATION OF HOUSE REPORT 113-415 AND AN 
  ACCOMPANYING RESOLUTION, AND PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H. RES. 
  565, APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE INTERNAL REVENUE 
                                SERVICE

  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I 
call up House Resolution 568 and ask for its immediate consideration.
  The Clerk read the resolution, as follows:

                              H. Res. 568

       Resolved, That if House Report 113-415 is called up by 
     direction of the Committee on Oversight and Government 
     Reform: (a) all points of order against the report are waived 
     and the report shall be considered as read; and
        (b)(1) an accompanying resolution offered by direction of 
     the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform shall be 
     considered as read and shall not be subject to a point of 
     order; and
       (2) the previous question shall be considered as ordered on 
     such resolution to adoption without intervening motion or 
     demand for division of the question except: (i) 50 minutes of 
     debate equally divided and controlled by the chair and 
     ranking minority member of the Committee on Oversight and 
     Government Reform or their respective designees; (ii) after 
     conclusion of debate one motion to refer if offered by 
     Representative Cummings of Maryland or his designee which 
     shall be separately debatable for 10 minutes equally divided 
     and controlled by the proponent and an opponent; and (iii) 
     one motion to recommit with or without instructions.
       Sec. 2.  Upon adoption of this resolution it shall be in 
     order without intervention of any point of order to consider 
     in the House the resolution (H. Res. 565) calling on Attorney 
     General Eric H. Holder, Jr., to appoint a special counsel to 
     investigate the targeting of conservative nonprofit groups by 
     the Internal Revenue Service. The resolution shall be 
     considered as read. The previous question shall be considered 
     as ordered on the resolution to adoption without intervening 
     motion or demand for division of the question except 40 
     minutes of debate equally divided and controlled by the chair 
     and ranking minority member of the Committee on the 
     Judiciary.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Florida is recognized for 
1 hour.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the 
customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
McGovern), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. 
During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the 
purpose of debate only.


                             General Leave

  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Florida?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this rule, H. Res. 568.
  House Resolution 568 provides for consideration of two important 
resolutions. Both resolutions are critical to getting to the bottom of 
the IRS' targeting of conservative nonprofit groups, and they are 
critical to holding this government accountable.
  The groups who are discriminated against deserve to know the full 
truth and so do the American people. To this day, Mr. Speaker, no one 
has been held accountable for the actions of the IRS.
  I wish that the underlying resolutions weren't necessary; but, once 
again, the self-proclaimed ``most transparent administration in 
history'' hasn't been helping much in providing the answers to the 
American people that they so rightly deserve.
  For example, one of the underlying resolutions, H. Res. 565, calls 
for the Attorney General to appoint a special counsel to investigate 
the targeting that took place.
  Again, it is frustrating that this House even needs to take this 
step, Mr. Speaker; but as we have come to find out, the Justice 
Department chose a Democratic political supporter to lead their 
investigation into the IRS' actions. This attorney donated over $6,000 
to President Obama's election campaigns, and if that is not a conflict 
of interest, I don't know what it is.
  That is extremely disappointing to me because this administration had 
the opportunity to give Americans assurances that they wouldn't stand 
for the IRS' conduct, they wouldn't allow an agency to be a tool to 
punish people for their political beliefs and would work diligently to 
root out this behavior and hold the appropriate people accountable.
  Instead, the administration severely undermined the credibility of 
the investigation at every turn. We need impartiality and objectiveness 
from this administration; and, Mr. Speaker, we just didn't get it.
  We have hit a wall, Mr. Speaker. It is time we had a special counsel 
to look into the issue so we can fully understand the depths of the 
targeting.
  What we do know, Mr. Speaker, is that all signs point to Lois Lerner 
as a central figure in this scandal. Ms. Lerner has been unwilling to 
answer questions before the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, 
despite giving testimony to two other bodies.
  Her actions to this point beg the question: What is she trying to 
hide?
  Ms. Lerner has roughly a year--she has had a year to work with the 
committee and ample time to comply with this subpoena. Unfortunately, 
she has refused to do so.
  When called to testify before the committee, Lois Lerner 
simultaneously asserted her innocence, while depriving the American 
people of the opportunity to get their questions answered.
  Ms. Lerner made 17 separate factual assertions before invoking her 
Fifth Amendment right--17, Mr. Speaker.
  In the words of my colleague from South Carolina, that is a lot of 
talking for someone who wants to remain silent.

                              {time}  1230

  Some people believe--me being one of them--that you can't do that. 
You can't make selective assertions and still invoke your Fifth 
Amendment right.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that Mrs. Lerner's conduct shows contempt for 
this body. I certainly do. I truly believe that. But that is what we 
are here today for, to have a debate, to see what the majority of this 
body believes.
  This rule allows for the debate to happen and a vote to happen. It 
allows Congress to do its job, providing oversight of the executive 
branch.
  If the contempt vote passes, it will place the issue into Federal 
court. It will be up to them to decide if we are accurate or off base. 
Let the court decide that. That is the appropriate step, because that 
is where the dispute between these two branches is supposed to reside. 
The judicial branch is the arbitrator between the executive branch and 
the legislative branch when it comes to issues like this. That is how a 
three-branch system works. We should let the process take place.
  I support this rule, and I urge my colleagues to do the same.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida 
(Mr. Nugent) for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield 
myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, welcome to witch-hunt week here in the United States 
House of Representatives. Our economy is slowly recovering, slower than 
any of us would like. Millions of unemployed Americans have been left 
behind because their unemployment benefits have expired. Our 
immigration system is broken. Millions of Americans are living in 
poverty because they don't earn enough to make ends meet. And we have a 
pay equity issue where

[[Page 7045]]

women, on average, earn less than men for doing the same job. I mean, 
climate change is a real issue and is getting worse.
  So what is the response from the House Republican leadership? A jobs 
bill? No. A fully funded transportation bill? No. An extension of long-
term unemployment benefits? No. Comprehensive immigration reform? No. 
An increase in the minimum wage? No way. A pay equity bill? No. A 
sensible energy policy? No. Of course not, not from this leadership.
  You know, when it comes to jobs or improving the economy, my 
Republican friends have no ideas. And here is the deal: they are afraid 
the American people are going to figure this out. And so what do they 
do? They create distractions and diversions, more investigations, more 
investigations.
  Mr. Speaker, instead of tackling the issues that actually matter to 
people, House Republicans are once again playing to cheap seats with 
hyperpartisan political witch-hunts.
  Now, this rule before us today contains two bills. One would hold 
Lois Lerner, the former Director of the IRS Exempt Organizations in 
contempt of Congress; the other would appoint a special counsel to 
investigate the targeting of nonprofit groups by the IRS. And that is 
just today. The House Republican leadership will be doubling down on 
the crazy later this week by creating a select committee to exploit the 
tragedy of Benghazi. It is shameful.
  This is ridiculous. The IRS clearly overstepped in the way they 
identified and targeted nonprofit groups. That is not an issue for 
debate. But an issue of this magnitude and importance, potential abuse 
by the Internal Revenue Service, deserves to be handled in a bipartisan 
and professional manner. That standard has not been achieved during 
these investigations.
  I say ``these investigations,'' plural, because multiple committees 
have spent nearly a year looking into this. From nearly the beginning, 
Republicans have operated on their own and not in a bipartisan and 
professional manner. To date, 39 witnesses have been interviewed, more 
than 530,000 pages of documents have been reviewed, and the IRS has 
spent at least $14 million of taxpayer money cooperating with all of 
these requests and investigations.
  And what do we have to show for all this work? We have had a circus 
in the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform--a circus. We have 
seen Ms. Lerner assert her Fifth Amendment rights, and we have seen 
Chairman Issa literally cut the mic while Ranking Member Cummings was 
speaking. In all my years as a Member of Congress and as a staff 
member, I have never seen such behavior in a committee before, ever.
  And during this investigation, we have seen over 30 legal experts 
come together and state that Chairman Issa's contempt proceedings--one 
of the bills that we are considering here today--are constitutionally 
deficient. In other words, more than 30 legal experts--both Democrats 
and Republicans, and also including former House counsels--believe that 
the courts would throw this contempt resolution out of court. Now, of 
course, Chairman Issa is entitled to his own opinion, but we cannot 
just ignore the legal opinions of more than 30 legal experts, including 
two former House counsels.
  Ranking Member Cummings had a great idea, a sensible idea, and I 
can't quite understand why my friends on the other side haven't 
accepted it. He said let's hold a hearing with many of these legal 
experts and get to the bottom of why they feel Chairman Issa's actions 
are deficient. But Chairman Issa nixed that quickly and said no way, no 
hearings.
  This is the Oversight Committee. This is the committee that is 
supposed to be nonpartisan, when you think about it. I mean, the 
investigations are supposed to have some credibility. But Chairman Issa 
nixed that. In fact, he is refusing to hold such a hearing.
  And actually, it just baffles me. If Chairman Issa firmly believes 
that this contempt resolution has merit and has legal standing, then 
what is the harm in holding a hearing and considering these legal 
experts' opinions?
  The truth is that Chairman Issa and the Republican leadership really 
do not care about doing this fairly, and they never have. This is an 
exercise in political theater, designed for the conservative media 
closed information loop.
  Mr. Speaker, speaking truth to power is important. Investigating 
abuses of power is even more important. But abusing the process in the 
name of investigating abuse is wrong. We have been down this road 
before. We have seen this kind of witch-hunt steamroll through this 
very Capitol. But not even Joseph McCarthy was able to strip away an 
American citizen's constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment, as 
Chairman Issa is trying to do.
  The Congressional Research Service found that the last time Congress 
tried to hold witnesses in contempt after they asserted their Fifth 
Amendment right not to testify was in the 1950s and 1960s in Senator 
Joseph McCarthy's committee, the House un-American Activities 
Committee, and others. In nearly every case, the juries refused to 
convict or Federal courts overturned those convictions. This exercise 
that we are engaged in today is nearly identical to the actions of 
Senator McCarthy. It was wrong then; it is wrong now.
  This is sad because it demeans this House of Representatives. It may 
be red meat for the extreme right wing, but for too many Americans, it 
adds to the cynicism that this is a place where trivial issues get 
debated passionately and important ones not at all.
  Mr. Speaker, the IRS is a powerful agency. The Tax Code, itself, can 
be either daunting or beneficial, depending on where you sit. The IRS 
and the Code can be used to help people, like through the EITC, the 
child tax credit, and the R&D tax credits; or it could be used 
punitively, as it was during the Nixon administration.
  The IRS, under the Obama administration, must be held to a high 
standard. We must keep politics out of the way the IRS is run and the 
way it operates. In fact, the hearings, depositions, and investigations 
held to date actually show that there was no White House involvement in 
this case--none.
  The problem here is that the narrative that my Republican friends 
have doesn't fit the facts and they are frustrated, so they want to 
kick the ball down to the court and have more committees, more 
investigations, more special counsels. Maybe they will find something. 
In addition, these hearings that were held, these depositions and 
investigations show that the targeting of nonprofit groups by the IRS 
was not limited to conservative groups.
  Unfortunately, this whole process is so political that my friends, 
the Republicans on the Oversight Committee, intentionally limited the 
scope of what they are focused on to just conservative groups. It 
doesn't matter what happened to progressive groups. The truth is that 
both liberal and conservative groups were targeted. That is a fact that 
is conveniently left out of the arguments and accusations posed by my 
friends on the Republican side.
  Mr. Speaker, I understand what the Republicans are trying to do here. 
It is crystal clear. They do not want to talk about the issues that 
matter to people. From the economy to the environment to immigration, 
they don't want to talk about those issues because a majority of the 
American people disagree with them. They don't want to talk about those 
issues because they have no ideas, nothing, nothing to offer. They 
don't even want to talk about ObamaCare anymore now that 8 million 
Americans have health coverage. They don't know what to do now, so they 
are coming up with these desperate attempts to try to create 
distractions. So this is what they are left with: sad little scraps of 
political nonsense that they keep trying to peddle as leadership.
  Mr. Speaker, this rule and resolution are colossal wastes of time. 
They do nothing. They do nothing at all to try to ensure that the IRS 
is above politics. They do nothing at all to try to achieve any kind of 
justice or truth.
  I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and to get on with the business 
of actually solving real problems that affect real Americans.
  I reserve the balance of my time.

[[Page 7046]]


  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, it is amazing that those on the other side 
of the aisle would say this is trivial. This impacted American 
citizens. And I won't disagree that it may have impacted those on the 
left; but, to a greater extent, it impacted those on the right. And to 
Americans, one of the most powerful organizations there is in America 
is the IRS. They can instill fear into your heart when you get that 
letter. So when you have one that does something that is so outrageous 
as what they have done, it is not trivial, at least not to the people I 
represent.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania 
(Mr. Kelly).
  Mr. KELLY of Pennsylvania. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Florida for yielding.
  I am reminded of a passage in the Bible that you can see a speck of 
sawdust in your neighbor's eye but not the plank in your own.
  We are talking about a resolution. Isn't it amazing that we have to 
go to a resolution to restore to the American people their faith and 
trust that they are quickly losing in the government because we will 
not finish the job. We will continue to backpedal. We will run around 
the edges, and we will try to put the spotlight someplace else.
  This is not gender specific. This is not party specific. This has 
nothing to do with anything other than honesty and truth. To sit here 
and bloviate about something that doesn't really exist--oh, they are 
trying to move the spotlight somewhere else.
  Well, I would invite all of you to go back to what it is when we came 
in here and took a pledge. It is not just a pledge, and it is not just 
a responsibility. It is an obligation to get to the truth. When we have 
to have a resolution asking the chief law enforcement officer of the 
country to appoint a special committee, how far have we fallen in the 
eyes of the people we represent?
  Is there an issue here? Yes, there is. Are there things that have to 
be settled? Yes, there are.
  A year ago, on May 10, I was 65. This Saturday, I will be 66. I have 
learned more about myself in the last year than the American people 
have learned about what the IRS had done to them. This covers all 
Americans. This is not a Republican issue. This is not a Democrat 
issue, a Libertarian, or an Independent issue.
  Whenever we get to the point where absolutely defending the people we 
represent becomes secondary to a political agenda, then we have fallen 
far from where we were supposed to be. In this great House, so much has 
been decided on policy for the American people. Isn't it time to 
restore their faith and confidence in this model? And why we would sit 
back and scratch our heads and say: I don't know why our approval 
rating is so low. Maybe if we just answered the questions and answered 
them truthfully and were truly transparent, the American people 
wouldn't cast doubts on who it is that they elected to represent them.
  I applaud this issue, and I applaud this resolution. Be it resolved 
that we will restore to the American people the trust and faith and 
confidence they have to have in their form of government.
  Please, to talk about political maneuvering? We are making balloon 
animals and are trying to tell people: This is what you need to look 
at. Don't worry that we have taken away your personal freedoms and your 
personal liberties. That is not the issue. You see, the issue is, this 
November, we have got to get reelected.
  So let's make it about something else. Let's turn it on gender. Let's 
turn it on pay inequality. Let's turn it on everything that we can 
possibly do and turn the light away from what the problem is, and that 
is the loss of faith and confidence by the people of this great country 
in the most remarkable model the world has ever known and who everybody 
would love to emulate but they can't.
  It falls on our shoulders, not as Republicans or Democrats, but as 
representatives of the people of this great country, to get the answers 
that they deserve. Let's stop the fooling around about things that 
don't really pertain to this, and let's get them the answer.
  And again, we have to have a resolution asking the chief law 
enforcement officer of the United States to do his job? That is 
pathetic.

                              {time}  1245

  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  I have great respect for the gentleman from Pennsylvania, but I think 
he has kind of highlighted kind of the differences between the two 
parties here. He mentioned that we are trying to focus attention on 
gender inequalities and other issues. We are.
  I think there is something wrong when women in this country make 77 
cents on every dollar a man makes. I think that is outrageous. I think 
women ought to be paid the same as men to do the same job. So, yeah, 
that is an issue, and that is something we should talk about. And it is 
not just a women's issue, by the way; it is a family issue.
  The Senate sent us over an immigration bill that would reduce the 
deficit by $900 billion over the next 20 years--$900 billion. They did 
it in a bipartisan way. We can't even get a vote here. We can't even 
get a vote here in the House of Representatives.
  There are millions of our fellow citizens who are unemployed and 
whose unemployment benefits have run out. We can't even get a vote to 
extend unemployment benefits for these people--maybe because they don't 
have a super-PAC, maybe because those aren't their natural 
constituencies. I don't know what the reason is. But those are 
important issues. And, quite frankly, yes, that is what the American 
people want us to be talking about--things that matter to them.
  The problem with what we are doing here today, this is so blatantly 
politically motivated, even in terms of the scope of the investigation, 
that it just is laughable. It is laughable.
  Listening to the debate in the Rules Committee last night amongst 
those on the Oversight Committee, the back and forth, and realizing how 
broken that committee is, how partisan that committee has become 
because of the leadership in this House, it is really sad.
  No one here is defending the IRS. No one here is defending Lois 
Lerner. But what we don't want to do is trample on the Constitution, 
and we don't want to unnecessarily politicize these proceedings, which 
is what is happening right now.
  Mr. Speaker, at this time, I would like to yield 4 minutes to the 
gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Connolly).
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend, Mr. McGovern from 
Massachusetts, a distinguished member of the Rules Committee, with whom 
I spent 5 hours last night. I wish my friend Mr. Kelly were still here 
on the floor because he reminds us we take an oath when we become a 
Member of Congress and at the beginning of every new Congress to defend 
and protect the Constitution of the United States. We don't take an 
oath to look at the best polling for our respective parties and 
pursue--no matter what--the issues that rile up our base.
  At the Republican retreat earlier this year, two issues polled real 
well with their base: Benghazi and the IRS. Sadly, cynically, we are 
here today--irrespective of the constitutional rights of an American 
citizen who happened to be an IRS employee--bending and genuflecting at 
the altar of that polling data to fire up that base.
  We are not here defending the Constitution, because if we were, we 
would be invoking our own history. There was a sad period known as the 
McCarthy era in this very body where constitutional rights of 
citizens--Federal employees and non-Federal employees--were trampled 
upon. The Fifth Amendment right is one of only 10 enumerated in the 
Constitution, and for a reason, because staying in the memories of our 
early colonists were the star-chambers that had occurred in Great 
Britain, the parent country, and even here. And they wanted to protect 
all citizens--innocent and guilty alike--from self-entrapment, from 
their own words being used against them in legal proceedings unfairly. 
They felt so passionate about it that it was one of only

[[Page 7047]]

10 enumerated rights in the Bill of Rights.
  In the McCarthy era, there were some famous cases, U.S. v. Quinn 
being one of them, and another one, Hoag, in which the Supreme Court of 
the United States and District Courts of the United States found that 
an individual did not waive his or her Fifth Amendment rights simply 
because they had a prefatory statement proclaiming their innocence. As 
a matter of fact, in the Hoag case, Ms. Hoag actually participated at 
times in answering other questions, having already invoked her Fifth 
Amendment.
  The standard is very high. If you have made it crystal clear that you 
intend to invoke your Fifth Amendment, it takes a lot to construe that 
has been waived. We Members of Congress who take that oath to the 
Constitution should err on the side of protection of constitutional 
rights, not simple waiver. But, of course, if our agenda isn't getting 
at the truth, if it is pandering to those two issues that polled so 
well with our base, Benghazi and IRS, then constitutional rights are 
incidental to the enterprise, and, sadly, that is what we are 
considering here today.
  I don't think you have to be a Democrat or a Republican, a liberal or 
a conservative, to be concerned about protecting the constitutional 
rights of every citizen even for--and maybe especially for--non-heroic 
figures such as the woman we are dealing with today, Lois Lerner. 
Because when you trample on her rights, you have risked every 
American's rights. What is next? Who is next at the docket? While we 
are at it, when we are trampling the Fifth Amendment, what about the 
First? What about that sacred Second? What about the Fourth? What about 
any of those rights enumerated in the Bill of Rights?
  This is not a noble enterprise we are about today, Mr. Speaker, and I 
urge this House to reject this rule and to reject the underlying 
contempt citation as not worthy of this body and not consistent with 
the oath each and every one of us takes.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, it is just interesting to hear the argument 
on the other side. I have spent 37, 38 years protecting people's 
rights. That is what I did. As a sheriff, we did things and lived 
within the law. We answered questions truthfully. That is all we are 
asking.
  This is terrible that we have to get to this point, but at the end of 
the day, we are not taking her rights away. We are going to the court 
and asking the court, Are we right in our assumption in regards to what 
the House counsel had told us? Are we right? If we are not, they are 
going to tell us we are not.
  So, she has due process. This whole thing about we are taking her due 
process away is just ludicrous. It doesn't make sense.
  Mr. Speaker, I continue to reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I just remind the gentleman that 32 legal 
experts have said that my friends are wrong. I would like to yield to 
Mr. Connolly to clarify that.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. I thank my friend. Thirty-two legal experts have the 
other point of view. And, furthermore, I just say to my friend, if the 
answer to the House of Representatives is that if you want your 
constitutional rights to be protected, hire a lawyer, we will see you 
in court, that is not the oath we took.
  It starts and stops here. What is the constitutional protection of 
citizens here on the floor of the House of Representatives? To simply 
say go hire a lawyer is a terrible message in terms of constitutional 
rights protection to the citizens of this country.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I reserve the balance of my time, Mr. Speaker.
  Mr. NUGENT. Well, Mr. Speaker, I am not an attorney. That is what 
they say on commercials when somebody wants to give some legal advice: 
I am not an attorney.
  What I will tell you from my past experience is that I can get 
attorneys' opinions on either side of an issue. That is what they get 
paid to do. Whether they are paid or unpaid, they all have an opinion. 
It doesn't mean their opinion is the right opinion. It just means that 
they have an opinion.
  With that, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Just so everybody is clear here, we are not just talking about any 
attorney. We are talking about legal scholars. Quite frankly, the 
overwhelming opinion is that my friends are overreaching here, and, 
again, it makes a mockery of this House and especially at a time when 
we ought to be doing the people's work.
  Millions of our fellow citizens who are unemployed can't even get a 
vote on the House floor to extend unemployment benefits. These are the 
people we are supposed to represent. We are telling them, forget it, 
you are on your own. We have all these excuses why we can't bring that 
to the floor.
  The minimum wage, we have people working full-time in this country 
who are stuck in poverty. My friends went after people on SNAP, the 
program that they like to target, a program that provides food to 
hungry people, and they say everybody ought to get a job. Well, the 
majority of able-bodied people on that program work, and they earn so 
little because wages are so low that they still are entitled to some 
benefit. If you work in this country, you ought not to be in poverty.
  So, Mr. Speaker, on both this issue of unemployment and the minimum 
wage and on the issue of immigration, those are the things we ought to 
be debating here today. That is what the American people--that would be 
solving problems, not creating partisan political theater.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I am going to ask people to defeat the previous 
question. If they do, I will offer an amendment to the rule to bring up 
legislation that would restore unemployment insurance and provide much-
needed relief to countless families across this country.
  To discuss our proposal, I would like to yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the 
gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Kildee).
  Mr. KILDEE. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts for 
yielding.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so 
that we can immediately bring up H.R. 4415, which would restore 
unemployment benefits to 2.8 million Americans, people who have lost 
their job and are simply trying to find their next job and want to 
prevent their families from losing everything they have worked for in 
that period.
  I heard the gentleman on the other side say that folks on this side 
are trying to change the subject to something else. You have got almost 
3 million Americans who stand to lose everything they have worked for, 
everything that they have built over their lifetime, and this Congress 
has the power to act. We could do it today. The Senate passed an 
unemployment extension. The President will sign it.
  On the other side, we heard that we don't want to take up UI because 
it is not paid for. So, we have a bill that the Senate passed in a 
bipartisan fashion that is paid for. It does not increase the deficit. 
You have got the bill you want. You have got the bill you asked for. It 
would save almost 3 million people from losing everything they have 
fought for.
  Do we bring that to the floor? No vote on unemployment extension. We 
can talk about everything else, we can bring political messaging bills 
to the floor, but for the 2.8 million people who are losing everything, 
no vote for them, not in the House of Representatives today.
  For the 72,000 people every week that are losing their unemployment 
benefits--hardworking Americans--some on the other side say they want 
to be unemployed. Yesterday, we had a group of unemployed citizens. We 
intended to have a hearing. We couldn't get a room. The Republican 
leadership wouldn't allow it. We went to the steps of the Capitol, and 
we heard these stories.
  I suggest we take a look at the people in your own district, in your 
own districts back home who are unemployed, trying to find their next 
job, have lost their unemployment benefits, and look them in the face 
and tell them that the political messaging bills

[[Page 7048]]

that are coming to this House are more important than preserving the 
life that these people have worked hard to create for themselves and 
their kids.
  Some of the issues that we deal with in this House are really complex 
questions. Some of them are not so complicated. This is one that is 
simple: 2.8 million people could be helped only if this Congress will 
act.
  Set aside this nonsense. Bring up H.R. 4415, and let's get back to 
the business of the American people.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Nebraska (Mr. Terry).
  Mr. TERRY. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the rule. Now, I think 
tyranny is worth discussing because when we look at what we are here to 
do today, it is to declare Lerner in contempt.
  There is nothing more uniquely un-American than abusing the public's 
trust to target fellow countrymen based on their political beliefs. 
This is something--when you target your political enemies--that Lerner 
did and the IRS did, and you reward by expediting the President's own 
political operation. So you punish your enemies and you reward your 
friends--this is Soviet-style governance.
  I would think everyone on both sides of the aisle would be very, very 
vociferous in opposition to what the IRS was doing to the American 
public. We only hear criticism now from the other side of our 
proceeding. My friends on the other side of the dais have, no doubt, 
viewed this as a partisan witch-hunt. But let there be no mistake: we 
would not be here today if Ms. Lerner had not conducted her own 
partisan witch-hunt.

                              {time}  1300

  What Lois Lerner did is completely un-American, and it undermines the 
very fundamentals of the principles of what this country is founded 
upon; and if we don't hold Lois Lerner accountable for her actions--and 
this is about accountability in the government--then we are sending a 
message to future administrations that this type of Nixonian behavior 
is acceptable. Let's not send that message.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, wow, when we talk about tyranny, I should 
remind the gentleman that you have two bills coming to the floor under 
a closed rule--absolutely closed. Nobody can offer any amendments. It 
is your way or the highway. They are absolutely closed.
  When you talk about tyranny, we can't get a vote on the House floor 
on unemployment compensation. We can't get a vote on minimum wage. We 
can't get a vote on pay equities. We can't get a vote on immigration 
reform.
  I don't know what the gentleman is talking about. I mean, it is our 
side, those of us on this side that can't get our voices heard. Last 
session, you had one of the most closed Congresses in our history, 
after you promised a wide-open, transparent process. You have just shut 
everything down.
  Even the scope of what this bill is focused on is closed in a very 
partisan way to focus only on abuses that deal with potential rightwing 
groups, conservative groups, but you totally cut out any abuse that 
might have happened to a liberal group or a progressive group, so I 
don't know what the gentleman is talking about.
  This is a closed process. We talk about democracy and that we need to 
promote democracy around the world. We need a little democracy here in 
the House of Representatives. We don't have any.
  Let me just say one other thing here, Mr. Speaker. We had 39 
experts--39 witnesses that were interviewed by the committee, 39. Not 
one single one indicated there was any link between the White House and 
the IRS mess, not one.
  I mean, if there had been a few, I guess we could have a debate here 
about whether we need to go further, but not one. So here is the 
problem: their narrative doesn't fit the facts, and they are upset 
about it.
  I get it. You were hoping for some juicy conspiracy that doesn't 
exist, so you have to create more investigations, more investigations, 
all the while, we are neglecting our work, our duty to the people of 
this country.
  Yes, let's make sure that the IRS is above politics. I am all with 
you on that. I don't want them tagging anybody for political reasons, 
and I am committed to that, and so is everybody on this side, but that 
is not what we are doing here.
  This is witch-hunt week. Make no mistake about it because we are 
doing this today, and then we are doing Benghazi tomorrow. That is the 
theme of the week, and what a tragedy, what a tragedy when so much more 
needs to be done.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Colorado (Mr. 
Polis), who is on the Rules Committee.
  Mr. POLIS. Mr. Speaker, I concur with the gentleman from 
Massachusetts and appreciate his passion for his remarks.
  This process is closed. Look, we have something that shouldn't be a 
controversial bill, extending the R&D tax credit, helping make American 
companies more competitive; and it has a cost, $155 billion, so let's 
talk about how we pay for that cost, so we can provide the certainty 
that our companies need to hire more people and grow.
  We have an idea. I was proud to offer an amendment with Mr. Cardenas 
and Mr. Garcia. It had a bipartisan pay-for. It passed the Senate with 
more than two-thirds majority. We have a bipartisan bill, H.R. 15, in 
the House. We were able to use that to pay for this tax cut, over $200 
billion.
  Not only does our proposal, immigration reform, fully pay for the R&D 
tax credit, but it also reduces our deficit by $50 billion, and guess 
what, we were denied a vote on our amendment. There weren't even any 
ideas from the other side about how to pay for it.
  If they voted it down, they voted it, but let's have a discussion. If 
you don't like our way of paying for it, find another. No Member of 
this House is even allowed to propose a way of paying for things under 
this rule. It is a guaranteed recipe for Republican tax-and-spend 
deficit policies.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I do have to go back to the comments that my 
good friend from Massachusetts mentioned. Now, I wasn't here in 2008, 
but if you look back at the history, the Democrats controlled this body 
and the Rules Committee in 2008.
  When Congress considered a contempt resolution in 2008, the rules 
opted to hereby the resolution, preventing Members from even debating 
it or holding a vote on the measure on the floor. They just said: here 
we are, we are bringing it to the floor for debate and a vote.
  It is pretty open to me.
  Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Tennessee (Mr. 
Duncan).
  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Florida for yielding. I can't cover all of the issues that are being 
raised here today, but I do want to say this: I spent 7\1/2\ years as a 
criminal court judge in Tennessee before coming to Congress trying 
felony criminal cases, and so I have interest in this question about 
the waiving of Fifth Amendment rights.
  Let me just mention what some others have said about this. Alan 
Dershowitz of Harvard said Lois Lerner's statement of innocence opened 
a ``legal Pandora's box. You can't simply make statements about a 
subject and then plead the Fifth. Once you open the door to an area of 
inquiry, you have waived your Fifth Amendment right; you've waived your 
self-incrimination right on that subject matter.''
  Paul Rothstein, a well-respected law professor at Georgetown 
University--and both of these gentlemen are very, very liberal 
politically. Professor Rothstein said of Lois Lerner, that she ``has 
run a very grave risk of having waived her right to refuse to testify 
on the details of things she has already generally talked about. She 
voluntarily talked about a lot of the same things that lawmakers wanted 
to ask her about in her opening statement. In that situation, when you 
voluntarily open up the subject they want to inquire into and it is all 
in the same proceeding, that would be a waiver.''

[[Page 7049]]

  Cleta Mitchell, a lawyer who specializes in ethics laws stated, 
``Lois Lerner came before the House Oversight and Government Reform 
Committee. She gave an opening statement in which she said, `I'm not 
guilty, I haven't done anything wrong.' The second way in which she 
waived her Fifth Amendment privilege was when she voluntarily, 
willingly, agreed to meet with the Department of Justice lawyers. To 
me, this is a pretty clear case of how she has waived her Fifth 
Amendment rights not to testify and not to answer questions. She just 
is being selective, and the one place she will not answer questions is 
with anyone that she thinks might ask her hard questions.''
  Hans von Spakovsky of The Heritage Foundation, another legal expert, 
said, ``Under the applicable rules of the Federal courts in the 
District of Columbia, the interview she gave to prosecutors meant that 
she waived her right to assert the Fifth Amendment.''
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Hultgren). The time of the gentleman has 
expired.
  Mr. NUGENT. I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman.
  Mr. DUNCAN of Tennessee. If we allow somebody to come in and say they 
are not guilty--repeatedly say they haven't done anything wrong, if we 
allow people to say that and do that in these types of proceedings and 
then plead the Fifth, we are making a mockery of the justice system and 
making a mockery of the Fifth Amendment privilege in this country.
  Last, I would just say this: there has been some mention about some 
liberal groups being targeted. There were over 200 conservative groups 
audited and targeted and investigated in this investigation. I think 
there were three that might have been classified as liberal.
  It was so obvious what was intended by the IRS activities in this 
situation, and so I support this rule and support the underlying 
resolution.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I respect the comments of my friend, but I 
think the talk he just gave supports one of the points that we have 
been trying to make here, and that is we have 39 legal experts, former 
House counsels, who basically say that what my friends are doing here 
today are trampling on Ms. Lerner's constitutional rights.
  It would seem to me that, if you wanted this whole circus to be a 
little bit more legitimate, that you would have agreed to what Chairman 
Cummings had asked for, which was a hearing to bring in legal experts 
to actually talk about the merits of this before kind of rushing to the 
floor with this purely partisan bill.
  The second thing I would say to my friend from Tennessee is, when you 
talk about the number of liberal groups targeted, one of the reasons 
why we are not talking about liberal groups being targeted here is 
because the majority kind of stacked the deck.
  They formed the rules. They only want to focus on conservative 
groups, so that is why there is even more evidence of the fact that 
this is a purely partisan exercise.
  I just want to say, so my colleagues are clear, not one witness--not 
one single witness interviewed by the committee identified any evidence 
that political bias motivated the use of the inappropriate selection 
criteria.
  The inspector general, Russell George, was asked at a May 17, 2013, 
hearing before the Ways and Means Committee, ``Did you find any 
evidence of political motivation in the selection of the tax exemption 
applications?''
  In response, the inspector general testified, ``We did not, sir.''
  Oversight Committee staff asked all 39 witnesses whether they were 
aware of any political bias in the creation or use of inappropriate 
criteria. Not one identified even a single instance of political 
motivation or bias.
  Look, there needs to be reforms to the IRS. We need to make sure that 
the IRS is above politics, but bringing this political circus, this 
witch-hunt, to the floor purely because it polls well amongst your base 
is ludicrous.
  It is ludicrous because we should be focused on extending 
unemployment benefits for people who have lost their unemployment 
compensation. We should be raising the minimum wage. We should be 
passing immigration reform.
  We should be dealing with the pay equity bill, so that women get paid 
the same amount as men do for working the same job.
  It is also a family issue. We ought to be focused on getting this 
economy going; but instead, because my friends on the other side of the 
aisle don't have a clue on what to do, they are asking to look over 
here, let's do a distraction, let's do a diversion. I think this is 
outrageous.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I love the comments about McCarthyism as it 
relates to this particular issue, but really, McCarthyism is the IRS. 
The IRS is targeting American citizens who have done nothing wrong, who 
merely wanted to express their freedom of expression that is guaranteed 
by the Constitution. That is all they wanted to do.
  We hear that there is a bunch of liberal groups that were caught up. 
I don't believe so. The record will reflect that there was less than 
half a dozen, while there were conservative groups of over 200 that 
were targeted. I think that is pretty compelling, and those are the 
facts. It is not just my thought. It is the facts.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, let me just say this because facts are 
important, Inspector General J. Russell George testified before the 
Oversight Committee that his audit did not look at the IRS be-on-the-
lookout list with regard to progressive groups. That is what the 
inspector general testified, so let's stop this partisanship.
  I would say to my colleagues, if my friends want to do this 
correctly, if they want to do this in a way that has some credibility, 
they ought to do this in a nonpartisan way.
  It is really quite shameful that the Oversight Committee has become 
so polarized and so politicized and that this whole issue is being 
brought before us in this way that really, quite frankly, I think is 
beneath this House.
  We ought to do a proper oversight, but not purely because it polls 
well or do it in a way that plays well with a political base. We ought 
to do it in the right way.
  The IRS should not be involved with politics, period. Whether it is 
going after conservative groups or liberal groups, that is absolutely 
unacceptable, and we ought to make sure that doesn't happen, but that 
is not what we are doing here.
  What we are doing here is a witch-hunt. This is the first witch-hunt 
bill of the week. We have several that we are going to be doing this 
week, and I think our time could be better spent on helping the 
American people get back to work.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Issa).
  Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, the minority is entitled to opinions, but not 
facts that just aren't so.
  Our committee issued an extensive committee report, a staff report as 
to the targeting of conservatives. The minority offered no response, so 
the gentleman not on the committee might say something that just isn't 
so.
  The targeting by the IRS was conservative groups. They were the ones 
that got the special treatment. They were the ones that were asked 
inappropriate questions. They were the ones that Lois Lerner said she 
did nothing wrong about, but she did.

                              {time}  1315

  Mr. McGOVERN. How much time do I have left?
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. 
McGovern) has 2\1/2\ minutes remaining. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. 
Nugent) has 14\1/2\ minutes remaining.
  Mr. McGOVERN. I yield myself 30 seconds.
  Mr. Speaker, the Committee on Ways and Means Democrats found out that 
there was extensive scrutiny of liberal progressive groups, groups that 
had names ``Progressive,'' ``Occupy,'' and ``Acorn'' in their name. 
That is the Ways and Means Committee. That just

[[Page 7050]]

goes to show how partisan this process has become, how politicized it 
has become. This is beneath this House.
  If you do oversight, it ought to be nonpartisan. This has turned into 
a circus. This has turned into a witch-hunt. Enough of this. Let's 
start doing the people's work.
  I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
California (Mr. Issa).
  Mr. ISSA. Mr. Speaker, again, BOLOs were issued, be on the lookout, 
if you will, for conservative groups. Conservative groups were 
systematically denied, for more than 2 years, their approvals. 
Conservative groups were asked inappropriate and personal questions, 
things like where do you pray, things like what are your political 
views, and please show us your donor list, even though that was 
inappropriate.
  The fact that the minority will allude to word searches to see how 
many of some application was out there is not about the inappropriate 
targeting and systematically withholding and mistreating of groups. 
That is what happened. That is what evidence is beginning to show Lois 
Lerner was at the heart of.
  We are here today about contempt for somebody pleading a number of 
cases of what was right or what they did or didn't do, followed by 
taking the Fifth, then followed by answering questions having once 
waived and, thus, essentially waiving her rights.
  Now, you can, after the fact, get 39 people to say one thing and 
somebody else can get 39 to say another. Today, we are trying to move 
contempt to the court system where an impartial judge can evaluate 
whether or not Lois Lerner should be ordered back to testify so the 
American people can know the truth about why she did what she did. What 
she did was target conservative groups. That is not in doubt. I don't 
want people using words like ``circus'' in order to confuse people.
  Conservatives were targeted; that is clear. Lois Lerner has things to 
answer. She only answers the part she wants to, including before the 
Justice Department but not before the U.S. Congress.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, may I ask the gentleman from Florida 
whether he has any additional speakers or whether the chairman will 
want to say any more.
  Mr. NUGENT. I do not have any additional speakers, but go right 
ahead.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  This is a circus, and it is really sad that we are here on the floor 
debating this.
  Just for the record, witnesses testified that progressive groups got 
a multitiered review and that liberal groups like Emerge went through a 
2-year process before getting denied.
  The other thing you ought to know is that the IRS has begun a path to 
reform. It has implemented all the inspector general's recommendations, 
including going above and beyond by eliminating BOLOs altogether.
  Mr. Speaker, if this were done in a fair and professional manner, we 
wouldn't be having this controversy today, but the exact opposite 
happened in the Committee on Oversight. It was a joke. We all saw it on 
TV. Enough of this. Enough of this. Let's start doing the people's 
work.
  Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of the 
amendment that I will offer into the Record, along with extraneous 
materials, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Massachusetts?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. McGOVERN. This is on extending unemployment compensation 
benefits. It might be nice to do something that might help somebody 
around here, that might help the American people, instead of doing this 
witch-hunt, this week of investigations, this week of distraction, when 
our economy needs our attention, when people need jobs, when people's 
unemployment needs to be extended.
  Mr. Speaker, I urge all my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the 
previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on this rule, which is a closed 
rule, two closed rules. Again, when we do oversight, it ought to be 
nonpartisan. This has become a partisan joke.
  With that, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself as much time as I may 
consume.
  We have heard a lot today. It should concern the American people of 
what we have heard in regards to the allegations and the operations 
within the IRS.
  You know, I regret, I really do regret that somehow this turned into 
a partisan shouting match. Both sides--both sides--are involved in 
this. I regret it because we have lost sight of the real issue: The IRS 
constituted a serious violation of public trust.
  Mr. Speaker, this goes back to when I was sheriff, and I would sit 
there and have parents come in and complain about schoolteachers and 
the police officers that arrested their son or daughter for a violation 
of law, and they were more concerned about what were perceived as 
issues--in regards to how they were handled--versus the actual conduct 
of their child. This is the same thing.
  We are blowing smoke all over the place trying to obscure the fact 
that the IRS--under the direction, we believe, of Lois Lerner, the 
involvement of her--violated Americans' rights across the board. Talk 
about McCarthyism. They have done it. They have the power to do it. 
They have the power to come in. If you remember the questions asked, 
they asked people about what they believed and what were their 
conversations, who they talked with. Was it an invasion of privacy? I 
think so.
  The American people--and you have heard this from other speakers 
today--really need to have their faith restored that this government 
operates in a very open way, that people can trust government again.
  No one should have to worry. No one--Republican, Democrat, 
Libertarian, or otherwise--should ever have to worry about their 
political speech having them singled out by the IRS. No one should have 
to worry about that. No one group should have to worry about the 
government worrying about their speech and having the ability to 
counter it in a way that brings officialness to it. How do you do that?
  This is true, though, whether you are Republican, Democrat, 
conservative, liberal, or anything else. The point is we should be 
alarmed. This is what we are talking about today. We should be alarmed 
about the conduct of the IRS under the direction of Lois Lerner. We 
should be worried about that in the future, because that is the biggest 
single threat to America today is how our own government treats its 
people, Mr. Speaker. A Federal Government agency used its weight to 
bully Americans. That is not what America is all about, Mr. Speaker.
  Make no mistake, though, that is exactly what happened. The IRS 
bullied people. We had someone last night testify about constituents in 
their district that wanted to promote an organization and do something, 
and they were bullied by the IRS until they finally said: You know 
what, I give up. I can't take it. I worry about what is going to happen 
because I know the IRS has the ability to do other things on my 
personal tax return and call it into question.
  This is an extreme disservice to the American public. They really do 
deserve better. If we are ever going to right this wrong, we have got 
to find out what happened. We have to understand all the facts. And so 
my friends across the aisle really don't want to hear the facts. They 
talk about everything else under the Sun, but they really don't want to 
talk about what happened.
  You know, my good friend talked about this being trivial, doubling 
down on crazy. Well, I guess that you are talking about my 
constituents, because my constituents have that concern. They do have 
the concern because of what they have seen and what has been reported 
in the media by both the left and right media in regards to the 
overstepping of Federal investigation--the IRS--on groups.

[[Page 7051]]

  I heard this called a circus. Well, that is what we are trying to get 
away from. We are trying to get away from this partisanship, and let's 
do what we are supposed to do. By appointing a special counsel, we are 
hoping to take politics out of it, because politics are on both sides 
of this issue. So to do that, you would appoint someone, a special 
counsel, to investigate. Let's take away the partisanship.
  It is also important that people are held accountable for their 
actions. Ms. Lerner defied a lawfully issued subpoena, and there ought 
to be repercussions for that; otherwise, this is just for show. We 
really have no oversight ability if people just come and say: Oh, I am 
not going to tell you.
  That is not how it works. That is not how it is supposed to work.
  This rule brings this question to the floor, not like the Democrats 
did in 2008. This rule brings everybody to the floor where they can 
have an open debate and question and vote on what they think is right.
  So I urge my colleagues to support this rule and the underlying 
legislation. We have the ability to get answers, because whether it is 
a Republican administration or a Democratic administration, the 
American people need to know that their government is going to be held 
accountable if they overreach. If they trample on my rights as a 
citizen, we should have the ability to know who is doing it and why, 
and there should be some redress.
  Today it is really about we don't care. That is what we are hearing. 
There are all kinds of other issues, but we don't care about this. It 
doesn't matter that we sent numerous bills over to the Senate--we talk 
about job creation--that were passed bipartisanly here. The Senate has 
refused to take any action on that, has refused to bring it up, discuss 
it, debate it, amend it, and send it back. They have done nothing.
  So we have the ability today to get politics out of it. Let a D.C. 
court make a decision. Let's do the right thing.
  I urge all my colleagues to support this rule.
  The material previously referred to by Mr. McGovern is as follows:

  An Amendment to H. Res. 568 Offered by Mr. McGovern of Massachusetts

       Amendment in nature of substitute:
       Strike all after the resolved clause and insert:
       That immediately upon adoption of this resolution the 
     Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII, declare 
     the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole House on 
     the state of the Union for consideration of the bill (H.R. 
     4415) to provide for the extension of certain unemployment 
     benefits, and for other purposes. The first reading of the 
     bill shall be dispensed with. All points of order against 
     consideration of the bill are waived. General debate shall be 
     confined to the bill and shall not exceed one hour equally 
     divided among and controlled by the chair and ranking 
     minority member of the Committee on Ways and Means, the chair 
     and ranking minority member of the Committee on 
     Transportation and Infrastructure, and the chair and ranking 
     minority member of the Committee on Education and the 
     Workforce. After general debate the bill shall be considered 
     for amendment under the five-minute rule. All points of order 
     against provisions in the bill are waived. At the conclusion 
     of consideration of the bill for amendment the Committee 
     shall rise and report the bill to the House with such 
     amendments as may have been adopted. The previous question 
     shall be considered as ordered on the bill and amendments 
     thereto to final passage without intervening motion except 
     one motion to recommit with or without instructions. If the 
     Committee of the Whole rises and reports that it has come to 
     no resolution on the bill, then on the next legislative day 
     the House shall, immediately after the third daily order of 
     business under clause 1 of rule XIV, resolve into the 
     Committee of the Whole for further consideration of the bill.
       Sec. 2. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the 
     consideration of H.R. 4415.

     
                                  ____
        The Vote on the Previous Question: What It Really Means

       This vote, the vote on whether to order the previous 
     question on a special rule, is not merely a procedural vote. 
     A vote against ordering the previous question is a vote 
     against the Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow 
     the Democratic minority to offer an alternative plan. It is a 
     vote about what the House should be debating.
       Mr. Clarence Cannon's Precedents of the House of 
     Representatives (VI, 308-311), describes the vote on the 
     previous question on the rule as ``a motion to direct or 
     control the consideration of the subject before the House 
     being made by the Member in charge.'' To defeat the previous 
     question is to give the opposition a chance to decide the 
     subject before the House. Cannon cites the Speaker's ruling 
     of January 13, 1920, to the effect that ``the refusal of the 
     House to sustain the demand for the previous question passes 
     the control of the resolution to the opposition'' in order to 
     offer an amendment. On March 15, 1909, a member of the 
     majority party offered a rule resolution. The House defeated 
     the previous question and a member of the opposition rose to 
     a parliamentary inquiry, asking who was entitled to 
     recognition. Speaker Joseph G. Cannon (R-Illinois) said: 
     ``The previous question having been refused, the gentleman 
     from New York, Mr. Fitzgerald, who had asked the gentleman to 
     yield to him for an amendment, is entitled to the first 
     recognition.''
       The Republican majority may say ``the vote on the previous 
     question is simply a vote on whether to proceed to an 
     immediate vote on adopting the resolution . . . [and] has no 
     substantive legislative or policy implications whatsoever.'' 
     But that is not what they have always said. Listen to the 
     Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in 
     the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition, 
     page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous 
     question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally 
     not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member 
     controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of 
     offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by 
     voting down the previous question on the rule . . . When the 
     motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the 
     time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering 
     the previous question. That Member, because he then controls 
     the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for 
     the purpose of amendment.''
       In Deschler's Procedure in the U.S. House of 
     Representatives, the subchapter titled ``Amending Special 
     Rules'' states: ``a refusal to order the previous question on 
     such a rule [a special rule reported from the Committee on 
     Rules] opens the resolution to amendment and further 
     debate.'' (Chapter 21, section 21.2) Section 21.3 continues: 
     ``Upon rejection of the motion for the previous question on a 
     resolution reported from the Committee on Rules, control 
     shifts to the Member leading the opposition to the previous 
     question, who may offer a proper amendment or motion and who 
     controls the time for debate thereon.''
       Clearly, the vote on the previous question on a rule does 
     have substantive policy implications. It is one of the only 
     available tools for those who oppose the Republican 
     majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the 
     opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

  Mr. NUGENT. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time, and I 
move the previous question on the resolution.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on ordering the previous 
question.
  The question was taken; and the Speaker pro tempore announced that 
the ayes appeared to have it.
  Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further 
proceedings on this question will be postponed.

                          ____________________