the chair lady for the house of communication the honorable the speaker house of representatives madam i have the honor to transmit here with a facsimile copy of a letter received from the  s n n secretary of state state of louisiana indicating that according to the unofficial returns of the special election held may third two thousand and eight the honorable the gulleys was elected representative to congress for the first congressional district state of louisiana with best wishes i am sincerely signed lorraine c miller clerk of the house but there is no contest and no question has been right with regard to his election without objection will the representative elect and the members of the louisiana delegation present themselves in the well all members will the representative elect will raise his right hand do you solemnly swear or affirm that you will support and defend the constitution of the united states against all enemies foreign and domestic that you bear true faith and allegiance to saying that you take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion and that you will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which you are about to introduce to the members of the house our newest member steve scully's steve is a graduate of the home of the current national college football champions dale issue tiger and he has a degree in computer science and he told me to tell you all that if you're having problems with your computer feel free to call and steve comes to us after twelve years experience in the louisiana legislature where he had a distinguished career he was known as a reformer in a place where there was not much reform on the minds of many people in state government so steve comes to us  a distinguished record of service for the people of louisiana already and i'm sure he will bring that same distinction to his service here in the house and steve has a lovely family which i will give him the honor thank you congressman mccreary thank you madam speaker leader boehner the rest of the members of the louisiana delegation and all of my new colleagues here in the house of representatives it is truly an honor to serve in this distinguished body must thank so many people but i've got to first thank god for helping me give me the strength to get here i want to thank my family and my wife jennifer who's in the balcony with our beautiful it's also jennifer's birthday today so it's an even extra special day i promise i will not sing here on the floor maybe later but we do have a thirteen month old beautiful daughter madison my father al is here with his wife maggie i want to thank him for coming and maggie my sister tara is here as well and my brother glen could not be with us i know my mom carol is looking from above and smile and and us so many other friends and family we've got a wonderful group of friends that are here with us today as well and it is truly an honor i want to thank the voters of the first congressional district for giving me this honor while we have many challenges while we're still recovering i want to thank each of you for all the help that you've given us in the recovery from hurricanes katrina and rita there's still work to do but the help that you've given has really helped people start to get their lives back in order and i know our country faces many great challenges too but our founding fathers created the greatest democracy in the history of the world when they created this system that we have this house and senate and in this building we've got the ability in the talent of people to solve those problems i love very forward to working with each and every one of you to help tackle those challenges so thanks again to the voters of the district and my family god bless louisiana and god bless the united states of america under clause five d of rule twenty the chair announces that the house in light of the administration of the oath of office to the gentleman from the lead santa the whole number of the house is four hundred and thirty four jackson five minute voting will continue and reserving the right to object and i do possibly plan to jet because we are on the eve of passing mr speaker the house is not in order are on the eve of passing the largest supplemental appropriations bill in the history of the united states house of representatives now the history of supplemental bills actually goes back to the second congress so it's not unusual to have a supplemental appropriation bill it's just it over the years we've gotten in recent years and out of the habit of offsetting these pieces of legislation no traditionally they have been used for a war or for a sudden disaster or for a health care crisis or something like that but now we are in on the verge of pass and a large supplemental appropriation bill for things that aren't emergencies this bill is not confined to emergencies it is not confined to the suspect the house is not in  this is a vote on agreeing to the speaker's approval to it is a fifteen minute vote reserves or resumes on the house floor after the swearing in of steve skill east newly elected first district louisiana republican taking the seat that the bobby jindal had who's now the governor of louisiana twenty four will be zero a couple of a five minute votes will follow this fifteen minute vote on approving the journal the official written record of the previous day's activities but you've already heard some conversation jack kingston republican of tennessee talking about the forthcoming iraq war bill the supplemental as it's been called and over the past two days republicans had protested the fact that that bill is coming to the house floor on thursday without going through the appropriations committee writing in today's washington post paul kane writes that setting up their last major policy battle over major battle over war policy with president bush house democrats yesterday and veiled a plan to link their favored domestic spending projects and a troop withdrawal timeline t additional funds for military operations in iraq and afghanistan requested by the white house the washington post report they write that the one hundred ninety five billion dollars spending measure would pay for the wars well into next year while tacking on eleven billion dollars to extend unemployment benefits and nearly one billion dollars to offer expanded higher education benefits for war veterans democrats said they hope that the spending provisions particularly the education measure will prove politically difficult for bush to vote to veto in an election year on the subject of veto the white house has issued a veto threat on the housing legislation that is due on the house floor today that's the main legislative business today writing about the bill congressional quarterly said house lawmakers are set to move major housing legislation today but a white house veto threat complicated the measures long term prospects the package is an amalgamation of several measures including a long sought overhaul mortgage finance giants fannie mae and freddie mac the modernization of the federal housing administration an expansion of the f h a loan guarantee program and a housing focus tax measure the package amounts to the most significant congressional congressional response to the housing crisis to date that's from today's congressional quarterly the white house has issued what's called a statement of administration policy a veto threat and part of that says that the congressional budget office estimates that the f h a loan guarantee program in this bill would produce claim rates of about thirty five percent for the first time for this type of program require credit subsidy appropriations operate the one point seven billion dollars price tag would have passed on to taxpayers who are not participating in this new f h a program this attempt to shift cost to taxpayers constitutes a bailout that's from the from the executive office from the president on this housing legislation due on the house floor today watching live h coverage on c span