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22–446 2016

MEMBERS’ DAY HEARING ON PROPOSED RULES 

CHANGES FOR THE 115TH CONGRESS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON 

RULES AND ORGANIZATION 

OF THE HOUSE

COMMITTEE ON RULES 

U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

(RCH 114–2) 

Held in Wasington, D.C., Wednesday, September 14, 2016 

( 

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COMMITTEE ON RULES 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas, Chairman 

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina 

TOM COLE, Oklahoma 

ROB WOODALL, Georgia 

MICHAEL C. BURGESS, Texas 

STEVE STIVERS, Ohio 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington 

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, 

New York, Ranking Member 

JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts 

ALCEE L. HASTINGS, Florida 

JARED POLIS, Colorado 

HUGH NATHANIAL HALPERN, Staff Director 

DON SISSON, Minority Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES AND ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE

STEVE STIVERS, Ohio, Chairman 

DOUG COLLINS, Georgia 

BRADLEY BYRNE, Alabama 

DAN NEWHOUSE, Washington 

PETE SESSIONS, Texas 

LOUISE MCINTOSH SLAUGHTER, 

New York, Subcommittee Ranking Member 

JAMES P. MCGOVERN, Massachusetts 

JUSTIN BARNES, Subcommittee Staff Director 

ADAM M. BERG, Minority Staff Director 

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CONTENTS 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 2016 

Speakers Index ......................................................................................................... V 

Members’ Day Hearing on Proposed Rule Changes for the 115th Congress ...... 1 

APPENDIX 

Prepared Statements: 

Insert 1A–1: Statement of the Hon. John Culberson, a Representative in 

Congress from the State of Texas ....................................................................... 39 

Insert 1A–2: Statement of the Hon. Pete Sessions, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas ............................................................................. 43 

Insert 2–1: Statement of the Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Illinois ................................................................. 48 

Insert 2–2: Statement of the Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Illinois ................................................................. 54 

Insert 2–3: Statement of the Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative 

in Congress from the State of Illinois ................................................................. 58 

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SPEAKERS INDEX 

Bordallo, Hon. Madeleine Z.; a Resident Commissioner from Guam 

Byrne, Hon. Bradley; a Representative in Congress from the State of Alabama 

Ca ́ rdenas, Hon. Tony; a Representative in Congress from California 

Collins, Hon. Doug; a Representative in Congress from the State of Georgia 

McGovern, Hon. James P.; a Representative in Congress from the State 

of Massachusetts 

Newhouse, Hon. Dan.; a Representative in Congress from the State of Washington 

Nunes, Hon. Devin; a Representative in Congress from the State of California 

Posey, Hon. Bill; a Representative in Congress from the State of Florida 

Rooney, Hon. Thomas J.; a Representative in Congress from the State of 

Florida 

Sessions, Hon. Pete; a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas 

Slaughter, Hon. Louise McIntosh; a Representative in Congress from the 

State of New York 

Stivers, Hon. Steve; a Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio 

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MEMBERS’ DAY HEARING ON PROPOSED 

RULE CHANGES FOR THE 115TH CONGRESS 

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

COMMITTEE ON RULES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RULES AND

ORGANIZATION OF THE HOUSE, 

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:04 a.m., in Room 

H–313, The Capitol, Hon. Steve Stivers (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Present: Representatives Stivers, Collins, Byrne, Newhouse, Sessions, Slaughter, and McGovern. 

Mr. STIVERS. Good morning. I would like to call this subcommittee to order. 

Welcome to the Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the 

House. I am not a big fan of opening statements. I came here to 

listen to our witnesses, so I will be very brief in my opening statement and then turn it over to the ranking member, Ms. Slaughter. 

This is the second hearing that this subcommittee has had this 

year. The first hearing we had was in April on rule XXI, you may 

remember. And today’s hearing will encompass the entirety of the 

rules package for the next Congress, and it is a real opportunity 

for us to hear from Members for their suggestions of how we can 

improve the functions of the House under the rules of the House. 

And so Members today will present testimony on a wide-ranging 

set of proposals that would change the rules of the House with regard to procedural motions, printing requirements for bill analysis, 

committee witness disclosures, subpoena authority, ethics training, 

et cetera. I am excited to hear from our Members about their proposals. 

I look forward to hearing from each of the Members that are testifying, and we have gotten ideas from a lot of Members, and I look 

forward to the question and answer. I think that is going to be very 

robust and interesting to understand the proposals that are being 

brought forward by our membership from the bottom up. And I 

really look forward to that today, and thank you all for being here. 

With that, I would like to turn it over to Ms. Slaughter. Thank 

you for being here. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you very much. I am happy to be here. 

Mr. Chairman, the debate surrounding the rules that will govern 

the body of the next Congress may seem arcane to some, but they 

are incredibly important. This is our opportunity to help steer the 

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House of Representatives toward working better on behalf of the 

American people. 

One of the most urgent issues facing our country today is the 

gun violence epidemic tearing apart our communities. The sad reality is that 91 people are killed by a gun every single day in America, and even sadder reality was not 6 months ago we were using 

the figure 30 a day. It has now risen to 91 a day. 

Since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School nearly 4 

years ago, there have been more than 1,270 mass shootings. A 

mass shooting is characterized by the FBI as three or four casualties. So those have happened nationwide. More than 34,000 people 

have lost their lives by someone using a gun since Sandy Hook— 

not since Sandy Hook, but in the recent time we have been keeping 

track. 

It is startling to think about what the communities have faced 

over the past few months alone. And so the sit-in by the Democrat 

minority took place in June, and this summer alone, 2,015 people 

were killed by gun violence. 

These aren’t nameless, faceless tragedies, Mr. Chairman. They 

are our constituents, our family members, and even our colleagues. 

They are the people who elected us, who we represent that are 

being killed and injured at an alarming rate. As a result of this violence, Members of the House have stood more than 30 times since 

Sandy Hook to mark a moment of silence in response to a gun tragedy. 

We are the people who can do something about gun violence. 

Standing up for a moment to recognize it doesn’t really address the 

problem. When we took the oath of office, each of us promised to 

defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic, 

yet the majority has failed to protect our communities from this 

carnage. The majority should decide today that it has stood for the 

last time without taking action. The leaders should start to do their 

jobs. 

Far too many Members of the majority have consistently answered to the gun manufacturers and the gun lobby that represents them, preventing any legislative effort from moving forward. There hasn’t been a single vote taken in the House to address gun violence since the tragedy at Sandy Hook. That is a disgrace, because I think everybody in America thought that the carnage of destroying the lives and shooting up of 20 elementary 

school children would be something that none of us could endure. 

While this chamber has failed to act on gun violence, we found 

the time to take up legislation to whittle away at the Dodd-Frank 

financial reform law, which will help to protect Americans and prevent another great recession. In fact, just yesterday, the House Financial Services Committee reported out a highly partisan bill to 

kill Dodd-Frank. We have had an army of lobbyists up here since 

Dodd-Frank passed to do that very thing. 

So these proposals and many others that we consider here are 

just one of the House bills that are taken up mostly to make a political statement in an election year. At the same time, we failed 

to take up legislation to address the skyrocketing cost of education 

or our crumbling infrastructure. 

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It is the responsibility of every Member of Congress to discuss 

the gun violence epidemic, the Zika epidemic, to fix them with legislation, to stop our country from being the only industrial country 

in the world that allows that type of bloodshed with guns. And that 

is why I hope we move forward with one particular idea we will 

hear about today, a rules change proposed by my friend, Representative Tony Cardenas. I am proud to be an original cosponsor of his 

resolution, along with Representatives Joe Crowley and Norma 

Torres. This straightforward proposal will require that every moment of silence carried out on the floor of the House related to a 

tragedy involving gun violence is followed by a committee hearing 

on the subject of the tragedy within 10 legislative days. 

The Editorial Border, largest newspaper in my district, has already endorsed this proposal, writing, quote, ‘‘There is no reason 

for any congressional representative to say no to this resolution,’’ 

end quote. 

But this resolution alone won’t solve the epidemic, but it is a way 

to start the kind of conversation and examination of gun violence 

that has been so sadly lacking under this leadership. 

Mr. Chairman, this is what the American people expect and deserve. Think what it must be like now that every time your children leave the school, your spouse leaves for work, you leave the 

house to go to the grocery store, whatever you do, or to your work, 

that you might not come back home. They are—now, living under 

that kind of fear is totally unnecessary in the land of the free and 

the home of the brave. 

So I look forward to hearing from my colleagues about their proposals to amend the rules of the House. And for the moment, I will 

yield back the balance of my time. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, Ms. Slaughter. 

I would now like to recognize the first three Members to give testimony on their proposals. Mr. Griffith, Ms. Bordallo and— 

Bordallo, sorry, and Mr. Posey. Come on forward to the three seats. 

There are two microphones at the table, so you will have to share 

a little bit. I would ask you to try to be brief with the descriptions 

of your proposals and allow time for questions because we do have 

a lot of Members who have made proposals, and so I am sure that 

a lot of the information will come out in the question and answer. 

So please try to be brief, if you can, and summarize what you are 

doing and why you think it is a good idea, and then the members, 

I am sure will ask questions. 

When you begin your testimony, please pull the microphone close 

to you so that people can hear it, and make sure the green light 

is turned on. 

Without objection, any written materials you have will be inserted into the record. We welcome you and thank you all for being 

here. I will tell you that our great chairman, Pete Sessions, has a 

group of students in his office and he told me he will be here. He 

cares deeply about your proposals and wants to make this House 

work better, and he told me he will stop in in just a minute. Here 

he is right now, the chairman of the full Rules Committee, our 

great chairman, Pete Sessions. 

So with that, I will recognize each of you, and if you want to just 

go down the line, is that okay with you, Mr. Griffith, Ms. Bordallo, 

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and Mr. Posey. And again, please pull the mike close to you. Thank 

you. And let’s go ahead and start with Mr. Griffith. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MORGAN GRIFFITH, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF VIRGINIA 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate it very 

much. I have submitted two proposals. The first one is restoration 

of the Holman rule. That is a big part of the hearing that we had 

earlier this year that you all were so kind, so I am presenting no 

additional information. I just didn’t want folks to think I had forgotten about it or that I no longer cared. 

The other one, I call it the Larsen rule. Representative Larsen 

was in here 2 years ago with this proposal. I thought maybe we 

could find something better. Nothing better has come up, and here 

is what the proposal says: All bills coming out of the Senate shall 

be treated under Senate rules. The concept being, then, the Senate 

would understand that when some relatively innocuous bill comes 

across, that we ought to take it up, debate it, and deal with it, as 

opposed to having it locked forever by virtue of a 60-vote rule. So 

what would happen in the House is you would have to have 60 percent of the House before you could ever take up a Senate bill. 

Hopefully, when they saw how ridiculous that was, they would 

then change their own rules. 

I yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

Ms. Bordallo. 

STATEMENT OF HON. MADELEINE BORDALLO, A DELEGATE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE TERRITORY OF GUAM 

Ms. BORDALLO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Slaughter, members of the committee. I request that the House 

rules be amended for the 115th Congress to permit the delegates 

and the resident commissioner to cast votes when we are debating 

amendments and legislation in the committee of the whole, same 

as was granted in the rules of the House of the 110th and 111th 

Congress. 

Votes cast by Members of Congress make us accountable to our 

constituents and allow them to understand where we stand on important issues. The rules that were adopted by the 112th, 113th, 

and the 114th Congress denied voting rights for Members from the 

territories and the District of Columbia and continue to be—makes 

the House less responsive to the more than 4 million Americans 

who live in these districts. 

Extending voting rights would be wholly symbolic. Our votes cannot change the outcome of legislation or amendments considered on 

the floor. However, these votes allow us to ensure that the needs 

of our constituents are addressed. Further, many of our Nation’s 

men and women in uniform are residents of the territories in D.C., 

and these dedicated servicemembers sacrifice much of our country—much for our country and many have paid the ultimate sacrifice. In fact, the per capita death rate for servicemembers from 

the territories is higher than most States. Additionally, beyond 

high levels of military service, residents from the territories in D.C. 

contribute to and serve our Nation in all other aspects of American 

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life. Yet we, their representatives in Congress, are denied the very 

basic right to vote on matters that impact their very lives. 

Mr. Chairman, permitting the delegates and the resident commissioner to cast votes in the committee of the whole will not lessen the representation of the 435 members. Rather, it would allow 

territories’ voices to be heard more fully. It will give us parity with 

other Members and strengthen the long-cherished values of this 

body. 

And I want to leave you, Mr. Chairman and Ranking Member, 

with something that one of my predecessors, Guam’s former Republican Congressman and General Ben Blaz told me that when I was 

first elected to Congress in 2003, he said that as a delegate from 

a territory who could not vote on the floor of the House, and I 

quote, ‘‘I would be a Member of Congress, but not one of its Members.’’ So I hope that this rule will be changed. 

And thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member. 

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. Posey. 

STATEMENT OF BILL POSEY, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Mr. POSEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members, and I appreciate the fact that you are having these meetings to try and get 

information and ideas from the bottom up. 

I am proposing what I proposed before, and that is, the House 

not consider any legislation that is not presented in comparative 

print. Almost every legislature in this country does that, many 

county commissions, many city commissions. You know, you get a 

piece of legislation before us and you don’t know what is new or 

what is old, what is deleted, what is changed. You just start trying 

to read the whole thing, and you may be wasting a whole lot of 

time reading stuff that is already there. 

So if we want to have a process that is actually Member-friendly, 

Member informative, transparent, good for the public, good for good 

public policy, and if you really care to be able to see what is in the 

legislation you are voting on, this is the proper course to take. We 

have proposed this before, and former speaker said it was too expensive before, said we were going to do it before, we don’t need 

to have it in the rules, we are going to do it anyway. This is almost 

my—completion in my own State this year, and we are no closer 

to doing that than we were when I got here. The only way we are 

going to force this to get done, to stop treating Members like mushrooms, is to put it in the rules. Thank you. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you all for being here. And I will open it up 

for questions, and I will start with, actually, Mr. Posey. 

I was a State Senator for 6 years before I came here. The Ohio 

legislature uses comparative print, and I can tell you, I read the 

bills. In Congress, it is really hard to understand the bills in Congress sometimes because you don’t understand what is changing 

and what is—and you can’t see how things are changed. So comparative print, I think, is a great tool for Members that want to 

read bills and understand them. 

The change that we have had since, I think, the last time that 

you proposed this is the House has gone paperless mostly. Won’t 

that reduce the cost of this change? 

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Mr. POSEY. Absolutely. As your Ohio legislature did, most legislatures do, when you go paperless and you put it online or in electronic form, then you put the new language in green, underlined, 

and the stricken language in red, hash hyphen through. So very 

simple. It has got to be a savings of—you know, for every 100 hours 

you would spend reading bills, this would probably save you 96, 97 

of them. I mean, you could take 100 hours of bill reading, reduce 

it to 3 hours, if you know you can go right to the changes, you 

know, you look for the changes. 

You can—sometimes you would see it in Ohio, I know we have 

it in other States, you have a bill that thick. You could spend 2 

days reading this thing line for line and still not know what was 

really changed. 

Sometimes you will see there is only two changes in a bill that 

thick, and you can peel through there and look, oh, they have 

changed 18 to 21, they changed ‘‘shall’’ to ‘‘must,’’ or whatever the 

change is, but it is just—you know, it seems almost intentional to 

keep Members in the dark when you can’t have simple, simple 

Member friendly legislation presented and able to read like that. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. And speaking for myself, it would be a 

great—it would make it much easier to read bills. I think it is a 

fabulous idea. I appreciate you bringing it forward. 

Ms. Bordallo, you already said this, but I want to make sure I 

understand it. You would give voting rights to the resident delegates, but they could not change the outcome—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. That is right. 

Mr. STIVERS [continuing]. Of a vote? 

Ms. BORDALLO. I think you can hear me. If the vote would be a 

tie on amendments, then they would vote again leaving us out. 

Mr. STIVERS. Okay. 

Ms. BORDALLO. So it makes no difference whatsoever. It is just 

the idea of being down in the floor with our colleagues. 

Mr. STIVERS. Right. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And then letting our constituents know how we 

stand on these issues. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

And Mr. Griffith, I think your—your Larsen rule is intriguing because the rules in the Senate have changed in a way that are frustrating to many Members like me. It used to be that if you were 

in the Senate and you wanted to do a filibuster, you had to stand 

up and talk. Now they can do silent secret filibusters. The cloture 

rule is invoked everywhere almost, and it really is frustrating, and 

I understand that there are some protections on it. 

There is nothing constitutional about the cloture rule in the Senate. It is a tradition, not a constitutional requirement, and I think 

it is ludicrous, and it does stop us from making a difference. So— 

but I have a couple of questions on how it would work. 

If the House were to consider Senate legislation under the Senate rules, would the Senate rules have to be published in advance, 

or how would you handle that, because many of us are not as familiar with the Senate rules? 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Well, they are already published, obviously, as a 

part of the Senate rules, and what you do is that you would just 

refer to those documents. Whenever a Senate bill came over, you 

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would refer under that. Look, I have got to believe there is a better 

way to deal with this situation, but seeing no better way and having heard Mr.-Larsen quite eloquently say 2 years ago this isn’t a 

Democrat problem, it isn’t a Republican problem, it is a Senate 

problem, that I thought, you know, we ought to at least have the 

discussion. 

It would be a huge change. It would actually, for a short period 

of time, make things worse because it would also have the House 

not able to pass some of the legislation, just like the Senate can’t. 

But it is one thing when it is somebody else’s bill that is getting 

gored and when all of a sudden the Senate sees it is their bills that 

are being trampled by their own rules, I believe it would bring 

them to their senses. 

Now, that being said, I would love for someone to come up with 

a better idea, another way to handle this problem, but it is a conflict between the House and the Senate, which is damaging to the 

Republic as a whole, and it is not a Democrat or Republican issue. 

It is a House-Senate issue. 

Mr. STIVERS. It is a very provocative idea, and it is interesting 

and certainly would illustrate how difficult it is to get things done 

in the Senate. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yeah. And if I might say, it is the—when you take 

the filibuster rule, the cloture rule, and the hold rule that the Senate have, and you put them all together, that tradition only dates 

back to the 1970s. It does not date back to the 1870s. It is a 1970s 

deal, and I must presume that they had some kind of a gentlemangentlelady agreement because it wasn’t really abused by either 

party until you get into the late 1990s, 2000, and then both parties 

have run amuck. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. Thank you all for being here. 

I would now like to recognize Ms. Slaughter. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you, Mr. Stivers. 

Very interesting ideas. Ms. Bordallo, I am sure you remember 

when we did have that rule. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. And it worked extremely well, and I supported 

it then and I support it again. It seems a terrible thing to ask a 

Member to come all the way from Guam and not really to be able 

to participate in a lot of things that we are doing. And I thought 

that it worked out very well. As you pointed out, if there is a tie, 

they revote and take the delegates out. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Simply symbolic. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Right, right. But an important symbol and you 

are here. I think we need to do that. 

And Mr. Posey, I served in the State legislature as well, and we 

had, I think, one chairman when I was there who would never 

have anything more than a page-and-a-half because that is all he 

wanted to read. Somehow I think he managed to get his bills down 

to that. I am not sure everybody really approved of that notion, but 

it was his and he was proud of it. 

And Mr. Griffith, you know, as long as I have been here, we have 

always had the sense that our problem is not Republican-Democrat, but our common enemy is the Senate. But I think it was set 

up to be that way. We have always been told that the Senate is 

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the cooling saucer for hot-headed legislation that comes to them 

from the House. It would be a little hard to, I think, to get that 

changed, but I appreciate the joke. 

I yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, Ms. Slaughter. I would now—— 

Mr. Byrne. 

Mr. BYRNE. Yeah, I really appreciate Mr. Posey’s suggestion. I 

was in the State Senate in Alabama, same thing, and I do think 

it is more than just saving us time. I think there is a real strong 

element of transparency here. So I appreciate your bringing it forward. I hope we adopt it. 

Mr. Griffith, I don’t want to get back into the very long discussion we had about your Holman rule, but I would like to make a 

request of you. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Sure. 

Mr. BYRNE. If you would get with the staff to work out some of 

these things, and particularly give them examples of amendments 

that you cannot offer now that you would be able to offer if we 

adopted the rule as you proposed it. If you would do that, I think 

that would be helpful to our deliberations—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Sure. 

Mr. BYRNE [continuing]. In coming up with something that would 

somehow get to the meat of the argument that we had back in 

April, which I really appreciate your bringing this forward. 

You have done a great job of putting it all together. We had a 

very provocative discussion in April, but in order to follow up on 

that adequately, if you could get with the staff and if they would 

get with you and we could get some of that, that would be helpful. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Would love to do it. I have got lots of examples. 

Mr. BYRNE. Thank you. Appreciate it. 

Yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, Mr. Byrne. 

Seeing no other Democrats, Mr. Newhouse. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate all three 

of you coming forward with some great ideas. They really are. 

First of all, Mr. Posey, I have often lamented the fact that we 

don’t do things like we do in the State legislatures in making it 

clearer what we are trying to do in effecting legislation. 

It would make our job easier. It would make our staff’s jobs a lot 

easier, but it would make members of the public tasks a lot easier 

to try to figure out what we are doing. And so I think it is a win 

win-win, I guess, if there is such a thing, so I think that is a great 

idea. 

Ms. Bordallo—I think I pronounced your name correctly. We 

serve on Natural Resources together, so—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. That is correct. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE [continuing]. I appreciate having you here today. 

This is an interesting idea that you brought forward. I have often 

wondered that myself, why territories don’t—are not allowed 

to vote. Although, you do have voting privileges in committee, correct? 

Ms. BORDALLO. In committee, that is correct. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. So if you are asking for a symbolic vote on the 

floor, I am not sure how that gives you parity, if you could help 

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me understand that. If it is only symbolic, that is still, you are 

not—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. That is correct. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE [continuing]. Not quite there. And you do have 

the opportunity to express your opinions clearly in committee, so 

that—if your—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. Absolutely. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE [continuing]. Complaint is that you can’t express 

how you feel on issues to your constituents, there is an opportunity 

there. 

Ms. BORDALLO. I guess in answer to you, Mr. Newhouse, is the 

fact that, you know, you are elected to a body. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Yeah. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And you are not allowed to vote on the floor at 

all. We don’t vote for final passage. That is even a disparity, in my 

opinion. But to not be able to go down and vote when there is a 

committee of the whole, it is a matter of just going down on the 

floor and meeting our colleagues once in awhile. You know, I am 

very seldom down on the floor because we don’t have a vote, the 

committee of the whole or final passage. So I think it is just a matter of—to being—belonging to a family. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Sure. And I get that. 

Ms. BORDALLO. A whole family. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. I understand that, and I appreciate that. And 

then your comment that it would not—I think I can’t recall exactly, 

would not affect the outcome or would be—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. No, not anything—— 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. So only in the event of a tie would those votes 

then be discounted? 

Ms. BORDALLO. That is right. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. What if it was a margin of one or two? 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, whatever. If there is a margin of one, I 

think they go back and vote again. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Or the total of the number of delegates—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. Would be left out. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. I see. Okay. Okay. That is an interesting concept. I haven’t made my mind up on it yet, I just—but I appreciate 

you bringing it forward and allowing us to consider. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Would the gentleman yield? 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Sure, absolutely. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I do want to say that for about 10 years that 

was commonplace for that to happen. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Thank you, Dan. 

Without any upset to anybody or it seemed to work pretty well, 

at least I don’t recall ever hearing any complaints about it. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Oh, okay. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. And it did make—it did make people who had 

come a great distance to get here really feel like a part of what was 

going on. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And then most important too is our constituents 

don’t know where we stand because our votes are never publicized 

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or whatever, you know. We may be on the bill as a cosponsor, 

but—— 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Aren’t committee votes publicized? 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, yes, they are, yes. But, you know, in every 

aspect. I am on Defense and I am on Natural Resources, but what 

about all the other, the Health and Education Committees and so 

forth, so—— 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Good point. Good point. I appreciate that. Well, 

like I said, it is an interesting idea, and I appreciate having a conversation. 

Ms. BORDALLO. And we did have it in two Congresses, we did 

have the right to vote, but it was taken away then when the parties changed. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, thank you for bringing the idea forward. 

Ms. BORDALLO. You are welcome. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Mr. Griffith, you always come forward with interesting great ideas. The one thought that occurred to me, though, 

we all complain about the Senate, right, and I guess that is a part 

of the—just the natural dynamic. But the one thing we complain 

about most is the 60-vote margin. 

So it seems to me that—I guess I get that. I get where you want 

to get back at them, get them to change their rule, bring it more 

so that we can get our things passed through the Senate more easily. But it seems to me like we would be doing exactly the same 

thing that we complain about all the time by putting in their rules 

into our House. And so tell me how that makes sense. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. And the concept would be—I mean, and Chairman 

Stivers touched on this, is that the historical filibuster rule was— 

it actually had a higher threshold at one point at 67 to stop it. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Yeah, right. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. But you had to be live on the floor, either you or 

a series of people making your case to the American people. What 

happens now is they put in this—with the combination of the 

three, the filibuster, the cloture, and the hold rule, they can effectively not take up a piece of legislation. But instead of standing on 

the floor explaining to the American people why it is they feel like 

this is a piece of legislation that should not be voted on or why it 

is something that is bad, they can go home and do whatever they 

want to do at home, they can go to a fundraiser, they can go have 

a nice steak dinner at Charlie Palmer’s, and so there is no pressure. 

What you found with the historical filibuster rule, which did slow 

things down, but it gave time for people to think about it and listen 

to the complaints. What happened then was you had people who, 

A, were very passionate. It didn’t happen on your regular bills. It 

only happened in the hot button issues. And after several days, 

worstcase scenario, either one side got tired or the other side figured out, these people have a point, and they would work out their 

differences. And the process did not come to a complete halt. 

Now, you are absolutely right, we would be bringing those what 

I consider to be defective rules, and contrary to the principles of 

American democracy in a Republican forum, we would—they are 

contrary to that. We would be bringing those into our House, but 

my belief is it would be for just a short period of time, because once 

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the Senators had some great idea that 90 out of 100 voted for it 

and sent it over here, and a couple of us said, no, we are putting 

a secret hold, you won’t even know which one of us is putting a secret hold on it, and you have got to get 60-percent of the House to 

support taking it up, I think they would understand the frustration, and it would be a good lesson. 

Now, that being said, there has got to be a better way. I recognize there has got to be a better way, but I haven’t figured it out. 

So I put this in so that folks would think about it, come up with 

a discussion, and maybe we can come up with a plan to let the Senate know that, you know, there may be some things that that is 

what they want to do on, but when it becomes every bill you send 

over there becomes a struggle with that rule, it is truly damaging 

the American Republic. 

And I feel a little bit dangerous in saying this, but for the historians out there, this—the way the Senate is operating is actually 

akin, it is not identical, but it is akin to Calhoun’s steering of the 

majority theory, which he proposed in order to protect slavery. 

Now, we are not facing that issue today, thank God, but there 

are issues of the day that can be jammed up by folks who are operating with secret holds and then requiring a super majority to get 

something out. No government teacher teaches the kids that in 

school, that it takes 60 percent to pass a bill, but that is what is 

happening now, and one body is holding up the entire process. And 

so we have got to figure out—I think, as a House, we have to figure 

out a solution. This is—I recognize this is a flawed solution. But 

without any solution being placed on the table, we will never have 

a discussion, so I put it in. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Yeah, right, right. And I don’t disagree that giving them a taste of their own medicine might help, although many 

members of the Senate are former House members too, so they 

should understand. Something happens to a person’s memory when 

they walk across the way. But I appreciate you bringing it up for 

discussion. 

As far as the Holman rule, it also has a long history in Congress, 

one that I haven’t done a lot of research on, but it goes back into 

the 1800s. Is there anything in particular that you are looking for 

as far as programs or changes to benefits being provided to any 

beneficiaries? Is there anything that you are trying to zero in on 

or is it just a—— 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Well, it is a general frustration that I have had 

since coming here 6 years ago, that there are things that you can’t 

really get to because it is mandatory spending. And when I—— 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Yeah. 

Mr. GRIFFITH [continuing]. Burrowed down to find out what the 

problem was, it is our own Rule XXI. And so if you change XXI 

(2)(b) and (c), it is still going to be rare. There are going to be times 

when there is probably a rule that waives those rules, and I understand that, but to be able to at least offer. 

And the one that first brought it to my attention was I saw us spending $70 million on the wild horses program. And while there 

may be some benefit in that program, I can tell you that is a lot 

of money to be spending on 50,000 wild horses to have a retirement 

home out West when we have needs with children with disabilities, 

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and lots—and anybody can pick out their favorite need, but $70 

million would solve a lot of the other issues that we have. Not all 

of them, but there is a fair number of issues you could pick off the 

table and say here is your funding if you could get to that $70 million. But believe it or not, the retirement homes for wild horses is 

mandatory spending. 

And I have submitted previously to the committee a list of all the 

different things that are mandatory spending. So most people here, 

you know, when they hear mandatory spending, they think about 

the big projects, Social Security, et cetera, those types of—Medicare, and they are right. But there is a lot of other programs that 

we could be looking at and trying to decide whether or not we 

should actually be funding them and using our power of the purse, 

which we cannot do. 

And the rule was created in 1983 to keep Reagan Republicans 

and Blue Dog Democrats from cutting spending. And so it was not 

created to solve a problem other than crazy Republicans trying to 

control the budget. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. That is good to see some things never change, 

right? 

Mr. GRIFFITH. Yes, sir. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, again, you always bring good ideas to the 

front, so I appreciate that, all of you, your ideas today. And I yield 

back my time. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

Now I would like to recognize the great chairman of our full committee, our chairman, Pete Sessions. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And I want 

to first thank each of you for being here. I also want to thank Louise Slaughter. Louise Slaughter has taken her time to be here as 

the ranking member. And Louise, thank you for doing this. 

Louise had the opportunity, when she served as chairman, to sit 

through and try and make wise determinations. Each of you three, 

in fact, have brought pretty good ideas to us today. I will go to Mr. 

Posey first. 

Mr. Posey, I don’t presume to know everything about it, meaning 

the process, but we have a very intricate process and overloaded 

system. We have an overloaded legislative counsel who does all 

these matters. We have, all of a sudden, a bill that comes up and 

113 people decide to rush leg counsel and to get things done and 

for them to determine what they are doing. 

I think that there is probably two things that I have as a goal 

of being the chairman of the committee, and both have eluded me 

thus far. The other one is how we can change the jurisdictional elements as it relates to homeland security. The jurisdiction is in a 

broad group of people, and we just have not gotten our hands 

around that. 

I would like to tell you what we told you 4 years ago or 6 years 

ago, it is a work in progress. We are trying to get at it, and we 

have made an incredible number of changes as it relates to the 

Government Printing Office, as it relates to getting bills done 

where they actually are able to substantively identify things. And 

I think that if I were going to be forthright with you, I should accept the challenge to say, how about in just the major bills that 

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come out of committee, if not the amendments that come, and we 

have got to understand more about this. 

This happened to me yesterday. The committee knows that I was 

speaking with a Member, and I actually talked with him about the 

changes that he proposed and where they were all in line with 

what he said they were doing with the actual legislation. And it is 

not easy for Rules Committee members to actually see these delineations also. 

So what I am going to promise you is I am going to dive, not 

back into that issue, but to see where we are going on that 

progress. I think if there is one thing that I should stand for, it is 

trying to make the process better. You have been nothing but kind 

to me. Katy even still talks to me despite me not getting this done, 

but I want you to know it is not an effort that has been—that we 

have thrown away. We just can’t get at it yet with the volume of 

work and then having the money to do it. 

I think everybody knows that we are operating off old dollars 

from years back, and we have invested that money in people instead of technology. And everybody is under that same strain. And 

so I will promise you that when I see you, that I need to have a 

better response. And I want to thank you for having the—really the 

sincerity to come up here and offer ideas as opposed to saying: 

Look, guys, I am sick and tired of this. I have asked you before. 

So I want to—— 

Mr. POSEY. I do that too, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Well, you have been very gracious, but some elements have eluded us. 

Secondly, I want to say that the issues that you bring forth about 

the voting of delegates might be somewhat of a new issue to some 

of our new Members. It is not to older Members who have been 

here. There are a number of systematic reasons we could get into 

whether we should have—D.C. should have people that vote, 

whether they should have a United States Senator, and there are 

some bit of us that have tended to look at the Constitution in these 

matters. 

And I want you to know I am delighted that you are here, and 

bringing the issue up is important. I am not promising any change 

this time, but you are ensuring that there will be a discussion. And 

I think, from that perspective, you would not consider that a victory but that we do recognize what we are doing and we probably 

need to get better at it. 

Yes, ma’am. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Mr. Chairman, I just want to make it very clear 

that, you know, although we wish we could have final vote—final 

vote on the passage of bills, but we are just asking for this committee as a whole vote. And I understand it has been through various courts and it has come out affirmatively, so I just want you 

to know that there has been some background done on this. And 

as I said, it is just a symbolic vote, and we represent 4 million 

American citizens. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes, ma’am. But you don’t come from States. 

Ms. BORDALLO. Well, I guess you can say that. 

Mr. SESSIONS. I guess I could. And a body—Mr. Griffith is here 

arguing really a great—not only a great argument but a great come 

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back. And I think that perhaps Mr. Newhouse said it best when 

he said, you know, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. But in fact, a body, a body, a United States Senate or United 

States House is entitled, under the law, to set its own rules and 

to establish therein how it will operate under a constitutional perspective. 

I simply wanted—not trying to be nasty—will recognize, I am 

glad you are here, I am glad you are bringing this issue, but there 

is some bit of disagreement about how the votes will take place 

here, and we do see it differently. Louise sees it differently, and 

she had an opportunity when they held the body to do that, and 

yet you are speaking respectfully to two Members, and I think it 

updates our new Members and it will be a discussion. And we will 

have to consider this. And I would like to say that we have a Republican, at least one Republican—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. Yes, we do. 

Mr. SESSIONS [continuing]. In that perspective also who was—— 

Ms. BORDALLO. I thought that would help. 

Mr. SESSIONS [continuing]. Most gracious and genuine when she 

approached me as chairman of the committee some 2 years ago. So 

I acknowledge that, but there is a philosophy behind it. 

Mr. Griffith, what you have done here is most intriguing. It has 

also been said you want us to do what you don’t like them doing. 

We would do the same, we will treat you the same way you treat 

us. I would suggest to you—and I know we have got an 11 o’clock 

meeting with each other about that, or at least I think we do, 

where you are going to bring this and other ideas to me. I would 

simply say this: I believe, in some respects, except for the rules of 

the Senate as they apply necessarily to legislation about whether 

it is considered permanent or whether it is considered under a 10- 

year reauthorization, we really, I think, fall to the right value, and 

that is, we have a vote on the rule on the floor where 50 percent 

of people do get a chance to fully express themselves. We do pass 

legislation that exceeds the 60 vote threshold. 

Because our body is larger, that 60-percent becomes almost inconsequential if it were related to whether we would move a bill 

forward. In other words, whether you are going to get cloture or 

not. But in some respects, this body has chosen to have the rules 

that it does, and our fine young chairman now—that is why we are 

entertaining these ideas and notions, but what I would suggest to 

you is, it is worthy of some bit of understanding, but we find ourself on a regular basis, as we have up at the Rules Committee, 

where certain parts of what the Senate has passed were done with 

60 votes, which made it permanent law. 

What does permanent law mean? Permanent law means it has 

no ending date until another set of changes where 60 votes overturn that law. And I just think that for us to apply that rule, which 

I deeply disagree with, could have some implications downstream 

of permanent law in this country, up to and including, what happens when we did our—when we were in the minority and we got 

an $870 billion stimulus package that could have gotten 60 votes 

and become permanent law and they could have just done what 

they chose. 

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I think it binds us different when we operate the way that we 

do, so I admire you for what you got. I want to learn more from 

you. There has been no Member of this body that has sat in—except the Rules Committee, that sat in Rules Committee meetings 

other than yourself. And I think you are thoughtful, and I admire 

you for it. I am interested in exploring more about it. But my observations as an insider that has done this for 20 years is: I think 

we live up to most of what you would want anyway. But I think 

it is still an interesting concept, so I guess we entertain each other 

a lot up here. 

I yield back my time. 

Mr. GRIFFITH. I appreciate your comments, Mr. Chairman, and 

it was put in as a place holder, just to have a discussion about 

what do we do about this. Because I do see that, even if the Senate 

doesn’t, I see what they are doing in their rules, which is, as you 

pointed out, they have a right to do as a body, but what they are 

doing, I believe, is damaging the Republic. The main cause of why 

the American public is dissatisfied with the legislative branch as 

a whole, because they don’t see us getting things done, and yet our 

House has produced a lot of bills, and we have passed more bills 

off the floor than historically during this same 2-year period has 

been done in this Congress, but they just go over and languish in 

the Senate because there is a secret hold with a requirement for 

a cloture vote and a filibuster, and you end up with no action whatsoever. 

So I do appreciate your comments, and as I said to Mr. 

Newhouse, I recognize this is a flawed suggestion, but I thought we 

ought to have a discussion. 

Mr. SESSIONS. Yes, sir. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to all three 

Members of the panel. 

I do have two things to read into the record. First from John Culberson, a letter which explains a proposal that he has. I would like 

that read into the record and submitted for the record. 

[The statement of Mr. Culberson can be found in the Appendix as 

Insert 1A–1] 

Mr. STIVERS. And second, our great chairman, Pete Sessions, 

asked legislative counsel to review the Ramseyer rule and recommend changes of how the rule can be revised to accomplish the 

goal of transparency that Mr. Posey has. And I want to make sure 

we get you a copy of what leg counsel has said, but I would also 

like that submitted into the record without objection. 

Without objection, those will be entered into the record. 

[The statement of Mr. Sessions can be found in the Appendix as 

Insert 1A–2] 

Mr. STIVERS. The next—thank you for being here. 

And we are going to have the next panel, and I believe Mrs. 

Radewagen had stepped into the hall. Is she still out there? Can 

somebody check? 

So I would like Mr. Rooney, Mr. Ca ́ rdenas, and maybe Mrs. 

Radewagen, if she is still out in the hall. She is not there. 

So I will have—we will have Mr. Rooney and Mr. Ca ́ rdenas here 

for the second panel. Again, there are two microphones at the 

table, so now there are two of you so that should not be very hard. 

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Please pull the microphone close to you and make sure the green 

light is turned on so that the cameras and everybody in the room 

can hear you. 

Without objection, any written materials you have will be inserted into the record, and we welcome your comments. And thank 

you both for being here, and thank you for your very thoughtful 

proposals to change the House rules in the next Congress. 

If it is okay, we will just go from that direction over, and we will 

start with Mr. Rooney. 

STATEMENT OF HON. THOMAS ROONEY, A REPRESENTATIVE 

FROM THE STATE OF FLORIDA 

Mr. ROONEY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There we go. 

So members of the committee, I would like to ask you what do 

the following things have in common? The Louisville Lake Dike repair, the Buckeye Lake dam repair, the dredging of the Rochester 

Harbor, or the Herbert Hoover Dike repair. These are all Army 

Corps of Engineer projects that we have in our districts. I couldn’t 

find one in yours, Mr. Newhouse, so I will keep digging. We all do. 

And I have a bill called H. Res. 813, which is being amended for 

the House rules to exclude existing or proposed water resources development projects of the Army Corps from the definition of our 

congressional earmark ban. And the reason I do this is very simple. 

I have been in Congress now for four terms, going into my fifth 

term. Some here have been shorter, some longer. One thing that 

I have noticed since we have instilled this ban is that our constituents are getting more and more frustrated over our inability to do 

our constitutionally mandated job, which is to deliver and to govern 

and to problem solve when they pay their Federal taxes to us, and 

then they ask us, as Members of Congress, to address these issues 

for them. 

And our only recourse now is to basically write a strongly worded 

letter to the Army Corps asking that they perform a duty for us 

in our own districts. It kind of feels like a hollow exercise that we 

are essentially reduced to being cheerleaders for our constituents 

rather than governing and problem solvers. 

The other difference in this resolution, slash, rules proposal 

change is that unlike a lot of the other reasons we have the earmark ban, which there was improprieties, there is bad actors, there 

were bad earmarks, and then we came up with this earmark ban, 

and we had some solutions with being able to apply for competitive 

grants. There are no such competitive grants for Army Corps of Engineer projects. You either get them or you don’t. 

And when I first got elected in 2008, we could direct the Army 

Corps in our district to do certain projects that we felt were important and a priority. 

So when we did the earmark ban, all we could do thereafter was 

write these strongly worded letters. We go back to our constituents, 

we go back to our community leaders, and where they used to appreciate what we did for them, now they just have this look of disappointment. It is the disappointment that we all feel as Members 

of Congress when people see our inability to get things done and 

why Congress’ approval rating is so low. 

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And why do we do this? The only reason that I can think of is 

because it looks good politically that we say we don’t do earmarks. 

The problem with that is, is that we don’t spend any less money. 

We just punted our obligation of the power of the purse to the administration. They still spend that money. The Army Corps still 

does projects, but they prioritize what they want to do, not us. 

So we can’t do anything for our own constituents that pay Federal tax dollars and expect us to get things done for them. So this 

rule change basically is just to say: Let us do our jobs again. At 

least with regard to the Army Corps of Engineer projects, let us be 

able to go home to our constituents and our people and say: What 

is important to you I will get that done, if I feel like it is the right 

thing to do, rather than just begging the administrative branch to 

do it for us. 

And ladies and gentlemen of the committee, I thank you for your 

time. I thank you for your consideration. I know that this is a political issue, but we have got to move on, and we have got to be able 

to start getting things done for our constituents, especially in a divided government like we have. This is something that Democrats 

and Republicans alike should be able to come together so we can 

do our jobs and feel good about doing our jobs again because we 

are getting things done for our constituents. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you very much. 

Mr. Ca ́ rdenas, go ahead. 

STATEMENT OF TONY CA ́ RDENAS, A REPRESENTATIVE IN 

CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Thank you very much. I appreciate this opportunity. And thank you for introducing that rule change. I love it. 

I used to be local government where they don’t call them earmarks. 

They just say you are taking care of your constituents. 

Mr. ROONEY. Yeah. Yeah. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. So thank you. 

Thank you members of the Subcommittee on Rules, young Chairman Stivers, as my colleague, Mr. Sessions, referred to you, and 

young Ranking Member Slaughter. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Hardly. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Good morning everybody. Thank you for allowing 

me to speak to you on this rule change today. My proposed change 

to the Rules of the House would amend rule Number XI by adding 

the clause titled, ‘‘Hearings Related to Moments of Silence.’’ This 

clause would require that every moment of silence observed by the 

House floor, because of a gun violence tragedy domestically here in 

the United States, would be followed by a hearing within 10 legislative days of that moment of silence on the House floor. The 

Speaker of the House would designate the appropriate committee 

or subcommittee to carry out the hearing. The hearing would have 

to be about the gun violence tragedy that the moment of silence 

was observed for. 

Again and again we have stood in silence on the House floor remembering the victims of mass shootings, remembering and honoring victims from all across our country. All of these moments of 

silence have at least one thing in common. They were not followed 

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by meaningful legislative action or hearings by this House. We are 

tired of not having an answer for our constituents when they ask 

us what we have done to cut down on the number of mass shootings or to make the process for buying a gun safer. 

I introduced this rule change as a resolution, House Resolution 

694, on April 20, which is the 17th anniversary of the Columbine 

shooting that shocked our Nation. This resolution now has 141 cosponsors. There have been at least 31 moments of silence related 

to gun violence observed on the House floor since the shooting at 

Sandy Hook Elementary School. That is an average of eight moments of silence a year since the Sandy Hook shooting. 

This rule change would require legislation or—it would not require legislation or even draft legislation. Just an honest, open, 

transparent discussion about public safety and how to best protect 

the American people, a hearing of the House of Congress, just a 

hearing so we can find out what happened and what we can do to 

stop something like it from happening again. 

I would be misstating the reason for me introducing this resolution if I just said it was out of frustration, but I introduce this because on any average day in the United States of America, 89 people die due to gun violence. On average, every day, 31 people are 

killed by someone using a gun, 55 people commit suicide every day, 

2 people are killed unintentionally, and at least 1 person is killed 

by police intervention. 

What that breaks down to, ladies and gentlemen, over an annual 

basis is 32,500 people die as a result of gun violence every year in 

the United States of America. 11,294 people are murdered, 19,992 

people killed themselves, 561 people are killed unintentionally, 414 

are killed by police intervention, and 254 die, but the intent is not 

known. 

In addition to that, of the people who die every year, 75,962 people are shot and survive due to gun violence, 55,009 people are injured in an attack, 3,791 people survived a suicide attempt, 16,334 

people are shot unintentionally, and 827 people are shot by police 

intervention. 

Those are some of the things that turn out in statistics, but behind every single one of those incidents are families and communities that are left in anguish and wondering why Congress is 

doing nothing about it. Thank you. 

Mr. STIVERS. Do you yield back, sir? 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Yes, I yield back. Thank you. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you both for being here. Thanks for your 

proposals and your testimony. 

Mr. Rooney, I find your idea particularly thought provoking and 

engaging. Tell me—obviously under Article I, section 8 of the Constitution, we are the ones responsible to appropriate money. But 

tell me, would this increase spending by even a dollar or would it 

just have us do our job to direct the spending as we so believe? 

Mr. ROONEY. Absolutely not. I mean, that is one of the great 

myths of the earmark ban that, you know, is perpetrated that 

somehow that there has been a reduction in the amount of the pie 

that is spent because we don’t do earmarks. There is no reduction. 

It is the same. It is just we don’t control how the money is spent, 

which goes exactly to what you say under Article I that our responsmartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING

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sibility on Ways and Means is tax and on Appropriations is to 

spend the dollars that our constituents send us. So there is no increase in spending. It is only who gets to decide where that money 

is spent. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. I think that is a very important point 

to make, but thank you for your thoughtful idea. I have no further 

questions. 

Ms. Slaughter. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. Boy, I do. Mr. Rooney, thank you. 

Mr. ROONEY. Thank you, Madam Chair. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I used to represent a small town on Lake Ontario, about a few thousand people, when fishing was so wonderful, 

but they didn’t have—they couldn’t possibly bond for water sewage 

systems. And we were able to put a little money together here in 

an earmark so that they could build an economy, for goodness sake. 

Every earmark we ever did was a request by a municipality. We 

signed a letter saying that we had no financial interest of any sort 

in it, and as you point out, we were simply doing what our constituents excepted us to do, step in when there was something 

there was no other answer for. 

And I have deplored that loss so much. And as you pointed out, 

keeping the Port of Rochester dredged is no small item that we 

have to beg for practically on our hands and knees every year. 

I thought doing away with the earmarks, which really is what 

was pointed out, wasn’t anything that benefited any of us personally in any way. We were simply doing what our governments were 

asking us to do that they couldn’t do by themselves. I wish to goodness that that would happen, and I thank you very much for bringing that up. 

Mr. Ca ́ rdenas, of course, I am the cosponsor of your resolution. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Thank you. 

Ms. SLAUGHTER. I think very much about it. I wanted to talk 

about—awhile ago when I first made my introductory speech, I 

mentioned 34,000 people being killed since Sandy Hook seems kind 

of surprising to me, but that is the actual number. And we have 

done those 31 remembrance of silence that—sometimes two and 

three a month, and it is almost a meaningless thing if those of us 

who were standing at moment of silence, are the very same people 

who could do something about it. It simply does not let us off the 

hook that we say we are really sorry it happened if we don’t try 

to make sure it doesn’t happen all the time in the country. 

You remember that all we all said about how important it was 

when we did the background checks and that people who were 

mentally ill were not going to be able to get those kinds of weapons, but yet every time we have something like Sandy Hook, Aurora, those persons and perpetrators have always found being in 

some direction or other mentally impaired. So whatever we are 

supposed to be doing there isn’t working, and that may be because 

we don’t do gun shows and people can order them or buy them 

from each other. 

It is—what we are doing is obviously not working. But I find that 

for me, as a Member of this Congress, that the fact that we can’t 

even address it is very sad, and I hope we can change that. 

Mr. Stivers, thank you very much. 

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If you will excuse me, I have got to go meet the president of 

Rochester, and then be right back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Sounds like a very important constituent. All right. 

No problem. I know Mr. McGovern is on his way. 

I would like to recognize the distinguished member from Alabama, Mr. Byrne. 

Mr. BYRNE. Yeah, Mr. Rooney, I appreciate your amendment. I 

think it raises a very important issue that we need to discuss. It 

always perplexes me why we would rather have unelected government bureaucrats make decisions about how we spend money in 

our districts rather than the people that were elected by the people 

of the United States. So I appreciate your bringing this to the floor. 

You brought a rightful focus on the Corps of Engineers, and I am 

sorry I missed your testimony. I was at another committee meeting 

voting or supposedly voting. 

Why did you limit it just to the Corps of Engineers? Was there 

some particular purpose? 

Mr. ROONEY. I think it was just built up frustration over the 

years as an appropriator, but also because it is the one thing that 

we can sort of argue, I think, with even more confidence that because there are no competitive grants that you can sort of like gear 

people that are looking for those Federal dollars for, there is no 

Federal grants that they can apply for, they really are just at the 

mercy of how the administration wants to spend that money with 

no input from us and no input from like the competitive grant process, whoever has the best application, I guess you would say. 

So to me, this just seemed like the easiest sort of toe in the water 

for us to be able to say, okay, we are not doing earmarks, I get 

that, but at least, you know, there is competitive grants. But where 

there is no competitive grants with regard to Army Corps projects, 

there is really no other recourse for us other than to write a letter 

to the administration begging them that this is really important to 

us back home. And they can tell us, you know, to take a hike if 

they want to, and they do a lot, especially in my district, it feels 

like. 

Mr. ROONEY. So this just takes that power back to what I think 

the Founding Fathers originally wanted us to have, to be able to 

represent our people and govern and solve problems. 

Mr. BYRNE. That really gets to the other question I was going to 

ask you. It sounds to me like one of the bases for your assertion 

of this is that you are reasserting the prerogatives under Article I 

of the Constitution on behalf of the legislative branch, which we 

have essentially given away to the Article II executive branch. 

Mr. ROONEY. That is right. And obviously, as an appropriator, I 

would like to, as Ms. Slaughter said, have the opportunity to revisit, at least when it comes to municipalities or other taxpaying 

entities. I understand that there were, again, as I testified, bad actors in the earmarks time, but we cut off everything. But we didn’t 

reduce spending, which is this great myth out there, that somehow 

because we don’t do earmarks there is less spending. There is not. 

So we basically just sacrificed our constitutional duty to allocate 

those dollars to the administrative branch and perpetrating, I 

guess, this myth to the public that we don’t do earmarks, aren’t we 

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great? It is like, no, we are not great. It just adds to the dysfunction that this Congress feels every time we go home. 

I remember when I was first elected, as I said, that we had earmarks, my constituents were actually glad to see me when I went 

home. And that is one of the frustrating things, is that you feel like 

you have nothing for them when you go back. 

And so this is just one of those things that I think that is our 

obligation, it is our duty. There is no other way for people to be 

able to apply for grants in this situation. So if we are not going to 

do earmarks right now, fine, but at least let’s look at Army Corps 

of Engineer projects, because there is no other way for them to be 

able to use their Member of Congress to get those projects complete. 

Mr. BYRNE. Well, I appreciate your bringing this forward, because at the very least it gets us talking about this issue and having a more well-reasoned position on it, however we come out. And 

I am not sure where I stand on it myself. 

But I really appreciate you bringing it up. Thank you. 

Mr. ROONEY. Thank you, sir. 

Mr. BYRNE. I yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

Mr. Newhouse. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I appreciate both of you coming forward this morning with some 

good ideas. 

So just in the order of your appearance, Mr. Rooney, I am from 

the West. We have been experiencing tremendous periods of 

drought in the West. Mr. Ca ́ rdenas understands that as well. Mr. 

Nunes is in the room. So we have been very frustrated getting the 

proper authorization to move forward on projects that would improve water storage, water availability. So I certainly applaud your 

efforts in this regard to help move those projects forward with the 

Army Corps. 

Would you be open to including the Bureau of Reclamation in 

this idea to help ameliorate some of the problems that we see with 

surface water projects moving forward in the West? 

Mr. ROONEY. Yes, sir. It is interesting. Since I proposed this bill 

and got, I think, over 20 cosponsors now from both sides of the 

aisle, I think evenly split, I have had many Members come up to 

me asking if I would be open to adding certain things like that to 

it. And you can tell that there is obviously good justification for all 

the ideas that would be added onto it. 

Again, the reason why I just limited it to this is because I felt 

like if we kept adding stuff, there are a lot of things that you can 

justifiably keep adding to it, but that I maybe risk it losing its kind 

of strength in its simplicity, so to speak. 

But me personally? Absolutely. But I think that first things first. 

And if we can at least convince our colleagues that we should be 

able to dictate what Army Corps projects are a priority in our own 

districts, then we can move on to those other issues. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Like I say, I appreciate the thought. 

You did bring up, I believe, the Corps’ Chief of Engineers recommending something like 28 projects, and that had a total price tag 

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of, I think, about $5 billion, which is several billion dollars more 

than their current funding level. 

So in reference, sir, to the questions from Mr. Stivers, and you 

have made several points that this would not increase spending, 

could you address how we would make up that difference in funding levels? 

Mr. ROONEY. From what I understand of the Energy and Water 

appropriations bills, that the funding projects would not break the 

budget caps that we have. It would simply ensure that Members 

have control over what the existent levels are. So I am not really 

sure where you are getting your funding level that you just cited. 

I will find out and get back to you to make sure that we are on 

the same page. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Okay. 

Mr. ROONEY. But we specifically crafted this that there would be 

nowhere outside of what the existing appropriations level would be 

moving forward. But to be sure, I will get my staff to get back to 

you on that. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, it comes from your white paper on the bill 

itself. 

Mr. ROONEY. Okay. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. So we will get together and talk about that 

later. 

Mr. ROONEY. Yeah. Okay. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Just so I am clear about the increased level and 

we are able to deal with that. Certainly I agree with Mr. Byrne, 

it seems like we have abdicated much of our responsibility to the 

executive branch. There are certainly arguments to be made for the 

fact that we represent areas of the country, we should know from 

our constituents the needs better than the executive branch because that is our neighborhoods and we get the input directly from 

our constituents. So I appreciate the thought that you bring forward. 

Mr. Ca ́ rdenas, I appreciate your bringing forward this very important issue. I understand your frustration that you share with 

many Members of the Congress. And I guess I have some question 

about if this is the right path to take. So I want you to help me 

understand. Certainly I see moments of silence that we take as a 

body, and I agree there is way too many, but they are meant to 

honor or to mourn or pay tribute to individuals. And I think it is 

a tremendously important time for us as a body to gain unity as 

a group. So they are important things for us too as well as we go 

through this exercise. 

Having a requirement that a hearing is held within 10 days, 

though, poses some interesting, I think, perhaps conflicts that 

maybe you could help me with. A lot of times police investigations 

last much longer than 10 days. So we wouldn’t have complete facts 

or the story of what is happening. Perhaps an investigation at our 

level I am not sure would be as effective as it could be. 

So could you help me understand how we would not interfere 

with an ongoing police investigation if that was a requirement for 

such a short period of time to hold one. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Sure. Thank you. That is a great question. And 

to your first point of the moments of silence, my resolution here 

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would not preclude us from having moments of silence. As a matter 

of fact, what it would do is it would only be triggered if in fact we 

have a moment of silence on the floor. So it wouldn’t impede our 

ability or our need to have a moment of silence to show our solidarity with the communities that have been afflicted by such a 

tragedy. 

Secondly, to your question about how it would or wouldn’t interfere with an investigation and/or if an investigation hadn’t got 

enough facts out, I can tell you this, when we have a moment of 

silence on the floor 99 percent of the time there has been tremendous national coverage on the matter, there have been statements 

by the local authorities, and it tends to enlist the involvement of 

the national authorities as well. 

When you look at Sandy Hook, for example, much information 

had already been in the public within 2, 3, 4 days. So when I talk 

about 10 legislative days, we could be talking about having a hearing 3 weeks later. Say we have a break between those legislative 

days, we could have a hearing as late as a month, even 2 months 

later. 

So I picked 10 legislative days as a compromise in my mind to 

while it is still fresh in our minds, yet at the same time it gives 

enough time for us and the Speaker to go ahead and deliberate as 

to which committee or subcommittee would in fact have the hearing. But most importantly, it would give us, as the most collective 

legislative body in the country, to actually speak to the issue and 

the tragedy that was of such a height that we actually had a moment of silence on the floor of the Congress. 

So to me the 10 legislative days is enough time for us to have 

gleaned information on that and for us to call forth experts to educate us and to apprise us as to what perhaps contributed to such 

a tragedy. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Yeah, I guess I hadn’t thought about the possibility it could be several weeks or months. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Yeah. It is legislative days, not calendar. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Yeah. But it could be just a matter of less than 

2 weeks too, depending on when it occurred. And so I guess that 

is my concern. Instead of holding a hearing using only resources 

available through the newspaper or media, how effective would 

that be and how productive would it be. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Another point that you bring up, thank you very 

much, is this: If we had a hearing in 10 legislative days and for 

some odd reason there was little to no factual information that we 

could deliberate, then that would be a perfect example of us perhaps speaking to the issues of maybe the inadequacies of the resources that we as a country, as local governments, or what have 

you, are putting into our investigative authorities, that within 2 

weeks to 2 months we know little to nothing about the cause and 

effect of such a tragedy that it is such of great import that we actually had a moment of silence. 

Now, understand, we very 89 people on average that die every 

day in this country, but yet we only have an average of about eight 

moments of silence a year on the House floor. So, again, that brings 

back the purpose of my resolution, is that we would be changing 

the rules based on the gravity of—certain situations that have the 

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gravity that actually cause us to have a moment of silence. There 

are when you look on an annual basis, 32,000 people die every 

year. But yet at the same time we only have about eight moments 

of silence. 

So, again, we are talking about the most egregious, most heightened instances in the United States where the House of Congress 

pauses and has a moment of silence. And sometimes, as you well 

know, sometimes our moments of silence actually have comments 

from the Speaker and/or somebody from that state likely to stand 

up on behalf of that community and make other comments about 

what a tragedy it is. 

So, again, I am not talking about every death in America we 

would have a hearing, only, again, on average since the Sandy 

Hook incident, that tragedy, we have only had an average of seven 

to eight moments of silence a year since then. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, again, I appreciate you bringing the idea 

forward. I do have some, I think, concerns. But whether or not the 

moment of silence should be the trigger to hold a hearing or some 

other metric might be more appropriate, but certainly it is an issue 

that is very important to all Americans. So I appreciate you bringing the idea forward. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Thank you. And you bring up another good point. 

Perhaps myself or somebody else could actually introduce a resolution saying that every time in any calendar year we have at least 

10,000 people who have died due to gun violence, that would trigger the House of Congress saying it is time that we discuss that 

matter, we have had 10,000 Americans dying at the hands of guns 

in our country. And based on the information that I provided today, 

that would be perhaps three hearings a year, because we are seeing over 30,000 people die every year. Maybe that is the threshold. 

But the silence that we have is ironic, that a moment of silence 

that we have about seven or eight times a year, we have had zero 

hearings on those matters that we have had a moment of silence 

on. 

So that is the irony of it, is my resolution is trying to strike that 

balance between us showing our understanding and our remorse 

for such a tragedy, but yet at the same time, with all due respect, 

we are not clergy. Some of us might be. I am not. But the fact of 

the matter is we are elected as legislators. We are elected as problem solvers. We are elected to address the issues that face this 

country that are so egregious that we need to be involved in the 

solution. 

Thank you. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Thank you. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

We have been joined at the hearing by the honorable member 

from Massachusetts, Mr. McGovern. 

Do you have any questions for the panel? 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Just a couple. 

Mr. Rooney, I didn’t hear you testimony, but I am looking at your 

amendment, which I certainly would support. I would just expand 

it. I mean, to be honest with you, the idea that people here complain about that the executive has too much power, and we have 

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just handed over to the executive the ability to determine where 

some of these Federal funds that we all allocate go, it never made 

any sense to me. And if people want to put in safeguard provisions 

to make sure that every earmark is vetted, I am all for it. We 

banned earmarks supposedly as a reform, but I think it has been 

a terrible, terrible mistake. 

But I think if there was a secret vote of both Democrats and Republicans who maybe are not in the Republican leadership right 

now, I think we would reinstate earmarks. And, again, I am all for 

checks and balances, but we are in a situation now where it is out 

of control. 

Mr. Ca ́ rdenas, I absolutely agree with you. Look, here is the deal. 

The reason why I think you feel compelled to bring this idea to the 

committee is because in the greatest deliberative body in the world, 

we don’t deliberate very much. And I think that there is a great 

deal of frustration over that. 

And nobody is saying on the issue of gun violence that everybody 

has to agree with every single hearing or every single vote that 

may come up. But the fact that there is silence here, I mean, we 

have moments of silence followed by silence, followed by indifference, followed by inaction, I think is stunning. 

And I have lost count of how many people, and, again, not just 

people who like me, but some people who don’t like me very much, 

who just always ask: Why won’t you even talk about this? Why 

won’t you even do it. 

And we only do moments of silence when we have a massacre. 

As you mentioned, we don’t do it on the deaths that happen each 

and every day. But, I mean, I have to be honest with you, I am 

embarrassed for the institution that on an issue like this where 

thousands and thousands of people are dying each year we can’t 

even find the time to talk about it. 

And, again, I mean, people have different ways of dealing with 

gun violence and that is all legitimate discussion in a hearing or 

on the House floor. But to do nothing, it is pathetic. 

And so I support what you are trying to do. And maybe it might 

give people some pause to, if they don’t want to embrace your idea, 

maybe let’s bring some of these issues to the floor and have a debate and a vote and wherever it ends up it ends up. But to do nothing should not be an option. 

Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. Yeah. Thank you. And again, my resolution 

doesn’t require that a Member introduce legislation every time we 

have a moment of silence. It doesn’t require that a committee or 

the House even pass legislation. 

Basically what it will require is, just like we openly have that 

moment of silence before the entire public on the House floor because it is recorded and sent out to the world for anybody to watch, 

we would actually have a dialogue as elected Members of Congress 

on the matter in which we had a moment of silence so we can at 

least express and/or dialogue, hopefully in an intelligent, informed 

manner, with witnesses and dialogue and-interaction. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Well, the other advantage of what you are suggesting is that it would be an indication to the American people 

that we care enough about this that we want to talk about it, 

which right now—— 

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Mr. CA ́ RDENAS. The moment of silence actually shows that we 

care, right? It is one thing for us to show that we care, but it is 

another thing for us to show we are willing to roll up our sleeves 

and actually deliberate and/or possibly, possibly, actually do something that would prevent future incidents like that. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I would argue with you that I am all for moments of silence, but that we have done so many moments of silence followed by nothing that they have become empty gestures, 

and I think that is troubling. 

But thank you very much to both of you. 

Mr. STIVERS. Do you yield back? 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

Thank you both for being here. You certainly both have put some 

thought into your proposals. You are free to go. I really appreciate 

your thoughtful testimony. 

Mr. ROONEY. Thank you. 

Mr. STIVERS. The outstanding chairman of our Intelligence Committee and an esteemed member of the Ways and Means Committee, the great Member from California, Mr. Nunes, has been 

waiting very patiently. And I appreciate him being here to offer 

proposals for our rules for next year. 

Mr. Chairman, I would remind you that when you sit down, 

when you testify, pull the microphone close because they don’t 

work very well in a boom situation, and make sure the green light 

is on. 

Without objection, I would like to allow any written materials 

that you brought with you be inserted into the record, and we welcome your comments. Thank you for being here. Thank you for 

your ideas about how to make our next Congress work better. 

With that, I would like to yield to Mr. Nunes and inform the 

panel that I understand Mr. Palmer from Alabama is on his way. 

If he is here before you conclude your testimony, I would like to 

add him to this panel. And if he gets here once we are in the questioning, we will add another panel. And if he doesn’t get here, we 

will probably adjourn. 

So with that, I will yield to Mr. Nunes. 

STATEMENT OF THE HON. DEVIN NUNES, A REPRESENTATIVE 

IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA 

Mr. NUNES. Well, Mr. Chairman, thank you so much for holding 

this very important hearing because changes have to be made here 

in Congress. And I want to outline two problems that I see and solutions. 

So, obviously, we know the turmoil that can be created with a 

huge leadership vacuum in the middle of a Congress. We saw that 

this Congress where any Member, if they want to go out and offer 

something, if it becomes popularized over the Internet, becomes a 

fundraising tool, and the next thing you know you have people attacking leaders of our respective parties. 

So the first amendment that I would propose to clause 1, rule IX 

is to only allow for a resolution that vacates the Office of the 

Speaker to be privileged if it is offered at the direction of the majority or minority conference or caucus. In other words, a majority 

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of the conference or caucus should have to vote to vacate the Office 

of the Speaker before a resolution can be offered as a privileged one 

on the floor of the House. 

This change would align the treatment of motions to vacate the 

Office of the Speaker with the treatment of resolutions from the 

committees of the House. It would also ensure that resolutions that 

vacate the Office of the Speaker can garner the support of either 

the majority or minority conference or caucus before the resolutions 

are considered on the floor. 

So I think this is a pretty straightforward amendment, and I 

hope that we would consider it in next year’s Congress. 

The second issue that I would like to bring up is one that I think 

other Members have skirted around the edges of it, but it is how 

do we really bring back the power of the purse and how do we use 

our time wisely here as Members of Congress. 

So my suggestion is, and this is conceptual only at this point, 

would be to combine the powers of the appropriating committee 

with the authorizing committees. How that looks, I think there is 

a few different structures that you could go down on that road. But 

this is not a new idea. The Appropriations Committee didn’t exist 

until 1865. And between 1880 and 1920 authorizing committees 

also possessed jurisdiction over appropriations bills. 

The former chairman of this committee Mr. Dreier, spent a lot 

of time on this in the mid-1990s, so about 20 years ago, at looking 

at different ways to combine these. But given the wide scope of the 

Appropriations Committee’s current jurisdiction, the authorizing 

committees possess the greater policy experience in their respective 

areas of jurisdiction. 

So the change, I think, would reduce the duplication of efforts. 

I think it would potentially take the time that we spend on the 

floor offering amendments each year, walking through appropriations bill after appropriations bill, I think we would stop that duplication of effort. And I think it also solves the problem that we face 

here, and that is of authorizing committees at the end of the day, 

it is really tough for them to actually change law. So in kind of a 

simple sense, what I am saying is that every time we pass an appropriations bill from here it, in effect, would be an authorizing 

bill. 

I think there are a few different ways to go about it to structure 

this. This is, like I said, this is just a concept. But we would have 

8 to 10 A committees. Every Member that comes to Congress, Republican or Democrat, would sit on one of these A committees. And 

then we would have a series of B committees that would be maybe 

select committees like this committee or others. Obviously, the Ethics Committee comes to mind as another select committee. And 

then there might be some appropriations/authorizing committee 

combinations that would also be B committees. 

So the concept would be that every Member would have one A 

committee that would have appropriations and authorization power 

and then there would be enough B committees where each Member 

would probably have a second committee of some kind. 

I think what this really would do is it would make this place a 

lot more efficient, because essentially each committee would have 

their week or 2 during the year that they would bring their bill up 

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to the floor. Members would bring their amendments before this 

committee. You guys would decide what amendments are made in 

order. And then we would take a week or 2, debate those issues. 

And I think there would be a lot more buyin from the Members. 

And I think that is one of the challenges that we see here is 

there is just not a lot of buyin from Members here. Because if you 

sit on—and I did this when I was first here as a freshman—you 

sit on three committees, you sit on six to eight subcommittees. I 

mean, look, let’s be honest, there is no possible way that a Member 

of Congress has the time to go to each one of his committee hearings. So if you had two committees, I think it would be much easier, and I think you would spend your time much more efficiently. 

So with that, I think the first rule change I offered was pretty 

self-explanatory and I think is absolutely necessary. The second 

one is more conceptual, but I would like for this committee to think 

about it and of course both of the parties to think about it. I am 

going to bring this up at our Republican Conference I think this 

afternoon. 

So with that, I would be open to any questions or discussion that 

we could have here before the people of the House. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for being here. Thank 

you for those thought-provoking ideas. I think, obviously, the first 

proposal makes some sense, having seen what we went through, 

frankly, to make sure that any motion to vacate has some reasonable support before it comes to the floor in a privileged way. My 

understanding, and I would like to ask you, is that anybody could 

still offer a motion to vacate, it just would not be a privileged motion unless it had the support from either half of the Republican 

Conference or half of the Democratic Caucus. Is that correct? 

Mr. NUNES. That is correct. 

Mr. STIVERS. So it would not prevent anybody from offering anything, it would just change the nature of it to ensure that it is only 

privileged if it had some modicum of support. 

Mr. NUNES. That is correct. 

Mr. STIVERS. And your second proposal certainly is very thought 

provoking. I know certainly for the first hundred years of our country we had no Appropriations Committee, and the authorizing committees appropriated money. And I think that certainly would be 

a big change, but it is a thought-provoking change, because I do believe that we get sort of drug down into lots of things. And maybe 

if there was responsibility at each authorizing committee to appropriate the money for the programs there would be a little more accountability, and as you said, I think you called it skin in the 

game. 

But I think it is certainly a thought-provoking idea, and I look 

forward to talking to you more about it and thinking about it as 

we move into next year. So we have the month of October, November, and December. We have about a hundred and some days to actually look through and think through these proposals. So we do 

have enough time to do major changes. 

But that is a big change, and it certainly is worth exploring. And 

I certainly appreciate the ideas you are bringing forward. 

Mr. NUNES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

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If I can add, one of the things that has brought me to this position that probably crystallized it for me was the executive branch’s 

ability to hide within the jurisdictions of the Congress. So we really 

see that between the Armed Services Committee, the Defense Appropriations Committee, and the Intelligence Committee, where the 

Defense Department can say: Well this is really only the jurisdiction of the HASC. Or vice versa, they can say: Part of this is for 

the Armed Services Committee, but, Intelligence Committee, we 

will give you the intelligence. Well, then neither committee really 

knows what is going on. 

And so we have tried to rectify that with combining the Appropriations and Armed Services Committee, reading their members 

into more of the intelligence. But at the end of the day, my suspicion is that this is happening quite often between the Resources 

Committee and then what ultimately makes it into some big omnibus appropriations or bill or minibus appropriations bill. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. Thanks for your thoughtful proposals. 

Mr. NUNES. Thank you. 

Mr. STIVERS. Mr. McGovern, I would like to recognize you. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Thank you. Thank you for your thoughtful proposals. 

And on your first proposal, I have to say in all candor that every 

time somebody talks about trying to overthrow the Speaker, I 

think: Better you than us. 

But having said that, I don’t think it is good for the institution, 

and it creates uncertainty and it creates, I think, a climate here 

where, I think, it makes it much more difficult to get things done. 

And so I appreciate your suggestion, and I thank you for being 

here. 

Yield back. 

Mr. NUNES. Thank you, Mr. McGovern. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

The distinguished gentleman from Alabama, Mr. Byrne. 

Mr. BYRNE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I think your first idea is a very good one, and I appreciate your 

bringing it forward. The second one, as you said, it is conceptual. 

So it is yet to be worked out. So I would kind of like to talk about 

a little bit about it with you. 

When I was in the Alabama State Senate, I served on both—our 

budget committee was also our appropriations committee. So I 

served on the education budget committee, which did the appropriations, and the subject matter policy committee on education. So 

it was a lot of overlap between the two. So when we were working 

on the budget, you had people sitting on the committee that knew 

pretty intimately how the programs worked, how the different 

parts of the education system in Alabama worked. So it was a pretty well-informed committee. 

And I think what you are saying is, is that it would help with 

the allocation of money, the appropriation of money by Congress to 

have people who are basically subject matter experts to be on those 

committees as they are making those decisions. I think I hear that 

as part of—— 

Mr. NUNES. That is exactly right. And also the second, I think 

you bring up a good point about oversight. And I have thought consmartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING

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ceptually about, okay, if you had these kind of 8 to 10 super committees along with 3 or 4 other committees that do authorizing and 

appropriating, I think the best thing to do would be to assign members from those committees to the Budget Committee and to the 

Oversight Committee, the OGR Committee, so to conduct more of 

a forensic legal investigation. 

So I think it would actually make the Budget Committee and the 

Oversight Committee more effective because they would have a 

cross-section of all the committees where those committees could 

essentially send things to the Oversight Committee for a further 

investigation, right, like what we currently see numerous investigations going on by Oversight. But one of the challenges is, is 

that there are not members from all the committees on the Oversight Committee, and so I think that creates problems. 

So I just think it would be a better use of Members’ time, I think 

Members would be more educated, and I think the government 

would be much better for it. And I think a lot of States are run 

similar. 

Mr. BYRNE. And so making sure you are only one A committee 

assures that you become an expert on the topics that are covered 

by that A committee, and you are not pulled in, as you said, several 

different directions if you are on two or three different committees. 

You would still have a B committee which would be a select committee, like Rules or Ethics, but you would have your subject matter committee, and that is what you would be totally focused on in 

terms of your committee work. 

Mr. NUNES. That is correct. And I think it also gives more power 

to the legislative branch of government. 

Mr. BYRNE. Because you would have those subject matter experts 

that could master an area as the executive department officials 

have mastered that same area. 

Mr. NUNES. That is right. And I gave the example of kind of in 

my position of walking into certain—you know, for me to walk over 

to DOD. And if you read the memo that DOD put out, which I 

think all of us should be concerned about this, there was a way, 

and I am saying this bipartisan basis, it was essentially a memo 

designed by the Legislative Affairs of the Department of Defense 

on how to divide and conquer Congress. I mean, I think we should 

take that memo and that should be one of the reasons for our 

changes. 

And I can tell you, if you sit on the Resources Committee, which 

I sat on in my first term, which I really enjoyed that committee, 

one of the things I quickly learned is no one at the Department of 

Interior or Energy cared about you at all. But if you were on the 

Interior Appropriations Committee, if you were a cardinal, they 

really cared what you had to say. 

But they could easily hide because they knew the appropriators 

would give them the money, but the appropriators truly had no 

way to rein them in if there was a program that they didn’t like. 

And then they can always, if there was an authorizing bill, it is always easy to tie it up, because in the Senate, of course, it takes 

60 votes to get anything done. 

So I think if you had these individual appropriations bills with 

authorizations heading over to the Senate, I think there are just 

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a lot more Members that would have policy proposals that would 

be in there and it would really drive an end to get a legislative 

product and agreement between the House and Senate. 

Mr. BYRNE. Let me sort of ask you to play devil’s advocate 

against your own argument. Obviously, at some point 100 years 

ago Congress chose to go to this appropriations model. What is the 

argument, I am asking you to make the argument against your 

own proposal, but what would be the argument for having a bifurcation of the appropriation and the authorization process? What do 

we gain from that? 

Mr. NUNES. Well, I don’t exactly know why during that 50-year 

period. So for a long time we didn’t have an Appropriations Committee. But then there was a 50-year period, roughly, where appropriations and authorization had to have like an agreement of some 

kind. 

So potentially maybe there is a way that you create subcommittees, like a subcommittee below either—because I don’t know if you 

put appropriations ultimately in charge or the authorizing committee in charge, but you might create like a subcommittee within 

the committee that deals—— 

Mr. Byrne. My guess, because of the timing of it, was that we 

went to this pure appropriations format when the Federal budget 

got to be real big, because for the first hundred years or so of our 

existence, the Federal Government just didn’t spend that much 

money on a relative basis. 

But as we got into World War I, then through the Progressive 

era there were all these new agencies and everything passed by 

Congress, we got the income tax which brought in more revenue 

under President Wilson, then the Federal Government got to be big 

and it started spending more money, I am assuming the idea was 

you needed experts on how you spend money from a Federal level 

at that size. 

Have you heard anything that would be like a basis for that? 

Mr. NUNES. Well, I think like anything, I think those are all data 

points that are important. But I am sure about one thing. I think 

if you go back a hundred years ago and if Members of Congress 

were sitting here and watched what the executive branch was able 

to do to us, and I will refer back to that memo the Department of 

Defense put up, I think they would be astounded. 

So I think a lot of times we get into, you know, you have traditions, people get into ruts, nobody wants to make change because 

change is hard around here, probably for the right reasons. But I 

think Members of Congress that served here a hundred years ago 

would be appalled over how the executive branch essentially is running amuck over the legislative branch of government. And I think 

you see that reflective in the American people today. I think they 

are very frustrated with our abilities here. 

Mr. BYRNE. Well, this would also us to rationalize committee jurisdictions as well. 

Mr. NUNES. I think it would make it easier. 

Mr. BYRNE. Yeah. 

Mr. NUNES. Yeah. 

Mr. BYRNE. Well, I appreciate the fact that you brought this up. 

This is fascinating to me. I know it is just conceptual at this point. 

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I look forward to talking with you in more detail about it. Because 

this is the most serious proposal that I have heard to date since 

I have been in Congress about how we can reassert our authority, 

because I think our authority under Article I has been trampled 

upon. 

Not just by this President, by the way. This didn’t just start with 

the Obama administration. This is something that has been coming 

for a long time. And I think it is something that affects both parties. 

So I appreciate your serious thought about this. 

Mr. NUNES. And you probably get this too, Mr. Byrne, and that 

is that people always ask: Well, aren’t you equal branches of government? Why can’t you solve this problem? And there are so many 

small problems that a lot of Members within their districts, within 

their State, that should be able to be fixed. And I think the American people are confused as to are these branches of government 

truly equal or not. 

Mr. BYRNE. Well, that is because we have added a fourth branch, 

and that is these almost autonomous departments and agencies 

that I don’t even think the President has much control over. And 

I think it is antidemocratic. I think it goes against the very spirit 

of our Constitution and what the notions of a representative government are all about. 

So I really appreciate your thoughts on it and I look forward to 

hearing more from you and perhaps working with you on this as 

you go along. 

And I yield back, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you, Mr. Byrne. 

I would like to recognize the distinguished gentleman from Georgia who has joined us, Mr. Collins. 

Mr. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

I just want to go back and follow up on this conversation. I appreciate it. 

It was mentioned earlier about how States many times operate. 

This is the way Georgia operates in a little bit different fashion, 

and I was on the appropriations committee in Georgia. Up here I 

had to learn the terms of budget, appropriations, authorizing, because in Georgia basically the Governor sends a budget, but then 

we put the appropriations and authorizing. It all basically comes 

out in the same piece of legislation. So it is the appropriating bill. 

This is something that has frustrated us up here when you have 

stuff that just goes unauthorized for years and years but it stays 

in the appropriations side. It is like killing a two-headed snake 

here. You have to get both sides or you will never get the thing 

done. 

So I appreciate it. I like the idea. I think there are a lot of other 

issues I know that are being discussed. I was on the floor, unfortunately, for most of the earlier part, but I kept up with it. 

We are past the easy changes here. We are past the easy fixes 

and say: Well, we want to keep this because if our side is in power 

we want to have it. We are past that. The American people are fed 

up with it. All you have to do is look at the Presidential election. 

And you look at the polar sides of both the Democrat and the Resmartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING

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publican election cycle and you hear the same things just being expressed from different political perspectives. 

So I think your idea is something that definitely needs to be 

worked on. This idea that our whole budget process, and I know 

our Budget chairman is even working on this, but it is sort of just 

anarchy the way that we are doing that, in the sense that it is an 

archaic sense of we do this budget, it may matter, it may not matter, it goes to a certain point. 

People don’t understand that. They just want to know why, one, 

we are not getting it done. Number two, why it is ballooning like 

it is. And, number three, why can’t we have more control over it. 

Believe me, there is something to be said from a committee perspective when you are able to sit with a department head across 

the table from you and say: Not only will you give us the information, if you don’t, we will take money from you to do that. 

That is the way this thing works, and we had it work in Georgia 

that way on many occasions when executive branch agencies decided that they were going to not justify spending or not justify 

something in their budget. And we would come out and say: Okay, 

well, if we are not going to justify it, undoubtedly it doesn’t need 

to be in the budget. And we would line item it out. Then we would 

pass it out, and then all of a sudden, it was amazing how all of 

a sudden we could get information. 

So I think this is just something that the congressional branch 

and both Democrats and Republicans need to have a part of. And 

this is why we are elected. And if we are not elected for this, I 

think we are going to have to. 

So I appreciate your proposal. It is for some maybe too outside 

the institutional scope. But I don’t think it is. I think historically 

it is something that works. And it may be time to come back to 

something like this in this format, how that would work. 

But I think at the end of the day, the people would, whether they 

understood it all at first, would actually say: Wow, this is getting 

something back to being done, in this part of the body anyway. 

Can’t account for the other side of the building here. But this at 

least is something for us. And I appreciate you bringing it. 

Mr. NUNES. Well, and I also think, Mr. Collins, too, that a lot of 

people talk about that Congress doesn’t work in a bipartisan manner anymore. I think part of the reason that I came to this conclusion also is because on the Intelligence Committee we are known 

as the most bipartisan committee in Congress. 

Now, part of the reason why is because we actually do have a 

little bit more authority over the appropriations process. And so we 

do our best to be experts in our field to represent all of you accordingly. But we solve problems together. 

And I think, if you had these 8 to 10 big committees, I think you 

would get a lot more bipartisan cooperation and really looking in, 

becoming experts, as Mr. Byrne said, in these areas, and Republicans and Democrats would work together because they could really take on these agencies to make better policy to make the government run more efficiently. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, it is just right now we look back and you can 

look historically through the lens or however you want to look at 

it, we are looking at it, whether it was 8 years ago, it was dependsmartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING

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ing on the party in power. Again, it is a constant discussion. Democrats in power maybe in Congress, Republicans in the White 

House. We don’t like it. Republicans in power in Congress, the 

Democrats. 

And we are just not coming together to say how can we actually 

look at a process that may work further that would breed that 

more bipartisan support, would actually get things vetted. And it 

would not, from our perspective, the way we are doing it right now, 

frankly, we have ceded that power over to the executive branch to 

sort of set it up and only we can make changes on the edges. And 

that gets into a whole other discussion on how much oversight we 

should have in directing the projects and vetting projects and 

things like that. 

So, look, there is much to be said about how we can work better 

together. The situation right now lends itself to that pinch point 

that says, okay, it is either all or none. And we just sort of ignore 

the whole fact over here that many of the things that we are 

spending money on have lost their authorization, have lost their 

even ability, under law, should even be funded at all. But yet we 

just sort of wink, nod, and go on and waive the rules and we move 

it. So I think this is where people are getting frustrated at us. 

So I appreciate your bringing it. 

Mr. NUNES. And I would also just say to your point, Mr. Collins, 

that think of all the time that we spend down on these appropriations bills that we do. And Members offer, what, 400 amendments 

come to this committee? You guys sit here and comb through them 

all. And then the next bill comes up and the Members offer very 

similar types of amendments, and you guys go through the mall, 

and then we take these votes. 

Some of these bills we are hearing over 100 amendments, I 

mean, and then at the end of the day there is no real push to get 

these bills done. And you see that now, right, where we have some 

Members advocating, well, let’s just do a CR to next year, which 

that gives up all of our power. And then you have to ask: Well, 

what the heck did we do the last year? What were we doing here 

this whole year offering all these amendments? 

I would think the Members would want to stop wasting our time. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, and, Chairman, you have to do this on the 

intel side, you have to have that authorizing piece that is being 

kept up. But many of the committees, for whatever reason, have 

abdicated that responsibility. They just don’t get into that because 

they either feel it too politically difficult or they can’t get the right 

answer or they just won’t spend the time into the authorizing 

pieces that we need to have. And that is not personal in any one 

particular committee, but it is just a fact of life, I mean. 

And you have got so many committees now that are off the authorizing process. So in other words, they deal with their areas, but 

they are not authorizers to start with. So the only time they have 

a chance to ‘‘be a productive player’’ is on those 100-plus amendments that we see that I have sat through many hours on the floor 

with. 

Mr. NUNES. Right. And you and I and everybody in this room 

knows that those amendments seldom ever make it past the process. And they really don’t have any authorization ability. They are 

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good for messaging, but at the end of the day, they don’t become 

law and they don’t have an impact. 

Mr. COLLINS. Well, and that is why the process. And it goes back 

to what has always been said: If you really want something 

changed in the appropriations process, you start in the Appropriations Committee. You get it written into the base language of the 

bill. You do it the way that we should be doing these things to start 

with. 

You are exactly right, because many people who come who have 

never had legislative experience or anything, when it does actually 

work like it should and goes to the Senate and we have that thing 

called a conference committee, which needs to be used a lot more 

around here, there are going to be things that are dropped out, and 

there are going to be things that are dropped out simply because 

votes are not where they need to be, and they will look back to that 

base text. 

It is a whole new world of thinking. We have got to start thinking in different terms around here. Otherwise we will see the 

churn, if you would, of discomfort among Members. How many 

times have you or I been in a group of Members and the thought 

will come: What are we doing? Why are we in this boat again? 

Well, it is the same thing over. And I don’t care if it is the Democrats in charge or Republicans in charge. It has been said now for 

a long time. And so some of these changes, whether they get taken, 

they don’t get taken, there are other areas that we can look on. 

But this is an area that just really hits at the whole, from our 

perspective, hits at really, I think, what Mr. Byrne said, was having that expertise area, something you want to be a part of, you 

feel valued, your input is valued, and you are able to look into 

areas in your district or in your State or in your region that actually make a substantive difference, that you can go home and say: 

Okay, I am listening to you. Here is how we changed it. Here is 

how we authorized it. We are not just doing something that we expect the rest of the country to do, we are actually doing it here. 

So, again, I think it is a great idea. Let’s continue these conversations. The worst thing I could see, and I know the chairman 

is not wanting to pass this off, is to have these hearings and do 

nothing. Because I am firmly committed to helping any way we can 

to actually find substantive changes that can work for both sides. 

And if we can do that, then I think we will benefit from it. So I 

appreciate that. 

I yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you to the gentleman from Georgia. And I 

will say that we are committed on this subcommittee to listening 

to the Members, continuing to work with the Members as we work 

to perfect the rules for the next Congress, because, as you said 

when you opened, changes are needed. 

The gentleman from Washington, Mr. Newhouse. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And thank you, Mr. Nunes, for bringing a couple very intriguing 

ideas forward. You always have good insight on ways to make 

things better. 

I always thought the Rules Committee was the most bipartisan 

committee, but apparently there is a different opinion on that. 

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Mr. NUNES. This might be the most bipartisan I have seen it. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. I will give you that. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. That is because I am here. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. We are having a good day, just put it that way. 

But, no, I appreciate it. 

I really like the first idea you brought forward. I think it allows 

an individual to effect change but not be so disruptive to the institution that it could be seen as a nuclear option. So I appreciate 

your thoughtfulness there. 

And then in the appropriations process, it seems to me what you 

are bringing forward would allow engagement by all Members in 

a very important process and not just relegate it to the amendment 

process on the floor, which, as you said, lacks perhaps some of the 

effectiveness we would like to see happen. 

It almost appears to me that we would have, instead of one Appropriations Committee, 8 to 10 or 12 Appropriations Committees, 

that every Member would have a role to play and become experts 

in those areas that are so important. You can be an inch deep and 

a mile wide around here pretty easily. But if we can focus our efforts on particular committees, I think that would be very helpful 

not only for us individually, but for the Congress and the work we 

do. 

Do you think—and I don’t want to re-cover a lot of ground that 

has been covered, I appreciate the conversation so far and your answers—but do you think by making this change—something that 

has been very frustrating to me is us not completing our appropriations task—would this be more conducive to actually getting appropriations bills across the finish line and following through with our 

responsibilities and getting the appropriations process done every 

year? 

Mr. NUNES. I think the odds would be higher, because I think 

the more bipartisan cooperation that happens to actually go in and 

solve problems, and the more a committee works together to put 

forth a product every year, and then that committee would have 

had to rally support on the floor for their bill, I think you just get 

a lot more buy-in from all the Members that ultimately pushes the 

chairman and ranking member of that committee, if they want 

their committee to be relevant, and if you are sitting on an A committee, I can’t imagine you don’t want to be relevant here, it means 

that you are going to have to pass something overwhelmingly, you 

are going to have to work with the Senate and push the Senate to 

get something done. 

And then even if you end up in a minibus or omnibus situation, 

at least those chairmen and ranking members will be represented 

in the room. Where today when we do these omnibus bills, and I 

am not saying anything bad about the Members, but at the end of 

the day, it is only basically one Member from the Republican Party, 

one Member from the Democratic Party in the room on the entire 

spending bill for the year. At least there would be more people engaged, more people at the table at the end of the day when you are 

trying to close up an agreement. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, that has certainly been one of the biggest 

frustrations of me as a freshman, of seeing our appropriations process essentially break down. And I think that frustration is shared 

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by a lot of people. This whole process becomes kind of a black hole. 

It is hard to get information, hard to know exactly what is going 

on. So anything that would improve the process I am certainly willing to look at. 

Mr. NUNES. Remember on the Senate side too, most of the Senators sit on both the Appropriations Committee or the Finance 

Committee and then the authorizing committees. So they have got 

their hands in both of those pots. So we are really at a disadvantage when we are dealing with the Senate, because they do have 

that power coming from both angles. 

Mr. NEWHOUSE. Well, good. My compliments to you for bringing 

this forward. And I agree. And, like I said, I have really appreciated the conversation and the questions. And hopefully we can 

move forward to something positive here. 

So thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. 

And one final thing I just thought of as Mr. Newhouse was asking his very thoughtful questions. I would ask you, as you are putting together the actual language on the second proposal, you try 

to be thoughtful of the many great Members we have with a lot of 

tenure on the Appropriations Committee and give them credit for 

their tenure on the Appropriations Committee when they move to 

another committee if we were to accept this rule. 

Because I think, while they will still all be against it, it at least 

would give them credit and not just have them starting from 

scratch and starting as if they are a brand new Member on a committee, giving them some kind of thoughtful consideration. Maybe 

straight credit for every year they served on the Appropriations 

Committee to any committee that they would transfer to. 

Mr. NUNES. Well, I wanted to share it before the public because 

I think transparency is important and I think ideas are important 

to come forward in order to make the best product if we do end up 

making some major changes in the next Congress. 

Mr. STIVERS. Very thoughtful and provocative idea and it is certainly worth looking into. Thank you. And really appreciate you 

being here. 

I would like to recognize Mr. McGovern. I believe he has something to submit for the record. 

Mr. MCGOVERN. I have a few unanimous consent requests, Mr. 

Chairman. 

One is Congresswoman Schakowsky, who couldn’t be here, had 

a proposal that the committee chairs should consult with ranking 

members before issuing a subpoena. And if the ranking member objects to the issuance, there should be a vote of the committee, and 

the chair should post the subpoena and justification for the subpoena on the committee Web site and Clerk’s Web site. So I would 

like to ask unanimous consent to insert her testimony. 

Mr. STIVERS. Without objection. 

[The statement of Ms. Schakowsky can be found in the Appendix 

as Insert 2–1] 

Mr. MCGOVERN. Also, I ask unanimous consent to insert into the 

record a letter from Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Select 

Panel dated February 12, 2016, that details Chairwoman 

Blackburn’s abuse of her unilateral subpoena power and failure to 

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comply with the committee’s requirement that she should consult 

with the ranking members prior to issuing subpoenas. I would like 

to have that put in the record. 

Mr. STIVERS. Without objection. 

[The statement can be found in the Appendix as Insert 2–2] 

Mr. MCGOVERN. And I ask unanimous consent to insert into the 

record a letter from Congresswoman Schakowsky, the Select Panel’s ranking member, to Chairwoman Blackburn, dated June 3, 

2016, that expresses the ranking member’s concern over how the 

chair’s abuse of her unilateral subpoena power has led to the disclosure of private medical information. 

And I would also like to ask unanimous consent to insert into the 

record a letter from Ranking Member Johnson of the Science, 

Space, and Technology Committee to Chairman Smith dated June 

23, 2016, that highlights the chair’s abuse of his unilateral subpoena power and explains how this decision to issue subpoenas to 

State attorneys general regarding their investigations of Exxon’s 

alleged fraud regarding climate change is an illegitimate and unconstitutional encroachment on State sovereignty. 

And finally, I would like to ask unanimous consent to insert into 

the record a letter from Ranking Member Cummings to the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform to Chairman Chaffetz 

dated September 9, 2016, detailing the chairman’s abuse of his unilateral subpoena authority in order to tarnish the Democratic candidate for President. 

Mr. STIVERS. Thank you. Without objection, those will be submitted into the record. 

[The statement of Mr. Cummings can be found in the Appendix 

as Insert 2–3] 

Mr. STIVERS. Without objection, any other materials submitted to 

the subcommittee for purposes of this hearing shall be printed in 

the record. 

Mr. STIVERS. Hearing none, without objection, the committee is 

adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:50 a.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

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APPENDIX 

PREPARED STATEMENTS

INSERT 1A–1: Statement of the Hon. John Culberson, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas 

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RESOLUTION

Amending the Rules of the House of Representatives to further 

strengthen the rule regarding congressional earmarks. 

Resolved, That (a) paragraph (a) of clause 9 of rule XXI of the 

Rules of the House of Representatives is amended to read as follows: 

‘‘(a) It shall not be in order to consider— 

‘‘(1) a bill or joint resolution reported by a committee if that 

bill or joint resolution or accompanying report contains any 

congressional earmark unless— 

‘‘(A) it is for a Federal, State, or local unit of government 

for a purpose that involves a direct Federal interest, 

whether or not it is targeted to a specific State, locality, 

or Congressional district; 

‘‘(B) the Member, Delegate, or Resident Commissioner 

sponsoring such congressional earmark is identified; 

‘‘(C) the congressional earmark is initiated in committee; 

and 

‘‘(D) the congressional earmark falls within the applicable section 302(a) allocation and does not increase total 

spending for any fiscal year; 

‘‘(2) a bill or joint resolution not reported by a committee if 

it contains any congressional earmark; or 

‘‘(3) an amendment to a bill or joint resolution described in 

paragraph (1) or (2).’’. 

(b) Paragraph (d) of clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the 

House of Representatives is repealed and paragraphs (e), (f), and 

(g) of such clause are redesignated as paragraphs (d), (e), and (f), 

respectively. 

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INSERT 1A–2: Statement of the Hon. Pete Sessions, a Representative in Congress from the State of Texas 

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INSERT 2–1: Statement of the Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois 

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INSERT 2–2: Statement of the Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois 

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INSERT 2–3: Statement of the Hon. Janice D. Schakowsky, a Representative in Congress from the State of Illinois 

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62 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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63 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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64 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


Insert offset folio 73 here 22446A.020
65 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


Insert offset folio 74 here 22446A.021
66 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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67 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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68 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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69 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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70 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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71 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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72 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


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73 

smartinez on DSK3GLQ082PROD with HEARING


Insert offset folio 82 here 22446A.029