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44–365 2008

INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED DURING THE COURSE 

OF THE INVESTIGATION OF THE VOTING 

IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 2007 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE 

THE VOTING 

IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 2007 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

2008 

WASHINGTON, DC 

( 


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INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED DURING THE COURSE OF THE INVESTIGATION OF THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 2007 


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INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED DURING THE COURSE 

OF THE INVESTIGATION OF THE VOTING 

IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 2007 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SELECT COMMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE 

THE VOTING 

IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 2007 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

2008 

WASHINGTON, DC 

( 


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(II) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF 

AUGUST 2, 2007 

WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachussetts, Chairman 

ARTUR DAVIS, Alabama 

STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, South 

Dakota 

MIKE PENCE, Indiana, Ranking Member 

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio 

KENNY C. HULSHOF, Missouri 


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(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

February 4, 2008 

Interview of Frances Chiappardi, Office of the Clerk ........................................... 1 

Interview of Ed Sorensen, Office of the Clerk ....................................................... 35 

Interview of Goldey Vansant, Office of the Clerk ................................................. 63 

February 6, 2008 

Interview of Allys Lasky, Office of the Clerk ........................................................ 77 

Interview of Mary Kevin Niland, Office of the Clerk ........................................... 91 

Interview of Max Spitzer, Office of the Parliamentarian ..................................... 117 

February 8, 2008 

Interview of De’Andre Anderson, Office of the Clerk ........................................... 127 

Interview of Kevin Hanrahan, Office of the Clerk ................................................ 149 

February 14, 2008 

Interview of Ethan Lauer, Office of the Parliamentarian .................................... 187 

Interview of Tom Wickham, Office of the Parliamentarian ................................. 223 

February 15, 2008 

Interview of George Kundanis, Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives ........................................................................................................... 243 

Interview of Jay Pierson, Office of the Minority Leader of the House of 

Representatives .................................................................................................... 257 

February 21, 2008 

Interview of Rob Cogorno, Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives ....................................................................................................................... 273 

February 22, 2008 

Interview of Jerry Hartz, Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives ....................................................................................................................... 293 

Interview of Jo Marie St. Martin, Office of the Minority Leader of the House 

of Representatives ................................................................................................ 309 

February 25, 2008 

Interview of Catlin O’Neill, Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives ....................................................................................................................... 339 

February 27, 2008 

Interview of John Sullivan, Parliamentarian of the House of Representatives . 353 

April 8, 2008 

Interview of The Honorable Roy Blunt, Minority Whip ....................................... 399 

Hon. Roy Blunt One-Minute Speech, August 7, 2007 ........................................... 415 


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IV 

April 9, 2008 

Interview of The Honorable John A. Boehner, Minority Leader ......................... 417 

Interview of The Honorable Michael R. McNulty ................................................. 427 

Exhibit 1 to the Interview of The Honorable Michael R. McNulty ..................... 465 

Exhibit 2 to the Interview of The Honorable Michael R. McNulty ..................... 466 

April 16, 2008 

Interview of Catlin O’Neill, Office of the Speaker of the House of Representatives ....................................................................................................................... 469 

Interview of The Honorable Steny Hoyer, Majority Leader ................................. 495 

May 8, 2008 

Interview of Max Spitzer, Office of the Parliamentarian ..................................... 537 

May 9, 2008 

Interview of Ethan Lauer, Office of the Parliamentarian .................................... 547 

Insert for May 9, 2008 Ethan Lauer Interview ..................................................... 562 


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(1) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: FRANCES CHIAPPARDI 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 10:01 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING, LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, 

DC 20006–4706 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO, LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Nathanial Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt; and Chanelle Hardy, Counsel, Representative Artur Davis. 

Mr. SPULAK. Good morning, Frances. I think you know who we 

are. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Yes. 

Mr. SPULAK. And we appreciate your coming here on this notice. 

I’m going to—the Select Committee to investigate Roll Call 814 was 

established in House Resolution 611. 

I’ll read to you our mandate for you to think about as we—— 

The REPORTER. Excuse me, sir. I hate to interrupt, but you’re 

kind of far away and I—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. I’ll speak louder. Do you want me to speak 

louder? 

The REPORTER. If you could speak louder or maybe—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Everyone will be speaking as well. 

Anyway, to investigate the circumstances surrounding the record 

both requested by the gentleman from California, Mr. Lewis, on the 

motion to recommit H.R. 3161, including the Chair’s ruling over 

the objections of the Parliamentarian; further that we have recently informed witness—this relates to documents which you can 

use, the same guidance today in terms of your testimony—that regarding the scope of our investigation, you should address information that refers to the votes themselves, including the duration and 


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termination of the vote, how and why the problems with the votes 

came about and the efforts to resolve the issues. 

We’re not interested in information about the actual creation of 

the Select Committee or anything that went on in relation to that. 

So—so with that, we would ask you to begin by telling us your 

own personal experiences with that, with those events, and—and 

after that, we’ll ask you questions from your testimony. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Well, I was not here. And I actually had—I had 

left Mark O’Sullivan, who is the Tally Clerk, and I am the—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Can I just interrupt? This is Mark Paoletta. 

Can we get back for one second and just have you on the record 

just explain your job responsibilities or the position you hold, your 

title, your responsibilities all that kind of stuff, so we have a good 

grounding on that. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. I’m Frances Chiappardi, and I’m the Chief of 

Legislative Operations. I am charged with supervising the clerks 

that work on the rostrum—the Reading Clerks, Enrolling Clerks, 

Tally Clerks, Bill Clerks, Digest Clerks—just to make sure that the 

flow of paper from the rostrum down to HT–13, where our office 

is, that everything is flowing smoothly, that we have enough people, to do the job. 

I actually fill in as a Tally Clerk because I had been a Tally 

Clerk for 8 years. So if we have a problem or someone is out, I can 

actually take a vote. And that is what I do. 

I usually go up and take the cards because we are short-staffed; 

and Kevin Hanrahan is also a Reading Clerk and he is one of the 

Tally Clerks. we are trying to make sure that everybody can do all 

the jobs. 

That evening—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. How long were you a Tally Clerk? 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Six years. 

Mr. SNOWDON. So you’ve been with the Clerk’s Office 16 years, 

total? 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. No. I’ve been with the Clerk’s Office for 10. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Okay. How long have you been—you’ve been the 

Chief—— 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Chief, I’ve been the Chief for 4 years. 

I was not there on the evening of Roll Call 814. Because we had 

been working so late, Mark O’Sullivan and I decided that we would 

leave since Kevin Hanrahan was on the floor, Teresa Austin was 

the FARS Clerk on the computer downstairs in HT–13. And 

De’Andre Anderson was the Tally Clerk—the seated Tally Clerk 

taking the vote. 

We just decided it would be easier if Mark and I came in at 8:00 

because I could do FARS, he could go upstairs and be the seated 

Tally Clerk. So we figured with just one vote—one series of votes 

left, that—I just thought that I could leave, that there wouldn’t be 

a hitch; that—I was confident that everything would go smoothly. 

The first time I’ve ever left before a vote, before we finished voting. 

Anyway, that said, I got home, I automatically turned the TV on 

to watch the House floor even though I just got home. And I noticed the commotion going on. I got on the phone. I called the Tally 

Clerk Office and I was speaking with Teresa Austin. 


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These people are fairly new in the sense that Teresa has only 

been a Tally Clerk for about a year and 3 or 4 months. She had 

been a Bill Clerk and she also worked on one of the committees 

over here that doesn’t really relate to this. So she was—even 

though she knows the job, there are certain things that occur on 

FARS, the Floor Action Reporting System, where you are putting 

in information—which—then comes up on the Internet, tells you 

what we’re doing now, what is on the House floor. 

And so I said to her, What is going on? She said, De’Andre can’t 

get the vote down. And I said, Well—— 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. At what point is this? When you’re—— 

A. It was right when—I guess it is when I saw the commotion 

on the floor. And I called in and I said, What is going on? And she 

said, De’Andre is having a problem getting the vote down, which 

means taking the vote down, putting the screens down. 

So I said to her, I know what it is, it happened to me before. It 

is what I would call an anomaly, though I’ve been able to get out 

of it because—what happens is that if the Speaker—you’re taking 

a vote, the Speaker is closing the vote out, you’re listening to him, 

We get cues from the Speaker. 

We do certain actions when they are saying certain things. So 

when they say, Does anybody wish—has every Member voted? Does 

anyone wish to change their vote? Normally, if there is no activity, 

there are no upticks on the boards, we will close the vote stations 

in the Chamber. We’ll just close all voting stations because that 

means we’re going to prepare the sheet, the tally slip, to give to 

the Speaker. And so there—if you leave the machines open, you 

won’t have a true tally, 

If people want to vote, they’re running into the Chamber—they 

have to come down and vote in the well. 

Q. Right. Isn’t that—I thought it was 5 minutes from the end 

that you shut off the—— 

A. No, no. Oh, no. Not at all. No, no. The machines aren’t closed 

until the Speaker asks, Does anyone wish to change their vote? 

And if there are a lot of people still coming into the Chamber, we 

leave the voting stations open. 

It is only at the very end when we get the nod from the Speaker—that he says, ‘‘Okay, we’re ready,’’ that, no one else is in the 

well, no one is coming in—they say, ‘‘Okay.’’ And so we shut—we 

shut the stations, the standing Tally Clerk writes the slip out and 

hands it to the Parliamentarian—and the Parliamentarian gives it 

to the Speaker. 

And what happened was—I think; I wasn’t there, but I said to 

Teresa, probably because of all the commotion, De’Andre—since 

he—they called the vote 214–214. I guess he turned them—turned 

the voting stations off and set the vote to final, which means that 

you’re going to close it down. 

When he did that and then Members came down to vote in the 

well, he had to go back into a screen, which is the well voting 

screen. And from there—you have to follow the screens to—close 

vote stations. You’re repeating a process because the screen won’t 

let you do anything else. And so when he tried to release the 


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screens, it wouldn’t let him because he had already set the vote to 

final once before. 

Does that make sense? 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. It is. But isn’t it—isn’t it—or is it common for—not common. 

Does this happen regular enough that the Tally Clerk will sort of 

get the cue, will begin closing down because there is an announcement. But someone shows up and the Chair decides that the vote 

really isn’t closed—— 

A. Right. 

Q. And so then you have to go back and open it up? 

A. We do, actually. 

The Parliamentarians may say to us, Are the machines open, and 

we’ll say, No. But there are a lot of people coming in, and they’ll 

just say, open the machines. So we’ll open the machines because— 

it is much faster than having 50 people come in and vote at the 

well, which would probably take 25 or 30 minutes. 

So this is a regular practice that goes on and it has been since 

they started voting. 

Q. You said that—you said that you had some experience with 

there being a problem in trying to do that, to open—— 

A. Well, see, only I knew—well, I don’t know if it was a problem. 

I called it an anomaly. 

It was just—I wouldn’t think about it because it didn’t happen 

that often. It wasn’t often that a Speaker would say after we, you 

know, went through just—I mean, they were saying, And the motion to reconsider is—once they say, ‘‘laid on the table,’’ we close 

the vote and the screens go dark. 

But right at that point and the motion to reconsider and, the 

Speaker will say, Oh, I’ll let that person in because it wasn’t final 

in his mind. So I had to go back in, and I couldn’t get the vote to 

close. 

So then I realized—I escaped out and went in from the main 

screen and went into Terminate Vote. And that’s the way I was 

able to do it. 

So I thought that is what De’Andre—though, I don’t know—but 

that’s what I thought De’Andre was experiencing when he said 

that—Teresa told me that De’Andre couldn’t get the vote down, 

that he had set the vote to final, and when he was trying to get 

out of the well vote screen it wouldn’t let him. because—if he had 

escaped out, gone into the main screen, hit Terminate Vote, he 

would have been able to bring the boards down. 

I wasn’t there, though, I’m just assuming all of this. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Can we show her this, which is a memo that the 

Clerk’s Office prepared and one of the—— 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Have you—have you seen that before? I believe you were 

given a copy of that and asked to make some edits to it. I think 

most people were. 

There is a section in there that talks about the procedure for 

closing down a vote. And maybe it makes some sense just to sort 

of walk through the five steps so that we know sort of what—what 


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the Clerk does versus what the Chair does in each of these steps 

in a typical—typical interaction; and then we can get into sort of 

where you think—you know, what screen De’Andre may have been 

in at the time and what the problems were with that. 

I mean, have you seen that memo before? 

A. I don’t think I did. No. 

Q. Do you want to take a look at the section on the second page? 

It is talking about closing the vote. 

A. The process for closing the vote? 

Q. Right. And just see if you think that is correct, and maybe we 

can walk through it briefly. 

A. Okay. All right. 

The seated Tally Clerk selects the option on the EVS terminal 

screen to close the voting stations. And that is on the left-hand 

side. There is—when he would say, Does anybody wish to change 

their vote, the Reading Clerk reads any changes. If no one is in the 

well to vote—there is a button you click, Close vote stations. When 

you close the vote stations,—they are dead; there is no electricity. 

even if you put your card in to check your vote. 

Q. But the magic words they are waiting for there are for the 

Chair to ask—— 

A. Does any Member wish to change his or her vote? 

Q. Okay. Can you think of any other time or any other way that 

they would go to that first step without the Chair using—— 

A. Never. 

Q. [continuing]. That terminology? 

A. No. Honestly, I can’t tell you. I know that people think that 

some people may have a bad day. But the men that I have worked 

with, that have worked here on Capitol Hill for over 30 years, and 

the people that have retired since I’ve been there couldn’t impress 

upon each and every person who works here how important it is. 

And it is not our decision to make. 

Even when I was there, it is very stressful sitting in that chair 

because you’re waiting for the Chair. You’re taking your cue from 

them. The Tally Clerks never make a decision on their own. They 

just never do. 

Q. And I’m just wondering, is there any other terminology that 

the Chair would use to get them to get to that first step? 

A. No. Does any Member wish to change his or her vote? And 

that’s when—you’re looking around to see if any one is coming in 

the Chamber, is any one in the well. You’re looking at the Parliamentarian. You’re looking at the Speaker. 

And, of course, also the leadership, if they want to hold the vote 

open, they’ll say they are not ready to close the vote. So we take 

all our cues by—looking at five or six different people. 

But you’re waiting to get that cue from the Chair that they are 

ready. 

Q. But if the Chair says that, then you’re going to go ahead and 

implement that step regardless of what other cues you may be getting from—— 

A. No. If a lot of Members are coming into the Chamber, we will 

not close the vote stations. And that typically happens on a first 

vote, the first vote of the day or the week. At the 15-minute mark, 

there might be 150 people who have voted, you know, out of 435. 


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So, typically that is—a lot of times people complain, but you 

know, they just keep the vote open and Members know, oh, there 

are, you know, only 150 people voting. They know they can take 

their time to get to the Chamber because they’re not going to close 

the vote because there is not a quorum so far. 

So we leave the machines open until—they say, Does any Member wish to change his or her vote? And they say, There are a lot 

of people coming in; don’t close the stations. 

Q. Who would say that? 

A. The Parliamentarian. 

Q. Okay. So there would be—there are times when—even when 

they use those magic words that the seated Tally Clerk might still 

elect—— 

A. The Parliamentarian will talk with the Chair, with the Speaker. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I mean, the Chair obviously sees the vote tally. 

A. Right. 

Q. So why would he be—in those instances when, you know, it 

is 150 people voting on the first vote of the day or whenever, why 

would he say—— 

A. Well, because you have some people—well, I don’t want—I 

don’t want to be flippant. But you have some Members that are 

trying to be cute. I can give you an example; when a Member is 

in the Chair he keeps on saying, And the vote is, and the vote is, 

trying to get people to vote. 

Q. He is saying that into the microphone? 

A. Yes. Some people are serious and other people aren’t; it all depends on who is in the Chair. 

Q. Okay. But once he says that, if there have only been 150 people voting—— 

A. I don’t know why, but they do. 

Q. But then the decision is made by the—who makes the decision 

not to close the voting stations? 

A. Well, we are told not to close them. 

You know what I mean? 

Q. By whom? 

A. The Parliamentarian will talk with the Chair and they’ll just 

say, Keep the voting stations open. 

Q. But it is the Chair who is—he is sort of—he is the one who 

is—— 

A. Right, because he realizes that there aren’t—that people 

haven’t voted. 

Q. Okay. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So he realizes what—he realizes that—— 

A. There were a lot of people coming into the Chamber to vote. 

Q. So it is his intention, or her intention, not to close it, notwithstanding what they try to say? 

A. Right. Exactly. 

I know it doesn’t make sense, but they just don’t—— 

Even though they go through those steps—every day is different. 


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I mean, you’re just listening—I don’t know. We took over 1,000 

votes this year and we had a problem with one. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Would you say that that tends to be inexperience from the 

Chair, or is it them—— 

A. I would say it is pressure, pressure put on the Chair to close 

the vote. That is what I believe created the problem. 

Q. For 814? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. I think we’ll get there in a little bit. 

But I just want to make sure that I understand sort of the process, how it typically happens. And—and I think what you said— 

and if I’m wrong, correct me—is that they use the magic words. If 

any Member wishes to vote or change their vote, that is, the vast 

majority of the time, your signal to turn off the electronic voting 

system—— 

A. Yes. Sure. 

Q. [continuing]. Except when the Chair—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Doesn’t really mean that because there are people milling around, and they’re using that as sort of the stick to 

get people to actually cast a vote? 

A. Exactly. Yes, to hurry through. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And I don’t mean to belabor this, but—so, let’s keep to this 

example of 150 people, okay? 

So he says that—there is a little discussion amongst the Parliamentarian, right? The Chair essentially says, Don’t close the voting 

stations, right? 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. So what happens when he finally decides to—— 

A. Well, then, they go through the process again. 

Q. So he calls it out again? 

A. Sure—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. Have all Members voted? 

And then he’ll say, Does any Member wish to change his or her 

vote? And then we’ll go through that same process, and we’ll say, 

Are you ready, and they’ll say, Yes. And that’s when the slip will 

go up to the Chair—I’ll close the vote stations. 

The standing Tally Clerk will write the slip out, give it to the 

Parliamentarian. The Parliamentarian gives it to the Chair, and 

the Chair starts to read the total. 

And what we do is when we call—at that point the vote stations 

are closed, and we click—as he is reading the total, we go to a 

screen that says, Terminate Vote, and—the vote totals are there. 

So the Tally Clerk is looking at the vote totals to make sure that 

the—— 

Q. It is corresponding? 

A. Right. And then he starts saying, you know, it was 214, 

212—— 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Do you know the language, Muftiah? 


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Ms. MCCARTIN. On this vote? 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. On this vote. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. What—can we just sort of walk—— 

A. A motion to reconsider is the—that is what we’re listening for, 

‘‘the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.’’ As soon as they 

say ‘‘table,’’ we release the boards. We just terminate the vote completely. 

So—the lights go down on the—summary boards. It usually goes 

without a hitch for each vote. 

It is not as complicated as it sounds. 

Q. Can I just back you up a second and make sure, because—— 

A. Sure. 

Q. [continuing]. Just so I understand them. 

I’m sorry. I know this is sort of second nature to you, but it is 

still kind of new to me. 

So ‘‘wishes to vote’’ or ‘‘change’’ their votes, and then you get to 

the second step and then the seated Tally Clerk hits the Terminate 

Vote option—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. On the menu. And basically they will only do 

that if there are no Members in the well? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. If there are Members mingling around in the well or 

if they have vote cards that they haven’t turned in yet, they don’t— 

they don’t get to that second step of—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Terminating the vote option? 

A. Right. They’ll close the vote stations, but we’ll stay at the well 

voting screen and then they will just call—the Reading Clerk will 

call out the Member names and how they voted. Because if it is a 

change, the Congressional Record Clerks need to know that. 

So we’ve already filled out a sheet if there were any changes. The 

Reading Clerk typically gives the sheet to the Congressional Record 

Clerks, so that when the changes have already been read and 

somebody else comes down to vote in the well, they call them out, 

Mr. Smith of New Jersey votes—— 

Q. Who keeps the change? 

A. The Tally Clerks write the sheet out and then they give it to— 

they put it on the—they give it to the Reading Clerks to read at 

the end of the vote. When they ask for changes, that is when—— 

Q. Does the court reporter also keep a change vote? 

A. We give it down to the Congressional Record Clerk, so I don’t 

know what—and I’m assuming they give that to—the stenographer 

when they leave the floor so that if they’ve already taken the sheet, 

the Tally Clerk can’t fill it out, but the Congressional Record Clerk 

does because the Reading Clerk is calling out the vote. 

Q. Okay. So you’ve got—at this point the Chair has used the 

magic words about Members ‘‘wishing to vote’’ or ‘‘change’’ their 

vote, and then nobody is down in the well. So then you get to the 

third step, which is the Tally Clerk setting the vote to final, 

which—and at that point, the Chair, according to this, should be 

reading the written tally sheet? 


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A. Yes. 

Q. And the written tally sheet is prepared by whom? 

A. The standing Tally Clerk. The Tally Clerk that is standing in 

front of the seated Tally Clerk. They take the cards in the well, put 

a number on it, the roll call number on it, and they hand it to the 

seated Tally Clerk, who puts that information into the computer. 

Q. Okay. Are they—is there a process to essentially reconcile 

those two so that somebody is looking at either the well cards that 

are turned in or the tally sheet and comparing that against what 

is in the—— 

A. No. Not until the vote is closed. 

Q. Not until the vote is closed? 

A. Right. There is no way that you can do that—once the vote 

is completed, then we have a process where we print out well votes. 

And then the Tally Clerk downstairs—the Tally Clerk upstairs 

calls down and goes through—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. Card by card, and the Tally Clerk downstairs 

checks off. And if there is a problem or a mistake, they’ll say to 

them, No, it should ‘‘aye,’’ not ‘‘no.’’ 

Q. Is there a process where the written tally sheet or tally slip 

is matched, the totals are compared to EVS? 

A. Oh, yes. Definitely. 

Q. Okay. When does that take place? 

A. [continuing]. After the Tally Clerk has closed the vote. If I’m 

the seated Tally Clerk, I will say, 384 to 20 or something, whatever, just so that as they’re writing it down, they know. 

Q. As the standing Tally Clerk is writing it down? 

A. Yeah. 

Each one does it differently, though. That’s why a lot of them— 

we read it off the board, but the Tally Clerk is still saying, this is 

the total and it is just easier. 

A. And that is why the voting stations are closed, because it 

means that you can’t have an uptick and that it is a ‘‘static number,’’ as John Sullivan would say. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So sometimes you would take the information for the tally slip 

off the board? 

A. Yes. I would say 90 percent of the time. 

But it is also—you’re also, talking with the seated Tally Clerk 

and, saying that this is the total. And the same total that is on the 

boards, the summary boards, is the same total that is on the EVS. 

Q. So there is a check? 

A. Yes. 

Q. The standing Tally Clerk is checking with the seated—— 

A. Seated Tally Clerk. 

Q. To make sure that the two numbers agree? 

A. Match. 

Q. And that there is a concurrence? 

A. Yes, sir. 


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BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. Does that take place before or after the third step? 

Okay, and the third step on here, it talks about the seated Tally 

Clerk setting a vote to final. 

Will they set the vote to final until the tally slip has been prepared and sent up to the Chair? 

A. No. No, actually, not. Because the slip is made before the 

screen. That is final. 

Really, that has nothing to do with—I don’t know why it is in 

there. 

Q. Why what is in where? 

A. Final. Because it doesn’t really mean anything. Because the 

totals never change. 

Q. So what happens with that tally—with that tally sheet? It is 

prepared and then it goes from the standing Tally Clerk—— 

A. To the Parliamentarian. The Parliamentarian gives it to the 

Speaker. 

Q. Okay, so the—— 

A. The Parliamentarian actually checks it. They look at it. 

Q. They look at it compared to what? And what are they comparing it to? 

A. Actually, I would assume that maybe they’re looking at the 

boards. 

Q. The boards are still up? The boards haven’t been cleared? 

A. No. Not until they say, ‘‘The motion to reconsider is laid upon 

the table.’’ And once they say ‘‘table,’’ that is when—they clear the 

boards. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Frances, explain for a second this final—you seem to indicate 

that final didn’t really mean anything. 

A. No, it doesn’t, because it is just—I don’t know why they—whoever, developed the system, it doesn’t really mean anything. it has 

been up there. Sometimes, if the Tally Clerk, will click final because—the Chair had been reading the totals and almost set the 

motion to reconsider, but decides that they don’t want to disenfranchise any Members, so they say, Reopen the stations, or, Take 

these well votes. Even though it says ‘‘final’’ up there, you can still 

add votes. It doesn’t mean anything. 

Q. So, finally—and on that point, when it says ‘‘final,’’ that 

doesn’t mean that Members can’t vote? 

A. Right. Exactly. They can. We can take well votes. We can add. 

We can open the stations. They can vote. 

A. And we can also take a well card and add a vote, and we’ve 

done that over the years that I’ve been here. we do it all the time. 

It has never really—it didn’t make a difference. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So the vote is being set to final, and that is what is going— 

what appears on the display board; that is number—in the third 

step of a five-step process, right? 

A. Right. It is just another one of the steps you need to bring the 

boards down—— 


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Q. Sure. 

A. [continuing]. For whoever developed the system. 

Q. Right. But the ultimate finality of a vote isn’t until all five 

steps are completed? 

A. Right. Exactly. Yes. 

Q. Despite this sort of misnomer of ‘‘setting the vote to final’’? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. To you, what does ‘‘ultimate finality’’ mean? 

A. It means the boards are down. 

Q. And what consequence is that? I mean, a vote could not be 

entered? 

A. No, not at all. Right. Right. 

Q. Not by machine? Not by well card? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Well, let’s back up on that. Go ahead. I’m sorry. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Well, actually that’s—we’ve never had anyone 

vote after that point. I mean, once it is down, we’ve never had a 

Speaker say, Add a vote. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Well, you had the board up there, right? Okay. Your key to 

bringing the board down is ‘‘laid upon the table’’? 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. So what if somebody said ‘‘laid upon the table,’’ right, 

and for a minute or two the board stays up? 

A. I’ve never seen that happen. 

Q. Right. But is it the board going down or is it ‘‘laid upon the 

table’’? 

A. Well, it is actually ‘‘laid upon the table’’ because the Parliamentarians will tell us that is final; Once he says that, the vote 

is finished, 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Based on what you just said, there is nothing automatic. The 

Chair may say, ‘‘The motion is laid upon the table’’; that is the signal for the seated Clerk to do something? 

A. Right. 

Q. And if the seated Clerk doesn’t do it—— 

A. Oh, yes, you’re right. The boards could stay up; you’re right. 

And that actually—I don’t remember—I know I viewed the tape 

that evening. But I don’t remember what he said, truth be told, 

afterwards. 

But it is—normally, when the motion to reconsider is laid on the 

table, the Tally Clerk wants to release that vote. They don’t want 

the boards to be up. 

It is just a process. Because we may have votes stacked, and it 

all depends on who is in the Chair. If they talk really fast. I know 

that when other Members on the other side of the aisle—Mr. Simpson, he would talk so fast that I remember one time saying to 

Charlie Johnson, I’m only as fast as the computer. 

I can’t go any faster. I have to wait. 

Q. I’m sorry. So Mr. Simpson—who is Mr. Simpson? 


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A. Oh, he was a Member of Congress who had been a Speaker 

Pro Tem at one time. 

Q. In what years? 

Mr. HALPERN. Probably mid-90s? 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Sometime in the ’90s. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And the point about speaking so fast that you couldn’t keep 

up was because you believed that he wanted the vote to end quickly, and that is—this is why you couldn’t go fast enough for him? 

A. Right. Right. 

So you’re going through the process, and it is just—you want to 

bring the vote down. That’s why I’m saying, you wouldn’t want to 

leave the boards up. Because you have to go on to your next step 

because sometimes the process moves very quickly and you’re following the Chair. So you have to, that’s the way it is. 

You know, sometimes you dread when certain people are in the 

Chair. It’s just, part of the job. You know, you really have to be 

on top and just quick. 

Everybody moves at a different pace, Some people are—get a little nervous—with 2-minute votes, very stressful for the Tally 

Clerk. And that’s what they did: They did nine 2-minute votes that 

night, and without a hitch. 

Q. So with this different pace—now you’re speaking more generally with your history, some people are faster, some people are 

slower. I mean, is it clear to you that there are some times when 

because of a particular vote, sometimes it is going faster and sometimes it is going slower? 

A. Oh, sure. Yeah. It all depends on who is in the Chair and 

what—what you are voting on. 

Q. And this has been your experience over the last 10 years? 

A. Yes. It is always different. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So to sort of segue back to this briefly—I don’t want to spend 

too much time on it. 

The signal for the Clerk in the third step here, the Tally Clerk 

to set the option to final—that is one of the commands—is that the 

Chair is reading the tally slip? 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. When I say—when it says ‘‘reading,’’ I assume that 

means he is reading it out loud? 

A. Yes. 

Q. What—are there other keys or commands that could get the 

seated Tally Clerk to—to set the vote to final if the Chair is not 

reading? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. 

When this particular case, as I understand it, do you know 

whether there was a tally sheet or a tally slip prepared? 

A. No, there was not. 

Q. Okay. So—— 

A. There was not. 


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Q. How would De’Andre Anderson, who is the seated Tally Clerk, 

have gotten to the third step to set the vote to final here without 

the Chair reading a document that apparently didn’t exist here? 

A. I know—I honestly—I don’t know. I wasn’t up there, so I don’t 

know, what was going through his mind. 

Maybe Kevin Hanrahan would have a better feel for that because 

he was the Standing Tally Clerk and he has been a Tally Clerk— 

he has worked here for over 20 years. 

Q. Have you talked to De’Andre about it? 

A. I have. I didn’t really want to talk to him too much about it 

because of the Committee. 

But I read his; I read the memo that he had written, and provided—and I provided that to the committee. 

And I think it was—everybody was very confused, Mr. Mc—— 

Q. McNulty? 

A. [continuing]. McNulty of New York was calling the total out. 

And De’Andre is, I’m still entering cards in, you know—I’ve got 

these—I could see it on the TV, he still has cards and Mr. McNulty 

is calling the vote and De’Andre is, what is going on, and he is 

looking at John Sullivan saying, I’m still entering votes. 

Or maybe Tom Wickham—I don’t know which Parliamentarian 

was up there. And then I think—I guess there was a lot of confusion. There was just a lot of confusion. 

Q. Do you know at what point—and obviously, you know, we’ll 

speak to De’Andre. 

But do you know at what point—what is your understanding of 

when he got to the third step? 

A. I think because they were—De’Andre said that they had decided that they were moving on to another vote. Somebody wanted 

to reconsider the vote—stand up and write—go to reconsider. 

Mr. Hoyer wanted to go to reconsider. 

And so he was, Oh, my God, what do you mean? So he put the 

vote to final, I’m assuming, because he thought he had to bring the 

vote down; and then he couldn’t—that was my—that is what I 

thought: He can’t get the vote down because he set the vote to final 

and went back to do a well vote. And then when you try to set the 

vote to final again, it won’t let you unless you escape out and go 

to—— 

Q. So the glitch that you talked about before, the anomaly, I 

think you called it, that you have encountered in the past, was basically—was in this third step where you’re trying to—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Set the vote to final? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. The fourth step. 

Mr. SPULAK. Can I say something real quick? 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If you had been there, based on—based on your experience— 

and I think I’m just saying what you said earlier—and you had encountered that same situation, could you have opened it so that it 

would have reopened instead of freezing, if you will? 

A. I would—yes. I would think that if it was the same problem 

that I encountered, yes, I could have brought the vote down. And 


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that’s why I was very surprised. Because in talking with Mark 

O’Sullivan, who has been here 32 years, in 32 years no one has 

ever aborted a vote. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Is it your understanding that this is where the problem that 

night took place, in the third step? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Let me just run through quickly the last two, just for 

a typical vote. I just want to make sure I fully understand it. 

So then, typically, the Chair is reading the tally sheet that has 

been passed out by the Parliamentarian. As he is doing that, that 

is the signal for the seated Tally Clerk to set the vote to final. 

Then the Chair—the fourth step, the Chair uses the magic words 

about the motion being laid upon the table? 

A. Right. 

Q. And at that point, the option that the Tally Clerk has is to 

release the vote, which is another one of the commands on EVS? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And then the fifth command is essentially a confirmation 

of—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. The—releasing the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. At that point, the boards go down, and it is game over? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. 

So what—why don’t you tell us your understanding of sort of 

where things got a little off track on the night of the 2nd. 

A. It is when Mr. McNulty closed the vote—called the total— 

called the vote while De’Andre was still entering roll calls. No one 

has ever done that since I’ve been here. And Mark O’Sullivan, in 

his 32 years, he said that no one has ever done that before. 

So, here you’re with well cards, you’re entering the cards in, and 

the Chair is calling the vote. I mean, ultimately it is his call, but 

the Tally Clerk has never encountered, you know, having someone 

closing the vote while they’re still in the process of entering well 

cards. 

Q. So De’Andre is still entering well cards, and he is trying to 

keep up. And then they go on after Mr. Hoyer moves to reconsider—— 

A. Right. I think that’s where—— 

Q. He needs to shut it down really quickly? 

A. Yes. And I know that he told me that John Sullivan leaned 

over and told him, De’Andre, Are you going to close the vote? And 

De’Andre said to him, I’m trying. 

And so I said to Kevin Hanrahan—Kevin Hanrahan said that 

there was a lot of confusion and he didn’t—he thought that they 

were going to—he said, It was very confusing, Frances. He said 

that you didn’t know what was going on. 

So I said, because I tried to ask him, ‘‘Why couldn’t you help him 

get the vote down?’’ Because he said that he didn’t know what was 

going on, and he is a veteran. He has been here for a long time. 


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Then they had other people come down to provide well cards, 

which changed the total, the vote total, again. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. What you’ve said about De’Andre and John. You said that 

John asked him if he was going to close it down and De’Andre said 

he was trying? 

A. Yes. 

Q. You said earlier that you read De’Andre’s recollections that he 

wrote down. 

A. Yes. 

Q. And I presume we all have. So in that—at least from my reading of that, he said that he continued to enter cards as he had 

them. 

A. Yes. 

Q. So I just wanted to make sure I understand. 

Although he said he was trying to close the vote down, I would 

infer from what he said in his memo that he was only trying to do 

it after he had entered all the cards that he thought he was supposed to enter. 

A. Right. 

Well, I realize that the first three cards that he had received 

while Mr. McNulty—and you can see it on the tape, that De’Andre 

still has cards; you can see them on the glass. Kevin had given him 

three cards, and he was in the process of entering those when Mr. 

McNulty called the vote. 

And it was after that time, that three other Members came down 

and changed their votes, but it was long after—well—minutes 

after. 

Well, I can’t speculate on what would have happened or what 

would not have happened. But if De’Andre had closed the vote, the 

total would have been different, okay? But because he couldn’t get 

the vote down, it afforded other Members to come down to change 

their vote. So Kevin Hanrahan took the cards and gave them to 

De’Andre and he entered them. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So you think what happened is—and if you know this is what 

happened, let me know; or if you sort of think this is what happened—De’Andre has three cards, three well cards. And at that 

point he is—he is entering those three, even though the Chair has 

called 214 to 214. So he proceeds to enter those three. And then 

at that point he goes to the third step, which is setting the vote 

to final? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And as he is doing that, then three more cards come in. So 

he then tries to back up after he has set the vote to final and then 

put those back in? 

A. Right. 

Q. So he was entering the ones he had already been given—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Then trying to close it. And after he closed it by 

setting it to final, then three more—he was handed up three more. 

A. Yes. 


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Q. He tries to then put them in, and that is where the system 

kind of froze up. 

A. Right. I don’t know if that is exact—I guess you’d have to talk 

to him about at what point he actually finalized the vote at that 

point. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Right. But it was probably—it was probably after—it was 

probably—well, let me say this a different way. Correct me if I’m 

wrong. 

The Chair made a statement. He had these three cards; he was 

going to enter those cards, but now he is picking up this cue. He 

went ahead and entered the three cards and then tried to follow 

the procedure of responding to the cue. 

A. Right. 

Q. So he goes—so he tries to go to final. He can’t—there are 

other Members who want to change their vote; and as he tries to 

get back in to enter those, he is going to continue this process—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. That freezes up and now he can enter them, but 

he can’t bring the vote down? 

A. Right. Exactly. Because he had already set the vote to final. 

And once you back out of the—to leave the well screen vote—again, 

it says Close Vote Stations, Terminate Vote, Set Vote to Final. 

Well, you’ve already done that, and for some reason, even though 

I had learned early on that that was a problem, because I was a 

little quick on the buttons, faster than some of the other Tally 

Clerks. Mark O’Sullivan is a little bit slower. 

And so I just realized that even though I had set it to final, 

somebody else came back down into the well to vote, I learned 

early on, that was a problem for me, because if I tried to release 

the votes again, I couldn’t. So I would have to escape out, go to the 

main screen, go to Terminate Vote and then follow the procedure 

there. 

And it was just something I never—Teresa and I have encountered that, Teresa Austin and Kevin Hanrahan. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Is that something that the—that all the Tally Clerks would 

know how to do, or is that something—— 

A. De’Andre did not know how to do it, because he is a new Tally 

Clerk and it was not something he had ever encountered before. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But again, based on what I asked you earlier, had he known 

what you knew and perhaps what others had known—— 

A. Right. I think—I’m assuming—I can only assume that he 

would have tried to go out and release the boards by going through 

the main screen to terminate the vote. 

Q. And what would have happened had he done—had he done 

what you know what to do? 

A. Well, they wouldn’t have had to abort the vote. 


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Q. Let me ask you to go back, because what you said, I think, 

is fundamental to what we’re doing here. 

You said that Mr. McNulty called the vote while—while 

De’Andre still had cards? 

A. Yes. 

Q. How—how—how would Mr. McNulty have known that 

De’Andre had cards that he hadn’t entered or that he hadn’t entered as yet? 

A. Well, actually the Chair—normally, the Parliamentarians will 

say to the Chair, ‘‘The Tally Clerk is still entering the cards.’’ But 

the Chair can actually see right down. 

Q. But would he know—yes. 

But would he know—he sees the cards on the glass, but would 

he, or she know—— 

A. No, I don’t know that. I don’t know. But I just know that a 

lot of times the Parls will say, ‘‘They’re still entering cards.’’ 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. But typically there is a sheet handed out, right? 

A. Yes. Oh, yes, always. 

Q. A tally slip? 

A. The tally slip, yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Have you ever seen a vote where a tally slip wasn’t given to 

the Chair? 

A. No. 

Q. How many votes—similar votes to 814 did they do that night? 

A. Do you mean a motion to—a motion to recommit? 

Q. Right. How many amendments were there? 

A. Oh, there were nine amendments prior to the motion to recommit, 2-minute votes. And they went off without a hitch. 

Q. And in each of those cases, was a written tally sheet passed 

up to the Chair? 

A. Yes. We call it a slip. 

Q. Slip? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Before we leave it, that tally slip went to the Chair. What 

happens with that slip? 

A. It is thrown in the garbage. 

Q. It is thrown in the garbage? 

A. Yes. Because the vote is over and no one—no one keeps it. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You talked a little bit about the—sort of the personalities, the 

mannerisms of different people in the Chair and how that can 

make your lives as Clerks on the rostrum more or less difficult, depending on whether they are, you know, fast talkers or quiet talkers or whatever. 

A. True. 


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Q. What—how often has Mr. McNulty been in the chair in your 

experience? 

A. Well, considering—was this August? He was—he had been in 

the chair quite a bit and he has prior experience. So, he was—we 

never had a problem with him. He was very good. 

Q. Is he a fast talker? Is he somebody that spoke fast—— 

A. No. He was—— 

Q. You guys couldn’t keep up? 

A. No. He was—nobody—not that—we never talk badly about 

any of the Members. But it is just like—— 

Q. Some are better than others? 

A. Yes, some are better than others. It is—they know the process 

or they listen to the Parliamentarians instead of interjecting their 

own—what they think is supposed to happen—and they don’t know 

the parliamentary procedures 

So if they listen to the Parliamentarians, or Gay or Brian, then 

they follow what is supposed to happen. And Mr. McNulty—we 

consider him a very good person in the chair, we—find him easy 

to work with—we can follow him; everything is fine. 

Q. So what do you think happened that night? There had been, 

what, eight other 2-minute votes earlier that evening? 

A. Nine. 

Q. Nine. And in each case, the steps we talked about had been 

followed to the letter? 

A. Right. 

Q. What happened on 814? 

A. Well, I—I don’t want to—I mean, I think it was a political— 

I think that it was—he was pressured into closing the vote. It was 

very apparent to everyone. 

Q. What is your basis for saying that? 

A. Because Mr. Hoyer was screaming at him to shut the vote. 

Q. Screaming at Mr. McNulty? 

A. Yes. 

Q. You weren’t there. Obviously—— 

A. No, I wasn’t. But my staff told me. 

Q. Okay. And to the best of their, you know—your recollection 

of what they told you, what specifically was Mr. Hoyer saying? 

A. Close the vote. Close the vote. 

Q. Okay. Had the Speaker voted at that point? 

A. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And how—how typical is it for the majority leader to be 

speaking in that manner to the Chair? 

A. Well, we’ve seen that, though. We saw that when Tom DeLay 

was Majority Leader, he would come down and tell the Chair—because he was—wanted to get the vote moving and close it. And he 

would do the same thing, close the vote. 

Q. But is this the first time where they closed the vote or he announced the vote without the tally slip? 

A. Right. Yes, it is. It is. 

Q. And why do you think he went ahead without getting a, you 

know, tally slip or—— 

A. I don’t know. I don’t know. 


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BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. At the time when that direction was given, were there other 

Members in the well? 

A. I don’t know. I wasn’t there; I don’t know. But—I think there 

were, as a matter of fact, because De’Andre—Kevin said that they 

were still—he was handing De’Andre cards that he had received. 

Q. Do you know whether Mr. McNulty—getting back to one of 

the earlier steps—I think it is the first step—when the Chair asked 

whether Members ‘‘wish to vote’’ or ‘‘change’’ their votes, do you 

know whether he used those magic words for 814? 

A. Actually I don’t—I don’t remember. I’d have to review the tape 

again. He did because Kevie Niland must have read the tally, the 

change sheet, because it was given to the Congressional Record 

Clerks. 

Q. Then the second step that we talked about is, the Clerk gets 

the EVS terminal ready to terminate the vote and the seated Tally 

Clerk does that when there are no Members that are in the well? 

A. Right. 

Q. Is that right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So would it be readily apparent to the Chair that there were 

Members in the well? 

A. Yes. Because a lot of times they’ll say, One more, or they’ll— 

you know, they’ll talk to the Chair and say, they’re coming in 

screaming, One more, or, I have a change; or sometimes they’re 

quietly over there getting a card, and the Chair will see that; or 

we’ll say, We have a change, Someone is changing their vote. And 

we—and they make the change. 

Q. So the Chair—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. I’m sorry, Tom. 

Mr. SPULAK. Go ahead. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So the Chair would have been aware that there were Members in the well—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. At the time he decided to call the vote at 214 to 

214? 

A. Well, I know I can’t speak for Mr. McNulty because I wasn’t 

there. If I had been there on the rostrum, I would have been able 

to answer that question. 

But since I wasn’t there, I don’t know. 

Q. As the Clerk Supervisor, or even as the Tally Clerk, would 

you have been in a position to say something to either the Parliamentarian or the Chair saying, Look, there are people in the well? 

A. If I had been on the floor, yes, I would have. 

Q. What would you have done? 

A. I would have gone to the Parliamentarian and said, ‘‘They are 

still entering cards;’’ and then they would have relayed, assessed 

the situation and talked to the Speaker. 

Q. Does the Speaker—the Speaker or the Chair? 

A. The Chair. I should say the Chair. The Chair. 


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Q. Is there ever an occasion for the Clerk to speak directly to the 

Chair, or is it always channeled through the Parliamentarian? 

A. No, sometimes—it all depends. 

If I’m standing and collecting the cards, or in the chair, sometimes I’ll turn around and look and say to the Chair, ‘‘We have a 

change,’’ or, ‘‘I’m taking a change’’ or—if I’m standing there just 

saying, ‘‘We have a change.’’ 

Q. Is—if someone is in the well, are they in the well solely for 

the purpose of voting or do people just hang around? 

A. Sometimes people mill around. They’ll be talking. There are 

a lot of people in the well, as a matter of fact. 

Q. But you can see people are actually sitting there filling out 

cards? 

A. Right. Yes. 

Q. Because they’re colorful and—— 

A. Yes, you can tell. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But to that point—and going to what you said earlier, 

Frances, Mr. McNulty was an experienced presiding officer? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And to this point that Members—what you say that Members 

do sometimes, ‘‘mill around the well,’’ a Member that—and, I mean, 

how long does it take to fill out a card? 

A. Not that long. A. couple of seconds. 

Q. A few seconds? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So a Member—sort of in the confusion of what goes on, a 

Member could fill out a card, hand it to the Clerk, it could have 

already been registered. The Chair looks down; he or she may 

see—from my understanding of the well—not knowing—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Whether they intend to vote, whether they have 

voted or whether they’re just standing there? 

A. Correct. That’s true. 

Q. With respect to the members of your staff who heard Mr. 

McNulty being told by Mr. Hoyer to close the vote, was that coming 

directly from Mr. Hoyer or was that coming through his staff? 

A. Well, it was my understanding that it was Mr. Hoyer who had 

said to the Chair, ‘‘Close the vote.’’ 

Q. How many different times? 

A. I don’t remember. I’m sure that Kevin Hanrahan or De’Andre 

would be able to answer that. I wasn’t there. 

Q. Which members of your staff did you hear that from? 

A. Teresa Austin. 

Q. Was she on the floor or—— 

A. No. She is the FARS Clerk. She was downstairs. She was listening. She puts the information into the computer. Allys Lasky, 

she was the Journal Clerk. 

Q. Okay. 

A. And Kevin and De’Andre. 

Q. Were they all pretty consistent in what they told you? 

A. Yes. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You saw them take a—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did you see Mr. Hoyer say this on the tape? 

A. I don’t think I did. No. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. One of the things that—you mentioned that you had seen the 

memo De’Andre wrote. 

A. Yes. 

Q. I can give you a copy of it, but I’ll quote one sentence from 

it. Quote, ‘‘We have never closed down a vote when there was an 

uptick in the tally or when Members who have turned in a well 

card wanted to vote or wanted to change their vote,’’ unquote. 

Is that—is that your experience as well? 

A. Yes, it is. 

Well, let me clarify. There have been times when the Chair has 

called the vote, the motion to reconsider is laid on the table, someone is running down the aisle. Again, we take our cue from the 

Chair. If the Chair bangs that gavel, the vote comes down. 

Now, they’ll run down—we’ve had that, and I actually had to tell 

a Member just a couple of weeks ago—I said, ‘‘I’m sorry, sir, the 

vote is closed,’’ even though the boards were down, he was still 

running down there to give a card; and I just had to say, ‘‘I’m 

sorry, the vote is closed.’’ 

Q. Well, you mentioned the gavel coming down. Are you speaking 

euphemistically or are you speaking literally? 

A. No. I—well, most—99.9 percent of the times they say, The motion to reconsider is laid upon the table, and they’ll bang the gavel. 

Q. In this particular case, do you remember when Mr. McNulty 

gaveled the vote? 

A. I do not. I have not seen the tape for quite—I have not seen 

the tape since August. So I’d have to—— 

Q. I mean, it is my recollection—correct me if I’m wrong—that 

he announced the 214 to 214 and then he gaveled it. Is that—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Maybe—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. I’m just wondering which is the—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sort of the finale? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Yeah, the coup de grace. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Is it laid upon the table or is it the gavel? 

A. No, it is laid upon the table. But then they just gavel. 

You know—but like the Chair said, it is his decision or her decision to allow a Member to vote, not ours. 

Q. Sure. 

A. If they say the vote is over, the vote is over. 

Q. Okay. But would you interpret that—if you had been sitting 

up there on the evening of August 2nd and the Chair had said, 214 

to 214, bang, would you interpret that as finality, or would that— 

there not have been—— 

A. Not if I was still entering cards in. 


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I’ve never had that happen, it has never happened before. So I’d 

have to turn around and say to the Parliamentarians, ‘‘What is 

going on? What am I supposed to do,’’ you know, take the cards; 

not take the cards? It has never happened before. That’s why I say 

it was very confusing up there. It was. No one had ever done that 

before without a tally slip, while the Tally Clerk is still entering 

the cards. 

We’ve never experienced that before, so I guess no one knew 

what to do. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Frances, let me ask. I understand that there was some confusion after the case. And notwithstanding the fact that Mr. McNulty 

tried to bring the vote to a close, De’Andre had well cards. 

A. Yes. 

Q. And my sense is—and I’m not sure; this is fairly contemporaneous—but those votes, the votes that he had that you say, It has 

never happened before—but those votes were entered? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Right? 

A. He was entering them as Mr. McNulty was—— 

Q. So notwithstanding fact that there may have been—where 

there was an attempt—a clear indication that the vote was over, 

De’Andre counted those votes? 

A. Yes, he did. 

Q. So at that point in time, and presumably from—at least from 

what we understand; correct me if I’m wrong—those were all the 

votes that he had? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. He was not saying, ‘‘Well, gee, I’m entering one. I have three. 

I better stop here.’’ 

He—he continued. He cleared everything he had. 

A. Yes. 

Q. So the issue was that at that time, as I understand it, was 

that Mr. McNulty called the votes that perhaps had not entered— 

had not been entered or—and I’m not leading you—is it possible 

that McNulty thought that those vote cards were entered? I mean, 

I don’t know what it is. We can ask him that question, but it’s possible a man who has experience as the Chair looked up at the 

board. 

A. I don’t think so, because normally the Chair doesn’t call the 

vote unless they have the tally slip. That is what that tells them 

that we’re, that the vote is ready to be called. 

I don’t know. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. It is my understanding that all the votes, that the well cards 

were entered except Mr. Boehner’s vote. 

A. Right. 

Q. Can you—why wasn’t—— 


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A. I asked Kevin that, I asked why Mr. Boehner’s card was not 

entered. And they said that because it was at that time they decided to abort the vote. So, at that point, they figured, you know, 

why bother. Because Mr. Boehner wanted to be on the prevailing 

side, he wanted to change his vote from ‘‘yes’’ to ‘‘no’’ so that he 

could vote for the motion to reconsider. But because they decided 

to abort the vote, they didn’t enter the cards. Mr. Hoyer had already voted no; it was just a duplicate card. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. In your experience, someone from, in other words a leadership 

person, from the side that appears that—the losing side—will enter 

a vote in order to—in order to get on the prevailing side to reconsider. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Are—because we find this curious as well, are the Clerks are 

familiar with that practice, with the political practice that 

you’ll—— 

A. I think Kevin Hanrahan is. I’m aware of it. I don’t know about 

De’Andre, but yes, everyone is supposed to be familiar and know 

the legislative process. 

Q. I think that—you said because it was aborted. At the time of 

the decision to supercede, had you heard that Mr. Hoyer—that they 

knew that the motion to reconsider was going to be made by 

Hoyer? So there was no reason to be on the other side to ask for 

it, because the majority in fact was going to ask for it? 

A. Truth be told, I don’t—no, I don’t think they made that—I just 

think that because the vote was going to be aborted— they wanted 

to get that vote down and go to the motion to reconsider. That’s 

why De’Andre could not bring the boards down. 

Q. To get to the motion to reconsider. 

A. Right, exactly. 

Q. Which is what Mr. Boehner was trying to do by changing his 

vote? 

A. Correct, So they aborted the vote and then went on to the motion to reconsider, but at that point. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Frances, can I just follow up on something you said earlier. 

You were describing what was—your staff relayed to you that it 

was a very hectic evening, noted that there were nine 2-minute 

votes in a row. Those were on the amendments—those were on the 

amendments—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. Correct? Those were actually in Committee? 

A. Yes, it was in the Committee of the Whole. 

Q. Okay. So you complete those 2-minute votes? 

A. Yes. 

Q. The Committee rises? 

A. The Committee rises. 

Q. And then there would be roughly 10 minutes of debate? 

A. Ten minutes of debate. 

Q. On the—— 

A. Motion to recommit. 


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Q. What—just either in this case in specific or in general, what 

are the Tally Clerks doing during that—during that interim, during that period? 

A. During that 10-minute period? 

Q. Yes. 

A. Usually they are setting the vote up. They are calling downstairs to proof the well cards from the nine votes, and then they 

are setting up the vote, getting the vote ready for the motion to recommit. 

Q. So there is conceivably a little bit of time for them to get a 

breather, close that out, the prior stuff—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. And get ready for the next—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. Stage? 

A. Exactly. 

Q. Correct? 

A. Correct. 

Mr. SNOWDON. I’ll show you this. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Take a look at that. Is that—I believe that was from your production? 

A. Actually, this was the following morning, I went upstairs to 

the rostrum when I got in at 8 o’clock, and I found this sitting on 

the rostrum—where the Tally Clerk sits. 

Q. And just for the record, do you want to read the Bates number 

from that. The full number down here. 

A. Oh, it’s Clerk 1579. 

Q. And what is that document? 

A. This is what we call the change sheet that we give to the 

Reading Clerks to announce when—but this isn’t the exact sheet. 

This is a—De’Andre—— 

Q. Now would he typically maintain his own sheet? 

A. No, we just actually fill out the sheet, give it to the Reading 

Clerk. A lot of times it’s not complete, because what happens is 

they ask for changes and then other Members come into the well. 

So that they will get a sheet that doesn’t have all these names on 

it that we have written. So he actually made this sheet up—— 

Q. De’Andre? 

A. De’Andre did, from the well card votes from the cards that he 

had. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. For what purpose? 

A. Actually, I think someone told him to make a slip of—make 

a copy to record this. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Whose—there’s a little box down at the bottom. Do you know 

whose handwriting that is? 

A. ‘‘Turned in cards but did not enter it into system.’’ I don’t recognize this—the—the handwriting, unless it is De’Andre’s. 


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Q. Did you have a meeting with Russ Gore where you told him 

you thought it might be John Sullivan’s handwriting? 

A. Oh, oh, I might have, yes, maybe, actually. 

Q. Why would John Sullivan have written on De’Andre’s sheet? 

A. Did I say that it was John Sullivan’s, did I? I don’t know. 

Mr. SPULAK. No, you said it was De’Andre’s. You said it was 

John Sullivan. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Well, I’m reading from notes, Clerk 1392, where 

there was, I believe, a meeting with Frances and Russ Gore: Handwritten change sheet, it has De’Andre’s handwriting. Someone else 

may have said that it was John Sullivan’s handwriting. 

Do you know whether that’s John Sullivan’s handwriting? 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. No, because I—I’m not familiar, you know what 

I mean—I don’t read anything of John’s. 

Mr. SPULAK. Can you tell me to what you’re referring, there is 

just a portion there that you said—— 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Right. 

Mr. SNOWDON. It is Clerk 1392. 

Mr. SPULAK. Right. Of the—of the document. 

Mr. SNOWDON. The box on the bottom. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. The box on the bottom. 

Mr. SPULAK. Yeah. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Sorry if I did say that. I’m not—honestly, if 

John Sullivan wrote something, I would not recognize his handwriting.—— 

Mr. SNOWDON [continuing]. Deny the statement. 

I’ll show her this, Tom. It is 2396. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. It is an e-mail from Russ Gore to you and Joe Strickland. 

A. Yes. 

Q. 2395 is a change sheet, and it says: I believe they are out of 

order because there is an attachment to this e-mail. It says: ‘‘See 

the attached copy of the vote change sheet that Joe Strickland 

has.’’ It appears to be different than the one you have. Any 

thoughts on why that is the case? 

A. Well, I did—actually, that morning, when I came in that 

morning—— 

Q. I mean, have you seen that document before? 

A. I did actually—I did see this. When I came in that morning, 

I called Trudi—Trudi Terry I think her name is. She’s the—I’m embarrassed to say I don’t know her last name. I called her up, and 

I asked her, I said, ‘‘can I get a copy of the change sheet?’’ And she 

said, we threw it out. She said—I have the e-mail. She said, ‘‘I 

can’t find the document you’re looking for.’’ 

Q. Is that something that’s typically kept as an official record? 

A. No, they throw it out after—the Tally Clerks proof the copy 

that comes up to the Floor that goes into the Congressional Record, 

and they go through with the well cards and make sure that the 

Congressional Record Clerks have the changes that will appear in 

the record, that they are correct. 

Q. Do you know why those two would have been so different? 

A. No, gosh, no. 

Q. And the one you’re referring to for the record is Clerk—— 


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A. 2395. 

Q. And that is an official—— 

A. Change sheet. 

Q. Change sheet? 

A. Change sheet. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I have no clue why it’s like that. I don’t know, 

Q. After the events of August 2nd, it seemed like there was a lot 

of—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Hold on a second. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Oh, sorry? 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. That’s okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. It just seems like there was a lot of effort to make sure that 

the computer voting records were brought back up? 

A. Yes. 

Q. People were scrambling to preserve records. Did anybody 

think to direct either the folks on the rostrum or the maintenance—the cleaning people not to be emptying trash cans for notes 

or slips that—it seems like—— 

A. I know. 

Q. A lot of effort was made to preserve records, and some of the 

records that were actually the most relevant—— 

A. Were thrown out. 

Q. [continuing]. Were thrown away. And I’m just wondering if 

that sort of entered anybody’s thinking at the time? 

A. Now I was not there. I did go up and check the garbage pails 

when I came in, hoping that the cleaning crew had not been there. 

That’s when I found that sheet on the rostrum. I asked De’Andre, 

and he said, yes, that he was directed to make a tally sheet of all 

the changes that he had from the well cards, and so that’s what 

he did. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Can I ask one clarification on that? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Which document? 

Ms. MCCARTIN. This sheet. 

Mr. SNOWDON. This one. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Yeah, on that one. 

Is this something—and compare the other one—— 

Mr. SPULAK. And that is De’Andre’s sheet you’re talking about. 

EXAMINATION BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. This is the recreation. 

A. Yes. 

Q. And that’s the change sheet that the—— 

A. The Reading Clerk. 

Q. The reading clerk, okay. So this—— 

A. This is what De’Andre—— 

Q. [continuing]. Would have read? 

A. Yes, yes. 

Q. This is a recreation of the well votes, right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So these are not necessarily both the same document. This is 

not necessarily a recreation of this document, right? 


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A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. Because these are all the well votes? 

A. These are all the well votes. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Yes, thank you. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. But this says these are all the well votes, and for the 

record—— 

A. These are the switches. 

Q. [continuing]. There is one column of ‘‘aye,’’ and one column of 

‘‘nay,’’ and then there’s one column of ‘‘switches.’’ The switches 

should be the same as the change sheet. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Not, not—— 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. No, okay, this is what happened. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Explain this. 

A. These people changed their vote before the Reading Clerk 

read the list: Bean, Mario Diaz-Balart, Mr. Space and Mr. 

McNerney. 

Q. McNerney. 

A. Mr. Mitchell, Ms. Gillibrand, Mr. Lampson, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen 

and Lincoln Diaz-Balart changed their votes after the Reading 

Clerk read this sheet. Looking at this without going back and reviewing the tape, that’s what I get from this, is that Kevie read 

these, and then these other Members—I know Ms. Gillibrand came 

down at the last minute, just from my memory, Ms. Gillibrand—— 

Q. And Kevie is Kevie Niland, the Reading Clerk? 

A. Kevie Niland, the Reading Clerk. 

Q. And at what point in the process is Kevie Niland reading the 

change sheet into the record? Is that before or after Mr. McNulty 

had—— 

A. Well, he would have—— 

Q. [continuing]. Gaveled the vote? 

A. Well, I don’t know, I’d have to go back and check. It might 

have been before he closed the vote. I’m not sure. I’d have to go 

back and review this. I don’t remember, sorry. I should have reviewed the tape before I came. I don’t have one. 

Mr. SPULAK. There was a Super Bowl last night, we understand. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Actually, I’m not in possession of—I gave them 

all to Clerk staff, to Russ Gore. So I—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Was this the only thing on the rostrum when you went 

through the next morning, this sheet? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You talked a little bit about Mr. Hoyer directing Mr. McNulty 

to close the vote. From the tapes, there’s some conversation between Mr. Hoyer and John Sullivan. 

A. I—— 


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Q. Did your staff—did your staff tell you anything—— 

A. No, they did not. 

Q. [continuing]. The next day about—— 

A. No. 

Q. With respect to any instructions that Mr. Hoyer may have 

given McNulty about closing the vote, was it simply to close the 

vote now, or was it—were vote numbers mentioned? 

A. They just said that he—he told Mr. McNulty to close the vote. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. And were there any—did your staff inform you of 

any conversations or anyone directing any comments from Mr. 

Hoyer or the leadership staff to the Clerk’s staff themselves as opposed to the Chair? 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. No. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I want to talk briefly about the aborting vote unless you guys 

want to—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Go ahead. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. What—have you ever seen a vote aborted? 

A. No. I know that years ago they would use the quorum call to 

get people to come to the Floor, they would abort it after they’d get 

100 members, and that was just normal practice. They would get 

a quorum—enough people, and then they would abort it, but they 

haven’t used that in years. They haven’t used that since I’ve been 

here. 

Q. So, of your staff, you said there were some folks on your staff 

who would have known the procedure to go back to the main 

screen to then keep the vote opened? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And who would have known? 

A. Well, Teresa Austin, Teresa told me that she had encountered 

that before. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I have and so has Kevin Hanrahan. Mark O’Sullivan has not. 

Q. Well, Kevin Hanrahan’s on the rostrum that evening? 

A. Yes, he was the Standing Tally Clerk. 

Q. Do you know why either Teresa or the operations center or 

Kevin Hanrahan wouldn’t have—— 

A. No. 

Q. Did they know De’Andre was having problems with trying to 

get back into the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Why wouldn’t they have instructed him what steps to take in 

order to do that? 

A. I don’t know. I asked Kevin, and he just told me that was not 

the case, that he didn’t think that they were trying to bring the 

vote down. He said it was very confusing. I guess he can speak to 

you better about that. I can’t. I don’t know what was going on 

there. I wasn’t there. 

Teresa was downstairs having a very hard time with the FARS 

because we have a system called LIMS, Legislative Information 

Management System, which is for the House Calendar. All the inVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00034 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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formation that we input into that is for the House Calendar, and 

the legislative activity guide, the members voting, everything that 

goes out to the Web. So when—we had never aborted a vote, so 

what happens is that it is a very old—it was created in 1973, this 

system. It’s very old, so it has a lot of patches to it, you have to 

know how to tinker with it to get the right motion in. And, you 

know, it’s just—so she was having a very hard time aborting the 

vote, bringing another vote up, and so, no, she didn’t think—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. What did Kevin say to you actually? 

A. I asked him, I said, I thought De’Andre was having a hard 

time bringing the vote down. I said, why didn’t you tell him to escape out and go to the main screen? He said, Frances—because 

that wasn’t the case. He said, he wasn’t sure what was going on, 

and he knew that they wanted to go to the motion to reconsider. 

I don’t know. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. When he said—I’m sorry? 

Mr. SPULAK. Go ahead, finish. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. When he said, ‘‘that wasn’t the case,’’ what—I’m a little confused. 

A. I don’t know. He would be the person to talk to honestly. I 

spoke with him the next morning. He had been there over 24 

hours. He had been there waiting for the legislative computer people to recreate, get—find that information, the file for the vote, 

which they did find it, which showed how each Member voted. And 

he had to go back in and enter the information into LIMS and 

FARS, the Floor Action Reporting System. And so when I spoke to 

him, he was—— 

Mr. SPULAK. I’m sorry. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI [continuing]. He said it was very confusing, unlike anything he’s ever encountered before. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So, in your mind was it still a similar problem to one that you 

all have—had dealt with before, or was this a totally new problem? 

A. I don’t know. If I had been there and on the computer, I would 

have known. But unless—it’s easy for me to speculate. 

Q. But the events, the sequence of events—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Is similar to something you had had a problem 

with before? 

A. Yes, yes, it was. And I expressed that to the Clerk and Teresa 

when I called her on the phone. I said, I know what’s happening; 

I think I know what’s happening 

Q. At the time you called Teresa—— 

A. I couldn’t get to the Floor. There was no way I could call upstairs to the people on the rostrum. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Frances, we will ask Kevin this. You used, I guess, a term of 

art, you said, when you were asked why didn’t Kevin do this, you 

said that he—you don’t believe that he thought they were trying 

to bring the vote down? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Does that mean that he thought that they wanted to leave the 

vote open? 

A. I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t. 

Q. Well, what’s the opposite of bringing the vote down? 

A. Leaving it open. Right, yes, I know. I don’t know what was 

going through his mind. I don’t know. I asked him, why he did not 

go up there and try to bring the system down? 

Q. And you’ve already said this—you guys have more questions 

you think? Well, you can, I just wanted to know if we’re getting to 

the end. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Close. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So you said this, but now in the context of these last few 

things we’ve said, so why do you think they made the decision to 

abort if you’ve never seen one before, but why do you think in the 

context of what you just described to us they made the decision to 

abort? 

A. Because it was my understanding that John Sullivan asked 

Ed Sorenson, who is the Deputy Clerk, and he is the person who 

wrote the program for the EVS, asked him what their options were 

and, since De’Andre couldn’t bring the vote down, Ed said the option was to abort the vote. And so Ed directed De’Andre to abort 

the vote, because they wanted to move on to the next vote. 

Q. From what you know, personally or what you heard from others that night or the day after, notwithstanding the apparent differences in these sheets, which may or may not be real, and the 

decision to abort, were any votes—and I’m asking personally, but 

from what you’ve heard, were any Members not recorded or not recorded accurately on that night, just from what you’ve heard—— 

A. No. 

Q. [continuing]. From complaints or anyone saying, how did this 

happen, or anything? 

A. No, no, not that—no one’s told me that they felt that they 

weren’t recorded. The only one would be John Boehner. 

Q. I understand. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So you think it was, to the best of your knowledge, it was 

John Sullivan and Ed Sorenson who decided that the best way to 

move on to the next vote was to—— 

A. Right—— 

Q. [continuing]. Was to abort? 

A. [continuing]. To abort the vote. Because John said to Ed, what 

are our options, and—— 

Q. And was essentially that the only option? 

A. Well, at the time, I guess Ed thought that was the only option. 


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Q. Did he know the work-around that you all had discovered 

from other similar—— 

A. I don’t know if he did know that, but he—well, again, I can’t— 

I don’t know. Honestly, I can’t speak for him. Again—if you’re not 

there, it’s hard to—— 

Q. Sure. 

A. [continuing]. Know what was going through somebody’s mind. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. I have one other, again, sort of a background thing. I apologize if we covered this, just stop me, and I’ll—— 

A. Okay. 

Q. In sort of—well, during the normal course of business that appears here during the day, are you on the Floor during most of the 

vote series? 

A Yes, I am. I am usually up for every vote unless I’m in a meeting. 

Q. Does the Clerk’s Office sort of have a protocol or sort of a roster for who’s—who’s in charge during a particular vote? 

A. No. I, actually—as the Chief, I go up, and I’m there to offer 

any support if they need it, because I know the EVS and the Bill 

Clerks. I’m there to help if there’s a problem. I will take the well 

cards just because there are so many Members in the well. But Ed 

Sorenson usually stands there, as did other Deputy Clerks who 

know the Floor, in the past, if Members need a new voting card. 

Q. Right. 

A. And he’s also—he can answer if Members are having problems 

with a voting station, he can check it out. 

Q. So—but there is usually a fairly high-ranking member of the 

clerk’s office, either at the chief level or the Deputy Clerk level—— 

A. Yes, always—— 

Q. [continuing]. Overseeing—— 

A. Right, we are usually both up there. I’m there for the staff, 

and he’s there to—to help if there is a problem with the voting. 

Q. And you were not there that evening? 

A. No, I was not. I went home early about 10 o’clock with Mark 

O’Sullivan so that we could come in early the next day, and I just 

want to add that I worked 85 hours that week. 

Q. Totally understandable. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. She turned the TV on when she got home. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. Because we were working so late, we needed to 

have people go home and be fresh so that when we came in—— 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Absolutely. I guess the follow-on question is, do you have 

somebody else in the Leg Ops shop who, when you’re not on the 

Floor, would stand in the same support role that you normally provide? 

A. No, actually, but I am looking into hiring a deputy. There has 

not been a deputy in my job for the last years— I don’t know if 

it is 12 years or 13 years, I’m not sure, but I’m going to hire a deputy. 


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BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. One of the things we’re actually doing for the committee is to 

come up with a series of recommendations, you know, so that this 

doesn’t happen again. 

A. Right. 

Q. Do you have any comment or recommendation that we should 

consider to address, you know, making sure this doesn’t happen 

again? 

A. Well, I know that we’ve tried to recreate the anomaly. I’ve 

been up on the Floor many times with the legislative computer 

staff, and we can’t—it hasn’t happened again. It’s just very strange, 

I just couldn’t get it to happen. 

Q. Do you think sort of formalizing or institutionalizing some of 

the practices a little bit more, like the tally slip or things that seem 

to have been working as a practice—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Are there things that you would recommend to 

ensure that, you know—— 

A. Well—— 

Q. [continuing]. Everyone’s on the same page up there? It’s still 

the Chair’s sort of decision at the end of the day, but—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. That—— 

A. Yes, I would definitely make recommendations that the Chair 

would work in tandem with the Parliamentarians just so that they 

know, because they are there to just guide them, you know give 

them guidance on the parliamentary procedure. If they just go off 

outside of that, yes, I would recommend making the tally slip part 

of the process; that they not close the vote without getting a slip 

because it’s been working for the last—since 1973, and to my 

knowledge, this is the first time that they’ve had a problem. 

Q. Okay. What about the EVS system? 

A. Well, we—— 

Q. You said it was created in ’73 and it has a lot of patches? 

A. Yes, but—— 

Q. Okay. It is sort of very cumbersome? 

A. Well, not for us, not for the Tally Clerks to operate actually. 

Q. So this—— 

A. Recently they’ve updated it where we were able to use a 

mouse. When I first started here, it was pretty—just very cumbersome, very old. But it is easier now that they have added a Windows application to the EVS. Before, it did not have that. 

Q. Is there a wireless mouse? 

A No. I don’t know. A lot of Members—I don’t—this isn’t relevant—but I know the one thing that we do get a lot from the 

Members is that, every time they come in, and this is a Member 

who has probably been there 30 years, and they are always saying 

why are the machines—I can’t vote, the machines are closed. And 

you know, they are saying, why can’t we just have it like in Kansas—I said, I don’t know, because I’ve never been to Kansas. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I’m sorry. You mean, so that they would like to be able to 

change their vote up until no time at any machine? 

A. Yes, but also it is a process whereby, when the vote is over, 

it is over. Once the time runs out, the vote is done. You have a lot 

of Members who talk about that, but I know—it’s different in the 

House of Representatives, 

Mr. SPULAK. Well, thank you so much. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Thank you very much. 

Ms. CHIAPPARDI. You’re welcome. 

[Whereupon, at 11:30 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: ED SORENSEN 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 11:40 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 

20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW 

SNOWDON, DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLC, 1825 EYE STREET NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Thank so much for coming. You have already received letters 

from the committee, and I’m sure you have an idea of what it is 

that—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. We’re trying to do. 

So you may know that the Select Subcommittee was established 

by House Resolution 611, which, in part, requires us to investigate 

the circumstances rounding the record vote requested by the gentleman from California on the motion to recommit H.R. 3161, including the Chair’s ruling over the objection of the parliamentarian. On a later note, we—relating to the e-mail documents we 

tried to get some idea of the scope of what we’re looking for. And 

what we said recently was that we’re looking for information that 

in any way refers to the votes themselves, including the duration, 

termination of the vote, how and why problems with the votes 

came about in efforts to resolve these issues. 

A. All right. 

Q. So that’s what we’re here about today. We will ask you to give 

us a little bit of background about yourself. 

A. Uh-huh. 


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Q. Your job, your experience, how long you have been here, what 

your responsibilities are. And then you can begin telling us what 

you know about these events, we’ll ask you questions about that as 

well. I was reminded earlier by my colleague, this is a deposition, 

so if you could speak loudly and give oral answers instead of head 

nods or whatever so the record will reflect your response. With 

that, tell us about yourself. 

A. Okay, you won’t have trouble listening to me, my voice sort 

of carries. Well, I’ve been with the House, I think it’s close to 6 

years now. I came first as Director of Applications Development in 

the Office of Legislative Computer Systems and worked there for 

the first four years. The last year I became the deputy chief of that 

office and continued, actually my job as Director of Applications 

Development as well. And about 2 years ago, when Gerry Vans retired, Karen Haas asked me to be deputy clerk in charge of basically technical operations and things of that sort. So I began, I 

think it was May 1st 2 years ago, 2006 and continue until today. 

My job is basically to supervise things relating to offices that 

have technical operations, computer operations and stuff like that. 

I started that line of business in 1980 when, after reading one 

paper too many, I left Kalamazoo College where I was a professor 

of 17th Century Spanish literature, and actually with big interest 

in medieval literature, and it was one of those things I read one 

paper too many at the age of—ripe age of 30-something and 

thought oh, my God, I’m going to stay here for the rest of my life 

and escaped. 

And it was sort of interesting because my then wife got a job in 

this area and moved to the area and I was looking for a job. I don’t 

know, working on Latin American affairs or something like that; 

I was always interested in those issues, but there was nothing 

available. And one day I saw an advertisement for Buroughs Corporation, they wanted people in the training department, and I basically bullied myself into this man’s office, and I told him that if 

it could be learned, I could learn it and I was a damn good teacher. 

And I had prior background in mathematics, actually, that was 

my first real major, mathematics, and then I took a BA in philosophy. And then thinking that I couldn’t wrestle with Kant, I went 

into literature. Sorry, that’s sort of the long story. 

But I, you know, have 20-something years in this field. I have 

done some pretty nifty things. I performed one of the first implementations of the defense data network for Buroughs Corporation. 

I was intimately familiar with communications software, but at the 

same time, it is the kind of software that keeps you awake at night 

and people call you because even though the error may not be in 

communications, you are sort of the link and so everybody calls 

you, forget this. 

So, I have a substantial background in programming, applications development. And one of the reasons I was hired was that the 

voting system needed upgrading. I mean, we had an old VAX system and getting parts for it was becoming a nightmare because it 

was an old system, but the critical thing about that system was 

that it was a fault-tolerant system, and by ‘‘fault-tolerant,’’ what 

that means is that the hardware has enough detecting systems 

that could keep itself running, even though part of the hardware 


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might be failing, and usually that is done by having redundant systems. 

The problem was that the system was so old that we had to go 

on eBay and the parts were getting more and more expensive, we 

were getting parts from England, parts from Germany. It was sort 

of a nightmare. So—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. That was the EVS system? 

A. Yes, that was the previous version. 

So what happened was, I was asked to research how we were 

going to do it. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. What year was this in? 

A. Oh, 2002. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Research what? 

A. Research what to do. They had contracted with a software 

company, the House had to replace the system. And in my estimation, these guys were in way over their heads, they didn’t understand distributed programming and yet had a system that I would 

describe as cool, and cool was a word that I banned from the office 

when I came in. Because, you know, cool is very fun to do, but 

means that a lot of times you interject a lot of things that can fail, 

and then the failure points multiply. And we literally had a nightmare with the system that they had developed. I suggested that basically we do away with it. 

I furthermore recommended that instead of creating it in a Windows platform, as initially planned, we use a UNIX platform, UNIX 

is a more mature platform and it is a platform that really doesn’t 

have as many upgrades. Anybody who uses a PC realizes that periodically you get these little messages you have an upgrade. Well, 

an upgrade is always panic and if you have a system that you want 

to be stable, you don’t want to be doing upgrades every other week. 

So I suggested that we look into UNIX and we chose hardware 

by a company named Stratus, which is the most reputable platform 

maker, hardware maker for redundant systems for—and the interesting thing is that what they had, what they provided was something that is technically called lockstep. And lockstep means the 

computer is basically divided in half, and each half has two computers. Every instruction it gets done 4 times, 2 on each side. And 

when the instruction is finished, the results are compared. 

If they compare correctly, the machines keeps running, you literally don’t know which side of the computer you’re running in because it is the same. But what happens is if at any point the two 

instructions, the result doesn’t match, one side takes itself off-line 

and notifies the system operators. 

Actually literally, this computer calls home, calls to Stratus, but 

we had to disable that because we wanted to have it, you know, 

in a way that nobody could get in, but it’s a phenomenal—it’s really 

as state-of-the-art as you can get. And basically every top organizaVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00043 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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tion that wants that kind of system buys from Stratus, nobody else. 

So we chose that. 

And what we did was basically the minimal set, we did what is 

in computers is called a port, we took the software that runs on the 

VAX and whatever would run on this thing we basically moved. 

And whatever didn’t, then we had to rewrite those parts because 

there were different operating systems, different communications 

systems. So basically that was the path we chose. And sometimes 

only after a great deal of disagreement with my previous boss, because I felt that there were some sections that needed to be written 

and he felt it was not necessary to rewrite them. I kept saying, this 

is bad code. And being a little bit of a perfectionist, I don’t like having something that is not right. So, but we did it, we did it in a 

bit less than a year, which was great because that gave us plenty 

of time to test. 

And since then it was put into production—I’m terrible with 

dates, but I think it was 2004, I’m pretty sure, but for some reason, 

even though I was a mathematician, at some point numbers mean 

nothing to me. To this day I would say that if you have a question 

about the voting system, I’m a safe person to go to because I 

wrote—or reported—the heart of it, all the rules engine, what we 

call the rules engine. 

In other words, whenever something happens there are rules 

that you have to apply, and it was a giant piece of spaghetti code 

that I had to disentangle and put in a way that it would be easily 

supportable, but I really know the voting system inside out now. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Since it became operational, how would you say it has operated? Are you happy with it? Have there been any instances of 

issues that you would share? 

A. There was one instance in the first year which was due to the 

fact that they didn’t agree with the fact that I wanted to rewrite 

certain sections because it was bad code. We hit one of those sections. It is one of those things that sometimes, you know, nothing 

happens for 20 years, you know, year 21 somebody does this crazy 

thing and it happened. And it was sort of interesting because my 

boss wanted to eat my liver. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. This is the first year? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And how did it come about? 

A. What happened was whoever was chairing, which I think was 

Mr. Bass—had well voted and then went to the bathroom or something like that, came back and used his card. And he just kept his 

finger on the thing and basically overran a buffer. And basically, 

he wrote too many things in an area that was not enough, because 

of his insistence that he wanted—because what happens is that one 

of the rules is if you vote on the well, you cannot vote with your 

card the next time—I mean, during that vote. 

So I remember arriving in this total chaos. And it was sort of 

funny, I was renewing my license, I was trying to give instructions, 

examine this that and the other. My boss receives me with fork 


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and knife. And said, I will eat your liver. And one of the guys in 

my development team comes running and says, the error was in 

the old code. It was the most welcomed thing I’ve ever heard in my 

life, it was like ah, thank you. 

But all in all, no, the system has performed very well. We have 

had—the couple of times that we have had a problem was operator 

error, and as a result, I’m involved right now in the process of revising everything, because I don’t know, I suppose it is a little bit 

like everything. You’ve got processes that work for 20 years and 

then something that nobody expected to happen suddenly happens 

and you trip on something. 

I think we need to review all the processes, set up all the necessary alarms. And I’m actually currently sort of having a lot of fun 

because I’m doing some programming, but I’m devising basically a 

monitoring system to monitor the program that operates the computer in a more encompassing way, so that at any point we can detect failures well before there’s a problem. 

But no, I, literally, I would bet my life on this system. I’m very 

proud of it, I think we worked with an enormous amount of care 

because we know how—and that’s why it has been so frustrating 

to see that operation errors have cost us embarrassment, and that 

doesn’t please me. 

Q. You mention the deputy clerk for technical operations? What 

we need, the offices that support that—what are the various offices 

within the Clerk’s office that—— 

A. Legislative computer systems—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. Is the main one. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Then Printing Services, Office of Printing Services. 

Q. Okay, okay. 

A. And then Legislative Resource Center, because actually we do 

a lot of work—— 

Q. I see. 

A. [continuing]. Between them and LCS. As a matter of fact, 

all—a lot of software has been developed and is being used right 

now for lobby disclosure. 

Q. Right, right. 

A. And there will be more as we basically make some processes, 

internal processes, so we worked intimately with them. 

Q. I see. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You talked about operational, what sort of training system do 

you have for—how do I want to say this—I guess there are different operators, different ways to interface. 

A. Right. 

Q. Presumably, there are people that are working behind the 

scenes and then there are others who actually use the system, the 

operators that I’m thinking specifically about the people who work 

at the podium—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. But there may be others. And so thinking about 

that and maybe there are different kinds of training—— 


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A. Right. 

Q. But if you talk for a second about how people are trained, you 

can give us an idea about the total number of people that interface 

with this system. And finally on the people who work at the podium, how they are trained? 

A. The people who are behind the scenes are at LCS, they are 

the ones who basically are the system operators and hardware 

technicians. These are people that have really—we hire people who 

have significant knowledge of hardware. In other words, they know 

how to replace and repair things quite well, a good knowledge of 

electronics. And in addition to that, we are training them to have 

a significant level of expertise with the UNIX system as UNIX administrators. The goal is to have not just the main UNIX administrator, who is a guy with many, many years with experience, but 

have the guys who basically run operations at the console develop 

the same kind of knowledge. 

It will take years, it takes years to get a good UNIX administrator, but we are working on that, because I think the more they 

understand, the better they will be so that’s mainly where we’re 

going with those guys. 

With the people who work in Frances’s operations in leg ops, who 

are the ones who run, we have provided some training, we have 

gone with them to the console and showed them everything. As a 

matter of fact, the console operations, this is an important point, 

the console interface has not changed now for a gazillion years basically. 

Q. Hmm. 

A. The only thing that has changed is the look and feel a little 

bit because it went from what we call a dumb terminal—all of you 

are too young to remember this, but we used to have those green 

screens with awful things, okay, but we took what looked like that 

and we replicated in Windows. And the reason was that most people who get hired out of college have no experience with, you know, 

an old dumb terminal. And we wanted to give them something that 

was still the same thing, operationally—you do the same things 

time after time and you never change that, but it looks like a Windows thing, which becomes more familiar to the younger crowd, 

which is what eventually we’ll have to deal with. 

As a matter of fact, we had to wait until the head tally clerk retired before we could change the system because he was averse to 

Windows. And so the moment he retired, we were all celebrating 

and high-fiving because the project could continue. It was—but you 

know, basically, you know, from that point of view, we have done 

it in a way that it will be minimally intrusive to the way we operate. As a matter of fact, they designed the interface with us. We— 

every step, we just basically—— 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. They? 

A. The tally clerks. We would go there and say okay, this is what 

you have now, this is what we’re designing. Is there anything that 

you don’t like? Tell us. Because that’s basically, modern software 

that is somewhat enlightened is developed like that, with a user, 

because the user is the one who has to use it—for me to tell them 


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how to do things would be arrogant and stupid. So we trained them 

and we had manuals for them and everything. And you know, after 

we did the initial training, but they get new people and introduce 

the tally clerks, the existing tally clerks initiate the other ones into 

the system. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Would it be you who would—I guess it would be you who 

would train, but more importantly, would it be you who would assess their proficiency or would it be Frances? 

A. It would be Frances. I would defer to Frances. 

Q. Do you think Frances understands the system as well as she 

should? 

A. I think she does, yes. 

Mr. SPULAK. Any other questions as to the foundation here? 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Can I ask one? 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. The system looks very much like it did when it was developed 

in ’73. 

A. Right. 

Q. So I think that has led some people to characterize the system 

as being old. 

A. Correct. 

Q. Could you talk a little bit about why the system looks the way 

it looks, and also could we have your opinion on whether you think 

the system is ‘‘old and has lots of patches?’’ 

A. Okay. It looks the way it looks because one of the mandates 

that we had was to be the least intrusive we could be to the looks 

of the Chamber, you know, the whole concept. Yeah, we could have 

a new, you know, main display with screens and this and that and 

the other. But I think it would be an insult to the architectural sort 

of integrity of the Chamber to do something like that. 

So a lot of—if you look at the summary displays on the side, they 

look sort of—but at the same time they disappear. I remember the 

first time I was shown the system—I came into the Chamber and 

they lit it up and I thought, ‘‘wow, this is phenomenal.’’ I thought 

it was really exciting. What they did was excellent in that they preserved the integrity of the Chamber and yet added this thing. So 

a lot of the look is due to that. 

I would say the other thing that I liked about it and is in the 

system—particularly the components of the system are not cool, 

they are solid. In other words, that—what we call the kiss rule was 

used, you know. It was kept simple, and that really has been its 

strength. 

The oldest part of the system perhaps, is the—is the main display, but, you know, we have kept it up, it is upgraded, it is not 

something—is it something that someday I would like to change? 

It would be great. And the reason is that right now whenever a 

Member leaves, we have to manually, you know, change the nameplates and balance the look and everything. You know, it takes us 

about an hour or something like that, you know. It would be really 

nice to have something like a totally LED-driven display which— 

the problem with that is we have about—I think there are 5 or 6 


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inches of depth to work on that wall, which means we need to wait 

until the technology gets a little bit better and miniaturizes a little 

bit more. I figure in the next 5 to 10 years, we’ll have that capability. 

The other thing is we would need a fair amount of time. And we 

would need to wait until, you know, the Chamber is being refurbished completely so that we have enough time to do it. Because 

it is not something that you can do in a month. It is something that 

would take, you know, 3, 4, 5, 6 months. And at this point, there 

is no reason to do it. 

Now, would it be something that—I wouldn’t—if I were to redesign that, I would redesign it using the same basic parameters that 

they used, which was a very simple and yet elegant solution to the 

problem of having something there that doesn’t look like a scoreboard, that I think would be horrible. I’ve seen other chambers 

around in visiting and, no, I think that what we have is a much 

better solution. 

And is it solid? Yes, it is. Now, am I going to tell you that one 

day we are not going to have, I don’t know, a cable short or something like that? I can’t say that, you know. We all assume that 

every time we turn on the light that, you know, the light will turn 

on, right? Until, you know—all we can do is monitor everything. 

When we see something is getting old, we replace it. We do a lot 

of preventative maintenance. But, you know—you know, does anything work every time? I don’t know. I haven’t seen that yet. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And on the—you were speaking about hardware. I think we 

would ask you whether you have any suggestions or thoughts about 

improving the software. But I think—I think I had asked if you 

guys agreed to think about that question and then we can talk 

more about what happened on this—on this whole thing with the 

system, because it may be that you could be thinking—now that I 

know how that happened, maybe we could do something that—— 

A. Oh, no. Absolutely. 

Q. To address—— 

A. No, honest, you know, I look forward to have the time to sort 

of reevaluate some components of the system that I would—you 

know, everything can be improved. And I think if we don’t learn 

from, you know, things that happen, it would be just an incredible 

case of idiocy. 

Q. So if you will, you told us that since—since the rollout and 

the implementation, you knew of this one incident with Mr. Bass 

that created a snafu, if you will. And then we had the situation last 

August. 

A. Right. 

Q. Is that—is that the first time—I mean, is that the second time 

that you think there was a situation that was—— 

A. Yeah, except that the situation last August in a sense was different because the situation with Mr. Bass was what I call—there 

was a bug in the software. And I think—I’m still, you know—I suppose since this investigation was going on, I stayed away from people I didn’t want to go, and—because I didn’t want to feel like I 

was intruding with people. And I suppose when all of this is done 


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and over, you know, there will be more frank discussions, because 

I want to find out more as to exactly what happened. I think I 

know what happened, but yet I am completely puzzled by the fact 

that it was not brought to my attention. 

Q. Well, lead us up to that point. You’re saying that you think 

this problem preexisted that evening. 

A. It was the way the system always worked. The question is, 

you know, to be perfectly frank, I would say that—and this is my 

opinion, okay? But I suppose you want me to be frank and tell 

you—I would say if there was something that failed there, it was 

the fact that people were exhausted. People had been working very 

long nights for a long time, and I think when people are tired, people make mistakes. And that is something that we need to keep in 

mind. And if we don’t learn that, I think it would be a sad mistake. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So why don’t you take us through your recollection of sort of 

what happened that night, sort of—you know—— 

A. What happened that night was something that I had seen 

many times that had sort of concerned me, is somebody starts calling the vote, and then something happens, you know, somebody 

says, ‘‘one more,’’ or whatever. 

Q. What do you mean, calling the vote? 

A. Well, at the very end of the vote, when they give the numbers 

and they recite this whole thing, you know—and time and again, 

it had happened that as they did that, somebody said, ‘‘one more,’’ 

and they were allowed to basically, you know, vote. 

And so the whole thing was that, you know, the words were spoken and yet, you know, the system was still running. And—— 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I’m going to show him the clerk’s memo again. Have you seen 

this document? 

A. I think I have. 

Q. Okay. And on the second page of it, there is—there is a process for closing the vote. 

A. Correct. 

Q. Okay. And it walks through five different steps and sort of 

matches up what the—what the tally clerk is supposed to do in the 

system versus the cues that he is receiving either directly from the 

Chair by words that the Chair uses, or observations as to whether 

people are in the well or not. 

Is that your understanding of how the system works and is there 

anything in there that you would change or disagree with? 

A. Let me reread it now. 

Q. On Page 2. 

A. On Page 2 in—— 

Q. The second paragraph from the top. 

A. The second paragraph from the top. 

Q. The process for closing the vote. 

A. Yes. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. The second full paragraph. 

Mr. SORENSEN. Uh-huh. Right. Correct. Yeah. Those are normally the steps that occur. 


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BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. Are those normally, or are those universally the steps 

that occur? 

A. No. They are normally, because sometimes, you know, they— 

they write the tally sheet, they start reading it, and then eventually somebody comes and says, you know, that they want to vote. 

And basically they give them the courtesy of restarting the process 

again. 

Q. Okay. 

A. So this is the normal thing. However, once it is started, it can 

sort of be reset and restarted again. 

Q. Okay. What—it’s—it seems that somewhere approximately in 

the second to third step, the seated tally clerk is entering some 

votes into the system, some handwritten votes into the system? 

A. Correct. 

Q. The Chair has called the vote? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. He then is moving to set the vote to final, which is the third 

step in the system—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. And then there are additional votes, handwritten well votes 

that need to be put in, and that is where the problem arose. Is that 

your understanding of where the problem arose? 

A. That is my problem—that is my understanding of the problem, is that—— 

Q. And what happened there? I mean, is that a system’s problem? You mentioned human—— 

A. No. I think that that is what I would call operation error. 

Q. Okay. And what—why? 

A. I don’t know why. I mean, you know, again, I think partly 

these people are tired. I don’t know. But normally—as you read 

from there, the tally clerk would not be passing a tally sheet with 

the numbers for the vote until all the voting has been—all the written votes have been processed. 

Q. Right. But the tally clerks, both standing and seated, take 

their cues from the Chair, correct? 

A. They do. 

Q. Okay. So the tally clerk is really doing what the Chair is directing them to do? And if the Chair is directing them—is saying 

that the vote is closed, what should the tally clerks, in your opinion, have done that didn’t take place here? 

A. Well, I think—you know, what I think they should have done, 

I don’t know what they should have done, to be perfectly—I don’t 

know what I would have done. I would have been confused, as confused can be. And I think that that was part of the problem is people were puzzled because the process did not occur the way it normally did. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And if I can ask—okay. But something did happen. 

A. Right. 


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Q. And something did happen and I think we generally agree on 

the facts. We can—part—part of our mandate is to find out why. 

But I think we all know—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Generally that there was a call from the Chair, 

the seated clerk wasn’t sure if it was open or it was closed, and 

something happened. He tried to make it—he tried to say—I think, 

which is very generally—tried—not tried, set it to final—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. And then wanted to enter other votes. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Tried to back up—— 

Mr. SORENSEN. Correct. And that is something they can do. That 

is something they have done before. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Okay. So I assume we all agree with that. What happened 

that night? Why could—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yeah. I think in terms of backing up, I think my 

understanding—correct me if I’m wrong—it is actually a workaround to back up, but it is not—I mean, it is not—I think that 

is what his—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Right. I understand, Mark. You’re right. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I mean, tell us about this work-around. But I think that is for 

you to tell us that there was a work-around. I just want to know 

what happened—— 

A. No, no. What happens is—you know, the interesting thing, as 

I remember somebody else made, what is the implication of setting 

the vote to final? And the implication is nothing, there is no implication. All it does is it flashes the word ‘‘final’’ instead of the time. 

Instead of time being zero, time is—it shows final. 

Why is that done? I don’t know. It is part of the thing that the 

system had from the get-go and that is it. This—this is not the first 

time this happened. This is something that happens frequently and 

it happens frequently—— 

Q. What is it? 

A. The—the—you know, the vote being set to final, and yet votes 

be entered after it is set to final. That is—was a common practice 

in all the years that I’ve been here. And it is just a function of the 

Chair is starting to call the vote, okay, declaring that the vote, you 

know, has gone this way or that way, and somebody coming into 

the Chamber at the last minute, and then basically allowing these 

people to vote. There were people—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. When you say call the vote—— 

A. Calling the vote is start saying the words, this vote the yeas 

are blah, blah, blah, the nays are so, and then everything that is 

said after that. 

Q. And the motion is laid upon the table? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And then it actually—people have come in—— 


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A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. It is backed up, and so it is not the end of the 

vote? 

A. That is one of the things that I was always concerned about, 

that there didn’t seem to be a hard and fast. You know, I’m—I am 

a technician. I like things to be clear. It bothers me when there is, 

you know, and the point, I assume, is that there has always been 

an understanding that as a courtesy to the Members who want to 

vote—and everybody knows how important it is to keep a good voting record, you know—this was—you know, it was done. So as long 

as the operator didn’t hit the—you know, release the vote, you 

know, release the—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. The boards. 

Mr. SORENSEN. The boards, it was something that was a practice. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So you’ve been concerned over the years about the confusion—— 

A. Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. And as I said, I’m—I’m a technical person in spite of my background in literature. But I like clarity. And I think if nothing else, what I hope gets out of this, is hard 

and fast ritual, if you want, that is followed every time. 

Q. And we—so there is a situation and, as you said, you went 

to finally try to come back to allow some votes to be entered, and 

apparently something happened to the system at that point. You 

said it happens all the time; that is, trying to go back in after that. 

It seems like in this particular case, for some reason he could not 

do that. 

A. Well, the thing is that once you set the vote to final, if you 

go back to enter in votes that are done manually, then when you 

go to the screen that says ‘‘terminate vote,’’ one of the options that 

you have is set vote to ‘‘final.’’ And the other one is release. If you 

just hit, you know, ‘‘final,’’ then what happened was it would say 

the vote has already been set to final. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Right. 

Mr. SORENSEN. And if something happened there, it may have 

been that—you know, being late and being tired, he may have gotten confused and thought—because if the vote had not been set to 

final, it would have basically set it to final and then asked the person if he wanted to release the displays and exit. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So it is set vote to final, and then it is release the vote, and 

then it is confirmation of release the vote? 

A. Well, yeah, yeah. 

Q. So what you are suggesting is that he had set it to final and 

then—— 

A. Then went back to—went back to do the—— 

Q. Right? 

A The manual—the well votes. And then instead of just hitting 

release—— 

Q. He hit—— 

A. [continuing]. He hit set vote to final, and he got this message 

that the vote is set to final. 


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Q. Well, how would he have entered the new well—let’s say he 

had set it to final. Wouldn’t you have to somehow unfinalize that 

in the system? 

A. No. 

Q. In order to put in well votes? 

A. No. 

Q. So it will take them? 

A. Right. 

Q. So what he should have done is put in the new well votes and 

then hit release? 

A. Right. 

Q. Instead of hitting—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. Is that—I mean, that is obviously a pretty, I think, simple 

mistake to make. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Just hitting a wrong button? 

A. And to be perfectly frank, what we have done after this incident is we set it up so that if you—if the vote is set to final, and 

you hit set vote to final—— 

Q. Nothing—— 

A. [continuing]. Basically what we do is we still ask you, okay, 

do you want to release? Because it doesn’t make any difference. So 

in order to avoid having another problem like this, which we had 

never had—again, this is one of the things that—where you learn 

from a bad situation. 

Q. But when he set it to final for the second time, that basically 

locked up the system; is that correct? 

A. Huh-uh, huh-uh. It didn’t lock up the system. Basically he 

kept coming back. He kept hitting—hit, you know, ‘‘set vote to 

final’’ and he kept getting the message saying vote is set to final. 

Q. Well, did somebody then—he is having this trouble. Did you 

know, or were you on the rostrum at the time? 

A. I was not on the rostrum and I did not know he was having 

this problem. As a matter of fact, the first time I realized that 

something was pretty wrong, was when, you know, they started another vote. And the displays were—the system was still running 

the previous vote. 

Q. Okay. Well, who—at some point, a decision was made to abort 

the vote. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Who made that decision? 

A. The Parliamentarian made that decision. I went—when they 

started the next vote, I basically said you cannot do this, you know. 

To begin with, I noticed that the Clerk was very uncomfortable at 

that point. People were yelling and screaming. It was pretty chaotic. And so I basically went and asked to speak with John Sullivan. And I said, ‘‘John, there is a vote running. You need to make 

a decision on that vote.’’ And here is perhaps where I made a mistake, because I used the technical terms that we use all the time 

with the votes. And I said you can either ‘‘terminate’’ the vote or 

you can ‘‘abort’’ the vote. 

Q. Who did you say that to? 

A. To John Sullivan. 


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Q. John Sullivan. 

A. And he—I think he asked me, what does it mean to abort the 

vote? I said abort the vote basically just makes it go away and—— 

Q. What did you mean—I’m sorry. 

A. And I said, you know, you will lose the data. And eventually 

the decision was to do that. It was clear that he quite did not understand what I meant by that, because right after we aborted the 

vote, John was quite distressed when it became obvious to him 

what that meant. 

Q. What did you mean when you said that you could terminate 

the vote? 

A. Terminate the vote is just, you know, going to the thing—I 

would have gone and just clicked the button to say release display 

and exit, and the vote would have been done. 

Q. Why didn’t you just tell Mr. Sullivan at that point not to abort 

the vote but to terminate the vote? 

A. To begin with, I just didn’t know what was going on. I didn’t 

know if the vote was meant to be aborted, to be perfectly frank— 

but I did not understand what was going on because I could not 

believe that we have—you know, lights were lit, the vote was still 

going, and yet they had started a new vote. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And where are you at this time? 

A. I was on the side of the rostrum and I went and asked. I 

mean, you know, perhaps I should have been—— 

Q. Did you go speak with De’Andre at all? 

A. I basically—when we were going to abort the vote, yes, I did. 

But, you know—and I basically told him what to do. But I—— 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. It seems to me that aborting the vote is sort of the nuclear 

option here. I mean, we have spoken to people that have worked 

for 10, 20 years—read their submissions—they’ve never seen a vote 

aborted. 

A. Correct. 

Q. That is something that is very unusual. And I guess I’m wondering why there wasn’t a little more discussion—if it was easy 

enough to just click the release-the-vote button to get this back into 

normalcy, why that—why that option wasn’t discussed in a little 

more detail before the abort-the-vote decision was made? 

A. Well, to begin with, you have to realize that, A, nobody had 

made me aware of the fact that De’Andre was having a problem. 

I stayed away from the rostrum because that is not my—you know, 

I’m there to give, you know, technical support. I basically—what I 

noticed is that I could not understand why the Chair would start 

another vote when there was a vote going. That to me was completely puzzling, and I didn’t know what was going on. 

So I had a question: Does the previous vote count or not? 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. What did you say to De’Andre when you walked up to him? 

You were talking over his shoulder. 


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A. I, you know—basically I said, you know, do you know how to 

abort the vote? And I said, you know—I showed him how to do it. 

Q. But at this point it was specifically ‘‘abort’’ that you were 

showing him? 

A. Yeah, yeah. 

Q. That decision had already been made? 

A. I think so, yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Let me just—can we just back up in terms of that night when 

the vote starts and the motion to recommit? 

A. Right. 

Q. You’re in the Chamber? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And you’re off to the side? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Tell me what you see happening—in particular, obviously, near the end—in terms of what Mr. McNulty is doing; the 

interaction; what you are hearing up there in terms of direction 

from either Mr. Hoyer or anyone else as to what the Chair is supposed to be doing and anything else during that—during the vote— 

during that period. I understand that your responsibilities are technical. And you’re standing there. But you’re an eyewitness, right? 

A. Correct. 

Q. So I wanted to have the opportunity for you to tell us what 

you saw and heard when that was all happening. 

A. Well, to be perfectly frank, I didn’t know—I was not paying 

particular attention to any of that, and the Chamber was pretty 

loud, and all I know is what Mr. McNulty did, which he suddenly 

called the vote. And that is—— 

Q. Did you hear Mr. Hoyer direct him to close the vote? 

A. I didn’t. 

Q. You did not? Okay. Okay. So you saw—the first time you’re 

paying attention is when Mr. McNulty is calling the vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. And you thought that was unusual? 

A. Well, it was unusual because I never saw the—— 

Q. [continuing]. The slip? 

A. The slip. 

Q. The tally slip? 

A. Being passed. 

Mr. SPULAK. At what point did you find that unusual? Because 

he first announced the vote, what time it expired, and he said the 

vote—and he asked them whether they wanted to change their 

vote. So was it at that time that you thought it was unusual, or 

the second time? 

A. It was when he basically called the numbers and went 

through the recitation that they always do. But I had not seen the 

slip and I knew that De’Andre was still working on input, which 

is, you know, uncommon. 


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BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And do you recall any conversation at the time amongst 

De’Andre, or Mr. McNulty or the Parliamentarian as that—you 

know, just before he is making that call? 

A. No. 

Q. No. And right after, do you remember anything? 

A. All I know is that people were just going around like crazy 

and that was, you know—it was—— 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If I could, then, so when did you first become aware that there 

was a problem? You know, when did you become—— 

A. When the next vote was started. I mean, then I thought there 

is something really wrong going on here, because they shouldn’t 

start the next vote until the previous vote gets—— 

Q. So your involvement really was how to release the vote at that 

point so they could start the next vote? 

A. Correct. That is correct. 

Q. So when you come on the scene, if you will, it was because 

whatever—what had happened had already happened? 

A. Correct. 

Q. There were three votes that were—there were three more 

switches that happened, and there were a couple of minutes that 

had gone by, and now they want to move—Mr. Hoyer moves for— 

Mr. Hoyer moves to reconsider? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And then they find out that they can’t release the prior vote 

to start the new vote. So—okay. Where in all of that did you—— 

A. Well, when that—when they started the next vote, that’s 

when, you know, I was being puzzled. What does that mean? Does 

that mean that the previous vote doesn’t count? Does that mean— 

I mean, what—I had never seen something of the sort. You never 

start a vote until you finalize the previous vote. 

Q. Okay. But that’s a good question. I mean—but that is also a 

different issue, and I’d like you to address it. The first question is, 

do we terminate or do we abort? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Was that the first—— 

A. That was when the next vote had started—I—that’s when the 

question I posed to John Sullivan. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Right. They start the vote and it is still up. And so then there 

is the discussion about terminating or aborting, correct? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Now, I’m just sort of puzzled. You’re the deputy clerk—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. For technical operations? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Okay. You’re standing right there. 

A. Correct. 

Q. De’Andre Anderson is having a technical problem with the 

system. 


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A. Right. 

Q. Okay. So is it uncommon or common for there to be technical 

challenges on the rostrum and the person who is in charge of the 

technical part is consulted? I’m just trying to figure out why you’re 

not consulted while they’re trying—while they’re trying to—— 

A. That is the part that puzzles me is why nobody brought it to 

my attention. 

Q. I mean—and the question is, are there times in the past when 

there are problems on the rostrum and you’re consulted, and you 

come up there and say you need to do X, Y and Z? 

A. I have—prior to that, I can’t remember—I think I may have 

once. But I have asked a couple of times—after that they become 

much more, you know, proactive about asking questions—so when 

they had any doubt, you know, I was consulted immediately. 

Q. I mean, it is your system, correct? You built it? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. So they’re trying to back up the system—I mean, they’re trying to back up in the system, right? 

A. Right. 

Q. And it is just interesting to me that—— 

Mr. HALPERN. Before we leave that whole subject, may I just ask 

you a couple of questions? 

Mr. SORENSEN. Yes. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. How many deputy clerks are there? 

A. Two. 

Q. There’s two. There’s you and currently—— 

A. Deborah Spriggs. 

Q. In terms of folks who are sort of on duty that night, realizing 

that we are in appropriation season, it is very long, everybody is 

working long hours, who all was on for that night as sort of the 

management level in the Clerk’s Office? 

A. I was. 

Q. You were. So you were the sort of ranking person from the 

Clerk’s Office—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. On duty that night? Okay. 

And—but you didn’t—if you look at the tape, it was clear that 

people were at least concerned with the way things were going at— 

the first time Mr. McNulty attempts to announce the result. But 

at what point did you actually sort of take notice and become involved? Was it still at that point when you were—you were moving 

on to when they had actually started with the motion to reconsider? Because there was also another intervening action. 

A. Correct. 

Q. Which was Mr. Hoyer’s unanimous consent request to officiate 

the vote? 

A. Correct. 

Q. But—just so I’ve got this straight. You’re saying that you became involved sort of at the point when you started the next vote? 

A. Correct. Because I was expecting at that point, you know, between the Chair and the Parliamentarians to tell the tally clerks 

to basically finish this vote. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Prior to—prior to—prior to making the decision on terminating or aborting, was there any discussion about whether the 

votes at the time—that which was in the system—did not accurately reflect what had occurred? In other words, everybody who— 

do you know what I’m saying? We didn’t enter this, or we didn’t 

find—as far as you know? 

A. No. 

Q. I’m trying to understand—the issue was not related to, then, 

what was in the system at the time? 

A. Correct. 

Q. The question was how do we get out of it to start another 

vote? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Is that right? I don’t want to speak for you. Is that right? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. So as far as you see, then, at that point that is really when 

the problems at least really started? 

A. Correct, correct. 

Q. And we go back to this terminate and abort. You had offered 

John these two options to terminate and abort. John only asked 

you what ‘‘abort’’ meant. 

A. Correct. 

Q. Perhaps he should have asked you what does ‘‘terminate’’ 

mean? 

A. Correct. I know—and if nothing else, perhaps that is where, 

you know, I would go with 20/20 and think that, you know, perhaps 

I should have been more explicit. 

Q. Okay. So—okay. And it is what it is. So—and so you did 

abort. Maybe my friends will go in more detail about how it happened. But it did happen and that released the boards and they 

began the next vote? 

A. The next vote. And that was also when John became aware 

of, you know, the full implications. 

Q. Well, tell us about that. 

A. The abort and the—— 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. It is my understanding from what you said earlier, that 

De’Andre was putting in the new well cards, and then the mistake 

was hitting final—or not—yeah, hitting final again, as opposed to 

the release the—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. The release the vote function, and then the confirmation of release. He has written a memo that describes sort of 

what he did that evening. And according to—to Mr. Anderson—it 

says he heard the Chair announce the tally and gavel down the 

vote. And after he had entered in the names of Members that had 

turned in well cards to the EVS following Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart, 

I heard you shut down the vote. And he goes through the steps 

starting, you know, 1, 2, 3. And then it wasn’t until he got to the 

fifth step, which is the confirmation of releasing the vote, that he 

wasn’t able to release the vote; that he kept clicking, clicking, 


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clicking, and the vote wouldn’t release. And I thought what I had 

heard you say before is that if De’Andre Anderson had just hit the 

‘‘release-the-vote’’ button—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. As opposed to the ‘‘final’’ button, then this problem would have been eliminated. But it sounds like he did go 

through the different steps, including the release-the-vote, and he 

was still having problems. Is that your understanding of what happened. 

A. I—I didn’t ever read that memo. So I couldn’t tell you. I—you 

know, if you say that that is what he found, I’m puzzled, because 

that is something that we had never encountered before. If he had 

gone through the steps of, you know, set vote to final and immediately after that release displays and exit, the vote would have 

finished. 

Q. Okay. Because we also heard from Frances Chiappardi this 

morning that there were some instances where she was aware of 

that they had done a similar thing; they had gotten to the third 

step which is the finalize-the-vote function on the EVS and that 

people wished to vote with the well card—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. And the only way she could get out of that was 

I think what Mr. Paoletta referred to, is a work-around where she 

had to go into the main menu and then come back in. Had that 

ever been communicated to you? 

A. Basically if you don’t release the displays and exit, okay. If 

you—if you hit final and then you’re asked do you want to release 

displays and exit, if you say no, I seem to remember that at that 

point, you were left in—I would need to take a look again in the 

either finalized vote, basically, menu with all the options, or you 

may even go back to the main menu, in which you can go basically—or go back to the main menu and go—because you need to 

enter some votes, you go into the well voting, and then you enter 

the well votes, and then you go back to the terminate vote, and 

then at that point, since you already had said final, all you needed 

to do was release displays and exit. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Were you aware of this work-around that—Frances said that 

she knew it, and Teresa knew it. And so—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. And Kevin Hanrahan. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. [continuing]. Indicating that this was a situation that had occurred in the past? 

A. I remember one that Teresa said that the system got stuck. 

And I remember saying, what do you mean? And she couldn’t explain. So we couldn’t go there. The unfortunate thing is that a lot 

of times when you’re dealing with people who don’t have a technical background, to say the system got stuck, you know—what 

does that mean? No. But honestly, what happens is the communication is not a clear communication because they—they just tell 

you that the system was stuck. And, you know, what do you mean, 

it was stuck, you know? And in my mind that is not stuck. And 


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that—I don’t know—that—I would say that the interface perhaps 

was less than perfect, but it was the interface they’ve always had, 

and we have always erred on the side of keeping the same interface 

because that is where they are familiar. 

Q. The system interface? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Basically the screen. What they’re seeing—what they are 

being asked to do? 

A. Correct. 

Q. You said earlier—and let me put it in some context. You said 

because of that, this won’t happen again? 

A. Correct. 

Q. So what did you do to stop—— 

A. Well, what we did is, if you click on the button that says ‘‘set 

the vote to final,’’ even if the vote had been set to final before, we 

just give you the option of releasing the displays and exit. So it is 

the same interface, no matter what. So we figured that that would 

be a good thing to do so that this never rears its ugly head again. 

Q. And people know about this? You’ve talked to—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. Everyone has gotten some sort of training on this? 

A. Yes. That’s correct. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I want to show him—I want to show you this. It is clerk 2883. 

It is an e-mail that—— 

A. Yes. This was—this was our first attempt at reconstructing 

everything. 

Q. And did you draft the memo which is—— 

A. Yes. Yes, I did. I did this report. And the reason we had to 

sort of basically resort to looking at the type was—you know, at 

that point, we thought that was all the information that we had 

regarding the system. The one thing I remember—a lot of the documentation until now, until the last rewriting of the system, was basically word of mouth. And one of the things that happens when 

a vote is aborted is that the structure that contains all of the votes 

gets written to a file. So you have the state of the vote as it happened that gets saved. 

Q. Is that the checkpoint file? 

A. That is the checkpoint file. And basically what is done is it 

gets renamed because—at the end of a vote, we always save the 

checkpoint file and save the votes to the database. We do both. 

Q. Is the database the transaction file? 

A. No, no. The database basically is another means of having 

that information in tabular form. This is just basically a vote. This 

is what you call it, a binary file that we just write. And that—basically what it is, is we write to memory the structure where all the 

votes are being tallied. 

See, when somebody votes, you know, we put that information in 

there. And it just—for every Member, what the last entry was. And 

in some case, even the previous entry because we have—we save 

one—if a person votes, let’s say, yea, and then changes to nay, we 

save the last two. So that gets written. 


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There is another file which, again, folklore said that never got 

saved, and that was the transaction log. The transaction log basically keeps track of every transaction in the system. And that gives 

you a timeline of what happens. And the transaction log also, when 

I looked at the code, got renamed, except there was—actually there 

still is a body in that code in that it gets renamed, but the way 

it is renamed means that it gets written to what is called in Unix, 

the home directory of the user under which the program executes. 

Okay? And the good thing was that we backed up the system that 

night and that file was saved. And that is why we had both at the 

end of the vote: the checkpoint file, which told you exactly how 

things were at the moment the vote was aborted; and the transaction log which reflects every vote entered into the system. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So as far as you know, no data was lost? 

A. No data, not an iota was lost. 

Q. Now, when you—and I think it is important. When you spoke 

with John—when you were speaking with John—we’ve seen the 

tape; there is a lot of confusion. There’s a lot of people there. And 

people are interrupting conversations. Is it possible that he didn’t 

understand what you were saying? 

A. Oh, I’m certain that is the case. And that is where—to the day 

I die, I’ll be hitting myself over the head for not being more explicit. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Well, can you tell us about the conversation? 

A. It was very short. It was basically, John, there is a vote going, 

and you guys are just starting another vote. You have to make a 

decision. And basically it is the two alternatives that you can, you 

know, terminate the vote, you can abort the vote, and then he—— 

Q. And what did you—you said you explained ‘‘abort.’’ How did 

you explain ‘‘abort’’? 

A. I said that if—basically we’ll close everything, but the data 

will be lost. 

Mr. SPULAK. I’m sorry. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You thought—— 

A. We won’t save the data; I’m sorry 

Q. But—but—but—but didn’t you know about this checkpoint 

and about this—— 

A. Oh, yeah. Oh, no, no, no. 

Q. So what does data will be lost—— 

A. It means it doesn’t get put into the tables in the database and 

in the proper place. 

Q. Okay. But—but you never inferred that the information was 

going to do that? 

A. No, no. The information—I knew that if the information was 

ultimately available, you just had to go and get it. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. In what form? 


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Mr. SORENSEN. If is in binary form it is a binary file. A. binary 

file means—is a way to save space instead of writing everything in 

human characters. We just preserve it in the computer sort of 

structure. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Sorry to ask you to speculate, but do you think you would 

have had a different opinion if, in fact, you knew that there was 

no way to ever know—in other words, if ‘‘abort’’ meant we have no 

idea what happened here, we can never recreate it, even if we 

bring the CIA. in—but would you have had a different—— 

A. I think I would have, yes. I do think I would have. 

Q. But that was not the case? 

A. That was not the case, so—you know, but—but I would 

say—— 

Q. It was a good expedient for the moment? 

A. I don’t know if it was expedient or not. To me the point is I 

could not understand why there were two votes going if—you know, 

to me it was not a matter of expediencies. Expedient would have 

been to save the vote if the vote was meant to count. 

Q. That is interesting. 

A. So the question is—I didn’t know if that vote was meant to 

just be, you know, not counted. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. How do you have a vote that is not counted? 

Mr. SORENSEN. Because the same way when it happened the 

next day and we had a problem in the system, and we had to abort 

the vote. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Could you take a look—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. But that vote hadn’t been called, right? It was—and this is 

a vote where you had—— 

A. No, but I—— 

Q. I mean, you heard the Chair call the vote, right? 

A. The reason—but, yeah. But hold on a second. The vote after 

he called it then, he didn’t call it again. And people had voted in 

between then and the next thing. I was—for the vote—for me to 

think that that vote counted, the Chair would have had to have 

called the vote again and say this is it. 

Q. I see. Okay. 

A. Because that is what had always happened. 

Mr. SPULAK. But again, the important point was, Ed, that regardless of whether it counted or not, the data was going to be 

there if someone wanted to look at it? 

Mr. SORENSEN. Correct. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Let me—you were talking about these different files. And the 

transactional file is not the binary one, right? 

A. They are both binary. Yeah, we save everything in binary 

form. 

Q. When you were talking about that transactional file—and I 

think you mentioned that folklore had it that that wasn’t saved. 


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A. Correct. 

Q. So at the time you’re advising him about aborting it—— 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. In terms of your knowledge of what would be saved—— 

A. What would be saved was the status of the vote when the vote 

ended, which told you what the totals were and who had voted 

how. I mean, the order in which I thought was something that we 

would not have access to, but we would have access to the finals. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But we did have that as well? 

A. Yeah, yeah. 

Q. You were going to get everything? 

A. Correct. I was able to recover everything. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Can I just follow on that for just a second? You were very confident that you were—you would always have access to this data, 

or that you had access to—— 

A. Well, let me put it this way. This is something we had never 

done. Was I confident that—I suppose, you know, to a certain degree, yes. You know, was I certain? There is never a certainty. 

When I went to recover everything, the first thing is back up the 

system so that we would have a picture of things so that we could 

go back to it. 

I was meticulous beyond belief. I was asked, why did it take you 

so long—is you don’t compound one problem with another. And 

what we did is we rehearsed it in another system, then we went 

step by step—I mean, I was painfully telling everybody what we 

were doing as we would document what we did. And, yes, you 

know—— 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. So the way you described it is whether you realized it at the 

moment or later, Mr. Sullivan had a different understanding of 

what ‘‘abort’’ meant? 

A. Correct. 

Q. I think—— 

A. Well, it became obvious later on, yes. 

Q. Right. So I guess the question is: Who, besides you and maybe 

some of the other legislative computer systems folks, knew that 

that data was still going to be there? 

A. Nobody. 

Q. Nobody? 

Mr. SPULAK. I’m sorry. I don’t understand that. What was in 

your opinion—what was Mr. Sullivan’s state of mind at the time? 

Mr. HALPERN. I think what Ed has said was that at least it became apparent at—when we started moving onto the motion to reconsider, that that data was gone. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Am I understanding what you said? 


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A. Yeah, that it was not accessible to the system through the 

normal ways. 

Mr. SPULAK. Right, right, right. And I mean, I really think this 

is very important. Ed is—Mr. Sorensen—— 

Mr. SORENSEN. No, Ed is fine. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You’re a technician and you speak in technical terms. We 

don’t. 

A. Yeah. 

Q. When you say the data was gone, you were talking about the 

whole data file with the votes and everything. You did not think 

that that was recoverable, but you thought that the vote—that the 

results of the vote? 

A. Correct. 

Q. That snapshot of what happened when—when we hit abort, 

we’ll know what that says? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Mr. Sullivan agrees with that, right, and he has given us a 

little explanation. And he says that he spoke with you and he said 

that you had said everything would be lost in the immediate term, 

but that it would be recoverable. 

So it seems to me that—anyway, it seems to me that you and 

John were on the same page, at least in terms of the fact when the 

decision was made, the results would be—the results would be recovered? 

A. I believe so. But to be perfectly frank, that night is a blur to 

me. 

Q. He is going to come in and we’ll ask him that. 

A. But that was pretty much—you know—and he said, you know, 

can we restore, you know, the records? And I said yeah. And, you 

know, it took time. 

Q. Right. 

A. It was a long night. But—and—— 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. And this may be answered someplace else. But you had 814 

and that got aborted? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And the next record vote was on the motion to reconsider? 

A. Correct. 

Q. What was—do you recall what the number of that one was? 

A It was—as it was done, it was 814. Because when you abort 

a vote, you back up the numbers. And part of the recovery was to 

move the votes one up. 

Q. So the users of—the sort of rank-and-file EVS users—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. Would have seen the motion to reconsider appear 

as 814? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And as far as the public dissemination of that data to the— 

would have shown up as 814 until the following morning when—— 

A. Until we finished all the recovery, yes. 


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Q. Okay. So the—like I said, the information that was available 

to the vast majority of users of the system both—— 

A. Correct. It basically—it went to 814. They were expecting to 

see the motion to recommit. They would not have that data available, which was something that became evident immediately. 

Mr. HALPERN. Thank you. 

Mr. SORENSEN. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I just have two quick questions. 

On this document that you have been handed, on the second 

page, it says roll call—and I’m looking under roll call 814. Roll call 

814 was mistakenly aborted? 

A. Correct. 

Q. What should have been—we talked about the information 

being recoverable. Why were you saying it was a mistake to abort 

815? 

A. Because it became obvious that that was not what was intended initially. 

Q. And in your mind there was a way other than aborting to restore the vote? 

A. Absolutely. I agree. I do agree. And that is part of the information that was not communicated at that point. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. When did you become aware that John Sullivan realized that 

he, you know, aborting it was—— 

A. Well, it was—— 

Q. Did he say something to you? 

A. It was—at the end he said, can we restore the records of the 

House? And I said, yes, we can. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Can I back up? Can I ask who—I don’t want to—I think it 

presumes—whose mistake was it? Was it—and this presumes it 

was John Sullivan’s mistake that it was aborted. But whose mistake was it now in your opinion? 

A. I don’t know. I think—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Well, who made the decision to abort? 

A. Well, I gave him the options and he made that decision. But 

I would say I am as responsible for it because we didn’t communicate as clearly as we should have. 

Q. Right. 

A. And I regret it, but it was—at that point it was the way we 

perceived things to be, and obviously we were in error. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But I’m going to say one thing. You said we were in error. 

And maybe you’re familiar with the basketball term, ‘‘no harm, no 

foul.’’ 

A. Correct. 


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Q. What were the consequences of this decision that were negative? 

A. Well, to me the consequences was the animus. You know, 

there were a lot of people who were upset and, you know, I—I see 

as my responsibility to have happy customers. 

Q. But hold on. The animus that resulted from the mistaken decision, if in fact you had had more time and you convinced John 

that terminate was the right option, you’re suggesting that there 

wouldn’t be any animus? 

A. Oh, no. There would have been some anyway. No. I agree. 

I—— 

Q. Let me—what exactly was the—would have been different on 

that moment? 

A. My problem is, again, is I’m a perfectionist. And when something doesn’t go right, I feel responsible for that. Do I wish I could 

redo the thing and instead of minimize, you know, all that? Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. How would you have done that? 

A. Well, if we had had time to talk at greater length, I would 

have said, John, let’s sit here and let’s discuss—he was dealing 

with a whole bunch of people. People were coming and going. 

Q. That’s what I wanted—was he—it’s a quick conversation, 

right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Because of what, because of the—— 

A. Because of what is happening on the floor. 

Q. Was he feeling pressured? 

A. Oh, I do believe that there was the pressure that comes from 

a floor that is almost in chaos and people saying, I want to vote 

but I cannot vote, because, you know, the system—the displays 

were up and everything, and people could not vote and there was 

sort of confusion. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Did he—do you remember him making any comments about 

what anyone had told him or what they were expecting of him or 

anything—— 

A. No. 

Q. [continuing]. In terms of—he sought you out? 

A. No. 

Q. You walked up to—— 

A. Basically I went to him when I thought we need to do something about this. To me the—what I felt was that there was a lot 

of confusion, and that I think confusion puts pressure on people. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So we’re clear, when you said people were saying I want to 

vote, they were talking about wanting to vote on the subsequent 

motion? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Not on the prior vote? 


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A. Correct. And so there was, you know, I would say that there 

was a great degree of confusion. And I thought that that was something that affected us all. I suppose you were there. It was not a 

pleasant evening. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I have one last document, and maybe you can explain what 

this means, it’s an e-mail—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Exchange with you and Gordon Brace, and for 

the record—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. It is clerk 2811. Can you just sort of explain 

what this, particularly the ‘‘being sort of pregnant’’ comment? 

A. Yes, it was—it was. Gordon has sort of a strange sense of 

humor, and I think it partly it was making light, and that he was 

asking basically for me to explain what had happened. And it 

was—what it was that I think what he says about the log file just 

showed it as stopped, is something to the effect that we had closed 

down the stations. As a matter of fact, in looking at it now, I’m sort 

of curious exactly what he meant by that, and I need to go and 

take a look at the log files to understand, you know, what prompted this thing. 

Q. Would this somehow suggest when the log file shows that it 

stopped, would that somehow suggest that the system was—— 

A. Wedged? 

Q. [continuing]. Locked up or—— 

A. No, no. I can challenge anybody to try to wedge that system 

at that point, and I can guarantee you that it will not happen. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Even if that were the case, what would that mean? 

A. Pardon me? To be wedged? 

Q. Yeah. 

A. Oh, I’m sorry, it is to be stuck in a situation where it could 

not recover. 

Q. Okay, not to recover, but not—but it was clear in the end— 

I think we have different—at least we all may have different ideas 

of what that means. 

A. Correct. 

Q. For me, it would mean that I couldn’t vote anymore? 

A. Correct. 

Q. That somehow the system wasn’t allowing, disenfranchising 

voters, but that’s not what it meant? 

A. At that point the stations had stopped, in other words. But 

that’s part of the procedure, once you make the vote to final, you— 

the stations remain locked, and that means you can only vote at 

the well. 

Q. What are you going to do, there was no evidence that 

De’Andre, at any time, could not enter votes, it was the fact—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. That he was entering well card votes? 

A. Correct. 


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Q. The only problem was how to stop being able to enter well 

cards? 

A. Exactly. 

Q. I have just one last question, we’re going to hear from Goldey 

Vansant, we’ll hear from the director, but it would help us, what 

interrelationship did he have with you on that night? 

A. None, he was not here. 

Q. Okay. 

A. His deputy was here. 

Q. And that was? 

A. Bob Maddox. 

Mr. SPULAK. Gentleman, ladies? 

[Nonverbal response.] 

Thank you so much. 

Mr. SORENSEN. Okay. But you need anything else, let me know, 

I will be glad to—okay. 

[Whereupon, at 1:14 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(63) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: GOLDEY VANSANT 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 1:28 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 

20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. You know the select committee was established by 

House Resolution 611, which, among other things, was mandated 

to investigate the circumstances surrounding the recorded vote that 

was requested by the gentleman from California Mr. Lewis on the 

motion to recommit H.R. 3061, including the Chair’s ruling over 

the objections of the Parliamentarian. And recently we sent out 

some guidance, which you probably received, so you can identify 

the scope. And what we are asking for is information relating to 

the votes themselves, those two votes, which were that vote and 

the subsequent motion to reconsider, including the duration and 

termination of the vote, and how and why problems with the votes 

came about, and efforts to resolve those issues. So that is what our 

scope is. 

We are being transcribed, so kind of speak loudly and clearly 

rather than nod your head or whatever so we can get all of it. 

Mr. VANSANT. Certainly. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And with that, what we have been doing is we have been asking individuals to just sort of give some background about themselves, and how long they have been with the House, what they do, 

what your responsibilities are. And then from that you can go into 

what you know about the vote and anything subsequent to that. Of 


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course, allow us the opportunity to interrupt you from time to time 

and ask some questions. And we will try not to be rude, and we 

will get this over with soon. 

A. All right. I have been with the House of Representatives since 

March of 1997. I started with Legislative Computer Systems at 

that point under Robin Carle as Clerk of the House. I was brought 

in to establish a help desk for Clerk employees for computer-related problems. 

I have worn many hats in Legislative Computer Systems 

throughout the years. Lately, or my latest move was in March—or, 

pardon me, April of 2005, when I was named Chief of Legislative 

Computer Systems. Let’s see. 

Q. What do you do in that capacity? 

A. That is mostly an administrative-type position. I have a deputy who handles day-to-day business for me. But I am very involved with the electronic voting system. The coverage in our office, 

when we are in session and votes are going on, if we go late in the 

evening, beyond normal business hours, my deputy and I split the 

duty of staying there into the evening to cover the votes. He will 

do one night, I will do the next, that sort of thing. The same with 

our two hardware technicians that we have in there. One or the 

other of them will also pull late-night duty, so to speak. 

Q. I am just curious. So between you and your deputy, one or the 

other is available. During the day, or during the normal hours, are 

there others who are involved or who are responsible for this? 

A. During the day, no. During the day we have both me and my 

deputy on. 

Q. Okay. 

A. And both hardware technicians are available during normal 

business hours. That’s correct. 

Q. The only difference is when there is late duty, only one of you 

is on call? 

A. Exactly. When we go beyond about 6 p.m. in the evening. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Who is your deputy? 

Mr. VANSANT. Bob Maddox. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Okay. I think that is good for background. Can you tell us 

your involvement or what you know about—because you may not 

have been there on that night; is that correct? 

A. That is correct. 

Q. You probably know a lot about—— 

A. I was blissfully asleep at the time. 

Q. Only to be awakened—— 

A. At 4:15 the next morning when my deputy, Bob Maddox, 

called me to let me know that there had been an issue during the 

evening; gave me a very brief account of, you know, what they were 

doing at that point to try and resolve the problem of the aborted 

vote. And at that point I left immediately and came in here, arrived here just before 6 a.m. the following morning, as the crew 

that was reconstructing the vote from the available files on the voting system were just finalizing their check-out to make sure that 

all the votes had been recorded correctly on there. 

Q. And had they been? 


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A. Yes. Yes. 

Q. What else did—so Bob was on call, and he was—— 

A. Yes, he was the one on duty that evening. 

Q. Did he tell you what happened, you know, just sort of specifically to the system? 

A. To the system, yeah. What I was told was a vote was in 

progress, and at some point they saw the vote aborted. On the EVS 

operator’s terminal up there, we can see various things about the 

system, if there is a problem with a voting station, if there is a 

printer that has gone off line, that sort of thing. And it also keeps 

us advised as to the status of the vote, when it has been started, 

when the displays have been turned off, when the vote has been 

declared final, that sort of thing. And he did say they were very 

surprised to see ‘‘vote aborted’’ come up there rather than ‘‘vote 

final’’ for that particular vote. 

Q. Then what happened? Did he tell you what they did next 

or—— 

A. Right. What they did at that point, they didn’t think because 

the vote was aborted that there was any data available on the system to reconstruct it. However, Ed Sorensen, who was also on duty 

that night doing floor duty and is very, very familiar with the inner 

workings of the system, did come over and find a file that is written not the same way as a normally termin—or pardon me, a normally finalized vote, but another file written in a separate location 

from all of that that contained information about that vote. 

Q. I mean, does Ed have expertise that the people who were 

watching the screen and thought that there—that the data would 

be lost, does Ed have greater knowledge or different knowledge 

than they do, or are they trained the same way, these people? 

A. No. Ed very much has greater knowledge. 

Q. I am sorry, the people who watch the screen, what is their 

background? 

A. These are hardware technicians. They are there in the 

evening in the event something happens to a printer on the House 

floor, a vote station goes down, that sort of thing. We will get a call 

from the floor saying, vote station 34 is no longer responding. They 

will then go down to the floor and take a look at that station, that 

printer, whatever the piece of hardware happens to be, and resolve 

that issue. That is why either Bob Maddox or I are on duty, because we like to always leave someone in LCS to monitor what is 

going on with the voting system. 

Q. So Ed came over sometime after that decision—after it flashed 

aborted, to try to find this data? 

A. That’s my understanding, yes. 

Q. And he found it, you said? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And was it that data that they were using when you arrived 

to try to recreate the results? 

A. Yes. 

Q. What happened after that morning? So now they found the 

data. What role did you guys have in this? 

A. The votes—there had, of course, been another vote after that 

one that evening. The votes had to be renumbered so that things 

would remain in sequence, which was not a difficult thing to do at 


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all. That is quite easy. And the system was restarted. The vote information, the correct vote information with the correct vote numbers was transmitted to GPO to be included in the Record, and also 

to our Web site to be made available to the public. That all happened early that morning. 

Q. After you took care of these matters, what else—was there 

further discussion about what had occurred? Was there any remaining concern? 

A. Yeah. Well, certainly there was discussion among us in the office about, you know, exactly what had happened? Why was the 

vote aborted? You know, all that sort of thing. Pretty much all 

speculation at that point as to why things had proceeded the way 

they had. 

Q. Okay. Were you aware—I mean, was there any specific discussion about how to avoid this happening in the future? 

A. No, not from the standpoint of EVS operations, no, not at all. 

Q. Ed told us that they fixed the—that there was some change 

made to the software, to the interface, so that that would never 

happen again. He didn’t tell us exactly what had happened, but 

presumably from then until now that has happened. Are you aware 

of that? 

A. That discussion, I believe, took place later on that month, 

when we were sitting down talking about the way things go on. 

And, in fact, there was a decision made to change the interface 

slightly at that point in the termination of a vote. 

Q. You said ‘‘at that point.’’ Was there any subsequent changes 

to that, or that was—— 

A. I believe that is the only change. 

Q. From that point going forward? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. SPULAK. I don’t have any further questions. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Bob Maddox was there that morning helping Ed Sorensen 

recollect this data and put it back together? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did he have any discussions with Mr. Sorensen about why the 

vote was terminated—or, excuse me, why the vote was aborted? 

A. I have no knowledge of that. I have no idea. 

Q. Well, did you ever ask him after the fact, you know, if he had 

heard anything about why the vote was aborted? Pretty unusual. 

A. Yes, as a matter of fact, I did ask him about that. And he said, 

no, he is not entirely sure why it was aborted. 

Q. Okay. 

Mr. SNOWDON. I don’t have anything else. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Let me ask, when you are there, during normal business 

hours on the night that you serve, where are you physically? 

A. When a vote is not in process, I am in my office, usually working on administrative duties. 

Q. Okay. 

A. When the bells go off for a vote, I am immediately into our 

back area. Our office is divided into 2401, which is what we call 


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the front area; 2403. It is two suites connected by a glass partition. 

As soon as the bells ring for a vote, I go into the back and am at 

the station with the EVS operator while votes are in progress. 

Mr. SPULAK. In Rayburn? 

Mr. VANSANT. In Rayburn, that’s correct. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And you are watching it? 

A. Yes. Yes. 

Q. So what typically happens, you know, based on your experience, when a vote is called? Sort of walk us through what your understanding is. You know, people are voting, and then what happens? How do you sort of close a vote? 

A. We don’t close a vote at all. That is all controlled by the tally 

clerk on the House floor. We are in a monitoring position for system status and hardware up in Rayburn. The vote is controlled 

completely by the tally clerk on the House floor. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So is it accurate to say that—I mean, you are not involved in 

the interface with the machine on the floor, and your employees 

are not; is that correct? 

A. That is correct. There is two ways to log on to the EVS. One 

is called primary mode, the other one is called secondary mode. 

When we are in session, the production system is brought up, the 

tally clerk logs on in primary mode. Okay. They have the control 

of the system at that point. We log on in secondary mode. We are 

in a monitoring position. 

Q. Real quick. So it is your role—because I am trying to understand this—it is your role that you make sure that the system 

itself, the platform, is working. But in terms of operating it, you 

are not in charge, nor are your colleagues in charge of that. 

A. That’s correct. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I am sorry, I was just going back to—I wasn’t meaning you 

are in control of the votes. 

A. Okay. 

Q. What I meant is, as has been explained to me, there is—the 

Chair, right, will, quote, say, ‘‘Do any Members wish to record a 

vote, change their vote,’’ right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. And then ultimately there is a tally slip—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. That is handed up? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you generally watch that? Do you see that on the screen? 

A. We generally do see that happening on the screen, yes, yes. 

Q. Okay. So in this vote, right, did you notice that a—I guess it 

was Bob Maddox—but did you hear that the slip had not been 

handed up? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. When did you first learn that? 


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A. That a slip had not been handed up? 

Q. Yeah. Like when people were recounting the night and—— 

A. Probably during the next day when I heard that there was a 

tape, videotape, of that vote in the Clerk’s Office, and somebody 

mentioned that fact. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Yeah. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Could I have you take a look at this, if you would? I apologize, 

I should have more copies. Tom, it is 2263. This is an e-mail that 

Gordon Brace sent at about 12:30 that morning to several people, 

including you. 

A. Okay. 

Q. It says, you know, we are essentially always 5 minutes away 

from being in the Washington Post. 

A. Yeah, I remember this e-mail. 

Q. And be prepared for a real interesting day. And it describes 

some of the events that, you know, happened that night. 

Did you have conversations with any of these folks about what 

happened the night before? I mean, you get this e-mail, which is 

obviously a pretty urgent e-mail, and you come in at ‘‘0-dark hundred’’ in the morning and try to help, you know, put the pieces 

back together. 

A. Yes. Yes. We talked—I talked with Gordon, with Bob, with 

Ed. 

Q. Okay. So what did they tell you about sort of the substance 

of this e-mail? That, you know, the vote had been called before it 

should have been and—— 

A. Yes. Only that the vote had been aborted, and they were not 

clear why it had been aborted. 

Q. Okay. Well, this also, though, refers to—if I could just borrow 

it for 1 second here—it says the Speaker pro tem called the vote 

before it was supposed to be called. That is a little different than 

aborted. Did you ask him about that? 

A. Oh, thank you. Yes, I do know what he means by that, about 

the—I guess we would call it the premature announcement of the 

Speaker in the chair of the result of the vote. 

Q. Sure. 

A. That’s what I believe he is referring to. 

Q. Okay. Why don’t you tell us, you know, what you learned 

about that. 

A. Only that they said that he had called the vote while there 

were still votes going on. That’s about it. 

Q. Have you ever seen that before in your experience? 

A. In the 11 years I have been here, let me think. I have many 

times seen the Speaker start to call the vote and then stop when 

someone else has run into the well to vote. That is correct. 

Q. That is a little different than what happened here, though, 

isn’t it? 

A. Well, it sounds like it. Again, I didn’t witness any of this. 

Q. So you didn’t really get—did you get a full debrief when you 

arrived in the morning and you were getting a call at 4-something 


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in the morning and in here before 6 o’clock? I would think the natural question would be what happened? 

A. That’s exactly right. 

Q. And were people just too busy trying to recreate these computer files to really talk, or did they tell you exactly what they 

saw? 

A. At the moment I came in, they were completing verifying the 

validity of the vote. It was probably another 15 minutes before that 

was all done. We then had to transfer the votes over, of course, 

GPO, Web, that sort of thing. And it was about that point, I would 

say probably a half hour, 45 minutes after I got there, that we sat 

down and started talking about what in the world happened? 

Q. Give me a sense of what you were being told. I mean, were 

people pretty matter-of-fact about it? Were people pretty animated 

about it? What types of things were you being told about what happened the night before? I assume it is not that common for you to 

get woken out of your bed at 4:30 in the morning, so obviously you 

must have been curious as to what went on. 

A. That’s right. 

Mr. SPULAK. Could I interrupt for a second? 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Why were you called at 4:15 in the morning? Was it to assist 

in the recreation of the vote? I mean—or just generally because you 

are in charge, they wanted you there? Why was it important to get 

you there at 4:15 in the morning? 

A. Well, actually, to tell you the truth, I wish they had called me 

earlier. I would have been in there much earlier. I would have preferred that they called me at 1 a.m. 

Q. What would you have done differently than what they did? 

A. Differently than they did? Probably nothing. 

Q. Just as the boss you wanted to be there? 

A. And to be there to see if there was anything I could contribute. 

Q. But from what you knew, would there have been anything 

that you could have contributed to what they did differently? 

A. In the end, probably not, because the fellows working on it, 

you know, Ed for example, were the technical folks that really understand the ins and outs of the system. 

Q. The person who wrote this e-mail which Mr. Snowdon referenced, was he there that night? 

A. Yes, he was. He was one of our hardware engineers. He was 

the scheduled late hardware engineer that evening. 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So did anybody give you the debrief the next day, or was 

it—— 

A. Well, yes. Of course we discussed what went on. We went over 

the fact that the vote had been aborted. Nobody knew why it had 

been aborted. Where the data was found to reconstruct the vote. 


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BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. There is this part—obviously, you know, there is a point 

where there is a decision to abort, right? So that’s what you are 

referencing. But there is also this phase where Mr. Anderson is actually trying to—the system is not doing what he wants it to do, 

right? And right, he is trying to back up, right, to enter the well 

votes? He said it is a final, and then he is trying to back up to 

enter more well votes, and he is trying to go back to final, and the 

system won’t let him do that. 

Now, as I understand your role, he is the primary, right, and 

then—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. You are sitting there, your person up in your 

shop is secondary, so he is witnessing all this, right? 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. So it has been recounted to us that this has happened 

several times where Frances Chiappardi told us that—and other 

people that you referenced—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. That you get to that point, you back up, and 

there is sort of a work-around, all right, where you need to do X, 

Y, and Z to sort of get back to where you want to go. 

A. Right. I think part of the problem here may be the terminology. 

Q. Okay. 

A. ‘‘Roll call 814 was aborted after it was finalized.’’ That can’t 

happen. The vote is either finalized, or it is aborted. What happens 

at the normal termination of a vote, when we are reaching near the 

end of a vote, they turn the vote stations off, okay? 

Q. Yes. 

A. At that point anyone else who comes into the Chamber, or 

who even was in the Chamber and hasn’t voted yet, can go to the 

well and cast their vote. 

Q. Right. 

A. Okay. The reason for doing that is to have the system in a 

somewhat stable state—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. So that by the time the tally clerks write down 

the sheet, turn around and give it to the Speaker, the Speaker isn’t 

announcing, and somebody suddenly is sticking a card in the vote 

station. 

Q. Right. 

A. Okay. So Gordon’s statement in this e-mail here is, frankly, 

not accurate. The vote is either finalized—if it had been finalized, 

it would have been closed out. All the data would have been saved 

at that point. 

Q. Right. So my question is there is a person in your office that 

is hooked in and in the secondary mode, I think you said? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Watching everything transpire, right? 

A. Right. Yes. 

Q. So is that person—would that person be watching, or is there 

some sort of communication where Mr. Anderson is not being able 


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to do what the computer—you know, what he is wanting it to do? 

He is trying to terminate the vote, right, to get back to releasing 

it, and he can’t. And so there seems to be—what is sort of puzzling 

to me is there is this person who is trying to make the computer 

do something, okay? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Mr. Sorensen is in the Chamber, but nobody is consulting 

him. He is the extremely sophisticated, you know, technical person—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Who is sort of right there, but not being consulted. And there is a person in your office who is actually watching this—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Happen, right? Real time. 

A. Right. 

Q. Is that right? 

A. That is correct. 

Q. Okay. So it was explained to me that there is a number of 

people who are—have seen the tally clerk who have had this problem before, right, and have learned a work-around, that you need 

to sort of go back to the main menu and then sort of back in, okay? 

A. Okay. Right. 

Q. That what Mr. Anderson was doing was not—he was trying 

to go—he tried to change the—he was at final, he sort of wanted 

to go back and enter the well votes, and then he tried to go to final 

again, right? Now, his memo may be a little bit different, but the 

system is not cooperating with what he wants to do. 

A. Yes. Okay. 

Q. Okay. Mr. Sorensen is there, nobody is consulting him. Somebody is in your office watching this. And is anyone saying, because 

I assume between the two of you—I shouldn’t assume, but—— 

A. Okay. 

Q. [continuing]. Between the two of you, you have watched this 

happen before? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Because I think Kevin Hanrahan, Frances Chiappardi, and 

Teresa—— 

Ms. McCARTIN. Austin. 

Mr. VANSANT. Austin, yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. [continuing]. Have had this problem and have, you know, 

worked the system or, you know, given it direction to do what it 

wanted. But nobody is—people are, you know—so I am trying to 

figure out what your office—what the person in secondary mode is 

doing—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. While this is happening. Before the decision to 

abort, he is actually trying to clear it. What happens is they can’t. 

They want to move onto another vote. And that is when Mr. 

Sorensen is consulted, or Mr. Sorensen goes up to John Sullivan 

and says, you can’t start another vote without, you know—— 

A. Closing. 


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Q. Right. So that is when the decision to abort is. But before we 

get to that—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Right—you know, what is the person who is in 

secondary mode doing while Mr. Anderson is trying to clear out the 

system? Is he just watching it to make sure the system isn’t failing, 

or is he—— 

A. I see what you are saying. 

Q. [continuing]. Does he have the ability to say, hey, you need 

to do X, Y, and Z to go back and clear it out? 

A. No. What he is seeing on the monitor there is the fact that 

the vote stations have been closed. 

Q. Yes. 

A. And he probably saw—there is a normal process. Let me go 

back to that before I get to this vote. 

Q. Okay. 

A. A normal process after that tally sheet is filled out and handed to the Speaker. 

Q. Right. 

A. As they are announcing, the tally clerk prepares to set the 

time to final on the displays. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Okay. You see that on the summary displays up there. In the 

normal process, a lot of people never see that happen, because they 

will set the time to final, close the vote as soon as he says, ‘‘And 

the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table.’’ Done. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Okay. I am not clear if the time was set to final and then it 

stayed there for a while. This is something I don’t know the answer 

to because I wasn’t there to see it. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me show you this, and maybe this will help with that. 

A. Okay. 

Mr. SNOWDON. And this is, Tom, Clerk 64. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Have you seen this before? 

A. Yes, I have. 

Q. Okay. And it talks in here about Gordon—— 

A. Showed ‘‘final’’ in the ‘‘time remaining’’ area. 

Q. Okay. Can you explain what that means in this context and 

why the EVS Stratus console operator—and is that Stratus EVS 

operator, is that Bob Maddox? Is that your deputy, or is that somebody different? 

A. Gordon and Bob both function as Stratus EVS operators in the 

EVS. 

Q. So what does it mean when it says that it showed final, but 

the EVS operator console didn’t show final? I mean, if the EVS—— 

A. What he means by that is that it did not show the vote as 

having been closed out. 

Q. Okay. Because I want to be clear. 

A. Okay. 

Q. And the Clerk’s Office people have been very explicit that—— 


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A. Okay. 

Q. [continuing]. There are two types of final. There is the initial 

final, which is the command to finalize the vote in the EVS, but 

then you got to go through two more steps in order to effectively 

finalize-slash-terminate the vote. You have to then go into close 

displays, and then you have to confirm that before the vote is essentially a done deal. 

A. Right. 

Q. They have gone to great lengths to point out the distinction. 

Just because you hit the final command in the EVS, that does not 

mean that the vote is final. I am still confused as to what—if you 

all are monitoring this in a secondary capacity—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. You are not seeing what De’Andre is seeing on 

his screen and the trouble he is having? 

A. No, we are not seeing that on the screen. As I said, we are 

only seeing status. We are not seeing a duplicate of his screen. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Okay. I was just going to ask is that because that is not the 

role? I thought you said earlier that your people are watching for 

hardware malfunctions. 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. And it would seem to me what you just said, the reason why 

you wouldn’t look for that type—but I don’t want to put words in 

your mouth—— 

A. Okay. 

Q. I mean, you are not looking over to see the tally clerk’s shoulder to see how he or she is performing. 

A. We cannot see that screen from Rayburn. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Would you be able to notice, then, if he was having a problem 

like he had that night where if the system for whatever reason 

kind of locked up, would you see—it suggests that there is—they 

are noticing—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. From the operations center a problem here. I 

mean, they—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Something strange has happened. 

Mr. VANSANT. They are seeing something unusual, yes, yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Right. So wouldn’t you all want to be able to know sort of in 

real time if the system—if the tally clerk, who is really the one operating the system, can’t do what he needs to do for whatever reason, would you all want to know that real time? And do you have 

the ability to find that out? 

A. We do not have that ability in real time. If the tally clerks 

in the past have had a problem with the system, they have picked 

up the phone and called us. 

Q. Okay. Did that happen that evening? 


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A. That did not happen. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I see. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. What, then, would you do if a tally clerk had called 

you? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do one of your people go to fix it? Do you call Ed Sorensen, 

who is on the floor? How is that—— 

A. If it is a process of figuring out where you are on the screen 

and being able to navigate to another portion of the screen, in this 

particular instance we probably would have asked them to call Ed 

Sorensen over and have them show him what was happening on 

the screen. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You mean, at that point in time is Ed Sorensen the highest 

and best authority on what is going on with the system? 

A. Yes. He knows more about the system than anyone. When it 

was migrated from a VAC–VMS platform to its current UNIX platform, he oversaw that entire process. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Can you tell me a little bit about what happens in the normal 

process after the vote is closed, finalized? You talked about what 

you do for GPO for the Record, for the Web, and things like that. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Can you sort of describe that process, how long it takes, that 

sort of thing? 

A. Certainly. In the event of—for example, as is often the case, 

as we are reaching the end of a debate and we are getting to our 

last votes on a bill, there are usually several amendments that 

have to be voted on before that. The amendments are voted on one 

at a time, closed. We do not transfer any of that information. Once 

the final bill itself has been passed or failed, however which way 

it goes, we wait for a phone call from the tally clerk to say that 

we have verified all the votes, including checking all the well vote 

cards, and these votes are now good to release. Once we receive 

that call, it is usually 5 to 6 minutes for us to pull that vote off 

the EVS and put it out to GPO, to LIMS, which is another internal 

system we have, and to the Web. So once we receive that notice 

from the tally clerk it is okay to release, it is a matter of minutes. 

Q. And—but the vote information prior to that point is still available to other sort of read-only users of EVS; for instance, at the 

whip tables and—— 

A. At the whip table, at the well desks in the back. 

Q. Right. 

A. It is all available there. That is part of the vote history at that 

point. 

Q. Okay. And because the vote was aborted this time, that data 

was not available to the rank-and-file users. Is that—— 


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A. That is correct. It was not saved in the proper location for that 

to happen. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I want to go back briefly to one thing you had said before. 

A. Sure. 

Q. And that was about it not being technically correct what he 

said, that because it had been finalized, the vote had been finalized, it couldn’t be aborted. And when you are referring to finalized, you mean that the five-step process has been completed, the 

boards have been released and—— 

A. That is exactly what I mean, that we have now at this point 

closed out the vote. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I think what he means by ‘‘final’’ here is seeing ‘‘final’’ in the 

time display. 

Q. Okay. So what he is saying could, in fact, be accurate if that 

is what he means? 

A. That could be accurate. That is exactly true. 

Q. And that is your understanding of what happened that 

evening, that the—— 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So, based on your sense of in terms of talking to colleagues 

and getting debriefed, what do you think went wrong that night, 

if anything? 

A. You are asking me for an opinion? 

Q. Yeah. 

A. Okay. I will be happy to share that with you. 

My opinion is that things were very confused up in the front of 

the House Chamber at that point, and we had a tally clerk up 

there who maybe was not quite as experienced as the rest of the 

staff. I do believe he was the newest one on at that time. And that 

confusion led to some incorrect keystrokes. 

Q In terms of trying to back up the system to—— 

A. Right. 

Q. I see. 

A. Yes. 

Q. What about the lack of a tally slip? What is your view on calling the vote, or beginning to call the vote, without a tally slip? Was 

that—— 

A. It is my understanding that should never happen. 

Q. Okay. And it happened here? 

A. Again, I didn’t see it. I don’t know for a fact. 

Q. Do you have any—again, you weren’t there that night. You 

have been debriefed to some extent. Do you have any recommendations? And one of the things the committee is charged with doing 

is coming up with a series of recommendations so that we don’t 

have what happened that night happen again. 

A. Yes. Okay. 

Q. So do you have any recommendations for us? 


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A. Well, one, of course, has already been acted on. That was the 

slight change in the procedure for terminating the vote process, 

which we did go ahead and implement. 

The other thing is whoever is up there in the chair acting as pro 

tem should always be aware of what the correct procedures are for 

finalizing a vote. 

Q. Do you think he was not aware of what the correct procedures 

were? 

A. I have no idea if he knew or not. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

Mr. SPULAK. All right. We have no further questions. Thank you 

very much. This was very helpful. 

[Whereupon, at 2:05 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(77) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: ALLYS LASKY 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 9:30 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. Good morning, Allys. I appreciate your coming here 

today to the Select Committee. 

The Select Committee was established to investigate the voting 

irregularities of August 2, 2007, and particularly surrounding the 

circumstances involving the vote requested by the gentleman from 

California, Mr. Lewis, and his motion to recommit H.R. 3161, including the Chair’s ruling over the objection of the Parliamentarian. 

Moreover, we’ve communicated to you and others the fact that 

what we’re interested in, in terms of the scope of the questions relating to the votes themselves, including the duration and termination of the vote and how and why the problems with the votes 

came about and efforts to resolve issues. So that’s pretty much 

what we’re going to address today. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. We would ask you to start by retelling us your background, 

what your responsibilities are in general and then anything that 

you know about the votes themselves—actually, the first vote and 

the motion to reconsider on August 2nd. 

A. Okay. My name is Allys Lasky. I am an Assistant Journal 

Clerk for the House of Representatives under the Clerk’s Office. I 

have been in this position since September, 2006. I’ve been working 


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on the floor during that time. We switch back and forth between 

an electronic file we work out of in our office and on the floor. So, 

generally, I’m listening to floor proceedings 40 to 60 percent of the 

day. So I don’t listen to everything because there are breaks and 

whatnot, but I’ve been through most floor proceedings, if not several times. 

My responsibility as a Journal Clerk is to record the Parliamentarian actions of the House of Representatives. We don’t cover the 

debate themselves or the spoken words. We strictly cover the actual actions: a call to order, a demand for a vote. 

The actual vote tally we don’t record. In the minute book, which 

is the book we use on the floor of the House of Representatives, we 

don’t record who voted which way. We strictly record the actual 

tally: the yeas, nays, presents and whether the vote was passed— 

well, passed or failed. 

If a vote is recalled, then we cross it out. That’s probably happened two or three times in the year and a half I’ve been here. The 

vote has been—they have a motion to strike the vote from the previous vote, which I believe is not exactly what happened. There 

was a motion to redo the vote. 

On that night—it was later in the week; it was a Thursday 

night—the best I can say is it was an extended vote. 

Votes generally—the first vote in a series starts at 15 minutes; 

and each additional vote is 5 minutes. It was a 15–minute vote. It 

definitely went past the 15 minutes, which it usually does. 

My understanding is the minutes allotted for a vote are the absolute minimums that Members have to get to the floor. It’s a set 

standard that we run the bells; you have 15 minutes; after that 15 

minutes, we can close the vote. We’ve given you an amount of time, 

a set amount of time. And then usually each sequential vote is 5 

minutes, unless they’ve gotten a special order, in which each sequential vote is 2 minutes in duration. 

On that night, the tally was close; and I don’t have the records. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Where are you sitting? 

A. I sit right to the right of the Tally Clerk, and my one responsibility is—because it’s basically 15 minutes of no legislative activity 

because it is a vote, and I’m only recording the tallies, what the 

Journal Clerks do is we alphabetize the cards. 

When a Member votes in the well and fills out the red, green or 

present card, then they get handed to the Tally Clerk, who is 

standing on the first level of the well. That person puts the roll 

number in the upper-left-hand corner and then hands it back to the 

Tally Clerk, who is on the machine and actually entering it manually into the computer. 

And then, when he gets done or she gets done entering it into 

the computer, they hand it to me; and I alphabetize it. Because it 

relieves them of a little bit of pressure and time. They don’t need 

to be—because what happens is, at the end of the vote, they immediately call—and this is to my best of my knowledge—they call 

downstairs at the first opportunity to go through the tally with the 

Tally Clerk who is on the computer down in our office to make sure 


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it matches up. But if it’s alphabetized, it will match the computer 

and then they know if there’s any discrepancies. 

Other than that, I’m strictly there observing and staying out of 

the way. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You said this particular vote was the vote that was extended? 

A. I wouldn’t say ‘‘extended’’ officially, because very rarely does 

a vote actually end when that clock hits zero. It’s a very—it almost 

never happens, honestly. I mean, that’s just the minimum amount 

of time that Members have to vote. It is then up to—it is my understanding—the Speaker pro tem to officially close the vote; and 

there seem to be several ways that can be indicated. 

One of the things that the Journal is used for by the Parliamentarian is the first vote in a series they’ll note how many Members 

voted. If 400 Members voted and the next vote we’re at 400, well, 

then they know they can reasonably close the vote because they’re 

not expecting more Members. So it kind of helps for attendance 

level for that day. 

But, yes, it had definitely been extended in the sense that it 

went past the 15-minute countdown, but as to how long—and it’s 

not an irregular practice, by any means. 

Q. Is there anything else? 

A. No. The thing is, it’s such a fluid process. 

And I will say this. One of the things I noticed is the two Tally 

Clerks, Kevin Hanrahan and De’Andre, were both—they didn’t care 

about what was happening on the floor; and that’s their job, as I 

understand. Their job is to enter those votes as those cards come 

across the table. 

They weren’t looking around. They weren’t listening to the Members. Every vote Members start screaming to close the vote. That’s 

just the way it is. There’s always—once the clock goes down and 

as time passes—a rumbling starts in the Chamber to close the 

vote, especially a vote that’s been held open longer than usual, and 

especially depending on the time of day. If it’s late at night and 

people want to catch their planes home, they’re more hurried to get 

out of there, there’s more rumblings in the Chamber. That’s not unheard of. 

What was weird about that night was the fact that the Speaker 

pro tem called the vote reading it off the screen. I have never seen 

that happen. The votes always—the Tally Clerk, who is on that 

first level of the rostrum, has a stack of papers; and on it, the tally 

score. He keeps a black pen with him; and he writes out the tally. 

And the tally is handed to the Parliamentarians and then the Parliamentarians hand it to the Speaker pro tem. 

Because what happens is, a lot of times, the computer hasn’t 

caught up to the board. The Tally Clerk at the computer may have 

three or four cards that he’s entering. You can only enter those 

cards a certain way. It’s a manual process. It’s not an automatic 

process. I mean, you can have several seconds lag time between 

when somebody fills out the card, hands it to the Tally Clerk, they 

write the roll call number on it, it goes back to the Tally Clerk on 

the computer, he actually gets to enter it and then hand it over to 

me and then it shows up on the screen. 


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And I think that’s where some of the confusion began with this 

process—the Speaker pro tem called it from the screen when there 

were still votes in the Tally Clerk’s hand. It hadn’t been turned in. 

And up to this point it’s always been the Tally Clerks finish entering all those votes, then the Tally Clerk on the first level of the 

rostrum writes out that score—for that result—as a word, and 

hands it up to the Parliamentarian and then over. There’s a definite chain of sequence. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. What’s that piece of paper called? 

A. It’s just the tally. 

Q. Is it a tally sheet or tally slip? 

A. Yes, a tally sheet. It’s a white piece of paper, probably three 

by five inches; and it says yeas on one side, nays on the other and 

then present. Not a lot of votes have a present and so they’ll make 

sure to point that out. 

This isn’t the first time that something like this has begun to 

happen. There have been instances before where an SPT will start 

to read the vote from the board. But generally, in my opinion, it’s 

almost like a way to get Members to get their votes in. When the 

Members start hearing certain key phrases come from the SPT, 

they start moving down the aisles to get their final votes in. 

Because votes change. They do have the option to change their 

vote. I mean, there’s times I’ve stapled three different tally cards, 

tally cards for one Member, together on different votes on one vote. 

Because they come into the Chamber, they want to know if you 

vote yea, they were like, oh, no, I wanted to vote nay and then like, 

oh, no, actually I really did want to vote yea on this. 

Q. How many that evening—there have been a series of roll call 

votes on amendments and this was like—what—the eighth or ninth 

in that series, is that right? 

A. No. This was the motion to recommit, and that’s a little bit 

different. There was a pause. So that’s why it was a 15-minute 

vote. It stopped legislative proceedings. That’s why we went back 

to a 15-minute vote versus the 2-minute votes they had been doing 

on the amendments. 

Q. And for all the 2-minute votes have you seen the typical procedure that evening where a tally slip was passed up from Kevin 

Hanrahan to the Parliamentarians, to the Chair? 

A. Yes. I mean, that’s my recollection. I have never known that 

the actual tally vote was read off of the screen and not passed up 

by that slip of paper in my observance up there, in the times I’ve 

been up there. 

One of the most—and I think I was saying this before, it’s happened where Members will start to do that, but they’re stopped. 

Whether it’s the Tally Clerks getting the Parliamentarian’s attention to turn to the Member and say wait. It’s just on that evening 

it was literally—it was sped through. There was no chance to say, 

‘‘hey, you don’t have the slip.’’ 

Q. Let me ask you about those occasions where you’ve seen the 

Chair look to the screen and start to call the vote. I mean, is it 

your impression in those instances that the Chair really intended 

to call the vote or was the Chair just using that sort of as a stick 


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to get people down to cast their vote so that they could actually 

close it? 

A. Both. I’ve seen people who will use it and will pause, and I’ve 

seen people that literally have to have been stopped. 

Q. Okay. 

A. And I think that comes from—unfortunately, when Speakers 

are in the chair, they’re in the chair a couple of hours a week. 

There might be a week before the next time in the chair, and just 

unfamiliarity of the process. 

It’s not—it’s just a simple—it’s hard to wrap your brain around 

the fact I think sometimes that, well, the vote is right there up on 

the board. Why can’t I just read that? You know, what do you 

mean there’s a slip of paper making its way up to me? I don’t think 

it’s intentional to close a vote. I just think it’s a matter of visual 

perception. 

Q. It seemed a little unusual that evening, since there had been 

a series of votes before where the normal procedure had been followed for 8, 9, 10 times and then suddenly it’s done differently in 

this vote; wouldn’t you agree with that? 

A. Absolutely. And I think what you’re referring to is the fact 

that at that time the majority leader, who is not seen as a traditional member of the floor, saying, hey, let’s hurry up the vote, 

came down the aisle across the floor and was saying, close this vote 

now. There was something—I wouldn’t say—there was tension on 

the side of the rostrum as to why the vote wasn’t being closed, and 

it was coming from a Member of leadership, not just a Member of 

the House of Representatives. 

Q. Tell us exactly what you heard Mr. Hoyer say. Who did he say 

it to and what did he say? 

A. I’m just recollecting my thoughts. Because I haven’t viewed 

the tape, and this is coming from memory from August. So I apologize if it’s a little vague. 

But, to the best of my knowledge, Mr. Hoyer came down the 

aisle, the center aisle, onto the floor for the vote. This vote was 

close in tallies. In fact, I believe at that time the actual vote was 

up. The motion was passing, is my recollection, but you would have 

to get the electronics to verify. And at that moment there was a 

commotion and he was in a sense shouting—not to be shouting but 

to be heard over all the other conversations in the room—at the 

Chair to close the vote, at—looking out to other people. 

There are different members of leadership. There are staff members who relay—they don’t control the floor, but they are the ones 

who relay the messages from the Members to the Chair when we 

want to close this down. Because there is—it’s not—the best thing 

I can say is it is a political procedure. It’s not set in stone. The vote 

is open past 15 minutes; and it’s up to the person in the chair to 

close it. So there is influence as to why that happens. 

Q. Sure. So Mr. Hoyer comes down. Mr. Hoyer casts his vote. 

You said he came down the center aisle? 

A. I can’t say that he voted in the well at that point. He may 

have voted on the electronic machine coming down the aisle. But 

when he made it to the well, he moved off to the left, typically between the chairs where the Members sit and where one would walk 


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up into the rostrum, and he had said, ‘‘I want this vote shut down 

now.’’ 

Q. Okay. There’s—— 

A. And I can’t say that’s exactly the words, but the sentence was 

to the fact that shut this vote down now. 

Q. Who did he say that to, the Chair? 

A. In my observance, it was to the Chair. It was directed at the 

Chair. When you’re in a room full of people, I don’t know that you 

can specify. I mean, it’s not like he was having a one-on-one conversation with somebody. It was shouted at the Chair. I can—you 

know, the best of my knowledge is I could say that for sure once 

it was shouted at the Chair. As to how many more times it was 

repeated to those around him and other Members—— 

Q. How many additional—— 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. How many times? 

A. It was more than once. 

Q. More than once, but could you put a limit, do you think, on 

that? I’m just trying to get an idea how many times, because we’ve 

seen the tape. 

A. Right. Maybe four or five times at the most. It wasn’t a dozen. 

It wasn’t like anybody was screaming, ranting in a row. But it was, 

‘‘I want this vote down. I want it shut down now.’’ It was more directed at each person he could see who could make it happen—towards the Chair, towards the managers on the floor, towards the 

Parliamentarians. 

Q. So they weren’t all necessarily directed at Mr. McNulty? 

A. No. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You’re sitting right next to De’Andre Anderson at that point? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Do you recall at the time Mr. Hoyer came down, went up to 

the rostrum, said for the first time close the vote, what was 

De’Andre Anderson doing at that point? 

A. He was entering the cards. He didn’t pause. 

Q. Okay. So he—— 

A. He’s still entering the—he is still entering the well vote cards 

that had been given to him. 

Q. Okay. So he’s in the process of doing what he’s assigned to 

do, to enter these cards in order to finalize the vote before it’s 

taken down, is that correct? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Okay. Do you recall what Kevie Niland was doing at this 

point? 

A. Kevin Hanrahan? 

Q. Kevie Niland. 

A. Kevie Niland? She’s the Reading Clerk. And, no, actually, I 

don’t, because my view of her is blocked. She sits on the left side 

of the rostrum. 

I’m assuming—traditionally, at that point she would at some 

point start standing up. They read the changes, and changes had 

started to come in. Especially once it was—there was the point 


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where the vote was called. The gavel came down. The vote was 

called. It was called 214 to 214, I believe. And at that point there 

were still cards coming in. And De’Andre was still doing those 

cards. Kevin was still accepting those cards. 

Q. Okay. Let me just—I’m sorry, just for clarification. You say 

cards were still coming in. Were they coming in from Members to 

Kevin Hanrahan or were they coming in—— 

A. No. 

Q. I’m sorry, let me just finish the question so it’s clear. 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Were they coming in from Members to Kevin Hanrahan, or 

when you say ‘‘coming in’’, were they coming in to De’Andre from 

Kevin Hanrahan or both? 

A. Both. They were still coming in to Kevin and then being handed up to De’Andre. And the last two cards that came in were from 

the minority leader, John Boehner, and from the majority leader, 

Steny Hoyer. Those I remember distinctly being the last two cards 

that came in. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Could you maybe put that in some sort of template of context? 

The last cards came in from Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Boehner at some 

point. But, how long had passed since the first card had been coming in? 

A. Well, I mean, the first card started coming in as soon as the 

vote starts, so that’s the beginning of the 15 minutes. I don’t have 

the exact—I don’t know exactly how long the vote was open. If either of you do, then it would be—well, even then, I don’t know officially. Because there was—it was asked at that time, ‘‘do we put 

these in?’’ Because several seconds had lagged before the Majority 

and Minority Leader came forward to put those cards in. 

We had that—there’s always that little rush at the end of 

changed votes, people changing, especially on a close vote like this. 

Those people had been entered, and this was after the tally had 

been read. But still it was changing on the score because De’Andre 

was entering it and the final button hadn’t been—it hadn’t been 

closed electronically. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. When you say—you said cards were still coming in when the 

vote was called, I think—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. Is what you said? When you say the vote was 

called, how did the Chair call the vote on that night? 

A. Read it off the screen, off the electronic. 

Q. What did he do? He read the tally—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. Off the screen? And then what did he do? Did 

he gavel it? Did he say it was—— 

A. Motion to reconsider is laid upon the table, and the gavel 

came down. I mean, I can’t say for sure. That’s the language that 

would be used in general. But all I know is the gavel came down, 

and he had called the vote. As to whether the correct terminology 

was used, I can’t testify to that. 


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Mr. PAOLETTA. Is it okay? 

Mr. SPULAK. Go ahead. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I just wanted to go back—I’m sorry, Mark Paoletta. 

You mentioned Mr. Hoyer coming down and you thought he said 

several times, four or five times max, that he had said close the 

vote down. Do you remember anyone on the rostrum responding to 

him? 

A. I know at some point there—no, in the sense that my back 

was turned. But, obviously, at some point he had a conversation 

with John Sullivan. John Sullivan is the head Parliamentarian. 

Q. Right. 

A. At some point, John Sullivan stepped down to talk to him 

about it. As to exactly what was said, I don’t know. My back was 

turned. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Did you hear what they said? 

Ms. LASKY. The only thing—there was one statement I heard, 

and that was Mr. Hoyer to John Sullivan saying, John, don’t you 

ever do that to me again. I won’t stand for it. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And do you know the context? 

A. I just know it was in reference to the fact that—in my observation, it was in reference to the fact that Mr. Hoyer wanted the 

vote closed, but Parliamentary procedure would dictate that that’s 

not the way to close the vote, that it hadn’t been officially closed. 

Because, as I said, De’Andre was still—— 

Q. Right. 

A. Because at this point, even though De’Andre and Kevin 

weren’t turning around to, you know, ask what to do, they were 

doing their jobs. There was—they turned around to make sure nobody was trying to get their attention to stop doing their jobs— 

make sure that they weren’t missing a signal or cue from the Parliamentarians. 

Because there are a lot of signals and cues. We rely on the Parliamentarians extensively for what the actual procedure is, when 

to close the vote. Because that slip goes to them, and then it goes 

to the Chair. 

Q. Right. 

A. So—— 

Q. So you heard Mr. Hoyer say that to Mr. Sullivan? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And do you remember Mr. Sullivan’s response? 

A. There wasn’t—I did not hear a response from Mr. Sullivan. 

Q. So in terms of Mr. Hoyer making this request, that’s the only 

additional comment that you specifically recall hearing, is that 

part—— 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Was there anything else either from Mr. McNulty or from 

someone else up in the rostrum? 

A. No. 

Q. No? 

A. No. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You were just saying that they, perhaps, were waiting or 

wanted to be sure that they weren’t being told to stop doing what 

they were doing, is that right, De’Andre and Kevin? 

A. They—— 

Q. Well, my question—— 

A. They were open, but sort of—they were open to—they weren’t 

ignoring anybody. There was no ‘‘I’m going about my own actions’’. 

If there had been any cue from anybody official, from the Parliamentarians, to stop entering the votes or anything, they would 

have known about it, in my opinion. 

Q. And from what you know, were they receiving any signal to 

stop recording votes? 

A. Absolutely not, no. Because, I mean, I was looking around, 

too. I mean, in a word, it was kind of chaotic, a lot of conversations 

going on. 

Q. You said earlier—and some of them were unrelated to—I 

mean, people were doing their jobs? 

A. Absolutely. 

Q. You said earlier that the Speaker pro tem called the vote 

while the cards were still coming in. Were those cards reflected on 

the board eventually? 

A. Yes. 

Q. After he called this 214–214 and these additional votes were 

being reflected on the board, is that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. What happened? 

A. There was a lot of uproar in the Chamber. I think that’s when 

a lot of people started getting upset because the vote had been 

called 214 to 214, but it was changing on the tally board as each 

vote was entered. And from there, that’s when you know you saw 

a lot of people starting to run around, find out what was going on, 

question the authority of what was going on. But those are all side 

conversations going off on the well. 

Q. Let me ask if you can remember the—sort of the timing of 

this. Mr. McNulty called it off the board, as you said, at 214–214; 

De’Andre was entering votes; and almost immediately after Mr. 

McNulty called 214–214 the board reflected 215–213. Is that correct? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Anyway, the offering party had prevailed. Were there votes 

that were continuing to be entered even at that point and so that 

the board was changing? 

A. Until—what I can say is, until Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Boehner 

came down and each put in a well vote, cards were accepted. At 

no point were cards turned away, were Members turned away. If 

every single—in my opinion, if 20 Members had decided at that 

time to come down and change their votes, it would have been allowed. That vote was not closed in the well. 

Q. And so I think you used the word this was a ‘‘fluid’’ process. 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Q. So from the 214–214 call to the immediate changing of 215– 

213, this process was ongoing. It had never stopped at 215–213? 


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A. No. 

Q. More votes were coming in? 

A. Right. 

Q. And the results were changing? 

A. And it was changing. And it may have seemed that it stopped, 

but it’s just a matter of that manual process of entering the votes. 

Q. Let me ask this. Do you remember—— 

Mr. SPULAK. One last question, Mark? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sure. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you remember at any point that the minority or leadership 

or staff were asking to close the votes at any point? 

A. Specifically, no. I wouldn’t say that it didn’t happen, though. 

Because, like I said, I mean, it was no different than any other vote 

where, once time starts to run down, Members on both sides start 

wrestling for the vote to be closed. 

But as far as anything as significant as a member of leadership 

or something coming down to the well, there wasn’t any—there 

wasn’t anything as specific as when Mr. Hoyer came down and 

asked for the vote to be closed. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Let me—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. But just in terms of the well voting and the cards 

being accepted, I mean, Mr. Boehner’s card was never entered, 

right, so his was accepted and that was never entered into the 

vote? 

Ms. LASKY. That I—— 

Mr. SPULAK. The ADS. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. The ADS, right. His change card, right, was never 

accepted. 

Ms. LASKY. It was accepted by Kevin and handed to De’Andre. 

At one point, De’Andre turned around and asked one of the Parliamentarians, do I enter this? Okay? And that was for his and Mr. 

Hoyer’s. As to what his response was—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Whose response? 

Ms. LASKY. One of the Parliamentarians. It was either Tom 

Wickham or John Sullivan. I believe it was Tom Wickham, because 

I believe Mr. Sullivan was down on the floor, but I can’t be sure. 

It was definitely one of the two gentlemen. 

But I don’t recollect what the response was. Because at that 

point I think there was so much going on that they realized they 

were past the actual tally and entering of the cards. It was more 

dealing with bigger fires. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me just go back a little bit to the sequence of events. Do 

you recall Speaker Pelosi casting a floor vote—I mean, a vote in the 

well? 

A. I don’t recall, but she may have. I specifically don’t have a 

recollection either way. She usually doesn’t and so—— 

Q. Okay. So Mr. Hoyer comes down, and you said it’s not atypical 

for various people, I assume including the majority leader, to say 

close down the vote? 

A. Correct. 


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Q. In this particular case, do you recall what his tone of voice 

was? 

A. He was livid. He was not happy. He came down, and—I think 

a lot of it was because the vote was so close and the bill, if it had 

passed, would have gone back to committee, is my understanding. 

And that in his face he was livid and not—I mean, he was very 

upset. It was a very direct tone: ‘‘Close down this vote now.’’ 

Q. Okay. And is that something you’ve typically seen with people? 

A. No. There’s a lot of—it’s no different—I mean, I hate to use 

the analogy, but at a baseball game when people get riled up and 

they start screaming, is that general screaming or not? This was 

different that night. There was that direct, ‘‘I want this,’’ to the 

sense to close the vote down. And it was, like I said before, directed 

at the Chair. And then to several—to anybody who could probably 

make that happen. 

Q. How long, to the best of your recollection, after Mr. Hoyer 

made those statements did the Chair—how long was it until the 

Chair gaveled the vote? 

A. It was mere minutes. It wasn’t a long time. It’s not like he 

said it, and the Chair thought about it. 

I want—you know, to my recollection, I want to say that it 

wasn’t that he said it and it automatically happened. I think it was 

said a few more times before Mr. McNulty actually closed the vote. 

But it wasn’t—it wasn’t instantaneous, but it also wasn’t an afterthought, like he said it and 5 minutes later it happened, is the best 

I can tell you. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember any interaction between Mr. McNulty and 

Mr. Hoyer? 

A. Not one on one. Anything that happened was with Mr.—to my 

recollection, with Mr. Hoyer standing on the floor. Mr. McNulty 

was several feet away up in the chair. 

Q. Did you hear anyone else giving instructions directly to Mr. 

McNulty? 

A. No, other than what the Parliamentarians might have been 

doing. But that’s just more surround movement. Things are happening, but you don’t have the exact recollection or ability to know 

exactly what was happening. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. After—let’s go back to the sort of sequence again, and correct 

me if I’m wrong. But after Mr. McNulty said 214–214, the votes, 

there was—other votes were reflected on the board, plus votes that 

had already been entered, and more votes were being entered even 

at that point. So, in your experience, was there any attempt to 

close the vote or to stop it? 

I think you already testified about it, but was there any attempt 

to stop that voting after that point or, again, you called this vote 

but voting continued. Is it your impression that there was any attempt to stop any further voting? 

A. There wasn’t—okay, splitting that question—I’m going to answer that from different perspectives. 


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On the part of the Tally Clerks, no, they continued to enter the 

cards they had in their hand, as had been procedure for the year 

and a half that I’ve been there. If somebody is in the well—the general perception is that if somebody is in the well they have the 

right to vote. If somebody is at the table writing out their card, voting is paused. 

Several times—we go through several slips of paper sometimes 

on one vote of the tally sheets. The tally—I’ve seen the Tally Clerks 

write out the tally three or four separate times and that piece of 

paper get wadded up and thrown in the trash because somebody 

has come down the aisle and they’ve suspended closing that vote 

to let that person vote. 

So from the Tally Clerks, no, there was no motion—there was 

no—they didn’t make any type of action to close the vote. They 

kept doing what they were doing. They kept taking the cards and 

entering them until they had been told otherwise. 

Q. And when did that happen? 

A. Really at the—it just really—it really almost didn’t happen. 

It just kind of slowed out until nobody was in the well anymore. 

And that’s typically what happens to a certain extent. 

From the Members, yes, there were still repeated cries that the 

vote—it wasn’t to close the vote. It was that, hey, the vote is closed. 

Why is the score changing? 

So—I think I’ve answered it. 

Q. But there was a time when the score that was on the board 

was different than the score that Mr. McNulty had called, and in 

fact different parties were winning at that point? 

A. Say that again for me? 

Q. I apologize. 

A. No, it’s very confusing. 

Q. When Mr. McNulty called it, the majority had prevailed, but 

almost immediately after the board reflected that the minority was 

prevailing? 

A. Reflected the minority prevailed until it switched back. 

Q. Right. 

A. Correct. 

Q. So if the vote had closed at that point, the minority would 

have prevailed? 

A. I want to say it would have, because there’s that fluid motion 

when the vote actually closes, typically. When a vote is that close, 

it’s held open until every vote—— 

That’s kind of what was—that’s another thing that was different. 

There was this rush to close a vote that was uncertain. Usually, 

when it’s that close, the Leadership pulls back. The Whips do their 

jobs. They get the votes. They talk to people and say, hey, ‘‘this is— 

’’ I don’t know. I’ve never heard these conversations going on. But 

it’s the assumption that’s made, and that’s kind of the perceived 

perception. Because then you’ll see Members come up and change 

their vote. 

There is nothing to stop that vote from being held open longer. 

It happens all the time. We’ve had 20, 25-minute votes in order 

to—I wouldn’t say get the outcome you want but to make sure everybody has voted the way they want to vote for the final. 


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Because, like I’ve said, votes—some Members change their votes 

three times in one vote. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me make sure I understand what you’re saying. And that 

is, in the past, you’ve seen situations where, for lack of a better 

term, in order to achieve the outcome you want you’ve seen leadership, Whip, go to Members and encourage them to change their 

vote, is that correct? 

A. Correct. 

Q. This seemed to be different somehow, is that right? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Explain to me why this is different. 

A. It’s different because the vote was—it was demanded that the 

vote be shut down, as opposed to getting Members to change their 

votes. And when that happened you had the original—the SPT 

read it as 214 to 214. And then De’Andre kept entering the cards; 

and it became 215 to 213. 

And then some—and I don’t know if this is exactly what happened—there was more cards that came in. And whether those 

cards were cards that had been given—had been accepted when the 

vote was read or after the vote was read—I don’t know if it was 

Members—— 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Which vote? 

A. The difference being these were Members who were changing 

their votes in order to affect the outcome or Members who had already voted regardless of the outcome. 

Q. But there’s no way that those cards would have been given 

prior to other cards that were entered and announced with the suggestion that they were held onto for some reason? That’s not what 

happened? 

A. No, no, no, cards are never held onto. But, I mean, it’s just 

a Member turns their vote in and then a few minutes later will 

change their mind or be convinced otherwise. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So, in your experience, what you saw on August 2nd was 

unique because the actual voting process was being used to achieve 

the desired result, as opposed to persuading people to vote in a certain way; is that correct? 

A. I don’t know that there was enough time for that—what you’re 

saying to happen. I think what happened is Mr. Hoyer came in, 

saw the vote and demanded it be shut down without realizing what 

the vote actually meant. 

Because, to my recollection, what I thought was weird is that 

when he started shouting for the vote to be shut down the minority 

was winning. That vote was at that 215–213 range before it was 

called, okay? That’s what I did not understand. And I remember 

looking around, going why is he calling for a vote to be shut down 

that the majority is losing? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. When he called it, it was 214–214? 


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Ms. LASKY. When Mr. McNulty called the vote. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I see. 

Ms. LASKY. When Mr. Hoyer asked for the vote to be shut down, 

the minority was winning the vote. And that’s what set off this 

weird chain of events of nothing I’ve ever seen before. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I just want to clarify one thing. The demand to shut off the 

voting never really—never really was put into effect because you’ve 

testified that the voting continued notwithstanding what Mr. 

McNulty said? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Isn’t that right? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. So, as far as you know, was anyone denied an opportunity to 

vote? 

A. No. 

Q. Or was anyone denied an opportunity to change their vote? 

A. Not that I—nobody was turned away. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Mr. Boehner’s was never entered, right? 

Ms. LASKY. You would have to ask the Tally Clerks that. I know 

the card was handed over. I know the question was asked, do we 

enter these? As to what the outcome was, I don’t know. 

They were handed over to me. As I said earlier, my sole responsibility during a vote is I alphabetize the tally cards. Once they’ve 

been entered, received and the Tally Clerks are done with them, 

I keep them in a pile and keep them alphabetized. Mr. Boehner’s 

and Mr. Hoyer’s were given to me, but I don’t have the know-how 

whether they were entered or not. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. At the time, there’s obviously a lot of commotion going on—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. In the well. And at the time Mr. Hoyer came 

down and went up to the rostrum—excuse me, my voice is kind of 

going a little bit—and directed that the vote be closed down, were 

there actual Members in the well who you could see filling out 

cards? 

A. Yes. I mean, the well was not clear of Members voting. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So would it have been apparent from where you’re sitting— 

it’s only what you can—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. From where you’re sitting, you’re seeing Mr. Hoyer come down 

the middle aisle? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Would it be clear to him that he’s seeing Members in the well? 

A. I don’t know if it could be clear to him, but I don’t know why 

it wouldn’t be clear to him. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Because it wasn’t clear. 


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And to the point that the other thing to think about is, at that 

point, the Tally Clerk—once the voting starts to trickle down in the 

well, the Tally Clerk has the pad in his hand. He’s looking up at 

the screen to write the numbers down. That pad wasn’t out in 

Kevin’s hand. He was still collecting cards. 

At that point, there were no signals—there was no—there was 

nothing going on in the well that would indicate that that vote was 

ready to close. There were still a lot of people milling about. There 

were still Members actually voting, writing their names on their 

cards. And I mean—so the tally—and that tally sheet was nowhere 

near being filled out when the vote was called. 

If that’s unclear, please let me know. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Are you aware of any prior instances when a Chair closed the 

vote when there was in the well two votes? 

A. To the best of my knowledge, every effort has always been 

made that if a Member is in the well to keep that vote open for 

them. There have been instances where a Member is coming down 

the aisle, but when the Speaker pro tem will close the vote—go 

through the motions of calling the vote, the motion to reconsider 

is laid on the table and banging the gavel. 

Q. Even if the Speaker pro tem thought that they were intending 

to get to the well in order to change their vote? 

A. I can’t say either way. If it’s—at some point, even the Speaker 

can only give so many chances for a person to vote before it starts 

to become, or it seems, ridiculous. 

The Speaker calls for the last vote, there is a procedure that happens: ‘‘does any Member wish to change their vote?’’ It’s read across 

the floor; and the Members have plenty of opportunity to change 

their votes. But often they’re out in the hallways, they’re milling 

about. 

And, to the best of my knowledge, I do know—I mean, I’ve seen 

Members who have been irate about not getting their vote in. Yes, 

it’s happened where Members didn’t get their vote in. As to exactly 

how many meters they were away from the well, I couldn’t tell you. 

I mean, they were there on the floor yelling one more, one more. 

But when ‘‘one more, one more’’ has been yelled five different 

times over the course of 5 minutes, at some point the SPT—we 

have to move on to business. We could sit all day for a vote on ‘‘one 

mores’’. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. At some point after all this, there was a decision made to 

abort the vote. Were you aware, sitting next to De’Andre, that he 

was having problems getting the board down? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Was he saying anything either to you or to Kevin Hanrahan 

or even to himself that would indicate that he couldn’t get the 

vote—— 

A. To come down. 

Q. [continuing]. Closed and brought down? 


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A. Yes. In that instance, and to the best of my recollection, what 

happened—De’Andre was saying, I can’t get it to come down. I 

can’t get it to come down. 

Q. Who was he saying that to? 

A. Mainly to—he wasn’t saying it to anybody specific. You know, 

he was just saying it aloud, okay? I heard him—— 

At that point, one of the Parliamentarians—I believe it was Tom 

Wickham, but it may have been John Sullivan—leaned over and 

said, De’Andre, we need to get this vote down. 

And I had turned to him because De’Andre—De’Andre was trying 

to do everything he could. And I turned to him and said, he can’t. 

There’s something wrong with the computer and it won’t come 

down, okay. Whether or not that was the correct assessment on my 

part, but that was the idea I got, is that it couldn’t come down. It 

was frozen. And De’Andre was trying to do the best he could to get 

it to come down. 

I told, like I said, the Parliamentarian who leaned in to say, hey, 

we—because everybody—it was just fuel to the fire, that vote staying up there like that. 

Q. Did he explain to you or could you look over and see where 

he was on the screen and what he was trying—command he was 

trying to hit in order to bring the vote down? 

A. No. The way that computer is set up is it’s a table with a 

screen underneath it. And I really—at the best from my vantage 

point I can see half of the screen, maybe, in addition to which the 

keyboard is underneath the table. So you’re kind of—it’s half hidden, and I have no way of knowing. I know he was frantically trying—doing the keystrokes that he thought would get it to come 

down, but to no avail. 

Q. So he can’t get it down. 

And then at some point was there a conversation where Ed 

Sorenson leans over and gives him some instructions? 

A. At one point, yes. We got—and I don’t know if it was—I 

know—I don’t know if it was myself or one of the Parliamentarians—but Ed Sorenson, the Deputy Chief, Deputy Clerk, was on 

the floor for that vote. And knowing that he was a former member 

of the legislative computer systems team, one of us—I don’t know. 

I mean, I remember trying to get his attention. Whether it was me 

or one of the Parliamentarians got him to come up onto the rostrum to help De’Andre figure out what was going on. Because at 

that point, De’Andre—I mean, he was doing everything he could to 

no avail. 

Q. And so what happens there? Where was Mr. Sorenson? If he 

was trying to get his attention, I think, given what’s going on, he 

would have made himself immediately available. 

A. Absolutely. During—— 

Q. Was it difficult—let me finish the question. Was it difficult to 

get his attention? 

A. No. Mr. Sorenson, during votes, his duty is to replace Member 

voting cards. Whenever a Member loses a card or it isn’t working, 

he stands up at the bottom of the rostrum in front of the bill clerks, 

which is directly between—kind of off to the side. But he’s at the 

rostrum, that lower level, waiting to talk to Members. 


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So he was there. I mean, he was probably six feet from me. His 

attention—I mean, he knew—I wouldn’t say he knew. I can’t. But 

it was easy to get his attention, and he did come up to assist us. 

Q. Describe that conversation once he came up. 

A. The conversation between him and De’Andre, I didn’t hear. 

The only thing I heard is he specifically turned around to the Parliamentarian, John Sullivan, to confirm that the vote was to be 

aborted. And he specifically said, if we do this, there is absolutely 

no way of bringing back this vote. This vote is gone out of the system. 

He was very definitive about letting the Parliamentarian, one of 

the—saying that to the area where the Parliamentarians were 

standing and getting an answer back that—whatever answer it 

was that he needed to go ahead and do that. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you think—well, what do you think that meant, that the 

vote would be lost in the system? 

A. My understanding was that—— 

Q. At the time, what did you think it was? 

A. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, from just a few quick statements, 

that he was—whatever it was, he knew that it would totally be 

erased and that the next vote would be roll number 814 again. Because it would be as if that vote never happened. There would be 

nothing in the system to the orders of that vote. 

Q. I mean, aside from the vote number, and you understood it 

to mean that 814—that the next vote would be 814? 

A. That’s what I thought was going to happen, that the next vote 

was going to be 814. Because, at that time, I wondered if I was 

going to have to change it in the minute book. Because I had roll 

number 814 being that vote and whether the next vote was going 

to have to be number 814. But we went on with 815. 

Q. Was there any discussion other than your hearing that about 

what it meant ‘‘being lost in the system’’? 

A. Not that I know of. Not that I can recollect. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So you’re trying to get Mr. Sorenson’s attention, and he comes 

up onto the rostrum. Did he—as soon as he came up onto the rostrum, did he immediately have a conversation with De’Andre or did 

he have a conversation with the Parliamentarians first? 

A. I don’t know what conversation—he may have had a conversation on his way up to the rostrum. I don’t know. That’s behind my 

back. When he walks up, he’s walking up around me. As to whether he said something to one of the Parliamentarians, I don’t know. 

What I know is he came up directly. He leaned over De’Andre 

to see what was happening on the screen, and they conversed. As 

to what was said, I don’t know. Because you have to understand 

he’s right here leaning over. There’s no way for me to hear that. 


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EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Sure. But in terms of the timing, you signal him and you see 

him start to walk up and he’s got to kind of walk around to come 

down? 

A. Right. 

Q. But was it a situation where he had paused behind you for 

a considerable amount of time, to the point where you decided, 

look, I saw him start walking up here. What’s he doing? Or was 

it a fairly quick movement from where he started to get to 

De’Andre on the rostrum? 

A. I have no reason to think that—I did not get the impression 

that he stopped to have any conversations. As to whether something was said while he was walking—but there was at no point 

where I turned around, going, where’s Ed? 

Q. So if there was a conversation, it wasn’t a long conversation? 

A. Right. It was as if two people pass in the hallways, you might 

just say something. But there was, to my recollection—I mean, I 

had no reason thinking back to think why is it taking him so long. 

I mean, he was up there. 

Q. Okay. So he and De’Andre converse. Did you ever—when Mr. 

Sorenson turned around to talk to John Sullivan, did you ever hear 

him say to Mr. Sullivan, ‘‘we can either terminate the vote or abort 

the vote?’’ 

A. No, I don’t have any recollection of that, of there being any 

type of terminate or abort, no. 

Q. So he just presented to Mr. Sullivan, here’s our option and 

that’s to abort the vote? 

A. I wouldn’t say that. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Because at some point I don’t—I didn’t get the impression 

that he came up with it on his own, to remove the vote. There were 

conversations going on all around me. All I can say is, after he and 

De’Andre conversed, he may have been turning around to talk to 

the Parliamentarians at this point. There are conversations that 

could have gone on that I can’t attest to, that I have no knowledge 

of. 

All I can say is, at some point, Ed Sorenson turned around and 

said, if this is what we—to the point if this is what we do, then 

this vote is erased and gone. 

Now, as to whether or not he came up with that idea on his own, 

he had already mentioned it, somebody had asked him to do it, I 

don’t know how that came about. I just know that at some point 

he turned around to clarify, if I do this, this is what will happen, 

and got some sort of verification from somebody, that—— 

Q. When he was there talking to De’Andre, did you see him making sort of an effort to try to get out of that situation where the 

computer was frozen up? Could you tell whether he was giving 

De’Andre instructions as to sort of how to go back into the main 

screen so that the vote could get taken down? 

A. I can’t say either way what they were doing. I’m sorry. I don’t 

know if they were going through the steps, or whether De’Andre 

could have been showing him what he had tried to do. I just know 


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that there was a time when it was just Ed and De’Andre, and the 

mouse was moving on the screen and—— 

Q. How long was that interaction? 

A. Maybe a few minutes. Not—you know, not longer than that. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Following up from Mr. Snowdon’s question, this mouse moving, was that to initiate this abort or was that mouse moving before the decision and the steps that were taken to abort? 

A. I would say it was moving before. Because there was action— 

I mean, before Ed turned and said, the statement I’ve given you— 

if we do this, this is what happens—there was action—there was 

action on the computer terminal. Not like action and then things 

were changing. But De’Andre and Ed were trying to do something. 

Whether it was work through the problem or begin solving it, I 

don’t know. I just know that there were actions being taken. 

Q. When did you find out that the data of the vote would be recaptured? 

A. Honestly, it surprised me that one—and this is just coming 

from computer technical knowledge. My understanding is nothing 

is ever permanently erased, that it can always be dredged up somehow. So that was kind of surprising to me, the fact that this whole 

thing can be—is going to be erased. I was like, well, there’s always 

got to be a back-up somewhere. 

As to the fact whether they went looking for the back-up, it was 

honestly a few weeks ago I was on the floor and we were doing 

something else and one of the guys from LCS mentioned that they 

had been there all night trying to recover the data. And I was like, 

oh. He was like, yeah, I logged 36 hours that day. I was like, you 

had nice overtime. 

Q. Your surprise that it could be recovered—notwithstanding 

your own computer knowledge that it should be—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Was based on your interpretation of the word 

‘‘gone’’, the data is gone—I’m sorry, the vote is gone, not the data 

is gone—the vote is gone? 

A. Right. Just so I can paraphrase and make sure I understand 

the question, my understanding that night was when Ed said that 

it’s like he made it to be that that data would be gone. There would 

be no retrieving it. It would be gone. It would be erased like it 

never happened. And to me that means gone, irretrievable in the 

system. 

Q. But did he use the word ‘‘data’’ or did he use the word ‘‘vote’’? 

A. Vote, vote. I can’t say that he used the word data. He said the 

vote will be. 

Q. And to whom did he say that? 

A. It would have been one of the Parliamentarians who was 

standing behind me. I believe he directed it at John Sullivan, is my 

recollection, that it was directed. This is what’s going to happen. 

I mean, he didn’t act on his own accord. He had outside—I mean, 

there wasn’t, oh, this is what we’re going to do to fix this. He 

turned around to make sure that somebody understood that. Now 

whether, like I said, if he got the answer—maybe somebody didn’t 


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answer him. But, as far as I know, he got an answer from somebody; and they did whatever it is they did. 

Q. Did anyone on the podium object to that course of action? 

De’Andre, Kevin, anyone say, no, don’t do that? 

A. Not that I know of. But that’s one of those—there’s so many 

conversations going on and directions being shouted that somebody 

could have and I might not have heard. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Speaking of other folks on the podium, what was Kevin 

Hanrahan doing while De’Andre was having these problems? 

Again, this is sort of—— 

A. To the best of my recollection, Kevin had moved off to the 

side, as is traditional for the Tally Clerk in front who’s been taking 

the cards to do, and was out of the way. I mean, there’s really 

nothing he—De’Andre may have had a couple of questions for him, 

and he tried to answer them. He wasn’t so far that he couldn’t answer any questions. 

But because of the way the system is set up, it’s not like he could 

see the screen and direct De’Andre as to what to do. I mean, he 

was staying out of everybody’s way and then, just answering questions if there were any to be answered. He didn’t disappear, but he 

was there. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. During the time when Ed was talking to 

De’Andre or to the Parliamentarians about the decision to abort or 

the implications of losing the vote, was there any—do you recall 

any input from either the leadership or leadership staff on that decision? 

Ms. LASKY. No. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Not necessarily this specific vote but sort of in your general 

experience of the last year and a half you’ve been on the floor, in 

terms of sort of supervisory personnel on the floor from the Clerk’s 

Office during a particular vote, what’s your experience there? 

You said that Mr. Sorenson’s job is usually to hand out voting 

cards. Do you usually have sort of other staff or other clerks—front 

office staff there? What’s your experience on that? 

A. Well, generally, it is Mr. Sorenson’s responsibility. If for some 

reason he can’t do that, then either Frances Chiappardi, the Chief 

of Legislative Operations, or Deborah Spriggs, the other Deputy 

Clerk, will come down. There’s always somebody with that book. 

Because it’s also not about—maybe everybody has their voting 

cards—to take those requests and get the voting cards made as 

quickly as possible. 

Sometimes the Clerk will be present. But never are they—and 

Frances Chiappardi, the Chief of Legislative Operations, will be on 

the floor, too. 

But they’re never there interfering with our responsibilities. 

They’re strictly off to the side, usually staying on that back wall 

with a lot of staff, other staff members, watching things happen, 

being there in case something should go wrong so that there’s that 

chain of command to go up. 


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But it’s never a matter—also, a lot of times, I know, because 

Frances is trained as a Tally Clerk—she was a Tally Clerk for several years before she became the chief—in times when we’ve been 

short-staffed, she’ll actually take the tallies. She’ll be in one of the 

Tally Clerk’s roles. 

A. It doesn’t have to be a tally clerk who’s accepting those cards 

and writing the roll call number on it. I’ve done it at the beginning 

of a vote while we’re waiting for everybody to get up because the 

bells have rung. 

But I think the most important thing to say is that nobody’s ever 

up there interfering, micromanaging or affecting our jobs or responsibilities. They’re strictly there in a supervisory—— 

Q. I think that gets to what I was trying to get to. But there usually is some back-up supervisory personnel in case there’s a problem. Is that—— 

A. Correct. Because the voting is the most—is the time when all 

of the Members are on the floor. It’s the time that is most likely 

for something—in my opinion—to go amiss or just for a Member to 

have a question. A lot of times—it’s when we’re the busiest, because the Members like to multitask. They’re not going to go up to 

the floor and ask a question during the middle of a debate. But if 

they were already there voting—whether it’s, ‘‘how do I set up a 

discharge petition?’’ ‘‘How many votes do you think we have left?’’— 

there’s a lot of just organizational opportunities that come up. 

And it helps to have those people there who are familiar with all 

of the operation—job responsibilities of the floor staff to answer 

those questions so that the Tally Clerks aren’t being bothered 

while they’re trying to take the tally. 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Thanks. 

[Whereupon, at 10:42 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(99) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: MARY KEVIN NILAND 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 2:45 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. Hi. Welcome. Thanks for being here this afternoon 

and representing the Select Committee. The Select Committee, as 

you know, has a mandate to investigate the events on August 2nd 

related to Roll Call 814. We’re interested in hearing about the 

votes themselves and anything about the motion to reconsider as 

to what problems went on with the votes and sort of related issues. 

This is a deposition so please speak up, wait until we finish our 

questions before you answer. It will be easier that way. Sort of 

head-nodding doesn’t get translated on the record, so just say yes 

or no. 

Again, so thanks for being here. We will ask you to start by describing your position, what you do in the House and your experience, and we’ll move into what you know about that day. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So if you can just sort of start and kind of tell us what your 

job is, how long you’ve been here, those kinds of issues. 

A. Okay. My name is Kevie Niland. I am the Reading Clerk for 

the House of Representatives. I’ve been in the position since September 13, 1999. So prior to that I worked for the Clerk of the 

House and in the capacity of clerks to the reporters in the Office 

of Official Reporters. And prior to that I served as an Administrative Assistant to the Clerk of the House, Donn Anderson. 


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Prior to that I worked for a Member of Congress by the name 

of Melvin Price from Illinois. And prior to that I worked for a Member of Congress by the name of Clarence Miller from Ohio. 

As Reading Clerk of the House—there’s two of us, and our duties 

are the same. There’s a minority and majority clerk. I’m responsible for transmitting messages to the Senate, as well as building 

the bill. As amendments are added, I have the engrossing copy at 

the desk, the only copy. And as amendments are passed, I add 

those amendments to the bill. And I’m also the official keeper of 

the legislative papers. And I also have to be able to recognize and 

identify all 435 Members of the House. I think that covers my duties—and other duties, as assigned. 

Q. Maybe you said it, but you also announce vote changes from 

the well? 

A. Okay. During procedure, then, I am called upon, when a bill 

is first brought up on the floor, then I master report the title, 

which I do, I report the title. I report any and all motions that are 

offered also, as well as any motions to recommit or any privileged 

resolutions. All that is read out loud to the body. 

During a vote, when it is—when we’re in the voting process, then 

I usually have to re-designate the title of a bill or the amendment 

that’s up for consideration. Then I have to re-designate that 

amendment and who the sponsor of the amendment is. Then at 

that point, for the Reading Clerk, what we do during the voting 

procedure is in our daily workbook, what we keep up at the desk, 

we log in the start time of the vote and the end time of the vote. 

That’s also marked on the back of amendments, start and end time 

of a vote, as well as the vote tally. I know I submitted papers, and 

the committee should have those papers. 

And then as a vote starts to wind down and Members are milling 

around, usually, in the well, which is typical standard procedure, 

then—you know, you can tell that Members are going to change 

their votes, which often happens all the time. 

Then the vote usually closes and then Members come in. And my 

job then is to stand up, because I have line of sight from where I’m 

standing and I can call—I’ll say to the Tally Clerk, Hold it, there’s 

somebody coming. And at that point I’ll say the Member’s name. 

I’ve been told that you can never hear me because it’s so noisy because of all the members talking. But I know that I said the Member’s name. And then if they submit a card to change or vote, because they’ve lost their vote card or misplaced it, then I call the 

vote. 

For example, Mr. Miller, George Miller of California, Mr. George 

Miller of California votes ‘‘aye.’’ Or if he should change his vote, 

then it’s Mr. George Miller of California, off ‘‘aye,’’ on ‘‘no’’ for Mr. 

George Miller of California. 

So when the vote closes, then I make note, again, of the closing 

time from the clock straight ahead in the well—I mean on the 

floor—and write it in our daily log bill. And if the amendment 

passes or the bill passes, I stamp it accordingly, ‘‘passed’’ and I initial it. Or if lost, then I stamp it ‘‘lost’’ and initial it. 

From that point, then—I mean, that’s standard operating procedure for a Reading Clerk as far as votes are concerned. When we 

first open a series of votes, then it’s also my responsibility to take 


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the vote from whoever is presiding in the chair as Chairman or 

Speaker PT. And then I take the vote card from the Speaker and 

write the tally number on the top left-hand corner of the vote 

cards—I’m sure you’ve seen them, the green or orange—green or 

yellow—green or red or faded red cards—and then turn it over to 

the Tally Clerk where he can then process into the voting system. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. When a member fills out either a voting card or a change card 

in the well, passes it, it gets handed to the standing Tally 

Clerk—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. Who then hands it to the seated Tally Clerk—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. To enter it into the—at that point do you wait 

for the seated Tally Clerk to actually enter that into EVS before 

you read it, or is that going on contemporaneously? 

A. No. I read it out, call out his name first, and as I’m calling 

the name out, then the seated Tally Clerk is typing it in. And then 

I wait for him to make the changes and I call the changes from the 

screen. 

Q. Okay. So it’s pretty much contemporaneous with the seated 

Tally Clerk? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Why don’t you walk us through August 2, 814 in particular? 

A. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Before we do that, you were announcing this? 

A. Yes. 

Q. You’re doing this on your own, or are you doing it at anyone’s 

direction? 

A. Oh, no, I’m doing it on my own. As I see the Members come 

in the well, I alert the tally clerks. 

Q. Maybe you said this, and I apologize. 

A. That’s okay. 

Q. You announce it to the Tally Clerk. The Member writes out 

the card and hands it to the standing clerk; is that right? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And he gives it to the seated clerk, right? 

A. Correct. 

Q. So you never touch the card? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. You just see the process going on—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. And you’re alerting the seated clerk to the fact 

that cards are going to be coming for these people, so they can like 

go to that part of the screen and find them to enter it; is that what 

it is? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And, again, you do it on your own? 

A. Right. 

Q. Nobody is telling you faster, slower, not now, later? 


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A. Right. That’s correct. And actually when it’s really, really busy 

and there’s a line of cards to be—or stack of cards to be entered 

into the system, then the seated Tally Clerk will tell me, okay, 

we’ve got a bunch here, we’ll just pace ourselves so we don’t mess 

up—because that can happen. I mean, I can look at the screen and 

I will say, instead of Mr. George Miller I may say Mr. Gary Miller, 

and realize, you know, wrong card. Oops. 

Q. I’m confused about this. There is a change sheet, right? 

A. There is. 

Q. And based on what you’ve said, do you read off that sheet? 

A. I do read off the sheet. 

Q. And who keeps the sheet? 

A. Then it’s turned over to the clerks of the Official Reporters. 

Q. Who writes the names down on the sheet? 

A. The Tally Clerk does as the changes are made. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Which Tally Clerk? 

A. The seated Tally Clerk. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Just on that process then, but the change sheet 

is only read in the beginning? 

Ms. NILAND. In the beginning, that’s correct. 

Ms. McCARTIN. And then it reverts to the process you were explaining before. 

Ms. NILAND. Right. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Okay. So that’s important. So there’s not—you don’t read from 

a sheet throughout the entire change process? 

A. Right. 

Q. It’s only the initial—— 

A. The initial change, right. 

Q. I understand now. Thank you. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. August 2nd? 

A. August 2nd. The defense appropriations bill, right? 

Q. Ag. 

A. Ag, okay, Ag. Thank you. It’s been 6 months. A series of votes 

on amendments. And unanimous consent was agreed upon to make 

the votes 2 minutes. And I don’t remember how many votes there 

were. I don’t know if we started, what, at 8—but roll call vote number 810, or 809 and then all the way up to 814, 15, 16, I don’t remember. It was just a series of 2-minute votes. I can’t recall anything going wrong until roll call vote 814. It was on a motion to 

recommit. And that was a—I can’t remember if that was a 15- 

minute vote or at that point a 5. No, it was a 15, followed by a 5, 

which is standard for appropriations bills in final passage. 

At that point it started out normal, normal as can be for late at 

night. And I just, I can remember Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle 

as the vote was closing or getting close to being closed out, telling— 

I think it was Mr. McNulty—the Chair, to close the vote. And I remember I was still calling changes, because there were a few MemVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00108 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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bers that were still hanging out in the well being arm-twisted, 

which is something that we usually see. And I’m still calling 

changes, and the next thing I know I hear Mr. McNulty giving the 

vote tally. 

Q. What exactly did Mr. Hoyer say to Mr. McNulty? 

A. I don’t remember—or close the vote, and to get the vote closed 

I heard him say as he was coming down the aisle to close the vote. 

Q. Do you know how many times he said that? 

A. I don’t recall. 

Q. Was it clear that there were Members in the well still filling 

out voting cards at that point? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And you were up at the podium actually reading changes that 

were being put into the—— 

A. Calling changes at that point. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. When you were calling the changes during the time when Mr. 

McNulty announced the vote, right, you were still calling them and 

he announced it, the votes that you were calling had been entered; 

is that correct? 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. I mean under that process, would the seated clerk have already entered them prior to the time that you would announce it? 

A. Would the seated—the Tally Clerk have entered it prior to the 

time? Yes, yes. 

Q. Were you aware—I mean you had a list in front of you, or at 

least you knew who you were trying to call at that point? 

A. Right. 

Q. Were there other cards that hadn’t been entered? 

A. I don’t recall. 

Q. When you were calling those last votes, were there people in 

the well? 

A. Members, yes. 

Q. And you believe that they were there to change their vote or 

to vote the first time? 

A. Well, usually when a Member—it’s hard to say, because for 

the most part when a Member is standing there in the well talking 

to another Member and they’re holding a card in their hand and 

they’re turning the card because they want to make a change, and 

they’re fingering the card because they can’t decide what they want 

to do, usually that is the signal—it’s hard to say, because sometimes they’re going to make a change, or other times they’ll just 

turn and walk away and say forget it. 

Q. But you saw some of that while you were there—I mean at 

that point in time? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Is part of the typical process as the well cards are being entered by the seated Tally Clerk and you’re reading the changes, at 

what point in that process does the standing Tally Clerk fill out the 

tally slip to pass to the Parliamentarian to pass to the Chair? 


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A. It’s standard operating procedure to hear—or not standard operating procedure, but what has happened since this Congress is 

that there’s a staff person on the majority side that will signal to 

close out the vote. And then once we’re finishing, the tally clerks 

are finishing processing what they have to process, then that 

standing Tally Clerk—and no other Members are coming up to vote 

or change their votes—then the standing Tally Clerk will fill out 

the slip and hand it over to the Parliamentarian. 

Q. Will the standing clerk typically wait for you to finish reading 

before he fills out the slip? 

A. Oh, yes, yes. 

Q. In this case, did you see Kevin Hanrahan, the standing Tally 

Clerk, fill out that slip? 

A. I don’t remember. 

Q. Do you know, as you sit here today, whether a tally slip, tally 

sheet, was ever filled out for roll call 814? 

A. I don’t remember. 

Q. There’s some—as part of this production from the Clerk’s Office there’s some notes, and some of those are an interview you did 

with Russ Gore. And there’s a notation, quote, ‘‘Wait, I’m still making changes,’’ end quote. No one heard. Do you know what that refers to? 

A. I believe I said to the seated Tally Clerk, which was De’Andre 

at the time, I said, you know, wait, I’m still making changes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Changes to what? 

A. There were changes still—changes to—still calling changes. 

Q. Oh, you were still calling changes, okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. And at that time that’s when the Chair had called the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. What did you do at that point? Did you look to Mr. Sullivan 

or look to the tally clerks to let them know that changes were still 

being made? 

A. No. I believe I may have turned to the Parliamentarians just 

to look to see what was going on. I would have to look at the tape 

again, because I haven’t seen it and I can’t remember. 

Q. Had you ever experienced in your years as a Reading Clerk, 

had something similar happen where you were still in the process 

of making changes when a vote got called? 

A. No. 

Q. Have you ever seen a vote get called without a tally slip being 

passed from the standing Tally Clerk to the Parliamentarian to the 

Chair? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you have any thoughts as to why that occurred in 814? 

A. Yeah, I have plenty of thoughts. I guess the majority wasn’t 

too happy with the outcome of the vote. 

Q. And what are you basing that on? 

A. Because this has never happened before. 

Q. Well, can you describe Mr. Hoyer’s either demeanor or tone 

of voice when he was telling the Chair to close the vote? 


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A. Describe his voice or his demeanor? Urged it to close the vote 

and anxious to get it closed. 

Q. Did you ever hear any conversations between Mr. Hoyer and 

Mr. Sullivan after the vote—after the Chair attempted to close the 

vote at 214 to 214 and there are still cards being counted? Was 

there a conversation between Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Hoyer? 

A. Not that I heard. 

Q. So after the initial attempt to close the vote at 214, De’Andre 

Anderson is still processing well cards; is that correct? 

A. Well, wait a minute. He’s still processing well cards? 

Q. Well, putting them into the EVS? 

A. Yeah, I think—I can’t—I don’t recall so I would have to look 

at the tape. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you not recall after the first time that you were interrupted by Mr. McNulty calling the 214–214, do you not recall calling other votes after that? 

A. Honestly I don’t. It’s 6 months ago. I’ve been through a lot. 

Q. Let me ask that maybe a different way. Maybe you don’t remember calling other votes but—and maybe you answered Mr. 

Snowdon—you don’t remember whether other votes were cast from 

the well, either votes or changes subsequent to the calling of 214– 

214? 

A. Say it again? 

Q. After Mr. McNulty called 214–214—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Are you aware that other votes were entered into 

the EVS? 

A. I’m not aware. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me just go back to your statement. You’re in the process 

of reading out changes that are being made. And you said, ‘‘Wait, 

I’m still making changes,’’ which suggests to me—and please correct me if I’m wrong—that you weren’t at your last change at the 

time to 214? 

A. Right. 

Q. So there were other changes—— 

A. I—— 

Q. I’m sorry. So the court reporter doesn’t, you know, beat me up 

when we’re talking over each other—there were other changes that 

needed to be made that you were going to have a problem making, 

since the Chair had just closed the vote; is that accurate? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And do you have a rough idea as to whether that was one 

other vote you needed to call or make the change, or whether it 

was three or half a dozen? Do you have any recollection of that? 

A. Maybe—I can remember two Members standing in the well 

talking and holding the card and turning them and fingering them 

and trying to decide what to do. 

Q. Do you remember which Members those were? 

A. Mario Diaz-Balart and Lincoln Diaz-Balart. 


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Q. How about Mr. Space, do you remember Mr. Space being in 

the well? 

A. No. 

Q. Would you be willing to—we can set this up to review the tape 

at a later time? 

A. Sure. 

Q. Because that might help sort of—because I very definitely remember you after the—when it was called, you sort of marching 

ahead and calling out names like you were going to get these 

names read. Do you remember that at all? 

A. Yeah. Now that you’re saying that, I’m sure I probably did. 

Q. You sort of stand up and you start saying these names even 

after it’s been called. That’s sort of the thing I remember the most 

about watching the tape. So it might be useful for, I don’t know 

how many people we’ve interviewed that were on the floor a lot, 

but you are fairly—so maybe we can do that after, whenever we 

get the tape, and set it up and you can watch it. And if it sort of 

jogs your memory any more about what happened that night, that 

might be helpful. 

A. Okay. That’s fine. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. There came a point where Mr. Anderson was having trouble, 

that the next—I mean, to go on to the motion to reconsider, and 

he had trouble getting the vote down. Do you recall that that 

evening? 

A. Vaguely, yes. 

Q. Did you have any discussions with him about it? 

A. No. 

Q. No? 

A. No. They have enough to focus on. They don’t need the Reading Clerk bothering them. 

Q. So you’re standing, I mean just physically you’re right next to 

him? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. You’re at the podium and he’s sitting right there. Did you ever 

hear any conversations he may have had with Ed Sorensen about 

either bringing down 814 or aborting that vote? 

A. No. I’m sure at that point it’s after 814, right? Then I’m probably sitting down trying to record the time the vote closed and 

write down the tally and just sit down to duck to get out of the 

way. 

Mr. HALPERN. One quick thing. Just to go back a little bit. When 

you were describing the process to close a vote and indicating the 

majority staff member would indicate to the Chair to start closing 

the vote, you prefaced it by saying either in this Congress or since 

the beginning of this Congress. Is that for any particular reason? 

Was it because the process came from the 109th or the 110th? 

Ms. NILAND. No. It’s still the same. 

Mr. HALPERN. It’s still the same. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. SPULAK. Let me ask this to the group. I mean, certainly 

you’re privy to review the tape if you would like. But if we can refresh your memory a little bit, at least about what was on there, 

not about what you were thinking was on there, because that’s 


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what you will see when you see the tape, is what we will tell you 

happened. Perhaps that will help you? 

Ms. NILAND. Sure. Yeah, I would like to. 

Mr. SPULAK. Mark, if you want to do that, rather than having 

to bring her back after she reviews the tape. I mean, unless you 

think it’s critical that she—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Well, I just think it’s helpful because she was 

there. The tape is, what, 15 minutes long. I mean, she can watch 

it in her office. I don’t want to make it more of a production. I just 

think it might jog your memory more in terms of what was happening on the floor. Are you amenable to doing that? 

Ms. NILAND. Sure, I’ll watch the tape. 

Mr. SPULAK. We might have a copy here and we might do it right 

now if that’s okay. 

Ms. NILAND. Okay. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I just want to go back over this. So you remember when it’s 

getting close, right, Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And what do you remember him saying? 

A. Close the vote, close the vote. 

Q. Close the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And it was directed to whom? 

A. To the Chair. 

Q. To the Chair. And then how many times do you remember 

him saying that? 

A. I don’t remember how many times he said that. I couldn’t tell 

you. Once, twice, three times. 

Q. Okay. And what do you recall happening? 

A. Mr. McNulty hitting the gavel and saying, ‘‘On this vote,’’ and 

then announcing the vote tally. I mean that’s what I recall hearing. 

Q. Okay. And any other conversations up on the rostrum that 

you were hearing at the time? You know, I think we asked about 

Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Hoyer. You don’t remember hearing that 

part? 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Q. Or the Mr. Sorensen/Anderson conversation? 

A. No. 

Q. No other conversations about what was going on at that 

point? 

A. No. I remember Mr. Sorensen just looking over, and I remember Ed looking over De’Andre’s shoulder, but I don’t recall any conversations that they had. I didn’t hear any. You’ve got to remember 

it’s very loud in there at that time of night. Especially the night 

before they’re trying to—the night they’re trying to get away. And 

it was, what, 10:00, after 10:00 or 10:30. Nothing good happens on 

the floor after 7:00. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me ask you this. When a vote is going on, if you’re standing at that podium, center stage, is there anything that you’re 

doing up there other than announcing vote changes, reading vote 


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changes? Is there any other reason why you would be standing up 

there? 

A. Just to see what Members come in. 

Q. Okay. So you—— 

A. To be able to see who’s coming in the door and who’s running 

towards the well to make a vote, to either cast a vote or to make 

a change. And then with 2-minute votes it’s easier. During the 

course of that night, I’m sure I probably was standing during the 

whole vote series because it’s just easier to keep the stack of 

amendments up there at the rostrum, write the tally, write the 

closing time, stamp it, flip it over and then be ready to designate 

the next amendment, so I just stay standing. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Are we waiting to play the tape? 

Mr. SPULAK. We’re just trying to see if we can show it on something here. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. In terms of closing the vote, on a scale of 1 to 10 how unusual 

is it in the way it was closed here in terms of what you’ve seen? 

It seems like you’ve been in the House for a long time. I mean how 

unusual was it to close it down when Members are still in the well 

and that you were still processing cards? 

A. On a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the most unusual? 

Q. Yes. 

A. Ten. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Is it not more usual in circumstances where there’s sort of 

contested votes that votes are kept open longer, that there’s an attempt to keep votes open longer as opposed to shorter? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And that’s been your experience during the whole time you’ve 

been at the House? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you remember any particularly, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 

in terms of holding a vote open? 

A. Well, I would say, a vote at the 109th Congress on—the health 

care bill? No. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. The Medicare bill. 

Ms. NILAND. Yeah, on that bill. That was off the chart. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I’m just curious. Was there direction from the then-leadership 

to keep it open? 

A. Now, I wasn’t—at one point during the course of the night I 

had rotated off and the other Reading Clerk was up there, who is 

now retired. So I really don’t recall. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. But is it usual for the majority leadership to try to dictate 

when a vote is closed down? 

A. After the minimum time? 

Q. After the minimum time. 


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A. Then to dictate? 

Q. Well, just to tell the Chair to close the vote, whether it was 

at the end of 3 hours or at the end of 18 minutes? 

A. That’s usually—that’s normal yes. 

Q. For the majority leadership? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. But generally not with Members in the well when they’re trying to change their vote? 

A. You know, a couple of weeks—well, was it last week, the week 

before last, whenever we were in, it was close to one of the first 

days back, I remember a Member being—two Members, actually, 

being closed out of a vote. It was on a suspension bill. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I don’t—I can’t remember the one Member, but I can remember the second one. And he said—he gave the Chair a hard time: 

‘‘I was in the well, I was in the well.’’ But he had already closed 

the vote. A lot of it is perception, too, of a Member thinking that 

they’re in the well and they’ve got—— 

Q. Right. 

A. So if they’re there in the well, they think that—this Member 

thought he was going to be recognized. He rushed in first and then 

kind of slowed down. 

Q. But institutionally, that’s generally controlled by the fact that 

there’s a tally slip that’s handed up to the Speaker to say here it 

is, right? 

A. Right. 

Q. So if that’s not—so in terms of perception or some sort of 

checkpoint, the checkpoint has always been that there’s a tally slip 

that’s handed up? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Except on that point—and I’ll ask this as a question—in that 

particular case it was a suspension. But in that case of a suspension, the Chair called it—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. The Chair called the vote, and he was handed—— 

A. Oh, yes. 

Q. [continuing]. I presume he was handed a tally slip? 

A. Oh, yeah, right. 

Q. It’s not that the tally slip cut off the vote, it’s that the Chair 

called the vote—— 

A. Called it. 

Q. [continuing]. And then the tally slip was given? But I ask on 

that particular vote if you can remember whether those two votes 

would have made a difference in the outcome of that—of the legislation? 

A. No. It was the naming of a post office or something, a courthouse or something. 

Q. They just wanted to be recorded? 


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A. Yes. 

[Recess.] 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Now that you’ve had an opportunity to watch the videotape 

of the events relating to roll call 814, we have some more questions 

that we would like to ask you. Andrew or Mark, do you—— 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Can I start? And it’s actually more a general question which 

I think will set us up for where we’re going. Just in general is it 

a—this is based on some of the other discussions we’ve had—is it 

a fair characterization to say that when the majority signals to the 

Chair that it’s time to close the vote, that’s sort of the signal to you 

and the tally clerks to start the process of closing that down? 

A. It’s more of a signal to the Chair. Because if we’re still calling 

votes or if the tally clerks are still entering, we’re going to still 

keep on doing that. I mean finishing what we’re—finishing what 

we are doing. 

Q. Is the Chair then looking to you all—and by ‘‘you’’ I mean the 

group of you—for some cue or indication that it—— 

A. If it’s an experienced Member in the chair, usually they do, 

they’ll look. And they know to wait until they see the slip. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So after watching the tape, are you refreshed in any more 

specificity as to the events that night? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Will you relate that to us? 

A. As far as Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle and I’m still calling votes? 

Q. Yes. 

A. And I’m just proceeding as I normally would, except there towards the end with Mr. Boehner’s vote, I didn’t call his vote because I wasn’t sure what was going on at that point. And I was 

waiting to hear from the Parliamentarian or higher authority to 

finish out. 

Q. Did you hear on the tape, I think, Mr. Anderson asks whether 

he should record Mr. Boehner’s vote—Mr. Boehner’s and Mr. Hoyer’s vote? Do you remember that? He asked Mr. Sullivan that? 

A. I think he did—I heard, yes, something about recording it. I 

didn’t catch it all. 

Q. And I’m not trying to just go off the tape to jog your memory. 

Do you remember that—because you were looking at them—but 

when they’re having that conversation, it’s obviously 6 months ago, 

so I understand that. But do you remember that at all in terms 

of—you know, I was going to ask you—that was the word I wrote 

down, ‘‘Boehner.’’ Mr. Boehner’s vote wasn’t recorded, right? 

A. Right. 

Q. So do you remember why it wasn’t recorded? 

A. No. I’m guessing at that point, because there was just so much 

confusion going on, I was waiting for somebody to cue me. Because 

it was very chaotic and very, extremely—not nerve wracking, but 


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just very confusing. And at that point I just thought, well, Mr. 

McNulty had called the vote, but yet there was still a Member in 

the well. And I didn’t call them just because I was waiting for a 

cue from a higher authority. 

Q. My understanding, this at the beginning I think when we 

were, maybe it’s from the hearings that the committee had, sort of 

when is the end of a vote, you know? There may be 20 different 

answers to that, right? But is it when somebody calls the vote, the 

number, announces it—I think I read somewhere where it said a 

motion is laid upon the table, and there’s some discussion about 

whether you need to have a period, if you will, at the end of ‘‘table,’’ 

so it’s an end of a sentence, okay. And so Mr. McNulty actually 

says that, right, the second time—— 

A. The second time. 

Q. [continuing]. Laid upon the table. And then after that you actually continue reading votes, okay. That second time when you 

were watching—so when do I get up? And then you stood up and, 

even after he did that, you were reading votes. Do you recall—— 

A. Because I believe the cards were there, the vote cards were 

there on the desk where the Tally Clerk was making the changes. 

Q. Okay. 

A. So if he’s—because he was slow at making the changes. 

Q. I’m sorry, go ahead, George. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. I think what he says is that on this the ayes are 

214, the nays are 214, the motion is not agreed to, I don’t think 

he gets to the point of laying the motion to reconsider on the table 

in that second announcement. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. Is not agreed to; is that right? 

Mr. CRAWFORD. That’s right. He doesn’t say motion for reconsideration. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. If he had said that, would that be a signal to you to stop reading? 

A. Rephrase that again? 

Q. If he says it’s 214–214, the motion is not agreed to, and it’s 

laid upon the table? 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Motion to reconsider. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Right. If he had said that and you still had well cards—— 

A. If the Tally Clerk was still processing well cards, I would have 

turned then to the Parliamentarian. And I know that the Tally 

Clerks would have turned, too, and said we’re still processing. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And until—at that point, until the boards went down, in your 

mind the vote is still on; is that right, technically? 

A. In my mind? 

Q. Yes. 

A. At that point I was very confused, as the next person, as to 

whether or not, but—— 


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Q. But, no, I’m saying normally. Because here the boards never 

went down, which was the reason for the aborting? 

A. Right. Okay. 

Q. I’m saying in the situation you hear the Chair saying that and 

you’re still calling some, you’re next to the seated clerk. Would you 

continue because as far as you were concerned the vote was still 

open until the lights came up and the boards went down? 

A. Right. Yes, I would—that’s normal to assume that, that the 

vote—I’m still calling changes or calling votes. And then the slip 

would have been handed over and a vote would have been announced and the motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. 

Q. I want to go back, now that you watched it, to a question that 

we asked you earlier. From the time that Mr. McNulty called at 

214–214, votes continued to be cast in the well? 

A. Processed. 

Q. Processed and counted? 

A. Right. 

Q. I’m asking you that. 

A. Yes, because I’m still calling them. 

Q. Right. 

A. So there are obviously some cards there that had to have been 

processed. 

Q. And of all the votes, of all the cards that were handed in that 

night, the only one that you didn’t call and perhaps wasn’t counted 

was Mr. Boehner’s? 

A. From the tape, yes, that’s correct. 

Mr. SPULAK. I have nothing else. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. One of our responsibilities is for the Select Committee to 

make recommendations so that this sort of thing, this confusion, 

doesn’t happen again. So given your long experience, you know, 

working on the rostrum, do you have any recommendations for us 

as to how to sort of prevent that from happening again? 

A. Let the staff at the rostrum do their job and don’t let the 

Members interfere with what’s going on. 

Q. Okay. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Did any Member try to stop you from doing your job during 

this vote? 

A. Not directly, no. 

Q. So nobody approached you and said, Don’t read these 

changes? 

A. Right. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Can you elaborate on that? When you say don’t let the Members interfere, can you give me a little more explanation to that? 

Do you mean leadership? Are you talking about individual Members? 

A. Leadership and individual Members. I mean we’re staff and 

we know what we’re supposed to do up there at the rostrum and 


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we take our job seriously. So, you know, it’s our retirement, it’s our 

livelihoods. And I think everybody up at the rostrum is very serious about their jobs. And just for Members that don’t really get a— 

they only get a crash course when they come in as new Members, 

it just seemed like there was more interference from the Members, 

and it was not having anything to do with staff making mistakes. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Can I just clarify? The pressure was Member-to-Member pressure, it wasn’t Members on the Clerk’s staff? 

A. Correct. Or Member to Parliamentarian. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. When you say Member to Member, it was Member to Chair? 

A. Right, that too. Mr. Hoyer and Mr. McNulty. 

Q. Based upon your recollection from that night and based upon 

what you saw on the tape—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Well, I’m sorry, but what about the interactions with Mr. Sullivan? He’s not a Member, right? He’s staff; Mr. Sullivan is a Parliamentarian? 

A. He’s a Parliamentarian. 

Q. Right. So he’s not a Member, so it’s not Member to Member? 

Mr. CRAWFORD. I was trying to make the distinction—I made the 

distinction between Members of the Clerk’s staff. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Oh, I’m sorry. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. The actual conduct of the vote and the processing of the roll cards. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Based upon your recollection and then what you saw on the 

tape, you’ve got a lot of experience, where do you think things got 

off track that night for that vote? 

A. I don’t know, I honestly don’t know. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Would you say that the initial attempt by the Chair to announce the vote at 214–214 created a lot of the confusion? Is that 

a fair assessment? 

A. No. 

Q. And why, if you can elaborate a little bit on that? 

A. Again, this was the last bill that was up for consideration before we adjourned for the August recess. And it was late at night. 

And there was a push. And at one point there were how many 

amendments—maybe we had 30, 40-some. And then a typical universe is done, and then we’re down to just a handful of amendments. And suddenly you know what was really important suddenly now is just a few amendments and the push to get out before 

the recess. 

So generally I think bills that are considered right before we adjourn, there’s always—there seems to be problems—or not probVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00119 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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lems but just, yeah, problems. It’s just not—the system isn’t—not 

a whole lot is taken into consideration to the time that’s needed to 

complete a new appropriations bill. And taking up a bill before the 

break, right before we go out, it can be rushed. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You handled a bunch of amendments and a bunch of votes 

that day prior to 814? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. And in each of those cases the vote went off without a hitch; 

isn’t that right? 

A. The series of 2-minute votes prior to 814? Yes. 

Q. And what is your sort of understanding of what the purpose 

of the standing Tally Clerk passing the tally sheet to the Parliamentarian to the Chair, what purpose does that action serve? 

A. What purpose? To notify, to let the Chair know what the end 

result of the vote is. 

Q. Doesn’t it also ensure—and I don’t want to put words in your 

mouth—but doesn’t it also ensure that there has been an opportunity for all of the well votes to be processed and put in the system before the Chair calls the vote? 

A. The slip is the end result of the tally of the vote. 

Q. So would it be fair to say that one of the places where this 

got off track on the evening of August 2nd was that there was no 

tally slip passed from the standing Tally Clerk to the Parliamentarian to the Chair? 

A. Ask your question again? 

Q. Wouldn’t it be fair to say that one of the places that vote 814 

got off track that evening was that there was no tally slip passed 

from the standing Tally Clerk to the Parliamentarian to the Chair? 

A. That’s fair to say, yes. 

Q. Why do you think—do you have an opinion as to why the 

standing Tally Clerk didn’t create a tally sheet that night for 814? 

A. Because I think he was just as—no, I can’t speak for him. I 

don’t know. 

Q. Do you think he was given an opportunity to create a tally 

sheet before the Chair closed the vote? 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. In your opinion, did Mr. Hoyer directing the Chair to close the 

vote possibly influence the lack of a tally sheet for roll call 814? 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. Do you have an educated guess? 

A. No. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Considering everything that you’ve reviewed and we’ve talked 

about, as far as you know is there anyone—was there any Member 

that night who wanted to vote who wasn’t ultimately given an opportunity to do so? 

A. I don’t recall that—every Member that voted, as far as I can 

recall, voted. Nobody was shut out. 

Q. And Members were accurately recorded? I mean, the changes 

and everything were sort of accurately reported so that every MemVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00120 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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ber who intended to vote a certain way, that was reflected in the 

outcome? 

A. Well, now looking at the tape, because I’m not sure if Mr. 

Boehner’s vote got—— 

Q. With the exception of Mr. Boehner. 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. In your mind would it be fair to characterize Mr. McNulty’s 

214–214 call as premature and not the final call? 

A. Yes. 

Q. The final call being 212 to 216? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And why do you think he called it at 214–214? 

A. Because Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle, close the vote, close 

the vote. 

Mr. SNOWDON. I don’t have anything. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I don’t want to—that was the case. You say that’s what he did 

to close the vote. But in fact he didn’t close the vote; isn’t that 

true? Isn’t that what we talked about, the fact that 214–214—— 

A. Ended up. 

Q. [continuing]. Changed because other—and in fact every Member was given a chance to vote and changed their vote? 

A. Right. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So it was Mr. Hoyer’s intention to close the vote at that moment, based on his conduct of coming down the aisle; is that your 

opinion? 

A. Yes, that’s my opinion. 

Q. And that was Mr. McNulty’s intention when he called it prematurely, was to close it at the point he announced it 214–214? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And then he recognized his error and had to read a sheet that 

was prepared by the professional staff as to why he had called it 

prematurely? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you very much. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Thank you. 

Ms. NILAND. You’re welcome. 

[Whereupon, at 4:00 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(117) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: MAX A. SPITZER 

The interview in the above matter was held at 1017 Longworth 

House Office Building, commencing at 2:00 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. Max, thanks for coming here today. You received 

several communications from us, the select committee, in investigating the events related to what I’ll call 814. I’ll ask you some 

questions regarding your involvement in that. We’d ask you to limit 

your comments to the votes themselves, both 814 and the subsequent motion to reconsider. 

It is a deposition, speak up, try to answer questions orally. Head 

nodding doesn’t help, she can’t interpret that. 

Mr. SPITZER. Sure. 

Mr. SPULAK. You have to wait until we finish asking a questions 

before you answer. That way we won’t have to back up. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So now I’ll ask you to tell us who you are, how long you’ve 

been with the House, what your responsibilities are, and then after 

that what you know about those events? 

A. Okay. My name is Max Spitzer. I started in the Parliamentarian’s Office in August of 2006. I’ve been there about a year and a 

half now. I’m the lowest rung in the Parliamentarian ladder and 

so I get a lot of the first reads of bills that come in for referral. 

I haven’t had a whole lot of floor experience, but occasionally I’d 

go out there and manage bills that come on suspension, those are 

fairly routine sorts of things, and generally handle the questions 


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that come into the office on procedural matters, committee procedures, things of that nature. 

Q. So at this point you’re not regularly involved in advising the 

Chair on—— 

A. Not really, just during suspensions, just making sure that 

they recognize the people and, yeah, just generally sort of routine 

things. 

Q. So tell us, if you will, what you know about the events of August 2nd. 

A. I actually preface it by saying that August 2nd was about 2 

days before my wedding and so I was probably thinking more about 

that than anything else at the time. But I went on to the floor during that last vote. 

Q. So you had not been on the floor for those previous votes on 

amendments? 

A. Possibly in and out, but I remember coming out to the floor 

at that late hour just basically saying goodbye to everyone, because 

I was taking Friday off because of the upcoming wedding. So I just 

got stuck out there a bit longer. I’m trying to think. I went out 

there, I remember that there was—I don’t remember too much before the vote, but when the vote happened, there was a lot of people around there, a lot of things going on. 

From what I remember, the majority was very keen to get the 

vote sort of wrapped up and finished up. And a couple times Steny 

Hoyer said to John Sullivan, can we wrap this up? And John was 

saying that there’s still Members in the well submitting ballot 

cards and that you have to wait for all of those to get entered into 

the computer system before we could proceed. 

And after that happened, then there was another instance where 

the votes kept changing as different ballot cards were entered in 

the computer system, refreshing itself. And at one point from what 

I remember of the last sequence of events was that the Chair was 

looking not to John Sullivan, but to Steny Hoyer to close the vote. 

And so the Chair just called the vote at that moment before everyone had—everyone who was in the well had finished sending their 

cards and the Tally Clerks had finished entering them into the system. 

Normally when the vote is completely finalized, one of the Tally 

Clerks will hand up a sheet of paper with the vote numbers up to 

the Parliamentarian, and the Parliamentarian will hand it up to 

the Chair to announce the vote. And from what I remember that 

sequence of events didn’t happen, the Chair called it without getting the numbers from the Tally Clerks. 

And from what I recall, the board, the electronic display board, 

you know, it takes a second for the computer to refresh itself as 

they are entering the numbers and so the Chair called it one way, 

the system refreshed and the vote board said a different result, and 

that’s when pandemonium happened on the floor then. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Where were you physically at that point? While this was going 

on you said you were on the floor. Where were you on the floor? 


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A. Right by the—I guess it is technically the Clerk’s desk or the 

Sergeant at Arms’ desk. The Parliamentarians use that desk and 

the two chairs. I was probably in one of those two chairs. 

Q. Up against the back wall? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Were you sitting down or standing up? Do you know? 

A. I think I was sitting down, but I could have been standing up. 

I don’t remember. 

Q. You said, I think, Mr. Hoyer asked John Sullivan several 

times to wrap things up. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Can you be more specific as to exactly what he was saying, 

how many times he said it, what his demeanor was at the time he 

said it? 

A. He was really anxious to get the vote closed at that point. I 

remember one instance where he said—he was talking to John saying, can we get this thing wrapped up? And John saying, there’s 

still votes in the well and Hoyer seemed to have backed off from 

that. And then the second time was when he had sort of bypassed 

John, he went straight to the Chair and said close this vote, and 

the Chair at that point gaveled it at that point. 

Q. How long after the comment to the Chair was it before the 

Chair gaveled the vote? 

A. Maybe a minute. I really can’t recall how much time passed. 

It was sort of a very chaotic series of events. I can’t remember. He 

was pretty agitated at that point. 

Q. Okay. I’m going to hand you a document to take a look at. I 

think it’s—if I’m correct, it’s the only document that you provided. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Did you conduct a search for all your records? 

A. Yes, this is the only thing that was relevant for this. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Tom, do you want to take a look? It’s—that’s I believe the sum total of—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Do you want to see it? 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Let me see. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do you want to take a look? 

A. Okay. 

Q. I’ll represent to you that the highlighting on there is mine, 

but this is—this was produced to us as is. Can you tell me what 

that document is? 

A. After the vote sequence and all the chaos Ethan Lauer, one 

of the other Parliamentarians, said that I should go back to the office and just write up what I perceived happened just then, because 

everyone was confused as to what exactly happened when things 

had happened and so we just wanted to compare notes. And so 

that’s when I created this document. 

Q. So you created that document? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Did you create it that evening? 

A. Yes. 

Q. I’ll ask you a couple of things about it. 


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The clock goes down—I’ll go through the different points. The 

clock down to zero. Number 2, the vote reaches 214 to 214. Number 

3, Hoyer yells to the Chair to close the vote. What was the—if you 

can remember, what was the time—how much time elapsed between number 2 and number 3, the 214 to 214 and then Mr. Hoyer 

yells to the Chair close the vote? 

A. I really can’t remember. 

Q. When he yelled at the Chair to close the vote, do you remember what words he used? 

A. No, not specifically, just close the vote or something similar. 

Q. And it was specifically directed to the Chair? 

A. Yes, either—either the Chair or the Parliamentarians or possibly the Tally Clerks. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. How many times did he say it, once? 

A. I remember one particular instance where he was saying we 

should close this vote right now, and John saying hold up, we’ve 

got people casting ballots in the well, we have to let them cast their 

ballots. And then after a little while, in keeping with them—yeah, 

on the time, the second time is when the vote again reaches 214 

to 214, number 6 on that list. That’s the second instance. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So you were—did you hear the entirety of the conversation between Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Hoyer at that point? 

A. Not the entirety of the conversation. 

Q. You said but John says—and I’m quoting from number 4 here, 

but John says that there are still Members’ cards that need to be 

processed in the computer and the Chair holds up. Who is John 

Sullivan saying that to? 

A. I think Hoyer at that point. 

Q. Does John Sullivan communicate that to the Chair as well? 

A. I think so, but I don’t recall. 

Q. So how is it—you say the Chair holds up. Unless Mr. Sullivan 

said something to the Chair, how would the Chair know to hold up. 

You have Mr. Hoyer yelling to the Chair to close down the vote. 

Mr. Sullivan says to Mr. Hoyer the vote is still being processed and 

the Chair holds up. How would the Chair know to hold up? 

A. I think the Chair at that point would just be looking at the 

conversation Hoyer and John Sullivan were having at this point, 

and sort of looking for guidance. And John says there is still things 

to be processed, then the Chair recognizes that Hoyer is not telling 

him to close it right at this moment. 

Q. So number 5, the vote changes after cards are processed, new 

Members arrived. Number 6, the vote again reaches 214 to 214. 

Hoyer tells the Chair to call it and the Chair calls it, without any 

paper and without the computer refreshing. 

Can you walk me through that entry? 

A. Sure. Without any paper, it just refers to the slip of paper 

that the Tally Clerks hand up to the Parliamentarian. I don’t think 

the Chair had any paper at that point. Normally the Chair just 

reads whatever is handed up to him. And without the computer refreshing, like I said, it takes some time once the Tally Clerks have 


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entered a ballot card into the system for both the computer that 

they are working on and I guess the screens that reflect that to 

enter that number, and there’s some delay there. I’m not sure. It 

is probably just a number of seconds at that point. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Max, you’re saying this after the fact. I mean, at the time that 

you’re watching this, you had no idea that the computer was about 

to refresh? 

A. Right. 

Q. You couldn’t have known anything was entered in order for 

it to refresh. 

A. Right. I saw the Tally Clerks were entering things into the 

computer, but at that time for all I knew the boards were refreshed, but at the time I did know that it does take a couple of 

seconds, but I didn’t know about the board. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. For number 6, I’m going to assume here that because all of 

these are in one entry that the vote reaches 214, Hoyer tell the 

Chair to call it, the Chair calls it. Because those are a single entry, 

they happened very quickly sequentially, is that accurate? 

A. Probably. I think they were, but I couldn’t really tell you how 

much time had elapsed. It was a very quick sequence of events, so 

pretty much from 1 to 9 it was a pretty quick process. 

Q. Even within 6, those would have happened fairly quickly. Mr. 

Hoyer tells the Chair to call it, it’s 214 to 214,—— 

A. Yeah. 

Q. The Chair, a minute—when you sit in silence for a minute it 

can take a fairly long time. Was it under a minute or over a 

minute? 

A. It was probably pretty quick because otherwise I think there 

would have been more time from John Sullivan saying hey, there’s 

still ballot cards to be entered. I think the same process that happened earlier when John was saying hey, there’s still ballot cards, 

I don’t think there was time for that to happen a second time 

around that Hoyer said to the Chair let’s close it and the Chair 

closed it more or less. 

Q. Do you recall what Mr. Sullivan’s reaction was at that point, 

because the first time around, according to entry number 4, Mr. 

Sullivan had told Mr. Hoyer there’s still votes being processed and 

the process of closing the vote got held up. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. In this particular case, it sounds like it happened the second 

time so quickly—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. That Mr. Sullivan didn’t have a chance to do 

that? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Is that correct? 

A. I don’t remember exactly what his reactions were at that 

point. I don’t have any specific recollections. 

Q. And what was your reaction? 

A. Um. 


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Q. Did you think something was amiss at the time? 

A. I just—I thought it was surprising that no one had—I mean 

the way the vote—the votes usually happen, I had been there occasionally, being that Parliamentarian between the Tally Clerks and 

the Chair and, you know, I get the paper up from there, and I pass 

it on to them. That’s how the vote is done. I was a little surprised 

that that didn’t happen, but other than that, that was just my reaction. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Okay. Go ahead, Tom. 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. When the board did refresh and it reflected 215, 213 I believe—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. What happened then? 

A. All I can remember is that there was a lot of Members yelling 

at that point because they saw that the Chair had called it one way 

and the boards were displaying a different total and a different result. And so there was a lot of yelling and confusion. I think I was 

probably talking with some of the others just trying to figure out 

what exactly had happened. 

Q. Did it become clear at some point that in fact the vote was 

not final at the 214–214 and that it was still open? 

A. Yeah, I think at some point it was clear that there was still 

ballot cards that had been submitted that weren’t in the computer 

system. 

Q. Was there any attempt by the Chair or majority leadership or 

anyone at the podium not to count those cards? 

A. I don’t think so. I think at that point once the Chair called 

it, all the Tally Clerks just sort of froze. They weren’t sure what 

to do at that point since they still had cards, but they didn’t want 

to enter them at that point after the Chair had already called it 

so—— 

Q. They didn’t want to enter them? 

A. I mean, I presume that once they—once they hear the Chair, 

there was a lot of confusion. They heard the Chair call the final 

vote closed and they still had cards there. So I think everyone just 

froze to make sure that they weren’t doing anything else. 

Q. But did they eventually count them? 

A. I don’t know, I’m not sure. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. How long have you worked in the Parliamentarian’s Office? 

A. About a year and a half. 

Q. A year and a half. And have you ever seen anyone from leadership come and direct a Chair to close the vote, you know, when 

Members were still in the well or when Tally Clerks had voting 

cards? 

A. Not generally, I mean there’s—there’s a 15-minute minimum 

that they have and usually that first vote in the sequence can go 

quite a bit longer to let Members get there in time. 

Q. Right. 


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A. But then at that point the Chair looks to the majority side to 

say are we done. 

Q. And who does he usually interact with—who does the Speaker 

pro tem usually look to; is it a leadership staffer or is it a Member? 

Who is directing him generally to say, you know, let’s go? 

A. I would say generally a staffer, people like Catlin O’Neill or 

someone on the majority leader staff. Occasionally the majority 

leader or another Member are there, but usually I think it would 

be a staffer. 

Q. Did it surprise you when you heard Mr. Hoyer saying close 

the vote? 

A. Um, it—I mean, the majority usually looked to the majority 

staffer or a Member to close the vote. So it’s not unusual for him 

to say close the vote. He was very agitated at that point. I think 

it’s clear that he wanted to make sure that the vote was closed at 

a particular point when they had—when they felt that they had the 

majority. 

Q. You mean at 214–214? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Or when it when it was set? 

A. Right. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. From looking at the tape it seems to be a fairly heated exchange between Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Sullivan, did you witness that? 

A. I think, you know, they were both—Hoyer was pretty agitated, 

I think John Sullivan was agitated, but I remember there was 

some quite a few animated discussions before then. I didn’t hear 

all of it, but—— 

Q. At one point—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I’m sorry, but you did hear some of it, though? But—— 

A. Yes. I remember the general thing was saying—Hoyer saying 

we need to close this vote now and John Sullivan saying there are 

still votes that need to be entered in the computer. 

Q. Okay. Well, was he saying that when he was standing next 

to him or was it when he was coming up? 

A. Um, he was—he was coming up and saying that the vote 

needed to be closed, and at some point he got to that first step on 

the rostrum and was talking to John Sullivan. 

Q. Right. Do you remember any more of that part? 

A. Nothing specific, just sort of discussion about when it is proper to close that vote. 

Q. And what was Sullivan saying? 

A. That there are Members still in the well submitting cards and 

that the computer Tally Clerks had cards that had yet to be entered in the system and those needed to be processed before the 

vote could be closed. 

Q. Do you remember Mr. Hoyer’s response? 

A. I don’t remember. I remember John Sullivan convinced him 

that first time around that he should wait until the votes are 

counted. 

Q. Okay. 


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BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. At some point Mr. Sullivan begins writing out a note, writing 

out something. Did you have any input in helping him draft that? 

A. No, I don’t remember that. 

Q. Do you know what he was writing out? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember him writing it? 

A. You know—— 

Q. Standing there sort of writing? 

A. The Parliamentarians are always writing things for the Chair 

to say different points, and so I don’t have any specific recollection 

of that. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. This was all sort of blowing up that night, Mr. Sullivan’s up 

there and I think Ethan Lauer, I believe, comes up? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Are you seated the whole time? Are they coming to you and 

asking you to help with various things as all of this is going on or 

are you just sort of sitting there watching? 

A. Yeah, I was pretty passive at that point. Like I said, I’m the 

most junior Parliamentarian there. I don’t have a whole lot of responsibilities and everything. And like I said, I was really going 

out there to say goodbye to everyone to take off the next day for 

the wedding. So my mind is on other places for that evening, I’m 

sure, but—— 

Q. Okay. At some point a decision was made to abort the vote. 

Did you witness any conversations between Mr. Sullivan and Ed 

Sorensen about aborting the vote? 

A. I remember that there were conversation. I think there was 

some confusion about Ed Sorensen was using terms like abort the 

vote and things about the system, and John was talking to him 

about that and I think they were just trying to figure out what 

should we do at this point given that there are still votes to be 

counted and still things to be entered into the system, and yet the 

vote was already called. I don’t remember any other specifics about 

that conversation other than trying to work out how to proceed now 

that the vote has been sort of suspended in this process in the computers, how exactly it would all work. 

Q. Do you recall who initiated that conversation, and by that, did 

Ed Sorensen go to John Sullivan to begin this discussion or did 

John Sullivan go to Ed Sorensen? 

A. I don’t recall who started that. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember any discussion about if they aborted the 

vote they would lose all the data or the vote would be lost or something like that? 

A. Yeah, there was some—there was some concern about what 

would happen to the data from the vote and—— 


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Q. Do you remember that discussion, I mean more specifically? 

A. No, not more specifically than that, just that they were talking back and forth about that. 

Q. Okay. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. The discussion on aborting the vote, did that take place after 

all the well cards had been processed? 

A. I don’t remember what happened to the vote cards that were 

not processed when the vote was called. 

Q. But you saw the vote go from 215 to 213, crawl down to 212 

to 216 and Kevie making the announcements of people ‘‘off aye,’’ 

‘‘on no’’? 

A. Uh-huh, right. 

Q. So that would seem to lead to the fact that the conclusion that 

there were well cards being processed—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. Throughout that time period? 

A. Which time period? 

Q. From Mr. McNulty calling it at 214–214 with well cards. You 

were saying you didn’t know if those well cards had been processed. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. But the vote was changing subsequent to the 214–214 call, 

which would indicate that the well cards were being processed? 

A. From what I recall, the Chair called it 214–214, the computer 

refreshed to 215–213. At that point I don’t recall whether they 

were still entering votes. My recollection was that they stopped, everyone sort of froze. 

Q. But did the board go from 215–213, 214–214, 213–215 212– 

216; subsequent to the call of 214–214, the computer refreshed to 

215–213? 

A. I don’t recall. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you remember the Reading Clerk calling names of people 

who were switching votes? 

A. After the Chair had called 214–214? I don’t recall that. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. What about before? At the time the Chair called 214–214 was 

the Reading Clerk standing there reading—— 

A. Before that. That’s standard procedure. So I don’t have any 

specific recollection, but I think that’s what she was doing then. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember any discussion about Mr. Boehner or Mr. 

Hoyer’s cards, when they came up to the well and they both had 

their cards; do you remember any of that? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. 


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Mr. SPULAK. Anything else you’d like to say? 

Mr. SPITZER. No. 

Mr. SPULAK. We thank you for being here and appreciate your 

time. Congratulations on your wedding. 

A. Thanks. 

[Whereupon, at 2:30 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: DE’ANDRE ANDERSON 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 2:00 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., WASHINGTON, 

DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Nathanial Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, 

Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. So, De’Andre, thank you for coming here this afternoon. 

As you know, we are here representing the Select Committee to 

Investigate the Voting Irregularities of August 2. And what we 

want to do today is to ask you to talk about what you know about 

the—your involvement in the vote of August 2, Roll Call 814, what 

happened around it, why it was kept open and those types of 

issues; ask you to address the—address the votes themselves, the 

vote on 814, the subsequent motion to reconsider. 

It is not the Select Committee’s creation or those kinds of things. 

Let’s focus on that. 

Maybe Mr. Snowdon already told you it’s a deposition, so we’ll 

just ask you to speak clearly and loudly, respond to questions ‘‘yes’’ 

or ‘‘no,’’ as opposed to head nodding. If you don’t understand a 

question, you can ask us and wait until we finish the question so 

we can get done talking first. 

Anyway—so to begin with, can we ask you to tell us a little bit 

about your involvement in the House, what your position is, what 

your responsibilities are, how long you’ve done it. 

And then, after that, we’ll go and talk specifically about the night 

of the 2nd. 

Mr. ANDERSON. Okay. De’Andre Anderson. And I am an Assistant Tally Clerk. I’ve been an Assistant Tally Clerk since September 


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18, 2006. My responsibilities are operating the electronic voting 

systems, processing committee reports and inputting information 

on FARS to where the public views it on the Clerk’s Web site. And 

that’s pretty much it. 

Mr. SPULAK. But you, as part of your role, you man the EVS 

monitor or terminal on the podium. Is that correct? 

Mr. ANDERSON. That’s right. 

Mr. SPULAK. And that’s why you’re here today, because you were 

manning the terminal on August 2 during Roll Call Vote 814? 

Mr. ANDERSON. That’s correct. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. De’Andre, we heard from Kevin Hanrahan this morning, who’s 

also a Tally Clerk, and he does—is both a Standing Tally Clerk and 

a Seated Tally Clerk. Do you perform both of those functions as 

well? 

A. I do. 

Q. And on August 2, were you doing both of those or were you 

just working as the Seated Clerk on August 2? 

A. On the whole day of August 2, I do not remember if I was the 

Standing Tally Clerk on August 2 or not. But for Roll Call 814, I 

was the Seated Tally Clerk. 

Q. And I said off the record that I wanted you to walk through 

some of the standard procedures that you all used to close a vote. 

I’m going to hand you a document which—take a look at it. Let 

me know if you’ve seen it or a draft of it before. And specifically, 

on the second page, the first full paragraph on the second page, 

there’s a description of the process that the Tally Clerks go through 

to close down a vote. 

And if you haven’t seen that, please feel free to take whatever 

time you need to read it. And I just want to see if you have anything to add, change or—— 

A. Okay. Okay. 

Q. Have you had a chance to take a look at that? 

A. Yes I have. 

Q. Have you had a chance to see this before or is this the first 

time you’ve seen it? 

A. I’ve seen something like this before. I believe Russ showed me 

something like this before. 

Q. Okay. The paragraph you just read walks through five steps, 

which is the standard procedure for closing down a vote and the 

EVS system. Is the substance of that paragraph accurate? 

A. It is, yes. 

Q. Is there anything that’s not accurate in there? 

A. Not that I can tell, offhand. 

Q. Okay. 

Is there anything you could add that you don’t think is properly 

reflected in that paragraph? 

A. During a regular vote, no. This looks like what we go through. 

Q. Let’s just walk through the five steps quickly and what you 

do. Let’s pretend for the purpose of this exercise that you’re a Seated Tally Clerk. 

A. Okay. 


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Q. What you do depending on the various cues from the Chair. 

Let’s start with the first step and walk us through to the end. 

A. Okay. 

Actually, when I’m done inputting the well votes, or when the 

Parliamentarian feels we’re ready to close the vote, I check with 

them and ask, ‘‘Are you ready for me to close the station?’’ 

I close the voting stations, tell the Standing Tally Clerk that I 

have closed the voting stations; he writes out the tally, or she 

writes out the tally; I hit Terminate Vote—— 

Q. You’re kind of going through these pretty quickly. 

So the first one—in order to close out the voting stations, are you 

waiting for a particular command from the Chair before you do 

that? 

A. I’m waiting to get the nod from the Parliamentarian. 

Q. Okay. Does the Chair have to use any magic words at that 

point or not? I mean, it says here, it says for the first, The Seated 

Tally Clerk selects the option on the EVS terminal to close the voting station; this typically occurs when the Chair asks whether any 

Members wish to vote or to change their votes. 

I mean, is that—it’s really—you’re saying it’s the Parliamentarian’s cue that causes to you close the voting stations, as opposed 

to what the Chair is actually saying? 

A. The Parliamentarians, I ask them if they’re ready to close the 

vote, and they give me an indication. But I think the Chair begins 

that process. 

Q. Okay. So you would add probably to this first step—it seems 

like there’s a missing component there, and that’s that the Parliamentarians are involved in that first step because you’re looking, 

for that, to them for direction as to whether to go ahead and close 

the voting stations? 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. And then in the second step, you hit the Terminate 

Vote option? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. And do you do a survey to see if there are Members in the 

well? 

A. I don’t do a survey. 

Q. Who does it? Does someone look around to see if there are 

Members in the well who might be filling out well votes? 

A. Well, it could be a number of people. But, I don’t do a survey. 

Q. Okay. We were told by Mr. Hanrahan this morning that if he 

is the Standing Tally Clerk, he will—before he begins to fill out a 

tally sheet, he will wait for instructions with—without exception, 

will wait for instructions from the Seated Tally Clerk for him to go 

ahead and start to prepare the tally slip. 

A. Absolutely. 

Q. Okay. Where does that action fit in on this—on this sequence 

of events? At what point on these five steps will you tell the Standing Tally Clerk to go ahead and prepare the tally slip? 

A. I tell him that I’m closed. And that’s when I’ve gotten my information beforehand from the Parliamentarian that we’re ready to 

close the vote. 

Q. Okay. So the Parliamentarian tells you to go ahead and close 

them? 


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A. Right. 

Q. You close them. And then at that point you tell the Standing 

Tally Clerk, We’re closed? 

A. Right. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Do you instruct him to go ahead and fill out the slip? 

A. No. Because saying I’m closed is the signal for the Standing 

Tally Clerk to fill out the slip. 

Q. Okay. So he fills out the slip. At that time have you gone to 

the third command, which is to make the vote final? 

A. Once he is handing the slip to the Parliamentarian, at that 

time I go to the third and select Final. 

Q. Okay. You were pretty clear in your—do you remember writing a memo? 

A. I do. 

Q. And you spent a fair amount of time making the point that 

there was a big distinction between the Final entry for making the 

vote final on the EVS system, as opposed to the Final showing up 

on the display? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. Okay. So why don’t you explain that for the record what you 

meant by that distinction. 

A. Okay. Final is the third step in our process where it doesn’t 

show up on the board. But it takes us to the next screen so that 

we could see the tally of that vote. 

Q. On your screen? 

A. On our screen—so that when the Chair is reading the tally, 

we verify that what he’s reading matches what we have in our 

screen. 

Q. Okay. And then at that point you’re at the fourth step, which 

is to release the boards? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. And then the fifth step is to confirm the release of the boards, 

in which case everything comes down? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Okay. 

Does this protocol on here occur in every vote that you’ve been 

involved in? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And have you ever been involved in a vote where a tally—a 

tally sheet was not prepared by the Standing Tally Clerk passed 

to the Parliamentarian and then passed to the Chair? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. 

Let’s go to August 2, and why don’t you just tell us sort of in 

your own words—obviously, we’re interested in 814. 

A. Okay. 

Q. That wasn’t the first vote that you all had done that night, 

was it? 

A. No, it wasn’t. 

Q. You had done a series of 2-minute votes prior to that? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. And in each of those 2-minute votes, had this standard closing-the-vote protocol been followed? 

A. Yes, it had been. 


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Q. In each instance, had the tally sheet been prepared by the 

Standing Tally Clerk and then passed up to the Parliamentarian, 

to the Chair? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Why don’t you start with 814 and obviously somewhere 

along the line in 814, the wheels started to come off? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Why don’t you tell us where in the process, in your judgment, 

the wheels started to come off the train a little bit. 

A. Well, I would probably have to start with the Chair calling the 

vote as I was typing in a well vote. And the Chair announced the 

vote and pounded the gavel. And that’s pretty much where it started. 

Q. Okay. Prior to that, were things pretty much proceeding as 

normal with that vote? 

A. As far as I can remember, prior to that, everything was going 

normal for me. I don’t know about out in the Chamber, but for me, 

yeah. 

Q. Okay. Did you hear—prior to the Chair banging the gavel for 

814, did you hear anyone instructing the Chair to close the vote at 

a particular point in time? 

A. My head was in the screen, but I did hear to my right someone yelling to someone else. 

Q. Do you know who was yelling and what was being said? 

A. Well, I believe that it was the majority leader. I’ve been working here since 1999. Sometimes you don’t even have to look up to 

know voices from all the speeches that I’ve heard. 

But I do believe that it was the majority leader. 

Q. What was the tone of his voice at that point? 

A. I don’t know his tone, I wouldn’t be able to tell you that. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. What did he say? 

A. What’s that? 

Q. What do you remember him saying? 

A. I remember him talking to someone to my right. I don’t know 

really who he was talking to. I really don’t; I can’t tell you that. 

And I really don’t know everything that he was saying. But I do 

know that he was saying, ‘‘close the vote.’’ 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do you recall—well, first of all, how many times did he say 

that? Was it once or was it more than once? 

A. I heard him say it twice, ‘‘Close the vote.’’ 

Q. Okay. And after the second time, do you have a recollection 

of how long it was between when he said that and when the Chair 

gaveled the vote and called it, ‘‘214 to 214’’? 

A. I wouldn’t be able to give you that exact time of how long in 

between. 

Q. Are we talking a matter of seconds or a matter of minutes? 

A. Oh, yeah, it was seconds. 

Q. You provided a memo. How long after the events of August 

2 did you prepare this memo? 

A. That memo right there? 


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Q. Yes, sir. 

A. The actual typewritten memo, probably 2 months after. 

Q. Okay. 

Was there an earlier handwritten version of this memo that you 

prepared? 

A. Yes, there was. 

Q. Okay. And how long after the sequence of events did you prepare the handwritten version? 

A. That was probably 4 or 5 hours. I mean, I went home after. 

Q. So it was contemporaneous to the events? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Have you had a chance to review this recently? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Is there anything in here—and for the record, I mean the 

typewritten version is pretty much verbatim to the handwritten 

version with changes to it, correct? 

A. With changes, correct. 

Q. Because the handwritten version has some things that are 

crossed out, written in, so this is really—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. Is there anything in here that—as you sit here today, you 

don’t think is accurate? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. So if we go through some of the things in this memo, 

this is still your recollection of what happened that night? 

A. Absolutely. 

Q. Do you recall—and it says—well, do you recall during the 

course of 814 whether the Chair said, asked the question whether 

there were any Members wishing to vote or change their votes? 

A. During 814? 

Q. Yes, sir. 

A. I don’t recall that. 

Q. Okay. Would it refresh you if I said—and this is page 2 towards—and this is specifically talking about 814 now—towards the 

end of the vote, as always, the Chair announcing in the House, Are 

there any Members wishing to vote? 

And then the Chair proceeded and asked, Are there any Members wishing to change their vote? And this announcement prompted some Members to change their vote on 814? 

A. Okay. That’s what happened then. 

Q. Okay. 

Was that—would that have then triggered the Parliamentarian 

to give you the go-ahead to close the voting stations if the Chair 

had said that? 

A. After I had completed working on the well cards, I would have 

asked the Parliamentarians, ‘‘Are we ready to close the vote?’’ 

Q. Okay. So the Chair says that; and at that point there are well 

cards handed—handed up. So you never looked to the Parliamentarian then to get his okay to close things, because — 

A. Not if I got well cards, no. 

Q. I’m just going off what you said here. It says, ‘‘Towards the 

end of the vote, as always, the Chair uttered those phrases.’’ 


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It says, ‘‘This announcement’’—meaning, ‘‘Are there any Members wishing to vote or change their vote’’—‘‘this announcement 

prompted some Members to change their vote on Roll Call 814. 

My coworker, Kevin Hanrahan handed me well cards of three 

Members who wanted to change their vote—Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and 

the two Diaz-Balarts?’’ 

A. That’s right. 

Q. And so you were handed those well cards and you started to 

input them into EVS? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. So you wouldn’t, at that point, have gotten to the point of 

looking to the Parliamentarian to see if it was time to close the 

vote? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. Did you get all three of those cards entered into the system? 

A. Before—— 

Q Walk me through that. You are in the process of entering the 

three well votes. And in the process of putting all three in, something happened. 

A Yes. I entered Ms. Ros-Lehtinen. And then I put that well card 

off to the side. 

And I entered Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart. And I put that well card 

off to the side. 

And I was entering Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart’s vote into the system. 

And as I was doing that, the Chair pounded the gavel, announced 

the vote and pounded the gavel. 

Q. And what was your—what was going through your mind at 

that point? 

A. Well, I was stunned that, first of all, the process had been bypassed. And I basically just continued to do my job as Seated Tally 

Clerk. 

Q. Okay. What did that entail? 

You said you continued to do your job. So what did you finish 

doing? 

A. Well, I just entered his name. Of course, John Sullivan, the 

Parliamentarian—I told John Sullivan that I had one more card. 

Q. What did he say? 

A. He didn’t respond after that. He just nodded his head. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Can I ask—you say that you were entering this last of three 

cards at the time that the Chair announced the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. How long does it take to enter one vote? I mean, you had 

stopped. You were entering—you heard it. Did you not finish the 

process? 

A. I finished the process. 

Q. Okay? 

A. Yeah. Yeah. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. So you ultimately—the Chair announced 214–214; he’s 

gaveled it. You went ahead and put in Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart’s 

vote. 


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We’ve heard from some people that certain Chairs tend to maybe 

do things in the process to encourage Members to come in and cast 

their vote, that Members may be milling around, and so, you know, 

they might sort of fake closing a vote in order to get people off the 

stick and to come and vote so that they can get it finalized. 

Have you seen that before? 

A. Well, they always give a 2-minute warning. I don’t know if 

you’re trying to say that that’s a sign to hurry up or anything like 

that. 

I have seen some Chairs do some—you know, play some games 

up there. Yes, I’ve seen that. 

Q. Was that your impression of what was going on for 814? 

A. No. I mean, Mr. McNulty, he didn’t do anything in between 

that time to, you know, fake or play games or anything like that, 

no. 

Q. So when he announced it, ‘‘214 to 214,’’ and gaveled it, you 

had every reason to believe that he had—he intended for the vote 

to be closed at that point? 

A. Well, when I was—yes. I had every reason to believe that, yes. 

Q. So you finished entering Mr. Diaz-Balart’s well vote that you 

had—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. You mentioned, De’Andre, that you had told John Sullivan 

that you have one more card to enter, right, and close the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you recall that he had said to you, De’Andre, are you going 

to close the vote? Do you remember that? 

A. Yes. Yes. 

Q. Was that odd? Or how did you—— 

A. I don’t—I don’t really know why he asked me that. So I don’t 

know. I can’t really tell you. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. De’Andre, do you think that—was he asking you—sometimes 

a question can be a statement. 

A. Right. 

Q. Was he asking you if you were going to close it, or do you 

think he was telling you to close it? 

A. You know, I don’t really know. I can’t really answer that fairly. 

Q. Is it fair to say, based on your testimony, that you thought— 

that you did not think he was telling you to close it because you 

continued to enter well votes after that? 

A. I don’t know. I don’t know. 

I really—I don’t know. I really can’t answer that. 

Q Okay. But then why did you—why did you continue to enter 

them? 

A. It’s my responsibility. It’s my job as the Seated Tally Clerk to 

enter all well votes. 

Q. Would it have been—would you have done that if you had 

been told not to continue? 

A. Yes, if he would have told me to close it down. Because, you 

know, they’re the ones in charge, so I would have closed it. 


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Q. Again, so—I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but it is 

fair to say that you must have not unequivocally thought that he 

was telling you to close it because you continued to enter votes? 

A. I don’t know. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Just for the record, in this memo that you prepared, which 

you drafted, that’s phrased in the form of a question—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. ‘‘De’Andre, are you going to close down the vote?’’ 

So you obviously thought that he was asking that as a question. 

If you thought he was giving you a command, it probably would 

have been a period or an exclamation point, right? 

A. Right. I mean, it’s a question. 

Q. So something in his tone or his syntax suggested to you that 

he was—he was asking you, you know, what you were going to do 

as opposed to instructing you something specifically, correct? 

A. That’s correct. It was a question. 

Q. Okay. So at that point, according to this, you hurried to shut 

down the vote. 

A. After? 

Q. After you had finished entering those well cards. 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Where in the process of closing down the vote, in the five 

steps, were you at this point? 

A. Where in the five steps, when I was typing his name or—? 

Q. Right. 

When you’re in the process of closing things down, you’ve closed 

the voting station—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. And you’ve put in the well cards. 

Are you in the second step, are you in the third step? 

A. I’m right at the beginning. I’m right at the beginning. So I’m 

going—closed—I mean, I’m doing this as fast as possible—— 

Q. Sure. 

A. [continuing]. Because I’m already 5 seconds behind. 

Usually these things happen when they pound the gavel and announce the tally. It happens simultaneously. I mean, I believe simultaneously. 

So I’m doing this as fast as possible. I’m probably 4 or 5 seconds 

behind already. 

Q. Did there come a point in this process where the system froze 

up on you? 

A. Yes. At the fifth step of the process I could not release the 

vote. I could not press the fifth step. And I clicked it and clicked 

it and clicked it, and it wouldn’t come down. 

Q. Okay. 

Now we’ve heard that one explanation for why the system may 

have frozen up and that you weren’t able to get the boards down 

was because you had somehow gone into the third step and finalized the vote and then gone back in to add some additional well 

votes and clicked Finalize again, rather than going to the Terminate function; and that that’s what caused this to lock-up. Is that 

what happened? 


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A. Clicked the Terminate function—clicked the Final function before I hit Terminate? 

Q. That you’d already hit Final, and as the well votes came in, 

you put those in and clicked Final again, as opposed to hitting— 

and the system told you, It’s already Final; it’s already Final. And 

you didn’t—rather than hitting Terminate, you hit Final for a second time. 

Is that what happened? 

A. At what point? 

Q. Well, I’m asking you. I mean, it sounds like you put in these 

three well votes—— 

A. Oh, you are talking about Mario Diaz-Balart’s? 

Q. Correct. And then you went ahead and got all the way to the 

fifth step without a problem and then you had the problem at the 

fifth step? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Did you try to enter any additional well votes after Mario 

Diaz-Balart’s, prior to having problems in the fifth step? 

A. Prior to having—no. 

Any change, you mean? 

Q. Any well vote cards. Any new ones that came in. 

A. I didn’t have any problems. There were a lot of well votes that 

I entered, you know. 

Q. Okay. I just want to make sure I’ve got the sequence. 

You’ve entered these three. You are in the process—you’ve got 

two of them entered, you are in the process of entering the third. 

The Chair calls the vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. You then proceed to scramble to try to get that one put in and 

go through the five steps to get the vote closed? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. Per the direction of the Chair? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. You get to the fifth step and the system is giving you a hard 

time? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Between the time where you entered Mr. Diaz-Balart’s 

vote and the fifth step, did you try to enter any more well vote 

cards? 

A. No. No. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. How long—how long from the—how much time transpired 

from the time that you entered into the last Diaz-Balart change 

and when you began trying to get to the fifth step? Was it seconds? 

A. Seconds, yeah. 

Q. So you finished entering it. And then you’re thinking—and 

correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re thinking, Okay, now I’ve got to 

shut it down. 

So you started taking the next steps to shut it down? 

A. Right. 

Q. How long did it take for you to determine that you were having trouble? 

A. Well, when I got to the fifth step—— 


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Q. How long did it take you to go from entering into in the DiazBalart card to getting to the fifth step? 

A. I can’t give you a—— 

Q. A few seconds? 

A. Seconds, yes. That’s correct. 

I mean, it was definitely seconds, because I was pressing buttons. 

Usually the process is very slow and I have a lot of time. But this 

was quick. 

Q. So let me ask this, going back—this is the third time and I 

apologize. 

But you—you—you entered in the two votes, you entered RosLehtinen and you entered Lincoln Diaz-Balart’s card? 

A. Yes. 

Q. You heard the Chair—you’re sort of mid-keystroke, you heard 

the Chair start announcing the vote. You—I guess you paused to 

have some communication with Mr. Sullivan. And then you determined that you were going to continue to enter the vote. 

As far as you were concerned, the vote was not ended until you 

entered that vote; is that right? 

A. Well, no. 

I basically told John when he asked me the question, that I had 

one more card. And so no decision was based on anything I said. 

Q. But no one told you not to enter that? 

A. Right. No one told me that. 

Q. So you went ahead and entered it? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. And you went to the keystroke to finalize the vote? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. And it took a matter of seconds before you found out, Hey, 

there’s a problem here? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Did there come a point after you got to the fifth step and 

couldn’t close it, where Mr. Hanrahan gave you some additional 

well cards to enter? 

A. There was a point after I’ve tried to click—you know, we tried 

closing it down. Kevin was faced toward me; he was getting ready 

to write down the tally on the sheet. 

And later on there were some people who came. Kevin turned 

around and—— 

Q. How much later on, are we talking seconds or minutes? 

A. I don’t know. I really don’t know. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I just want to back up, actually—because you’re actually the 

guy who was right in the middle of that. 

So going back to this point about the—so when Mr. McNulty 

calls the vote—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Because there’s that thing where it’s a refresh, 

right? You had one more card. You hadn’t entered it when he called 

it? It was in your hand? 

A. No. I was entering it. 


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Q. You were entering it? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. So it’s not like—it’s not like you had already entered it? Because my sense is that it was actually entered and it hadn’t refreshed, right? Because it was a second later that it actually 

changed and then the House erupted. 

So you had entered it actually when—when—when Mr. McNulty 

called it. It just hadn’t been reflected on the screen? 

Do you remember that? 

That’s like a split second, but do you remember that? 

A. I was entering it when—— 

Q. Okay. So it wasn’t like you hadn’t entered it. He called it, and 

then you went ahead and started like the initial process for entering that particular vote. You were entering it, and you may have 

already entered it? It’s just that it hadn’t been reflected on the— 

on the—on the screen? 

Mr. SPULAK. Those are two statements with question marks. So 

if you could separate them. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sure. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember—when you heard the vote called by Mr. 

McNulty and gaveled, had you entered that last well vote into the 

system? 

A. It sounds like you’re asking me what letter I was on while I 

was—— 

Q. Yes. 

A. Sir, I really don’t know. I don’t know the letter. 

Q. Had you begun entering it when you heard the vote called? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So when the vote was called, you were in the process of entering the last well vote? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Okay. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you have to press the Enter button after—I bring this— 

you’re typing in some letters. Do you have to hit Enter in order for 

it to go into the EVS? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And had you hit Enter prior to the time that Mr. McNulty 

was calling the vote? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. Then I think we’re—you understood it; we didn’t. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let’s see. Now we’ve been told that there is a—there is sort 

of something of an anomaly in the system where people have had 

problems with the system locking up, and there’s a way to escape 

out, I guess, the main screen and then be able to terminate a vote, 

bring down the boards. 

Are you familiar with that work-around? 

A. I’m familiar with that. 


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Q. Did you try to do that? Did you try to hit escape to go out 

of—when you couldn’t—when you got locked up in the fifth step, 

did you try to do that process? 

A. No, because that process is only done when you want to go 

back and enter some other well votes. 

Q. Did there come a point where Kevin Hanrahan gave you some 

additional well votes to put in? 

A. Yes. Yes. 

Q. Now, had the system not locked up on the fifth step, would 

that vote have been closed and the boards have come down at that 

point? 

A. Yes, the boards would have come down. 

Q. Did you go ahead and enter those additional well votes? 

And tell us whose votes those were. 

A. Yes. After trying to close the vote or release the board, there 

were three additional well cards that I had received. And those 

were Mr. McNerney, Mr. Space and Mrs. Gillibrand, I believe. 

Q. Before entering those, did you check with the Parliamentarians about what to do? 

A. I did. I asked John Sullivan, ‘‘was it still open?’’ And John responded, ‘‘We have bigger problems than that right now.’’ 

Q. Okay. What did you think he meant by that? 

A. I don’t know. I really don’t. It was just chaos on the floor. I 

don’t know. 

Q. Did you, around that point, hear any conversations between 

Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Sullivan? 

A. No. They were off to my right. So I didn’t really hear. John 

was right—right behind me when I asked him that question, faced 

toward the Chair, and he said, ‘‘We have bigger problems than that 

right now.’’ 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Actually, De’Andre, it might be useful since you actually took 

the time to write this—and we are really appreciative of it—to actually review it, because that’s a little bit off from—and I think it’s 

just the timing. 

You said that that conversation did happen. But I think you entered these three. Okay, it’s with Mr. Boehner’s vote I think that 

conversation happened. 

But why don’t you just take a second to just read through that, 

and then we can just—— 

A. Where are you talking about? 

Mr. SPULAK. Page 4. It’s sort of toward the top. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Actually, why don’t you just read the rest of your 

statement? 

Do you mind if he does that? 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Not at all. 

Mr. ANDERSON. Okay. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. And why don’t you just read the rest of the 

statement? Because we’re going to keep walking through it. 

Mr. SPULAK. You want him to read it out loud? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Oh, no. I just want him to read it so he—— 

Mr. ANDERSON. Okay. Where am I at? Which one? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I’m sorry. So you held off—oh, I see. Right there. 


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Okay. Okay. Go ahead. I apologize. 

Mr. ANDERSON. What were you saying? 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You ask—you get these three additional well cards from Kevin 

Hanrahan, and you ask John Sullivan for some instruction at that 

point. And I guess the question that was pending—at least that I 

had asked was, at that point had you heard any communications 

or conversations between Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Sullivan? And you 

said that you had not. 

Now, did you ever look behind you and see Mr. Hoyer and Mr. 

Sullivan talking? 

A. Well, I saw John back here, right behind me. He was—his 

back was toward me when I asked him this question. 

Q. Okay. And you don’t have a good understanding even when 

you are sitting here today what Mr. Sullivan meant by, We’ve got 

bigger problems than this? 

A. I don’t know what he might have meant. I mean, I can’t tell 

you what he meant. 

Q. Sure. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But you—again, you didn’t interpret that to mean that you 

could not enter the vote, did you? 

A. Oh, no. 

Q. Because you did? 

A. Right. Yeah. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. At that point, either before or after Mr. Hanrahan handed you 

those three additional well votes for Gillibrand, Space and 

McNerney, had you told him that you were having problems closing 

down the system? 

A. No. Because I told him that I had another vote or I had another well vote. 

But I hadn’t told him that I had problems closing down the system. It was—— 

Q. Do you know—do you remember how long it was—between 

when you got to the fifth step, and it wouldn’t release the boards, 

how long was it before Mr. Hanrahan gave you those three additional well votes? 

I mean, were you trying to close the thing down for a minute or 

two or was it pretty much like boom, boom? 

A. It wasn’t a minute or two, no. 

I—you know, I don’t have an exact time frame. 

Q. I’m just asking you for a rough. I mean, are we talking 10 seconds? Are we talking 30 seconds? Are we talking 5 minutes? 

A. It wasn’t in the minutes. But it was definitely somewhere 

around 10 seconds, 15 seconds, something like that. 

Q. Okay. So you got the cards, you proceeded to enter the cards. 

Did there come a point when Mr. Hoyer, Mr. Boehner submitted 

cards? 


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A. There was a point where those two Members submitted well 

cards. 

Q. Okay. Were those cards put into the system? 

A. No, they were not. 

Q. And why, why is that? 

A. Well, I checked to see if Mr. Hoyer had voted. And I noticed 

in the system that it showed me that he had already voted the way 

he wanted to vote with the well card. 

Q. So what would have happened had you tried to put to Mr. 

Hoyer’s vote in? 

A. It would have gave me a ‘‘Y’’ or whatever his vote was. 

Q. He’s already voted the same way. Why are you wasting my 

time? 

A. Pretty much. Yeah. 

Q. What about Mr. Boehner’s card? Did you try to put that into 

the system? 

A. I tried. I looked to see if he had voted and noticed that he 

wanted to change his vote. But on instructions from people surrounding me, I held off on him. 

Q. Okay. And who were the people who were surrounding you 

that gave you the instructions? 

A. Well, there were Parliamentarians around me. Kevin was 

around me, and so we just held off. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Excuse me. But you don’t remember—I mean, do you have— 

I mean, a guess of who it was that told you? 

A. Well, we just held off because we didn’t know—— 

Q. I’m sorry. Finish, please. 

A. We didn’t know where we were going from there. So we just 

held off on putting—inputting those Members’ votes. 

Kevin was in front of me, the Parliamentarians were behind me. 

Q. As far as you know, that’s the only vote that you didn’t enter? 

A. Yes. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And who do you remember saying, Hold off? 

A. I believe it definitely was John Sullivan. 

Q. And was there—and when you said you were surrounded, was 

it only John Sullivan who was speaking? 

A. Tom Wickham was around. 

Q. Okay. 

And what about Kevin, was he speaking? 

A. Kevin was, of course, in front of me. And I don’t remember 

what he said. But he could have perhaps possibly told me. 

Q. Did you think that was unusual? I mean, the Members put 

a vote in to change his vote—put a well card in to change his vote. 

A. Right, yeah. Put a well card to change his vote. But there was 

so much chaos going on that, you know, I can see why they’d tell 

me to hold off. 

Q. Well, has that ever happened before where you had a well 

card vote that you—you know, that was already—you know, that 

was in your hand that you didn’t record? 


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A. Well, there was chaos. And I can see why they might have 

said, Hold off. 

Q. No. I understand that. 

But the question is, do you ever recall another instance when a 

well card vote has been placed in your hand that you have it—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. And you end up not entering it? 

A. I have never had that situation. 

Q. Okay. And when he said, Hold off, was there any time after 

that where you were able to say, ‘‘I still have a well card vote to 

enter’’? 

‘‘Hold off’’ just means ‘‘hold on,’’ right? Like don’t enter it? 

A. Right. 

Q. Or maybe it means something else to you. 

But was there a time after that where you—where you were able 

to say, I still have a well card vote to enter? 

A. Well, they knew that I had two well cards. 

Q. Well, the other one was sort of the same? 

A. Yeah. So—I mean, they knew that I had two well cards. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. At some point, Mr. Sorenson came up to you? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Why don’t you walk me through that conversation? 

A. Ed came up to me and asked me, ‘‘What are we going to do 

with this vote?’’ 

I said, ‘‘I don’t know. We’re waiting on John Sullivan. You’ll have 

to go ask him.’’ 

Ed then left me to go talk to John Sullivan. I don’t know what 

was discussed or—— 

Q. Did you tell him at that point that you had had problems 

bringing the screens down? 

A. No. I do not think I told him that. 

Q. Do you think he was aware of that? Did he say—let me—let 

me be a little clearer. 

Did he say anything that would lead you to believe that he knew 

that you had had a problem bringing the boards down? 

A. You know, I think he might have been aware of the fact that 

I had problems because I couldn’t get out of that vote. 

I don’t know for sure, though. I don’t know for sure because we 

aborted the vote, so—— 

Q. Okay. Let’s talk about that. 

Mr. SPULAK. Can I ask a question? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Sure. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Why would he have said to you, De’Andre, what are we going 

to do with the vote, unless he thought there was a problem with 

the vote? 

A. Probably because we’re still in limbo, you know. 

Q. But how did he know you were in limbo? 

A. Because the board—the board hadn’t released. So he’s probably looking at the board, Why is it still up there? 

Q. Okay. 


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BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Had they called for the motion to reconsider already, at the 

time that he came up to you? 

A. I cannot remember that, if they had gone forward. I can’t remember that. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Were you aware of—sort of the procedural status of the 

House, like where—what was transpiring? 

Obviously, you had a lot going on in front of you. Were you 

aware of sort of the other steps that Members were taking from the 

mikes or elsewhere in the Chamber? 

A. I was aware, but people were screaming. 

Q. For instance, the video record and the record vote effort by the 

majority leader to make a unanimous consent request, were you 

aware that that was going on? 

A. Well, my head was in the screen, and I was looking at whatever was on the screen. But I did overhear Members talking 

through the mike. 

Q. And then—the next step, I believe, was that the minority 

leader then made the motion to reconsider. 

Were you aware that that motion had actually been propounded? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And Mr. Sorenson came up to you after that point? 

A. I can’t remember that. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So Mr. Sorenson comes up to you—I want to go through this 

chronology quickly. He asks you, What are we going to do with this 

vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did he mention the word ‘‘abort’’ at that point? 

A. He asked me, What are we going to do with this vote? Are we 

going to abort it? 

I told him, I don’t know; you’ll have to ask John Sullivan, we’re 

waiting for him. 

Q. Do you know whether, on the way to the rostrum to talk to 

you, Mr. Sorenson had spoken with John Sullivan? 

A. I don’t know that. I don’t know that for sure. 

Q. Is that the first time you had heard the possibility of the vote 

being aborted? 

A. That’s the first time that I was asked whether we were going 

to abort a vote. 

Q. Here’s what’s confused me a little bit. It seems like, from the 

little I know of this process, that aborting the vote is sort of the 

nuclear option. 

A. Yes. 

Q. That it’s almost never done, at least in recent—in the recent 

past, and most people have never been involved in doing it. 

And Mr. Sorenson comes up to you—and I haven’t quite understood why rather than the two of you discussing how to go about 

closing out the vote and what steps might be taken to close things 

out—that seems to have been bypassed, and somehow we got into 


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aborting it without even having him try to give you some guidance 

of how you might close out the vote without aborting it. 

I mean, is that—is that fair? 

Or did the two of you discuss, you know, what additional remedial steps you might take in order to get this thing closed out without aborting it? 

A. I don’t know what was in Ed’s head. I do know that was the 

first time that I had been asked on whether to abort a vote or not. 

I don’t know if he was trying to think of any other steps. 

Q. Well, did the two of you talk about any other steps? 

A. No. Because, from my standpoint, all I was interested in was 

doing what—— 

Q. Sure. 

A. [continuing]. Ever I was told. 

Q. I don’t doubt that for a second. 

I’m just wondering whether he came up to you—did you guys 

talk about anything, any possible steps other than aborting the 

vote? 

Or was that really the only thing that he mentioned? 

A. He asked me, What are we going to do with the vote? And are 

we going to abort it? That’s really—that’s all he asked. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Excuse me. Did you have any ideas—I mean, if you did, you 

would have tried them. But did you have any ideas about some alternative, other than abort, at that point when you were talking 

with Ed? 

A. Did I have any ideas? 

Q. In other words, did you have any—any thoughts about how 

you might get yourself out of that situation, other than abort? 

A. At that time? 

Q. Yes. 

A. I wasn’t thinking of how to get out of—but, there is a step. 

But I wasn’t thinking of going further out of the system to—to do 

that step. 

No. At that time I was just thinking of doing whatever I was 

told. 

Q. That’s good. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. De’Andre, when he was discussing aborting the vote with you, 

what was your understanding of what would happen with the vote 

and sort of—the vote, would it disappear? Was there any discussion 

that, We’re going to lose this data? 

Or what was your understanding of—when you hit that abort 

vote, what would happen? 

A. I didn’t have any thoughts in my head. When you’re the Seated Tally Clerk, you’re just used to going through the process, basically just like you are a robot. I’m not having any thoughts in my 

head of whether information is going to be lost. 

Q. Did you hear any discussions about that? 

A. Did we have any discussions? 

Q. Did you hear any discussions about, if we abort it, we’ll lose 

the—— 


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A. No, I didn’t hear any. 

Q. [continuing]. Vote? 

Okay. Did you hear any conversations between Mr. Sullivan and 

Mr. Hoyer? I know it was noisy in that commotion. But do you remember during—you know, during all of this whether Hoyer, Mr. 

Sullivan were talking at all? 

A. I saw them off to the right, talking. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I heard them off to the right, but I don’t know what they were 

saying. Yeah. 

Q. Okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. One of the things we’ve been—the Select Committee’s been 

tasked with doing is coming up with some—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I’m sorry. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So let me just get this straight. When Mr. McNulty called the 

vote the first time—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. You hadn’t hit the Enter button, right? 

A. When he called the vote the first time, I had not hit the Enter 

button. 

Q. Right. And it was your understanding, based on the way he— 

or was it your understanding, based on the way he called it, that 

he wanted to end right then—when he gaveled it, that it was over? 

A. Yes. 

Q. When he called, ‘‘214–214’’? 

A. It was my understanding that, when I’m finished, of course, 

that he would want to end the vote, yes. 

Q. But he actually called out the number before you had entered 

that last vote? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Which would mean that that vote wouldn’t have counted at 

214–214, right? 

A. The procedure for the Seated Tally Clerk is to enter the well 

votes that he or she has in his or her possession. For whatever reason, I don’t know if it would have counted—— 

Q. Who may not know? 

A. The Chair may not know. 

Q. Was Mr. McNulty experienced in the Chair? 

A. You know, I don’t know. I don’t know what his experience is 

in the chair because—of course, that may have been his first time 

in the chair that year. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. De’Andre, when you are entering votes, do you have any—any 

accurate way of knowing whether the tally board is reflecting what 

you’ve done at the time? 

I mean, we’ve heard that there is a—there is a—there is a slight 

delay, or a delay between the terminal and the board. But do you 


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personally have any idea of knowing what the board is saying at 

the time that you had done something or are doing something? 

A. Only after the fifth—or fourth step, do I know that what I 

have on the screen matches the board. 

Q. You said something that I want to ask about, about that. 

The Standing Tally Clerk, when he—when he writes out a tally 

slip, we were told—and perhaps when you do this, as well—that 

you take that off the board? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And then the tally slip is given to the Chair to read? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And then you get to step 4 and you look at the screen in order 

to validate what was on that slip that was read by the Chair; is 

that correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Let me ask you, going back to the voting—I just have a question or two. 

Do you remember—do you remember entering the Speaker’s well 

card? 

A. I don’t. I don’t remember entering her well card. 

Q. Okay. I don’t have any further questions. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. For the record, I was incorrect. 

So you weren’t off on that; that was me. I had—was 

misremembering what I had read, so I apologize. 

Mr. ANDERSON. That’s all right. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. One of the things the Select Committee’s been tasked with 

doing is coming up with some recommendations for what—how the 

process can be improved so that the situation may not happen 

again. 

Do you have any thoughts on what may have contributed to this 

and what changes you think might improve the process? 

A. Well, we’ve discussed that and, you know, I think that if 

Members would like to close the vote when they see fit, you know, 

maybe they should have a button up there that they can push; or 

whenever they wanted to close a vote, have that option. 

That’s really all that I can say. If that’s what they want to do. 

Q. Let me ask you one last procedural question. And I think you 

said before that in every vote that you had been involved with and 

that you had seen, there had been a written tally sheet that was 

prepared and passed up for the Chair to read; is that right? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. In your mind, what is the—what purpose does that step of 

preparing a tally sheet serve? 

A. Well, it’s a reflection of what the seated tally clerk has in the 

EVS. 

Sometimes, if the Chair was just to read from the board, eyesight 

may come into play. The actual paper in front of them gives them 

the accurate count of what’s in the system. 

Q. So would you say that that step in the process is important 

to ensuring the integrity of a particular vote? 

A. Yes. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Actually, I’ve got one other question. And that is that your 

statement says that—and then we’ll go back over this, because I 

don’t think—your statement says that when you received the votes 

from Mr. Hanrahan regarding Gillibrand and Space and 

McNerney, at that point John said—you asked John, and John 

said, We have bigger problems than that, right? That’s on page 4 

in the middle. 

A. Yes. That’s correct. 

Q. Is it possible that—is it possible that that—that that happened later on, that he said, We’ve got bigger problems than that, 

when you were being given the well card of Mr. Hoyer, and you 

were asking him how to deal with the duplicate? 

A. Is it possible? It’s possible. 

Q. And here’s why. Clearly, you guys—when you record something, days later you forget. But here’s why it’s important: 

If you got those well cards on Gillibrand and Space and 

McNerney, all I think we’re trying to figure out, all I’m trying to 

figure out is, did you enter them without consulting? 

A. No. 

Q. It wouldn’t matter either way because you did enter them? 

A. No. 

I consulted John, and I know that he said it at this point also. 

But you’re asking me if he also said it back then? 

Q. Yeah. 

A. I don’t know if he said it twice, but I do know that he said 

it at this point. 

Q. Okay. That’s good. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Thanks. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Thanks for your time. 

[Whereupon, at 3:20 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(149) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: KEVIN HANRAHAN 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017 commencing at 10:00 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 

20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. Good morning, Kevin. Thank you for being here this 

morning. As you may know, the Select Committee to Investigate 

the Voting Irregularities of August 2nd is charged with trying to 

determine what occurred on August 2nd relating to roll call vote 

814 and the subsequent motion to reconsider. 

Mr. HANRAHAN. Okay. 

Mr. SPULAK. So including holding—you know, when the vote was 

called and the matters that occurred after that. So we’re going to 

ask you to tell us what you know about that from your firsthand 

experience, or perhaps we’ll ask you also what you heard or what 

you found out about that afterward. 

Mr. HANRAHAN. Sure. 

Mr. SPULAK. I want to try to limit it to the votes themselves, to 

what occurred on that night and what happened subsequent to 

that. In terms of the Select Committee’s creation and things like 

that, we’re not interested in that. 

I remind you that it’s a deposition, so please speak clearly. Your 

responses should be verbal as opposed to head-nodding or anything 

like that. I would ask you to wait until the questions are concluded 

before you answer, so you can sort of get what we’re trying to ask 

and answer it accurately. 


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EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. To begin with, we ask you to give us a little background about 

yourself, your time in the House, what your responsibilities are, 

and then—from then we’ll proceed with what happened on August 

2nd. 

A. Okay. I came to work for Congress in November of 1978 for 

then-Congressman John Cavanaugh from Nebraska. I worked on 

his staff for about 4 months and came to the Office of the Clerk 

in March of 1979—in the Office of the Tally Clerk at the time, 

which is now incorporated into the Office of Legislative Operations, 

but essentially is the same position since that time that I’ve held. 

The work hasn’t changed all that much. The responsibilities are 

still the same. 

We are charged with producing the House calendar on a daily 

basis which is mandated by the rules of the House. And we also 

produce the Members’ voting record, the official voting records. And 

we typically twice a year put those together and mail them out to 

each Member office. 

In addition to that, we are charged with running the electronic 

voting system computer in the House Chamber. We receive and 

process committee reports. We work with the Parliamentarians in 

that respect. That’s something that we’ve always done. And beyond 

that, there are duties that are assigned over time that are random, 

I guess, that we’re charged with. But basically those are the four 

or five areas that we concentrate in. 

Q. You also serve as a clerk on the floor, a Tally Clerk; is that 

right? 

A. Yes, right. 

Q. Are you ever a seated Tally Clerk? 

A. Oh, yes, frequently. 

Q. So you run the EVS system? 

A. Yes, many times. 

Q. So on August 2nd, you were a standing Tally Clerk that day? 

A. That night I was in the standing position, yes. 

Q. I’m just curious, how do you determine who is going to stand 

and who is going to sit, typically? 

A. Typically, we have a rotation of approximately 2 hours. One 

of us is always up on the floor. And as the votes are called and 

taken, another member from our office will go up and assume that 

standing position to assist the Tally Clerk who is already there. 

And so it’s a random thing. 

Mr. SPULAK. I see. Okay. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Tom, before we get into second, can we get 

through some background? 

Mr. SPULAK. Absolutely. Sure. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I’m going to give you a document. Take a look at that. Have 

you seen this before? 

A. No, I don’t think—well, I may have seen bits and pieces of it. 

I have not seen this complete document. I may have seen some of 

this stuff that’s in it. 


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Q. Okay. I wanted to just spend a little time going through the 

process for closing a vote in the EVS system. And there’s a paragraph on the second page, it’s the second paragraph—or first full 

paragraph on the second page, starting with the process for closing 

the vote, and it goes through various steps. 

Why don’t you take a minute just to read through that? And I 

just want to ask you if those steps are completely accurate, if you 

have any additions or comments, and then maybe we can just walk 

through it quickly? 

A. Okay. This is essentially intact. This is fairly complete, yes. 

Q. Is there anything that you would add or change to this? 

A. Well, not to the document itself. But I think that it’s important to point out that this represents a protocol that we have been 

using and continue to use ever since I came here. It hasn’t changed 

in 30 years. And it’s applied for a reason, because it allows us to 

provide quality control to the House. In other words, by following 

this protocol without alteration on any given roll call, at any given 

time, it allows us to certify that to the best of our knowledge the 

tally in its final form is not only accurate, but correct in the sense 

that each and every Member who wanted to be recorded is recorded 

properly in the disposition they chose. 

So to that extent, I think it’s clear that we need to point out 

we’re using a set protocol for something that I can only describe at 

best as a moving target. Each and every roll call that the House 

takes is different than the one before and it’s different than the one 

that will follow. They’re like snowflakes in that respect. And I say 

that because the dynamics are different from the time frame allotted for the vote—15, 5, 2—lately we’re doing a lot of those; the 

number of Members who utilize and choose to vote in the well; and 

out of that number of Members who choose to vote in the well, 

whether they’re initial votes or coming back to change. And whether those votes are cast early in the vote, the middle of the vote, towards the very end of the vote or a last-minute change of heart by 

half a dozen people. That can change the dynamic of the entire 

thing. 

And we still have to apply this protocol to each and every situation, as best we can, to make sure that when it’s over that we have 

met every point that’s done here, and that the Chair is—when the 

Chair is reading that slip, that it is the one that is going to go into 

the books because it’s correct and it’s final, as far as we can tell. 

There’s a drop-dead point that I think almost everybody universally accepts, and that is the motion to reconsider being laid on the 

table. Those words have to be uttered by the Chair. In effect, when 

you get to that point, for all intents and purposes—barring, I 

guess, an act of God or some other stupid thing—that’s when we’re 

through. But up to that point, our job is to effectively look for, find 

and identify each and every Member who is physically, vocally, 

somehow making his or her intent known within some physical distance of that well that they are not recorded, want to be recorded 

or need to change a vote. And we’re going to try to get each and 

every one of them. And not only get them in the system, but get 

them accurately recorded. 

Now, that applies to everybody across the board. There is no delineation as to who gets to and who doesn’t. The final disposition 


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as to when a vote is typically over, we rely heavily on the Chair 

uttering those words. 

Q. The words being that the motion is laid upon the table? 

A. The motion to reconsider is laid upon the table. Now, we’ve 

had situations where the Chair has gotten halfway through that 

sentence, and all but to the last syllable of the last word, and a 

Member has presented him or herself in the well and they need to 

get recorded and proceedings have been stopped to allow that. So 

we—my job essentially is to find these Members, because I know 

where they hide. I’m not being facetious. Members are notorious. 

Some of them will out of habit, for whatever reason, wait until the 

last second. They just like to do it that way. Others will spend the 

entire time of the vote clock counting down, standing in front of us 

in the well, having a conversation with somebody and totally forget 

that they have to get recorded. 

Now, you might be asking yourself well, how do you know they’re 

not? Well, we have in the system, aside from the standard display 

that shows the yeas, the nays, and the not voting, we’ve got a program that says everybody who voted in the well on the last vote. 

I can pull that up. And out of that list it will tell me who isn’t 

there yet. So I know that if they’ve been there on a regular basis, 

I know to look for them. And I know from which direction they’re 

going to come, wherever their habits take them. And if it’s a seriously close deadline and I know that there’s been five or six votes, 

and this Member has made all of them, and we’re missing this 

Member on this one vote, and say it’s final passage, and they’ve 

made all the amendments up to that point, certainly they would 

want to be recorded on final passage, you would think. So I’ll turn 

around and I’ll mention it to the Parliamentarians. And I’ll say, 

Look, Congresswoman Waters has been here for every vote, she’s 

not here yet and I think maybe we ought to see if you can spot her, 

maybe we can find her. I mean, just give her every chance to get 

here. 

And you know if they don’t get there, they don’t get there. But 

it’s not going to be because we aren’t aware that they should be 

there and they’re not there. We do know to look for them. And we 

are charged with, in my opinion, making sure every Member gets 

every available opportunity to get recorded on every vote. Because 

as you know in the House, once votes are final—it’s not like in the 

Senate—there’s no going back. You’re recorded. And if I make a 

mistake and I record somebody wrong, I’ll take the heat for it and 

I may not be here the next day, but that Member is stuck with that 

vote. They are forever stuck with that disposition. 

Q. I think the analogy you used was that roll call votes tend to 

be like snowflakes? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Meaning they’re all slightly different for one reason or another? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Would it be fair to say, then, that this protocol is essential in 

order to ensure a completely accurate result, even given the variations among different roll call votes? 


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A. Yes, I think that’s exactly the point that I’m trying to make; 

that the protocol is required. It’s what keeps us from having August 2nd all the time. 

Q. Okay. Well, let’s run through these five steps very quickly. It’s 

written down and the document speaks for itself. But I would just 

like to make sure that I fully understand each of the steps and 

what the Tally Clerk, the seated Tally Clerk is doing in relation 

to the Chair. 

It says the first step is when the Chair asks whether any Members wish to vote or change their vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. What does the seated Tally Clerk do in response to that language from the Chair? 

A. In the first example, the initial inquiry asking if all Members 

are recorded, it’s a benchmark, it’s just a warning that we’re moving toward closing things up. The Tally Clerk that’s seated is not 

required to do anything at that point. But if the Chair then follows 

right away with the inquiry as to whether any Members wish to 

change their votes, if we have a—you’re familiar with the list of 

changes that we keep? Has anybody talked to you about that? 

Q. Uh-huh. 

A. So you know what that is. That’s the point at which you hand 

it to the Reading Clerk. And the Reading Clerk is then going to 

read the names of the Members who up to that point have come 

to the well and effect the changes from off aye, on no, and so forth. 

That list is then read. At that point now we’re waiting for—it’s a 

pause more than anything. We anticipate that once that list is 

read, assuming there’s no activity, nobody hanging around, nobody 

late, nobody—and also the summary board is not upticking in any 

fashion, it’s a static number—that’s when we’re going to anticipate 

closing down the vote. And the standing Tally Clerk is going to 

start thinking about writing that tally down in anticipation of 

handing it up to the Chair to read. 

Q. Has the Tally Clerk, seated Tally Clerk, already closed the 

voting station, the electronic voting station at that point? 

A. In a perfect world if it worked the way—as I said, we try to 

keep our options open for all Members who come in late. In a perfect world, ideally you should be closing vote stations when the 

changes are being read. That’s when you shut those down. I’ve 

learned over time that it’s easier sometimes, especially if I know, 

and I’ve anticipated—I can tell by the total number how many 

Members are here from the last one and who are here at this one. 

If we’re missing 25 or 30 Members and—I don’t know, in the summertime during appropriations season, the Appropriations Committee is always coming in as a group—it makes no sense to keep 

the vote stations closed and require each and every one of those 

Members to come to the well one at a time and cast a vote. It takes 

forever. So I’ll reopen the stations. It’s not a flag that I send out, 

there’s no signal, except that if you’re standing out there and looking at the voting boxes, the blue light will come back on. Members 

know that means they can insert their cards and cast votes. And 

there’s always somebody out of that group who will come to the 

well, in addition. And so when that’s done and the upticking has 

stopped, then we revert back to closing the station. 


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The Chair will invariably inquire again finally, hopefully, if anybody needs to change and if everybody has voted who wants to. 

From that point on, then the seated Tally Clerk is waiting. It’s a 

tandem. The Chair is going to be reading on this vote the yeas are 

this, the nays are this. And as that’s being read you’re moving 

through these screens to close and finalize that vote. Ideally it 

should be a match when the Chair is reading that total and—— 

Q. When you say the Chair is reading the total, what are you referring to, what is he reading from? 

A. Oh I’m sorry, the tally slip that the standing Tally Clerk has 

written from the summary board. 

Q. That’s an important element here. So why don’t you tell me 

at what point in this process the standing Tally Clerk writes out 

the tally slip and then what he or she does with that tally slip after 

it’s filled out? 

A. The tally slip in and of itself is, I guess, two things. It’s a bit 

of a throwback to manual roll calls when there was no summary 

board to read from and the Chair couldn’t announce the total until 

we gave him something anyway. So we’re preserving a little bit of 

maybe some history from that standpoint. It’s symbolic to that extent. 

But it is also a collective effort by consultation, I talk to the Parliamentarians, I talk to the—if I’m standing, the seated Tally Clerk 

and I talk to the Reading Clerk who is probably still standing near 

there. Those two, Parliamentarians and Reading Clerks, have line 

of sight. They can see things. I’m blocked on one side by the rostrum. I can’t see past that, or the podium. They can see if there 

are Members approaching or coming in, even the doorways. And so 

it’s helpful. We’ve talked to each other. We know that we’re static 

now. There is nobody approaching. Everybody is changed who 

wants to. The Members are recorded who want to be recorded. And 

the numbers are not changing up on the summary board. So now 

it’s okay, we will talk among ourselves. 

The seated Tally Clerk will say to the standing Tally Clerk, I am 

closing the voting stations, write the tally down. And at that point 

that’s when I will start to think about putting those numbers on 

that sheet of paper. 

Q. Is that something that’s actually said? Is that a look? 

A. No, it’s a statement. It’s I’ve closed the voting stations, write 

it. That’s what I tell who I’m with when I’m seated; that go, this 

is it, I’ve shut it down, write the total. And at that point—— 

Q. Has there ever come a point in the past where you, being the 

standing Tally Clerk, has ever gotten that instruction, whether 

those specific words were used or not, and you noticed something 

and you said, it’s not time for me to actually write this slip yet? 

A. Sure. 

Q. Give me an example of when you would have gotten that type 

of instruction and in your judgment said it’s actually not appropriate for me to do the slip at this point? 

A. Well, an example might be—well, I don’t know, there’s lots of 

examples. But the seated Tally Clerk is generally focused on the 

keyboard at that point, because we’re now closing the vote and you 

have to look at what’s in front of you. So you may or may not see 

what I see as a standing Tally Clerk. There could be somebody 


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standing there who wasn’t there 2 seconds ago. And if we’re at the 

point where they can still be recorded and want to be recorded, 

then I will turn around and say, I’m not writing it because there’s 

a Member here. 

It’s also possible, and this is not spoken, this is just something 

that you have to know to wait for, there is a bit, I don’t know how 

much and I don’t know what to categorize it as, but a tiny little 

bit of lag time between the time a well vote is entered and a button 

is pushed and that number upticks. So if I have taken a well card 

and I’ve processed it and handed it back to whoever is in the chair, 

and they are busy entering the thing and they tell me—— 

Q. Just, I’m sorry to interrupt you, a point of clarification. You 

say you handed it to the person in the chair? 

A. Yes. 

Q. You’re not talking about the Speaker’s chair? 

A. No, no. 

Q. You’re talking about the seated Tally Clerk? 

A. The seated Tally Clerk, right, who is entering that vote into 

the system. They can tell me, okay, that’s it, I’ve got it, it’s in. I 

know from experience to wait. I’ll wait a heartbeat, a pause, however you want to describe it, because I want to see that number. 

I know it’s going to change. I want to see it change, and then I will 

write the numbers. I don’t just copy it because it’s up there. If I’ve 

given something back here, I know it’s going to change. And there’s 

just a bit of a lag time, and it’s very easy to lose track of what 

you’re doing and write down something incorrectly when you don’t 

think about that. You have to remember that. And the system is 

only as fast as it is. It’s not long. It’s probably—I bet if I had to 

label it, it’s not even a half second. But it’s long enough to look 

away and look back and that number has switched, and it can 

throw you totally off. And if you’re not paying attention you won’t 

know for sure what number you’re dealing with, whether that’s the 

one you need or whether there might be a change again or what. 

The other downside to this is that while you’re opening voting 

stations to allow a large group of Members, while simultaneously 

processing well votes, it’s conceivable that a Member for the same 

reason—there’s just that little bit of lag time that somebody pops 

in the back door just as you’re about to finish things in the well 

and you reasonably are certain that everybody who wants to vote 

has voted—a Member can still vote, pop it in, and then you close 

the vote station and you think you’re done. But that little lag time 

will collect that vote and it will pop that number up there, up or 

down one, whatever the disposition might be. It’s just that little 

tiny little bit of time. 

So I’ve learned, and we teach everybody who is up there to do 

the same thing, to wait a heartbeat, just pause and be sure that 

there’s no more upticks and there’s no electronic activity and 

there’s nobody standing around who wants to get recorded, before 

you write that number down. 

Q. So the seated Tally Clerk knows to give the standing Tally 

Clerk a verbal command to write out the tally slip? 

A. Yes. 


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Q. Do you ever as the standing Tally Clerk, you’ve been doing 

this for a long time, just sort of do that on your own, or are you 

always waiting for them to give you that verbal command? 

A. Oh no. If I’m the standing Tally Clerk I will check with not 

only the seated Tally Clerk, but the Parliamentarian to be sure 

that we’re ready to write this down. I mean there are times when 

Members will come in late. As I’ve said over and over, it happens 

repeatedly. You may write that number three or four times and 

then toss the sheet down because it’s not going to be the one you 

want. But you never—I will never give that sheet up to anybody 

until I’ve asked from the Parliamentarian’s standpoint, who is supposedly talking to the Chair and the seated Tally Clerk, that we’re 

all on the same page; that you’ve closed the system, the voting stations are not open, we have no more upticks and nobody sees anybody, that’s when I’ll write that number. And I will ask first before 

I do that. 

Q. So you—to walk through this hypothetically, you’re the standing Tally Clerk, you’ve asked—you’ve checked with the seated Tally 

Clerk, you’ve checked with the Parliamentarian, you’ve written out 

the tally slip, and that is in the third stage of this closing the vote 

process? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. So at that point the seated Tally Clerk presumably is no 

longer processing any well votes, or they wouldn’t have told you to 

write out the slip? 

A. Correct. 

Q. They have set the vote to final, and you are then doing what 

with the tally sheet that you filled out? 

A. At that point, as long as we’re all on the same page, I am 

copying down what I see up on the board and I’m handing that 

sheet to the Parliamentarian who in turn is going to give it to the 

Chair and give the Chair the okay to begin the closing statement, 

which announces the numbers that everybody can see on the summary board. 

Q. And that closing statement is that the motion is laid upon the 

table? 

A. It begins with, ‘‘On this vote the ayes are, the noes are.’’ And 

then, barring any interruptions, the Chair will then proceed to lay 

the motion to reconsider on the table. And that’s when the dropdead point comes. At that point I think if an act of God, something 

happened, that’s up to the Chair at that point to let somebody in 

at that point. But once a vote is announced and those words are 

spoken, we’re trained that that’s the end of it. And we’re ready to— 

that’s locked in, done, and we’re ready to go to the next motion, 

whatever it might be. 

Q. What do you need to do then to move on to the next motion? 

So you hear the word ‘‘table,’’ and as the seated Tally Clerk what 

are you doing, what are you hitting in EVS to move on? 

A. There are icons, the icon to shoot the word ‘‘final’’ up on the 

board. But then after that there are, I think there’s two more steps 

to—you get a verification screen essentially with the summary, the 

tally. And you’re supposed to be reading that tally along with the 

Chair. In other words, what the Chair is reading should be what 

I’m seeing on the screen. And when we hit the announcement that 


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we’re all done, one more screen, there’s an icon to take the displays 

down and clear everything out. And then you move on to the next 

motion to get ready for whatever vote is following. 

Q. Okay. So you hear that it’s laid upon the table, you do a spot 

check, you hit release the vote, you hit confirm, release the vote; 

then the boards are down and you’re are ready to move on? 

A. Right. 

Q. In your, what, 25-plus years of experience, have you ever been 

involved with the closing of a vote without a tally slip? 

A. No. 

Q. Why don’t you tell us about August 2nd? 

A. Okay. It started out as a—like everybody, we were all tired 

that night, it was a long night. And we had a stack of votes on a 

bunch of amendments. And then we moved into what we all 

thought was going to be final passage and then hopefully going 

home. 

In the course of the motion to reconsider the—it’s obvious as you 

watch, and was to everybody, that the tally was closing in, it was 

getting to be even on both sides and very likely to be a bit of a 

tight vote. That happens. It’s not unusual. We know how that 

works. And the protocol doesn’t change. We do nothing differently 

in this situation, except maybe heighten your attentiveness to 

make sure you get the votes that come in, make sure they’re done 

right. Because as we now know, one vote one way or the other can 

cause all kinds of havoc. But other than that, the protocol remains 

the same. 

And De’Andre and I were processing our well votes. And we had 

next to no time left. I don’t remember if there were any seconds 

or not. It might have been zero, it might have been a couple ahead 

of that. But there was an effort made to hurry up the closing of 

that vote. 

Q. Okay. Can you elaborate on that for me a little bit? 

A. It was a vocalization. And it came from—the majority leader 

was in the well and he wanted the vote closed because it was obviously going to be a tie. And the initiative was probably not to his 

liking, but—— 

Q. What did he say? 

A. In short, and in plain simple language, it was ‘‘Close this vote 

now.’’ 

Q. Who was that directed to? 

A. To be honest, I don’t know. I think it might have been everybody in general. He could have been talking to the Chair, he could 

have been speaking to John Sullivan, I don’t know. It was more of 

a general statement. 

Q. Well, nobody on the rostrum, with the exception of the Chair, 

has the authority to do that, correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. So if he’s directing somebody to close the vote now, wouldn’t 

that necessarily have to be the Chair? 

A. You would assume so, but you asked me who it was directed 

at. And I would have to be inside his head to know that. I don’t 

know who he meant to talk to, but that was the gist of what the 

statement was he said. 

Q. How many times did he say it? 


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A. There were at least a couple times that I can remember. And 

there may have been more. But again I have other stuff to think 

about, so I wasn’t listening to everything he said and to whom he 

said it. But I also have to say that it is not unusual for this kind 

of thing to happen. It’s happened before. And our job is to essentially stick to our protocol and not pay attention to that kind of 

thing. We still have to go through these steps regardless of what 

anybody thinks or wants. Because if you don’t do that, you throw 

out your quality control and you have—it’s wide open at that point. 

I can’t say right or wrong, good or bad, because I haven’t been allowed to do what I’m supposed to do. 

So our job is to essentially—you keep your head down, concentrate on what you’re doing and try to get the well votes in, if 

there are any to be processed, and wait for the prompts that you 

hope will come from the standard inquiries from the Chair to have 

Members vote who want to vote and changes if there are any. And 

all that stuff has to happen. It’s not my rule. This is the protocol 

that we were trained to use, and it’s been in place forever. 

Now, the only difference that night—and I wish it had gone a different way, because I’ve seen this before, I’ve never seen the Chair 

buy into it, never. I wish he hadn’t done it, but he did. And I happened to be standing there filling out or processing a well card, 

which I then turned around and handed to De’Andre for insertion 

into the system. At that exact moment, I don’t know based on 

what—maybe from the goading from the side over here where the 

majority leader was, who at that point was I think taking Jonathan 

Sullivan’s head off—for whatever reason, he bought into it. He 

banged the gavel and he called the a vote as a tie. 

Q. When you say ‘‘he’’ you’re referring to the Chair? 

A. Mr. McNulty was in the chair. There was nobody—I couldn’t 

believe what I was hearing, I couldn’t. And the reason I couldn’t 

is because of what I said earlier. And that is, I know where those 

well votes are, I know exactly what he’s doing, De’Andre is doing 

back here. I know exactly that that number is going to change and 

it’s going to change in about half a second. 

Q. So at the time the Chair called—well, let me back you up a 

second. Had the voting stations been turned off at that point? 

A. At that point they were; yes, I think so. 

Q. And it—I’m sorry go ahead. 

A. At that point I believe we had gotten to the point where I 

think the initial inquiry was made at that point for all Members 

to be recorded. And the vote stations may—actually, I don’t remember. As I said, we open and close them more than once throughout 

the process. It just depends on the situation. But the point was 

that we still had well vote activity. 

Q. I’m going to get you there, but let’s just go step by step. 

A. Okay. 

Q. Do you recall whether Mr. McNulty had used the—you know, 

asked the questions whether there were any Members wishing to 

vote or change their votes? 

A. At that point he may have started to. But we had the interruption coming from this—from the other side. The majority leader 

was there at that point. And I have to sort of listen to what’s going 

on there, because I have to know what he’s going to be doing. But 


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I’ve also got to be paying attention to what I’m doing. And at that 

point my recollection was, and continues to be, that the call came 

before the protocol had been observed. 

Q. Well, at the time he made the call—and he actually gaveled 

the vote, correct? 

A. Yeah, he banged the gavel. 

Q. Banged the gavel. Did De’Andre have a well vote card in his 

hand? 

A. Yes. He had the one I just handed him. He was processing it. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And whose was it, do you recall? 

A. It was one of the Diaz-Balarts’, I believe. I’m not certain. I 

think that was who it was, but it may not be. He probably would 

remember it because he actually had it in his hand. But in essence 

it has more to do with the fact that we had a well vote at all, that 

we actually still were processing these things. And I HAVE to—I 

can’t say it enough. I can’t tell you how stunned I was to hear what 

was going on before I knew we were done with processing those 

well votes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. We’ve heard from more than one witness that, on occasion, 

Chairs will use a little bit of, I don’t know if ‘‘gamesmanship’’ is 

the right word, but to try to make sure that—to get people to vote. 

There will be people milling around. And they essentially use that 

as a little bit of a stick to get people to once and for all cast the 

vote so we can finalize it and move on. 

A. Sure. 

Q. Have you seen that as well? 

A. Yes. I can also tell you that, since we’re into this, there have 

been conversations that I’ve been in the middle of, because I’m 

standing or sitting right there, between the Chair and Members 

who maybe routinely occupy the chair at one point or another, 

good-naturedly or however you want to describe it, discussing with 

each other just how well they are managing these 2-minute votes. 

‘‘And when I bang a 2-minute vote, it’s 2 minutes when I’m here, 

not when you’re here.’’ They laugh and giggle about it. 

But the point is that if this protocol is to be observed the way 

it’s supposed to be observed, then that time frame doesn’t mean 

anything. It doesn’t matter how fast you are or how quick you are 

or whether you did 2-minute votes right down to the minute or the 

second, ten in a row. What matters is we observed our protocol and 

we got it right. 

Q. So you had seen some of that gamesmanship? 

A. Sure. 

Q. In your judgment, was that what was going on with respect 

to 814? 

A. No, I don’t think it was gamesmanship. I think, I think—this 

is my opinion, because I can’t get inside anybody’s head—but from 

where I was standing I think the Chair bought into the hurry-up, 

the 2-minute offense, if you will, and went ahead and closed a vote, 

or tried to, because he thought, I guess, it was the right thing to 

do. Now, I don’t know. I don’t know what he thought. 


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Q. But it’s your understanding that when he gaveled the vote at 

214 to 214 it was in effect to close that vote, not just to use that 

as a way to encourage Members to vote? 

A. No. My thought right away was, oh, shit, that’s what I 

thought, we are in for it now. Because as soon as those words came 

out of his mouth, that tally changed because De’Andre had just hit 

enter on that card I gave him. 

Q. At that point were there other Members in the well who had 

well cards, either that they had filled out or were in the process 

of filling out and had not yet handed to you? 

A. At that exact moment, no. But within a very short period of 

time, seconds, Members did appear in the well to cast some well 

votes. Changes mostly. 

Q. Did you—you’ve obviously done this a long time. Did you say 

anything to either De’Andre or John Sullivan about what was going 

on at that point? 

A. I know I didn’t have to talk to John because he was as 

stunned as I was. But De’Andre and I were still trying to, as best 

we could, hang in with our protocol. And that means that I knew 

in my head that the number called, first of all, wasn’t going to 

stand, because as soon as he said the number, it was different. So 

I knew that wasn’t the end of the vote. I knew it wasn’t over. By 

any standard it wasn’t over. 

And under those circumstances, because we had not been allowed 

to observe our standard protocol—it’s okay sometimes to get 

through these steps and then back up and do them again, depending on the situation. As Members present themselves you do back 

up. You can get to the be-all, end-all, right to the edge of the envelope and be on the verge of being done and somebody can show up. 

And if it’s at all possible we’ll try to accommodate them. But in 

doing so you back up to a point where the Chair will then re-inquire, have all Members been recorded, are there any Members 

who want to change. You can do that several times. And it happens 

a lot that way. 

Q. Well, this sounds from what you’ve said, this sounds like the 

situation on August 2nd was different? 

A. Totally. 

Q. Why? Tell me why it’s different, where you’ve gotten to the 

point in the past where the vote has progressed and someone has 

come in and you’ve backed up a couple steps. Tell me why this was 

different. 

A. As soon as the Chair made the announcement that night and 

banged that gavel, our protocol—we were thrown off, we were gone, 

we were done. We were off track and we were in no man’s land at 

that point. 

Now, why was it different than any other time when that happens? Well, for two reasons. One, the obvious reason, is that that 

tally was deadlocked and then suddenly ticked the other way. Now, 

the disposition means nothing to me. I don’t care about the outcome of anything, except that we get it right. That’s what I’m there 

for. The difference that night is that once we’re thrown off of our 

protocol, whatever happens after that, it becomes difficult, even impossible, for us to maintain quality control and turn in a result 

that we can say, because we followed our protocol, this is a good 


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number, these are the numbers you can live with, work with, accept, that’s it. The vote is as good as it’s going to get. Notwithstanding the outcome. Nobody cares about that. Nobody at that 

desk cares about the outcome. We just want to make sure that we 

do our part to get the Members recorded properly from the disposition they’ve chosen and in a timely fashion within the protocol that 

we follow. 

Now, the difference that night, let’s say hypothetically, suppose 

that vote was 399 to zero and the Chair inadvertently or however 

called a vote prior to the time we’re done with well votes and it’s 

going to change it to 400 to nothing instead of 399 to nothing. Common sense tells you it’s just not going to be a big deal. There might 

be some squawking about timeliness of casting that last vote. 

Maybe people will say well, How come last week when I was late, 

I got shut out once but you let that guy in? Well, that’s easily dealt 

with, way more easily dealt with than this kind of tally we had 

that night. Especially on the issue that was involved. The atmosphere in that Chamber was vitriolic at best, it was hateful. 

In my whole time I’ve seen some weird stuff, but that night was 

the worst. Everybody was hateful. And I’m putting that gently. It 

just wasn’t even good. And so you throw the chaotic nature of the 

whole atmosphere into this process that we are trying to stick to 

and you get a result that’s decided at that very second—not the 

final, because we had some well votes subsequent to it—but the 

very second that it was called as a tie and then clicked over to a 

one-vote difference in the other direction, all of a sudden you’ve got 

a major problem. And the only question you can really fall on is, 

did we do—what did we do to do our part to make sure that that 

tally was correct? And the only way we can make sure that happens is if we’re allowed to stick to our protocol, and the Chair and 

everybody else does what they’re supposed to do and say what 

they’re supposed to say. 

If you jump the gun, for whatever reason, any reason, you throw 

this all out, and you’ve thrown everything to the wolves at that 

point. There’s no way to know, that I can say—that doesn’t mean 

that the result is wrong, it means I can’t tell you that it’s right because I wasn’t following my protocol. 

Q. Is this the first time since you began as a Tally Clerk in 1979 

that you had a concern about the integrity of a vote? 

A. No. I mean yes, it is the first time, at least in this sense. I 

mean I’ve sat through dozens of close votes. That isn’t the issue. 

We know how to deal with that. 

Q. I’m not talking about the closeness of a vote. I’m talking about 

the integrity of a vote. 

A. Oh, no, no. This is the be-all, end-all. This is the one sole time 

where we’ve had a situation like this where what we did and we 

normally do was superseded by somebody else’s actions. So the 

short answer is this is the only time that I can remember that I’ve 

ever had a problem like this. 

Q. We’ve been told, and have every reason to believe, that the 

Tally Clerks, all the Clerk’s staff, really take their instructions 

from the Chair and that they’re not exercising discretion, they are 

following these protocols and they are doing those at the direction 

of the Chair. In this particular case the Chair calls the vote at 214 


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to 214 and gavels it. And you, and apparently De’Andre, continue 

to process well votes; is that correct? 

A. Right. 

Q. So had De’Andre followed the instructions of the Chair, there 

were well votes that would not have been entered into the system. 

If he had begun the process of finalizing and releasing the vote, 

there are votes that would not have shown up in the EVS system; 

is that correct? 

A. That’s probably true, yes. But I need to mention also that I 

can’t emphasize enough the—I’ve heard it mentioned that there 

was no—nobody saw any physical activity, let’s say, in the well for 

a period of time that night just prior to that vote being called. And 

assumptions were made that, because of that, it was probably okay 

to proceed with pushing to shut this vote down. 

Q. Can you elaborate on that? 

A. Sure. 

Q. Where have you heard that, and was that your experience 

being right there? 

A. Well, before I get into answering that question I want to preface it by saying that physical activity in the well is non-reliable, 

totally. And it happens at least twice a week. You can find it anytime you want to look. 

The first vote of the week when we typically have our 6:30 call, 

our three vote calls every Tuesday night, Members are coming in 

from airports and wherever they’ve been. It’s not unusual for a 

large group of Members to come in and fill well cards out and then 

throw a stack of them at us and then disappear to wherever it is 

they’re going, to talk to their friends and visit with whomever. 

They aren’t standing in the well. But that doesn’t mean we don’t 

have a stack of well cards to process. That’s not an indication that 

there’s nothing happening. I mean, we’re putting those things in 

one at a time. 

And the same result can happen on the last vote of a week when 

everybody wants to hit the airports to leave. They’ll charge up, 

they’ll throw a well card and head for the door. So there’s nobody 

there, but that doesn’t mean we still don’t have that stack of cards 

to process. It’s not reliable. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. To what does that apply, Kevin? 

A. Well, the mention was—I’m about to get to the point where 

the mention was made of would there have been well cards not 

processed had the Chair’s call been allowed to stand. The answer 

to that is, yes, despite the subsequent presence of Members in the 

well who wanted to vote, if we had not been processing a well vote 

at the time the call was made. I knew that tally wasn’t right. Now, 

had I not had anything to hand back there and that board had 

been static for a period of time at 214 to 214 and a call made to 

close it, I am not saying that subsequent well votes wouldn’t have 

been processed. But I would have at that point turned to John and 

gotten an okay to—okay, this has been sitting there at a tie, it was 

called a tie; what do you want me to do, are we going to allow 

these guys to be processed or not? So we had to get a call. That’s 

a procedural standpoint. That’s beyond my pay grade. That’s the 


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protocol we follow. What made it different is that I knew, I knew 

that vote was wrong. I didn’t need to be told. I knew it was wrong. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Well, let me back you up a second. You knew it was wrong 

substantively, correct? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Because De’Andre was still in the process of entering a well 

vote that you just handed him? 

A. Right. 

Q. You also knew it was wrong procedurally; is that right? 

A. Up to that point, sure, because it was way early. Even if he 

hadn’t been doing anything, we were still ahead of the game. I 

mean, I wasn’t even prepared to write something down to give to 

the Chair. 

Q. By ‘‘something’’ you mean a tally slip? 

A. The tally slip, right. 

Q. And so clearly De’Andre did not give you the verbal instruction we were talking about earlier to start preparing the tally slip? 

A. No, because he was not at point where he would have given 

me that instruction. He would have told me when he was done, 

‘‘Okay I’m finished, I’ve got this vote in, now we can start to go 

moving towards the closing process.’’ And at that point I would 

have been prepared to do one of two things; either write the tally, 

because he said we were done; or, as I said, you anticipate arrival 

of Members. And we try as best we can to accommodate them with 

their initial votes or changes. And we always have. There is no getting around that. 

Q. You mentioned that Mr. Hoyer came in and that there was 

this pressure to hurry the vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. Can you give me an idea of how long was it after Mr. Hoyer 

said that, that the Chair called the vote at 214–214 and gaveled 

it closed? 

A. I would have to say that it wasn’t instantaneous, but I would 

guess a few seconds had passed. He had time to—in retrospect I 

think probably 10 seconds, maybe. 

Q. You all had done a series of 2-minute votes? 

A. Just prior to that, right. 

Q. In each of those cases had you followed the protocol for closing 

the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. In each of those cases were you the standing Tally Clerk? 

A. Yes. 

Q. In each of those cases had you prepared a written tally slip 

to pass to the Parliamentarian to pass to the Chair? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Was Mr. McNulty in the chair both of those times as well? 

A. I don’t remember. I don’t think so, because we would have had 

a Chairman—at that time of night sometimes they do double duty. 

But I think we had a Chairman of the committee who was in the 

chair, and Mr. McNulty assumed the chair when we came back into 

the House. 


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EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I just want to go back to one statement you made. I think it’s 

clear, but just in terms of hanging out there a little bit for me. You 

said that when we first started talking about Mr. Hoyer coming 

down and indicating when the vote closed, I think Andrew said 

something about has that happened in the past in terms of somebody wanting to close a vote down, and it got into sort of a gamesmanship discussion. 

But were you talking about in terms of you said, yeah, it’s been 

done in the past—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Does that mean other Members or other majority 

leaders have come down and said shut a vote down? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And—okay. And when that happened they started the procedure to close it as opposed to calling it immediately? 

A. Typically that means that—we cooperate as best we can. 

We’re not in charge of anything. We work with everybody. Now, 

when we get the indication that the majority, whoever it is, wants 

things to move along—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. We’re going to do our best to comply with that, 

but not without sticking to the script. 

Q. Right. 

A. Now, we may hurry through it. But each and every point of 

that script is going to be met before anything is done officially. 

Q. And there hasn’t been a time, to your recollection, when a 

vote was called and there were votes still being processed with the 

seated Tally Clerk? 

A. Okay. We’re getting into semantics. Calling a vote, sure, it’s 

been attempted. But I think intent has to be involved here. Because Members aren’t always any more aware—in fact, let me back 

up a second. Nobody but us is aware—the Tally Clerks I’m talking 

about—is aware of whether there are any well votes to be processed. We will communicate to the Parliamentarians as best we 

can, when we have a lot of them, so they know that we’re busy 

with them. But the Members don’t go to the Journal Clerks, the 

Bill Clerks, the Reading Clerks, the Chair or the Parliamentarian 

to cast votes. They come and see us. We’re the only ones who would 

know whether we’ve got anything. 

To that end, occasionally the Chair may not know that we’re still 

processing something and may begin to inquire. You can hear. I 

mean I hear it happen all the time. They’ll talk to the Parliamentarian and say, ‘‘Are we ready to go, can I call this vote?’’ And if 

the Parliamentarian is aware that we’re still busy, they’ll say not 

yet. But that’s when everybody is cooperating. 

Q. And the check on that is there’s a slip handed up? 

A. At the very end. 

Q. Right. 

A. Right. I mean, not call it, but to begin the process to move towards calling it. The slip is never done until we’ve matched each 

and every one of these closing things and everybody is on board 

that we’re done, that there’s nobody around who wants to vote. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. On that point, I think you’ve already said that the slip won’t 

be done until everyone has agreed, but yet there are multiple slips 

at times, because you have agreed at that point in time that things 

may change after—— 

A. Absolutely. 

Q. [continuing]. So they’ll be other slips? 

A. Absolutely. That happens routinely. We tear up and throw 

four or five of those away sometimes. Again, it’s a call that you 

make. But you still use the protocol, but you may back up a step 

and then go forward again and back up again and go forward. It 

depends when Members come in and you have the—you know, 

some people in the chair are, I don’t know what the word is, more 

lenient than others about allowing it, depending on—to be honest, 

without going into specifics, some of the biggest complainers about 

votes taking too long are the ones who are the last ones in, all the 

time. And it happens regularly. It’s not like it’s once in a while. It’s 

subjective as all hell. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me ask you this. Mr. Spulak asked you about the process 

of going through multiple tally slips? 

A. Right. 

Q. It strikes me that there’s a significant difference here because 

as opposed to giving the Chair a tally slip where they begin the 

process of calling a vote and closing a vote down and then Members 

come in and vote, in this particular case there was never an initial 

tally slip that would have been a catalyst for the Chair to begin 

that process; is that correct? 

A. Well, the catalyst from the—the tally slip is never going to be 

a catalyst. That’s a result. That’s after we’ve reached all these 

points of inquiries and noticing whether there’s anybody there. And 

the instruction comes from the seated Tally Clerk that everything 

is closed down, we’re ready to proceed. Then the slip is written. It’s 

not meant to be a catalyst. The catalyst is a prompt from the Parliamentarian to tell the Chair that you can now inquire about initial votes, changing of votes, pausing them to see if there’s any activity. 

I mean, you wait for all kinds of things to give everybody the 

best chance that they have to get in there and do what they have 

to do. The slip is written when we all agree that as far as we can 

tell, nobody is around and nobody wants to do anything and the 

tally is as good as it’s going to get. That’s when you write it. 

Now, everything around here lately is hurry up. Everybody 

wants everything yesterday. And that’s unfortunate, in some cases, 

because these protocols take as long as they take. There’s no shortcuts and there’s no hurrying through anything at the expense of accuracy. I have never been told by anybody to sacrifice accuracy for 

speed, never. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Well, you just mentioned recently. So have there been other 

examples of this? 


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A. Oh, no, no. I’m just pointing out that occasionally we hurry 

through the protocol. That’s been done, I mean. But even when 

you—you have to have some wherewithal if you’re the seated Tally 

Clerk. Even if you’re being hurried, you have to not be afraid to 

turn around and say stop it, because we’ve still got something happening here, and I don’t care how much of a hurry you’re in, I still 

have a well vote to process, or there’s somebody standing here who 

wants to get recorded and they’re physically there. Arguably 

they’re where they’re supposed to be. You can’t not—I mean, that’s 

up to the Chair to say huh-uh if they want to. But you have to 

know that if that Member complains I’m going to say, ‘‘You talk to 

them. I didn’t shut you out. They did.’’ 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You mentioned that the Tally Clerks were the only ones that 

were aware of how many well votes there were and what the status. Wouldn’t the Reading Clerk, if she’s at the podium reading the 

changes as the seated Tally Clerk is putting them in, wouldn’t she 

also be aware of the fact that there were changes coming in and 

well votes being processed? 

A. It’s a fair question and a good one, and I can answer that because I am also a Reading Clerk. I do that work. I’ve done both, 

I do both, I still do both. 

The Reading Clerk may, if he or she is still standing there, may 

yeah, may very well be aware. But the Reading Clerk has got other 

stuff to do too. And if we are at, as in this case, this particular 

case, this was a motion to recommit with instructions. The Reading 

Clerk is busy at that point, if she’s doing her job, and I know Kevie 

was, getting ready to report back the amendment that was about 

to be agreed to based on those instructions. 

So she may be standing there, she may be over at her desk once 

we’re done calling votes. She’s not going to stand there forever. She 

may go back and do whatever she’s going to do. So she may not 

know in every instance that there is still something happening on 

my side of the desk. 

Q. When you reviewed the tape, do you recall where Kevie was 

at the time the vote was called at 214 to 214? 

A. I don’t remember, no. I could look at it, to know from looking. 

But whether she was at her post standing at the podium, I don’t 

know, because I had other stuff myself to do that night. I was busy 

trying to be ready to move in whatever direction we were going. 

And then the hammer fell and then at that point—— 

Q. Well, if she’s at the podium reading changes, is there any way 

that the Chair would not know that there were still votes being put 

into the system? 

A. Let me—could you—— 

Q. I think there might have been a double negative or two in 

there, so let me try to back that one up. If the Reading Clerk is 

up reading changes, as is typically the case as they’re being put in 

by the seated Tally Clerk, wouldn’t the Chair have had to know, 

based upon hearing her read those changes, that there were still 

votes being put into the EVS system? 

A. That’s a fair question. Yes, that would be an assumption you 

could make. But again, having done both of these jobs I know from 


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experience as a Reading Clerk that I may announce something that 

was subsequently entered into the system, and I’ll leave immediately right away and sit down and be called right back a half second later because someone has reappeared in the well. I may not 

even sit down before I have to be summoned back to announce 

whatever this vote is that has just been submitted. So the Chair 

could easily use that presence of the Reading Clerk to make assumptions. But the Reading Clerk can disappear and reappear in 

such quick fashion. 

Q. I’m not even talking about the physical. I mean, the visual of 

the Reading Clerk. But the Reading Clerk is actually reading aloud 

that people are changing their votes when they’re at the podium, 

correct? 

A. Yeah. You mean, the list submitted from the Tally Clerk at 

the initial—— 

Q. And as the Tally Clerk—I mean, we were told by Kevie that 

her standard process is, as the seated Tally Clerk puts those in the 

EVS, she’s sort of leaning over looking over his shoulder and reading those—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. As that is being done? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So if she is actually up there verbally reading changes out 

loud, wouldn’t the Chair have had to know that there are changes 

being put into the EVS system? 

A. Only—well, okay, in your example, yeah sure. But—but the 

Reading Clerk is typically summoned by the seated Tally Clerk and 

notified that I need you here to read these. So her return, or my 

return, whoever the Reading Clerk might be, would certainly signal 

that something is going on. But there can be—the Reading Clerk 

could read that list and there can be a lapse, and then he or she 

returns to what she’s doing and there’s nobody there for 1 or 2 or 

3 seconds, until there’s a need for that Reading Clerk to be summoned to read whatever subsequently may come in. Now, whether 

that—that happens all the time. I mean I bounce around ad 

nauseum sometimes because of late arrivals. 

Oh, here’s an example. This happened in December. I don’t know 

if you remember Mr. Kucinich had a resolution of impeachment 

that he wanted to submit. And Mr. Hoyer moved to table it. And 

the vote proceeded along party lines, just the way you might expect, until about halfway through; and then somebody got the idea 

that, hey, maybe this is a way to have a debate, we don’t want to 

table it. So the word went out to change, I want this to pass—or 

to not pass, I want the tabling motion to fail so we can debate this. 

Well, it happened to be at the point in time when we were almost 

through. I had to process—— 

Q. Meaning you can’t change with a voting card? 

A. With a voting card. I had to do 193 well votes that day. And 

aside from the impetus that provided us with that side show, the 

time spent doing it got on everybody’s nerves. Everybody was upset 

because it was taking forever. But that’s what happens. So the 

Reading Clerk is over there doing her thing, and all of a sudden 

I need you here, I only have about 190 of these things we need to 

call. 


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So I mean, you never know. You’re summoned up there and you 

do what you have to do whenever you have to do it. The Chair can 

make assumptions at any given time, but that changes so quickly 

that before the words are out of your mouth the situation can be 

totally radically different. 

So that’s why we talk to each other among ourselves. Everybody 

checks with everybody as to whether you can see anybody coming; 

do you see the board changing, do you hear anybody? I mean, vocally you hear all kinds of stuff. Every time the elevator door opens 

out in the hall some doorkeeper will shout one more. Whether 

there’s anybody there or not I don’t know, but we all stop, everybody waits to look and see if there’s going to be an appearance. 

And if we’re at the point where that has to be allowed, then we 

take care of it. But it’s a stopping point. It interrupts everything 

and it takes time. 

Q. There came a point in this process where De’Andre, according 

to a memo that he’s provided to us, a vote is called, he proceeds 

to enter; at least one more well vote, I believe it was Mario DiazBalart’s vote who gets put in? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. He then proceeds, because the Chair has indicated that the 

vote is to be closed to go through the steps of trying to finalize the 

vote and close it out. At some point in that process the system 

locked up; is that your understanding? 

A. That’s my understanding, yes. 

Q. At what point in the process did the system lock up and what, 

if anything, did De’Andre tell you about that? 

A. It was a—let’s see. 

Mr. SPULAK. I’m going to interrupt. I should let you answer, but 

I don’t think actually that’s what happened. And I don’t think it’s 

accurate to tell that to Kevin, to have him rely upon it. In fact, the 

system didn’t lock up at that point because De’Andre was continuing to—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. No, what I was representing is what De’Andre 

has represented in writing. That may not be in fact what happened, but his understanding of what happened. 

Mr. SPULAK. I don’t think that’s what he said. He said that he 

turned around to John and asked him at that point, Are we still 

processing votes? And then he was entering other votes. And he 

said, Because that’s my job. 

I don’t think he could have done that if the system was locked 

in the sense that you’re describing it. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. He said he kept pushing that button, pushing the 

button and it wouldn’t respond. 

Mr. SPULAK. To release the vote. That was after that. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. If you look at page 3 of De’Andre’s, and we’ll obviously ask 

him this afternoon: Having heard the Chair announce the tally and 

gavel down the vote, after I had entered the names of Members 

(who had turned in well cards into the EVS), following Mr. Mario 

Diaz-Balart’s, I heard you shut down the vote. I followed all the 

steps I usually do in closing a vote: Closed the voting station, first 


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step; terminated the vote, second step; finalized the vote, third 

step; released the vote, fourth step. 

Then it goes into a parenthetical about distinguishing between 

hitting final and finalizing on the boards. 

Then I got to the fifth step of the process, (the last step), which 

is, ‘‘quote’’, are you sure you want to release the vote, ‘‘unquote’’, 

and I did not release the vote, which in turn releases the display 

boards in the House. I clicked and clicked and clicked again and 

could not release the display. After about 5 to 10 seconds of trying 

to release the boards, more Members came into the well of the 

House to vote and submitted well cards. 

So according to what he’s saying, he processed Mr. Mario DiazBalart’s vote. He then tried to close it out and release the boards 

and the system froze up on him, at which point in time he was 

given several additional well cards. 

Did you know at that point that De’Andre was having trouble 

closing out the vote in the EVS system? 

A. At that point, I need to be sure, I want to answer this as best 

I can from my experience sitting at that table. I believe that being 

locked out from closing the vote down is not a deterrent to remaining at the well vote screen and allowing you to enter well votes. 

You can still do that. But you can’t get out of there to move towards the closing process because of some anomaly that other people have experienced. And I think one time I may have bumped 

into it, but I knew about it at that point and how to get out of it. 

And I think if you look at the video you can—I thought that’s 

what it was. And I leaned over the desk, albeit looking at the thing 

upside down, and tried to help him get out of there. That’s when 

I learned, when he said, ‘‘I can’t get out of the screen.’’ 

Q. But at that point, from what I understand from what he 

said—and again I’m not representing whether it’s accurate or not, 

that’s just what he said in writing—— 

A. Sure. 

Q. [continuing]. Is that he was trying. But for the system locking 

up there he would have closed out that vote and released the 

boards. The system wouldn’t let him do that. 

A. Right. 

Q. And at that point he got some additional well cards from you, 

obviously, since they would have handed them to you—— 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Q. [continuing]. Which he was unable to put into the system. But 

for whatever reason, whatever anomaly there was, he could not 

close the vote out. Is that your understanding of what happened? 

A. Well, it makes sense. I have to say that it’s a two-person operation. And I don’t know that I can say what he—I mean, he was 

in the chair. I don’t know what he did exactly. And I don’t know 

the order in which he did it because I expected the same protocol 

we all follow, because that’s what we’re trained to do. 

Bad luck that night. I don’t know what happened to the EVS. I 

don’t know what caused that and what caused his problem. My understanding at the time was that we were still good to go to process 

the well votes. And I didn’t know until after those votes were processed that he had a problem with getting out of there. At that 

point, I think, I leaned over to try to help walk him through what 


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I knew to do. Had I been in the chair I would have tried to do these 

things. 

Q. And is that to escape to the main screen? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. And sort of work around it that way? 

A. There’s a—yeah, an icon on the main menu that allows you 

to back door, I guess, to terminate the process. You can go in that 

way and shut the summary boards down. But he evidently couldn’t 

get off the well voting screen, which also has an icon at the bottom 

which is a release to move to the next step, and he couldn’t get out 

of that. 

Now, I don’t know—I still don’t know what that was all about 

and how that happened, I honestly don’t know. Bad luck at a bad 

time, to start with. But beyond that, I did everything that I could 

to help him. Beyond that—now, Ed Sorensen was up there. And Ed 

is the guy who takes this thing apart and puts them back together. 

And if he couldn’t figure it out—I mean that in the sense of if I’m 

the driver of a car, I may be a good driver but I’m not a mechanic. 

Well, if the mechanic can’t figure it out, then we got a problem. 

And that’s where I thought we were at that point. 

Q. Before Mr. Sorensen came up to the rostrum and started talking to De’Andre, did the two of you talk? Did he ask you for help? 

A. Yeah, because he said, I can’t get out of this screen. And my 

first thought was that, okay, you went to that final thing and now 

you’re locked out, because it’s happened to other people. And since 

that happened, we were provided with a—you know, the circular 

route. 

Q. Well, did you suggest the circular route to him? 

A. Yeah. That’s what I was doing. 

Q. Did it work? 

A. No. He said that he could not click on the—it’s the cancel icon, 

I think, is the one at the bottom right of the screen, I think. Cancel 

is what gets you out of everything and moves you to a place where 

you can then return to the main menu. In fact, I think it might 

be two cancels, two in a row; one to get out of there and another 

one to cancel whatever it’s showing you to get to the main menu. 

He couldn’t get out of that screen at all. And so at that point—— 

Q. At that point had you already handed him the cards for Mr. 

Space, Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. McNerney? 

A. Prior to that discussion, I think those well votes were—well, 

they might have been subsequent. I can’t remember. Or at least 

certainly right on top of it, because the situation wasn’t locked 

down. We could still certainly take those well cards. 

Q. But you don’t remember the order of whether you gave him 

the well cards, he then put them in—he had already been having 

trouble according to this. 

A. Okay. 

Q. You gave him the well cards, and whether he put them in. 

And then you had the discussion about how to work around to close 

it down; or did you have the discussion about how to close it down, 

then the additional well votes came in, you couldn’t close it down, 

he puts in the well votes and then he had the discussion with Mr. 

Sorensen? 


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A. The sequence as best as I can remember had to be that the 

well cards came first. And then he realized that—I mean, he could 

still do that. He wouldn’t have known there was a problem because 

well cards can be entered. The problem came when he tried to get 

out of there. 

Q. Well, apparently he already tried to get out. It says that he 

was allowed to keep putting in well votes. He already tried to get 

out and had a problem, and then he was given the additional well 

votes which he could input. 

A. I knew about it at the point in time where I was beginning 

to expect to shut this thing down. That’s when I think I first really 

realized that he couldn’t get out of there. And that’s when we had 

the try this, try that, session that didn’t work. And so—— 

Q. Did you then summon over Mr. Sorensen or did he come on 

his own? 

A. I think he came on his own, because we were—De’Andre was 

in obvious distress over what was happening because he—and also 

just from plain sight, the Chair was trying to move things along 

and nothing was happening with the summary boards. And he then 

walked up to see, I guess to see what he could do. And it was explained—De’Andre explained to him, I guess. 

Q. Were you there for that conversation? 

A. I was physically there, but I don’t know that I remember anything that was exchanged between those two. And I have to point 

out, too, just as a reminder that it was noisy in there. 

Q. Sure. 

A. I mean it was totally noisy. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I want to just back up. I think you made a reference again 

earlier about—I think you said Mr. Hoyer was about to take John 

Sullivan’s head off? 

A. That was my impression, yeah. I hope you’re not going to put 

that in the record. I want to stay employed. 

Q. Sure. But I want to actually just explore and just get a sense 

of what you recall him saying. You’re there, I know you’re busy and 

you’re trying to do your job, but obviously you heard enough to 

make you think he’s upset. Do you recall that conversation at all? 

A. What I heard was something to the effect that you don’t run 

this place, we do. And I heard that because—I guess because there 

might have been a lull in the noise level for half a second. But I 

didn’t catch all of what was said because—well, first of all, just by 

point of habit. The standing Tally Clerk has to be looking at one 

or two of the summary boards in order to write the tally. You have 

to look at somewhere to get it. And my habit typically has been 

mostly to—it’s just more comfortable for me to stand with my left 

elbow hooked over the desk facing the summary board and the Republican side of the room. So my back was turned essentially to a 

lot of what was going on back here. I could hear some of it. I didn’t 

see all of it. But I was aware it was going on. 

I don’t always know for sure what I hear said—and sometimes 

you hear things—and I never know sometimes whether to take it 

seriously or not, because I’ve heard some weird things said up 

there, very weird. And half the time people joke and it is a joke, 


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and sometimes it isn’t. But if you’re not sure, the best thing to do 

is to shut up, lay low and let it get over with. 

But my recollection of that particular night was it was extremely 

unpleasant for what John had to listen to. And I think it was 

uncalled for. I don’t think it had a place. 

Q. I think you do hear on the tape the statement, ‘‘We run this 

place, you don’t,’’ when you’re watching it on there. Someone had 

mentioned something like, Don’t ever do that to me again. Do you 

remember that? 

A. I’m sorry, I don’t remember hearing that. 

Q. Do you remember anything else about that conversation as to 

why it was, you know, so unpleasant, as you said, for Sullivan to 

be listening to this? 

A. I’m trying to dance around not using the profanity that was 

laced in there, but some of that was there. And I think—you know, 

as I said, I’ve seen and heard a few things. I’ve been here longer 

than some people, not as long as some others, seen some strange 

things, heard some strange things. I think those words, those kinds 

of things, if they’re said to somebody on the street, you should 

probably be thankful that you’ve got a full set of teeth. I just don’t 

think you should talk to anybody that way, and I also think he was 

wrong. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Was this part of the same conversation when he said, We run 

this place, you don’t? 

A. Yes. Part and parcel of some of that. The initial approach was 

generally directed at—you know, we talked about maybe the Chair 

should have been the recipient of the initial ‘‘shut this vote down 

now’’ comment. But again, that’s the cleaned-up version. 

There was some other stuff said. I think maybe, and I hate to 

do this, I don’t even know if it’s right, I’m guessing, McNulty 

knows better. He’s been up there a hundred times, if he’s been 

once. He’s one of the better Members we have in the chair. He 

knows how to do this. Why he bought into that I don’t know. I still 

don’t know. I was stunned to hear that. I don’t get it. 

Q. Do you remember what—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Mark, if we’re going to adjourn at noon according 

to the schedule, I’ve got some questions. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I’m sorry, I have one last question. 

Mr. SPULAK. Perhaps you guys can take 5 minutes to wrap up. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember anything John Sullivan said, sort of the response? 

A. Typically, when John is involved, he’s very low key. I don’t 

know what he said. I don’t think he raised his voice. I think if he 

did it wasn’t audible to me. But John doesn’t typically, as far as 

I can tell, operate like that. 

Q. Had you ever seen any Member or majority leader interact 

with the Parliamentarian that way? 


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A. Sure. Yeah, it happens. But again, it’s the whole thing that 

happened that night that makes it different from any other night, 

is the Chair’s response. I mean, I’ve heard it a hundred times: 

Close this vote now. I’ve heard all kinds of admonitions and hurry 

ups and we’ve got things to do and I don’t like the way it’s going, 

hurry up, all that stuff. But I’ve never seen the Chair make an 

early call like that without—— 

Q. Okay. Thanks. 

A. [continuing]. Going through protocol. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I just want to briefly ask you this. The decision was made at 

some point to abort the vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. What can you tell us about that? Who made that decision and 

how was that decision arrived at? 

A. Well, the decision was arrived at, and I’m telling you this 

mostly because this is what I learned after the fact. The abort idea, 

I’m not sure whose idea that was. But the abort idea was evidently 

because we were unable to take those summary boards down and 

move to what was already in place; a motion to reconsider that had 

been made. And the Chair had announced that the question was 

on the motion to reconsider, but we still were stuck in this loop. 

Abort is, I now know, the way to get those—what they intended 

to clear those boards and move to the next step so we can get the 

next motion up. 

But as a point of history, given the situation that I heard that 

night and the stuff that was going on, the atmosphere, the poisonous stuff being said, I thought for a moment that maybe somebody had come to their senses and decided to throw it out and do 

it again, because—not in the motion to reconsider, but just take the 

whole thing over again. And there’s a reason I thought that. I 

think I mentioned it to Muftiah once in a conversation. We used 

to do this in the Committee of the Whole, it was routine. It’s called 

a notice quorum. And the idea was to get 100 Members here, and 

once that tote board hit 100, the Chair would gavel the quorum call 

void, because you theoretically had a quorum. 

The abort key, which is on our system, it’s there, it’s what you 

use. It throws the whole thing out and reuses the roll call number 

just as if it never happened. I thought I saw a chance here for 

maybe that to be a way out of this that night, because it was that 

bad. I mean, it was awful. I thought well, okay, here’s a way to not 

argue about whether we’re moving for this motion and closing this 

one out, we’re just going to throw it out and do it all over again. 

That was my initial thought. 

I subsequently came to realize that the intent to do that was to 

clear the board so we—and we were never going to do it again in 

the sense of throw it out and do it over. There was going to be a— 

and there was—a motion to reconsider that was adopted. And the 

question came up again subsequently on that same motion to recommit later. 

So it did happen, but not the way I envisioned. But that was the 

thought process that I was initially going through, was the abort 

idea. It made sense to me initially, because I knew there was a hisVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00179 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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tory for it. There was at least a precedent for doing something like 

that. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But other than the precedent, why else did it make sense to 

you in practical terms? 

A. Practically? Because the initial—obviously we had a discrepancy over what anybody thought should have happened in terms 

of the final outcome because of the early call. And throw that in 

from where I was standing, it took a little while. We were there 

4 or 5 minutes, I think, through this whole process while it worked 

itself out. But it never got any better, it didn’t get any more civil, 

it got worse and worse. And I thought, okay, maybe this is a way 

to do it. 

Q. But didn’t Mr. Hoyer try to do that by moving the vacate the 

vote? Wouldn’t that have had the same impact? 

A. Yeah, he did. And in fact he did make that motion. I heard 

him do it. I don’t remember at that point—I want to say that the— 

okay. All at this exact same moment he is behind me over here on 

my left as I’m looking at the Chair at this microphone. I heard him 

try to vacate, to move to vacate. I heard Mr. Boehner on that side 

moving to adjourn. And I heard subsequently the Chair made some 

sort of reference to the vacating not being in order, I think. 

Q. Because the vote was still open? 

A. Because the vote was still open. He then changed his point of 

reference to a reconsideration, which was, I guess, parliamentarily 

better than what he was trying to do, but we still had that open 

vote problem. And subsequently the end result was the reconsideration after we aborted that vote to get the stuff going again; reconsideration adopted, question recurred, and it failed again on a voice 

vote at that point. 

But it did happen the way everybody, I think, wanted it to, but 

not in the fashion I envisioned, at least from the aborting standpoint. 

Q. Thinking back to what you said a little bit ago, do you remember where Mr. Hoyer was when he first told the Chair to close it? 

A. If I’m standing at the rail and looking at the Chair, he would 

have been approximately where the lectern is in the well, on the 

Democratic side, somewhere in that area, I think, approaching the 

well. 

Q. So he had already crossed through the well and he was on the 

left side of it? 

A. Either that or coming right through that area. He may not 

have actually been at the rail yet, but he was closing in. That’s my 

recollection. 

Q. And you said that he was talking to—you weren’t sure to 

whom he was actually talking, but—— 

A. Looking directly in the direction of the Chair, but speaking to 

whom I don’t know exactly. 

Q. Do you remember if the Chair was looking at him at some 

point? 

A. No, I don’t, I’m sorry, because we at that point were still occupied with the well votes, so I wasn’t really looking at where Mr. 

McNulty’s eyes were. 


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Q. Do you remember whether there were any well cards at the 

time that Mr. Hoyer approached the podium? 

A. If my recollection is correct, the time that he approached was 

approximately about the same time we were working on that DiazBalart well vote. It was in my possession at that point. And if you 

had been walked through what we do when we get these well 

cards, we have to jot the well card number up in the corner and 

then hand it to the Tally Clerk who is seated. 

So my guess would be, from remembering that night, that I probably had it at that point, or had just gotten it when he initially approached at his request to move things along. And then there was 

a subsequent conversation involving John off the side of the rostrum which we’ve mentioned. And the next thing I know, the gavel 

falls and—— 

Q. Do you remember the Speaker voting? 

A. Do I remember did she vote? I don’t remember, but if she did 

and she voted in the well, that’s easily retrievable. 

Q. Do you know when Mr. Lampson voted? 

A. Directly, no, I don’t. 

Q. No, by well card? 

A. No. Mr. Lampson, I don’t remember exactly, but my guess 

would be that he came probably in the—I guess the first surge, the 

normal procedure that we would be employing of well voting. 

Q. Just as a general rule, why do clerks read the score off the 

tally boards? Couldn’t you read it off of the screen? I mean, isn’t 

that the most accurate way of knowing? I mean, I know you wait 

to see things. 

A. I understand. 

Q. I’m not suggesting that you’re wrong. I’m just curious. For 

real quality control why wouldn’t you get it off of the source, the 

screen? 

A. I think from a practical standpoint to do it that way, the way 

the system is set up, to get to the point where you’re looking at the 

tally on the screen, typically we are at that point when the Chair 

is already reading what we’ve given them. But as has been pointed 

out, if you’re at that point and you have to back up, because there 

are going to be additional well votes entertained, it’s a marginally 

difficult place to be to get back to the well screen. 

It’s not a big deal. None of these things are in and of themselves. 

But collectively when time is an issue, and also with collective stuff 

going on around you, it’s easy to lose track of what you’re doing. 

The individual who is seated at that machine is, aside from trying 

to process and close out the existing vote, if it’s a motion like we 

had that night, if you know what you’re doing, what’s going to happen is once that vote is over the Chairman of the committee is 

going to report back to the House forthwith, if that’s the language 

in the motion, and there will be an amendment. That’s voteable. 

You’ve got to know to be ready to put that vote up if somebody 

desires. You’ve got to be thinking about that. And if you get past 

that point, you also revert back to engrossing the third reading, 

which is also voteable. Typically we don’t do that. I mean, usually 

it’s glossed over so fast people don’t realize you did it. But somebody aware of what they’re doing could demand a roll call on that. 


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If you’re paying attention to what you’re doing, you’ve got to be 

thinking about that kind of stuff. 

And so to back up from that point, which is a good question, because, yeah, it would be maybe reliable to some people, but it’s supposed to be the same here as it is up there. So you can get yourself 

caught in all kinds of knots if you’re there and have to back up and 

then think about, oh yeah, now we’re going to here or there or 

wherever. 

Some of those motions you can store ahead of time, you can anticipate that they’re coming. They’re standard motions on passage, 

suspend the rules and agree to those things, the simple ones. But 

the off-the-wall stuff, that’s got to be keyed in its entirety through 

a blank screen that’s allowable for you to do that. 

And, shoot, I’ll just throw one out. Barney Frank had one not 

that long ago. We had a motion to table the motion to reconsider 

ordering the yeas and nays on a motion to adjourn. That’s where 

we wound up on that one. Luckily there was time enough. I think 

I was in the chair that day, myself in my seat. There was enough 

discussion for me to have a few seconds to jot down all the alternatives I could think of. So I had a pad with something to write 

that I could look at and know to take bits and pieces of these 

things and throw them in there so when the vote came I had something up there that was correct. 

But you have to—it’s not as easy as it sounds. You have to be 

able to wrap up what you’re currently doing and be ready to do 

whatever is coming next. And the less you have to do bouncing 

around in that system, the better off you are to make that happen. 

So I’m not answering your question, I bet, the way you wanted—— 

Q. Oh, no. 

A. [continuing]. But it’s certainly something you could do. But it’s 

supposed to be the same in the system as that board. So in a perfect world you should not get into trouble reading it off that summary board. 

Q. I’m not trying to—and I know how strongly you feel about 

what happened that day and how it interrupted the process, but— 

and this goes in part to one of the questions Mr. Snowdon asked. 

Do you remember, had there been any—prior to the time that 

Mr. McNulty called, had there been much activity on the board? In 

other words in the seconds, 30 seconds or so? 

A. Oh, leading up to it? 

Q. Yeah. Had it been switching? 

A. Yes. It had been incrementing one, two on each side. At one 

point it was passing by 5 and then another one losing by 5, and 

then it would creep up. And then the point that it was about to 

match is when the process began with Mr. Hoyer coming to the 

well. I mean I understand fully what his intention was. I know exactly what he wanted to do. But the end result was we just weren’t 

allowed to do what we’re supposed to do, and this is what happens 

when you get off that track. 

Q. Notwithstanding that, could he have—if he didn’t believe that 

there were other votes about to be cast, whether there was someone in the well or not, let’s leave that aside. If he looked at the 

board and saw the board at 214–214 and he was not aware that 

there were any votes being cast or changed from the well, could he 


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have—even though he wasn’t following the procedure, was there 

any way that he could have felt that that is what he thought the 

vote was at that time? 

A. Sure, absolutely. But that’s the—the problem with that is that 

we are the only ones who know what the well votes are. 

Q. I understand. 

A. So the assumption—sure, yes, he can make that assumption. 

But it’s a luck of the draw. Maybe you’re right, maybe you’re not. 

Q. Right. I understand. And let me just say that I think that— 

well, okay, that’s—I mean, I think that’s what happened, but I’m 

not testifying. 

A. I wish it hadn’t. But I don’t think that—as I said, he’s not the 

first one to come down to the well and try to move things along. 

That happens all the time. 

Q. And that happened when the current minority was in the majority? 

A. Yes. Mr. DeLay was there all the time, barking at people to 

move things along. But the response—our response to that, no matter who is asking, is to facilitate this protocol and match it up with 

what their desires are. And that means moving it as best we can 

without sacrificing accuracy and without sacrificing the protocol 

itself. Because that’s the quality control. That’s what says this is 

a reliable result. And we’re the only ones who can do that. 

Q. Let me ask you—and so Mr. McNulty called out; sort of immediately thereafter, Kevie started announcing some changes. And 

then at that point it should have been 215–213 with the motion 

carrying; is that right? 

A. It could have been, yeah, because we had subsequent changes 

that ultimately altered that. 

Q. Right. That was later. But I’m talking about almost immediately after the first 214–214 call the board refreshed—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. And it showed 215–213? 

A. Exactly. 

Q. Then there was a lot of human cry about that? 

A. Right. 

Q. What was the minority attempting to do, do you think, at that 

point? 

A. Do you mean procedurally, or do I know what they’re thinking 

or trying to convey? 

Q. Yes. 

A. My guess would be, just from experience, that they were expressing a fair amount of unhappiness with a vote being called a 

tie and therefore being defeated, when clearly, a millisecond later, 

they had a victory by one vote. 

Q. And then what happened? 

A. Well, the noise level just grew and grew at that point. And 

essentially we just—we stopped for a brief period. We didn’t do 

anything, forward, backwards, nothing. We had—at that point, 

Members recovering from the initial shock then began to approach 

the well and submitted well votes which we processed. And again, 

we took them because I knew that we weren’t done. I mean, the 

protocol is what it is. Subjectively, the Chair can call a vote anytime he or she wants to, but not while we’re still processing votes. 


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I mean that’s not me, that’s just common sense. You just can’t do 

it. 

Q. Did anyone tell you or De’Andre or anyone else to stop processing votes? 

A. No, no one said stop. And initially, I think, De’Andre turned 

around, as was earlier mentioned, and made sure it was okay to 

proceed taking the well votes, which he got the okay to do. But no 

one said stop doing anything. 

Q. And so eventually, if you will, that vote ran its course, right? 

Everyone who wanted a change, everyone who wanted to vote, everyone was recorded and recorded accurately, as far as you know? 

A. To the extent that we were proceeding with—yeah. Now, there 

are two well cards that you know about. 

Q. Yes, yes, yes. 

A. And why that occurred, I can only say that the House had 

stopped. The confusion got to be so bad that we simply quit doing 

anything. We weren’t going anywhere and the noise level was deafening and John was doing his best to pick the pieces up and make 

something happen out of what was going on around all of this. And 

ultimately, I think, if my memory is right—I know, because they 

were both the minority and majority leaders, I know what the intent was: They both wanted to wind up on the prevailing side so 

they could move to reconsider, depending on what the outcome 

was. As it turned out the scales tipped in the direction—actually 

it didn’t. But Mr. Hoyer’s vote was a duplicate, he was already voting aye. 

Q. So you couldn’t have entered that if you wanted to? 

A. No. The system would have told us that he was recorded already. But the other, Mr. Boehner’s vote, would have effectively 

moved him to the—— 

Q. Prevailing side? 

A. [continuing]. Prevailing side. But at that point, Mr. Hoyer had 

already—we were well into doing what he would have wanted to 

do anyway. We had just reached that ‘‘all stop’’ point and everything came to a standstill. And for whatever reason, right or 

wrong, that card and Mr. Hoyer’s card were simply left. All I can 

do to explain that away is to say that we were so far off our protocol that we were wandering around, just moving, trying to see 

where we’re going next. And then you throw in the cantankerous 

EVS. That made a bad situation even worse. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. The only—last question I have is one of the things the Select 

Committee has been tasked with is coming up with some recommendations to make sure this type of situation doesn’t occur 

again. 

Do you have any thoughts or comments about what the major 

problems were that evening and how they could be addressed? 

A. Well, that evening in general, yeah, I do actually have some 

ideas. I won’t bore you with the step-by-step process that we go 

through to process each and every well card that comes through 

there. But I will say that because of how we do what we do to guarantee this accuracy as best we can, 2-minute votes are a terrible 

idea. They don’t accomplish anything. They don’t save any time. 


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And in the end, you need total cooperation from the Members. 

They’ve all got to be there already. And minimal well votes, minimal. I mean more than five and you’ve got trouble, because you’re 

running into a time constraint. 

The other recommendation that you might want to look at would 

be, I don’t think it’s ever going to happen, but we currently don’t 

have assigned seats and we don’t have dedicated voting stations for 

the Members. You have probably seen at one time or another—I 

have—the Maryland State Assembly has that setup. Roll calls 

take—I don’t know what they’re given, 5 seconds or something. 

They put the question, everybody is in their chair, they hit the button, the tally is up and it is over. That assumes everybody is already there for whatever stack of votes you might have coming. 

You have to get everybody there. 

So the answer to that would be—I don’t know how you would do 

it—encourage everybody to get there, not wait. I mean, typically— 

it just happened yesterday and it happens every day—the clock is 

down to zero and there are still 250 people not here, sometimes 

300. Now, that’s the first vote in a series, I grant you. And after 

that, then everybody is there. But how you get them there, I don’t 

know. I even heard Mr. Hoyer one day exhort everybody and tell 

them, You’re going to get locked out if you’re not here. 

The very next roll call, the one right after that, after that statement was made, the clock went down to zero and we had 200 people still not there. So I don’t know how you do it. But getting everybody there somehow, some way. They have to be encouraged to get 

over there. 

Now, another way to look at it might be, we currently have a 

function in the system that locks out changes. When the clock 

reaches 5 minutes or less, Members who want to change now have 

to come to the well to effect their change. Initial votes are still accepted, changes are not. You have to come to the well to do that. 

Well, maybe you ought to lock in a system function that closes the 

vote stations without me doing anything at zero, zero, zero. So that 

everybody who comes in after that mark is going to have to come 

to the well. It will take forever, but maybe that’s how you make 

the point. Get there before zero, zero, zero so you can use your card 

and get it over with. 

But again, I mean, I don’t know how you do that, I don’t know 

how you make anybody do that. If I had a nickel for every time 

we’ve had to wait for some committee to adjourn what they’re doing 

and come over, not one or two, but the whole committee, they’ve 

all got to vote. Well, you got to let them all vote. It takes time. In 

and of itself it’s not a big deal. But collectively a bunch of votes 

like that, and a stack, and time starts going out the window on a 

Friday when everybody wants out, it gets to be—it causes people 

to get ugly. And so how you effect that again, I’m not sure. But 

timeliness is a huge problem. 

And I know everybody has stuff to do. They all have places to 

go and things to do. Hanging around in the Chamber, not leaving 

the Chamber when there’s a stack of votes; don’t go out to the 

Speaker’s Lobby, don’t go talking on your cell phone, don’t go to the 

club group, stick around. There are perennial offenders, and I know 


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who they are. I know where to look for them, I know where to find 

them, I know where they’re coming from. 

And as I said earlier, we bend over backwards to find them and 

let them know that they need to get in here and vote. But again, 

as the time has elapsed, you’re adding on extra time to allow that 

to happen. That comes out of everybody’s pockets, so I don’t know 

how you do it. But they have to be somehow convinced that it’s in 

their best interest to stick around and be done. Other than, I don’t 

know, having assigned seats and going down that road, I don’t 

know how you can move this along any faster. 

Or, change this whole protocol entirely. Change it to whatever, 

I don’t know, but change it to something. But give the Chair more 

leniency, I don’t know, or more authority, more direct authority to, 

for instance, close a vote. The Chair saying ‘‘All time has expired,’’ 

you and I both know that that’s going to go right over. They’re not 

going to pay any attention to that. And they’re not going to listen 

to me if I tell them they have to hurry up, they’re just not. But 

if the Chair says something to the effect, maybe change what the 

Chair says, that the vote is now closed, those words are uttered. 

And then you move to read the tally. 

Well, we’re already in the business of looking at video, so if you 

have a problem, you go back, and if the Chair has said those words, 

too bad, get there earlier. But that’s the Chair’s authority, not 

mine. That’s a direct authority from the presiding officer to say, 

We’re done, you’re late, I’m sorry. 

You have one or two times of that happen to you and maybe 

you’ll get over there sooner, I don’t know. But I just don’t know 

what else you do when no one is compelled to be here at a particular place and they don’t have a dedicated place to go vote. They 

can vote anywhere they want. I mean, literally sticking your head 

in the back door with no time left and sticking your card in. That 

works. People do it all the time, because they’re somewhere else 

and they’re late. And if they do it, they’re physically in the Chamber, but they’re at that drop-dead point where we’re about to close 

everything out, well, then they get to come to the well. That just 

eats up more time. 

God, I don’t know, guys, there’s a hundred things you could come 

up with to save seconds here and there and move things along a 

little better. You know, you have to remember too that there are 

situations. There are the Ike Skeltons of the world who require 

someone to hold the card while they sign it, because they have the 

use of one hand and not two. There are the Henry Hydes, who toward the end of his career we actually had to have a designee, a 

staffer, bring his card to the well because he couldn’t do it himself. 

Now, we had that all set up ahead of time. That’s not supposed to 

happen. I mean, under any most dire circumstances, Members cast 

votes, nobody else. But in that situation. I think we did do it for 

Mr. Daschle, I think we did it for Mo Udall. Towards the end of 

his career he was in bad shape. And then I think Mel Price, too. 

I mean the list goes on. You have to factor all those things in, into 

the time constraints that are eaten up in allowing Members to exercise their right. 

And so 2-minute voting, when you throw all that stuff in there, 

it’s a misnomer. It doesn’t help. Five minutes is about the limit. 


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That works. And even that’s more like 7, usually. But saving time 

with 2-minute votes, particularly when you have a stack like we 

did that night prior to that motion, we had like seven, eight or nine 

of those 2-minute votes, we did all those just fine because we kept 

right to our script and we had cooperation from the Members. 

I don’t think we had more than eight or nine, at the worst, on 

any one of those votes in terms of well cards. And everybody hung 

around. Mr. Al Green of Texas, I remember that night, stood in the 

well the entire time and just handed me a card for each vote. He 

didn’t leave. He just had a whole stack of them all filled out and 

he waited. 

Now, I realize that you can’t do that with everybody, because if 

you’ve got 20 or 30 people who want to use the well that night, 

then you’ve got a crowd down there. But in theory, one or two 

Members, that moves things along, because I know they’re there 

and I know where to go get them. It’s subjective to the extent that 

I can’t make anybody do these things. But beyond that—the only 

procedural thing I can come up with is 2 minutes, just throw it out, 

it doesn’t help. 

We have to, among other things, verify those well cards with another Tally Clerk downstairs. And with more than five or six or 

seven well cards—now, this is just a little history I’ll throw out at 

you, because we used to do things one way, now we do them a different way. We used to have, lots of you will remember this, we 

had a card with the Members’ names alphabetically listed and 

numbered 1 through 435. And when they voted in the well we 

wrote two numbers, the roll call number and their index number, 

and that index number is what went into the system. So if Mr. 

Abercrombie voted in the well, it would be a 1Y for a ‘‘yea’’ vote 

and a 1N for a ‘‘no’’ vote. Now, we don’t do that anymore. We put 

them in the system by their names and however many characters 

are needed to make it unique. So if you put J-A-C, because Jackson 

Lee is in the well, you’re going to get her and Jackson of Illinois 

and anybody else with those first few letters. So you have to call 

through those and make sure you get the right one. That’s the first 

problem. 

Secondly, when you put those cards together to read them back 

to the clerk, downstairs they’re alphabetical. Putting numbers on 

those cards was easy. You just had to organize them numerically. 

That was no big deal. But now you have to read each card and do 

them alphabetically. And if you look at some of those signatures recently, I only know who they are because I recognize the signature. 

It doesn’t say anything. I just know who it is. 

But you have to figure that, okay, it’s Mr. Poe, which by the way, 

is totally illegible, but I know it’s a P, so that’s where it goes. But 

you’ve got to read the cards, find it, stick it in there and get it alphabetical. You can’t just look at the corners and shove them in 

numerically. 

Okay. You’re saying to yourself, Why in the hell are you telling 

us this? The point I’m making is that it takes time to do that and 

we can’t release these votes to anybody until that step is taken 

care of. And that step can’t be taken care of if you’re mired in a 

stack of 2-minute votes. You’re going to be up to here in cards. And 

so it slows the release of the information to the Internet and everyVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00187 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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where else it goes, because we can’t release them until we’re 

through proofing them. 

So 2-minute votes don’t buy you time for that. You wind up with 

seven or eight of those, you’ll have seven or eight of them sitting 

there unreleased. Nobody knows what happened. 

Now, in amendments it’s not that big a deal because typically 

Committee of the Whole actions aren’t released anywhere until the 

day is over or the disposition of the bill that the amendments pertain to is finished. Then everything goes at once. 

But a stack of suspension votes in the House, that stuff just sits 

until we proof it. It doesn’t go online. It doesn’t go—nobody can see 

it, nobody can get at it. And that includes the links of the Clerk’s 

Web site, the leadership Web site. They all have links to roll calls 

and nobody can see any of those, including the Members. So 2- 

minute votes don’t help at all. 

Now, I don’t think it’s ever going to go away because everybody 

seems to like them. But you asked me so I want to tell you. It 

makes things difficult and it doesn’t improve much of anything at 

all, and I don’t think it saves that much time. 

Mr. SNOWDON. All right. Thank you. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Can I ask a couple of questions? 

Mr. SPULAK. Yes, please. 

EXAMINATION BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. When Kevie announces, when the Reading Clerk announces 

a vote, usually she’ll say when the well card is turned in—this is 

towards the end here, after the change sheet—she’ll say ‘‘Mr. DiazBalart,’’ and then she’ll pause. And then the Tally Clerk will put 

it into the system and then she’ll say ‘‘off no’’ or ‘‘on aye,’’ or she’ll 

announce the change, right? 

A. Right. 

Q. She will normally announce the change after De’Andre puts 

it into the system, right? 

A. She is supposed to be—or the Reading Clerk, whoever it is, 

is reiterating what he or she sees from that screen. So let’s say, by 

way of example, that a well vote is submitted and it’s Mr. Abercrombie who gives us a green card. The Reading Clerk is not supposed to stand there and say because I recognize that’s Mr. Abercrombie, I can say Mr. Abercrombie voted aye. First of all, we don’t 

know if that’s a change or an initial vote. And that doesn’t happen 

until it appears in the system. The Reading Clerk is supposed to 

be reading that, working in tandem with the Tally Clerk to make 

those announcements. That’s why there’s a pause and a delay. You 

don’t just know and say something. 

Secondly, transferring those well cards is—think of it like checkers. You can move your piece around that board until you’re blue 

in the face, but until you take your hand off of it, it doesn’t count. 

Well, a Member can stand there and until that card is out of his 

or her grasp and into our possession—and even at that point they 

can pull it back—it doesn’t count, it’s nothing, it’s just something 

we’re working on. And until it moves from the standing Tally Clerk 

to the desk behind and has been entered into the system, that’s 

when the Reading Clerk will announce the name and then the disposition, because he or she can read it from that screen and it’s 


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now known that it’s either a change or initial vote. If you jump the 

gun on that and say something, you get just what we had happen 

with the Chair doing something out of order. 

Q. So it’s possible, then, that if the tape shows that McNulty is 

making the announcement over Kevie’s voice, it’s possible then that 

De’Andre had processed every card that he had at that point, right? 

A. Conceivable, yeah, but we still—— 

Q. But then there is the uptick problem? 

A. Yeah. There is that little built-in hook, and you have to just 

wait for it. 

Mr. SPULAK. That’s why you have the system? 

Mr. HANRAHAN. Yeah. 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. And another point. You say that the Leaders sometimes give 

you well cards to protect their prerogative to reconsider. Now, 

when you have those cards, you wouldn’t make that decision yourself as to whether or not to process those or not? 

A. Oh, no, no, no. 

Q. You would always turn to either the Leader himself or maybe 

the Parliamentarian and ask if these cards should be processed, 

right, when you think that the cards are given to you just to preserve the prerogative and you’re not sure—— 

A. Oh, no, no. Well votes given to me are well votes cast. I don’t 

care what the reason is and what the motivation might be. 

Q. So in the case of the Boehner card—Hoyer’s card, that’s just 

a dupe—but in the case of the Boehner card would you assume 

that De’Andre would have turned to the Parliamentarians to say, 

‘‘What do I do with this?’’ 

I guess the point that I’m trying to make is when you say that 

Boehner wasn’t recorded because you were so ‘‘off track,’’ I’m trying 

to figure out what that means. I mean surely De’Andre would have 

turned, correct, to at least the Parls and say, ‘‘Should I process this 

card?’’ 

A. Typically, yeah. And I think that maybe he did. Again, when 

you talk to him, you can ask him when and how he got that, what 

he did with it, and what he thought he should do with it. I know 

it got through me in the standard procedure, because he had all 

the cards with him at the desk. But we were in that black hole at 

that point. 

So, yeah, to answer your question he probably did and should 

have turned around to mention that, but not because it was a leadership card. Anybody at that point should not take anything because of the situation that we’re currently in. 

Q. But actually in that vote, everything was processed except for 

the Boehner card, right? I mean you continued to process cards? 

A. Mr. Hoyer’s card, I’m not sure about. Because it was a dupe, 

I don’t know. It would not have changed anything. I may have 

looked—I have to tell you that when we have these kinds of votes, 

we know—I know anyway—to start looking for the leadership to 

come around just for that reason—I mean to look for these guys. 

And so it’s not a surprise to get it. 


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Q. Right. One other question. When the Chair bangs the gavel, 

under your protocol is the banging of the gavel an official cue, or 

are you looking for words? 

A. We’re looking for words. The gavel is a nice benchmark and 

it gets everybody’s attention, but it doesn’t substitute for the actual 

vocalization that a motion to reconsider has been laid on the table. 

Q. So with respect to the integrity of that vote, in the end, do 

you feel that the final vote that was announced, the final vote— 

not the premature announcement, but the final vote—the Boehner 

card aside, do you feel—can you put your professional stamp of integrity on that vote in that all the votes were processed, all the 

changes were processed, all the votes were recorded accurately, 

Boehner aside? 

A. That’s an interesting question. And the answer to it has to be 

that while I have no reason to question it, because we didn’t stick 

to the protocol, officially I can’t say that I had anything to do 

with—I’m not saying it’s wrong, I’m just saying because we didn’t 

do what we were supposed to do, I can’t say. 

Q. And what’s missing from the protocol in the very end? 

A. Well, the standard procedure whereby we would have the 

Members notified that we’re about to close, and then we would 

have the inquiries made about changes and initial votes and all the 

rest of it, and then the conversations among all of us as to whether 

we’re closing this vote. And if the answer is ‘‘yes’’ all around, then 

the Tally Clerk, seated, shuts the voting stations down, for the last 

time hopefully, and says, that’s it, it’s done, write the numbers. At 

which point I write the numbers and push them up to the—I guess 

John was up there, I don’t remember. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But from what you may know subsequent to that, are you 

aware that any Member said, ‘‘My vote wasn’t recorded’’ or ‘‘My 

vote wasn’t recorded accurately; I wanted to vote and I didn’t get 

a chance’’? 

A. Outside of the obvious card Mr. Boehner gave us, no. Nobody 

complained to me, or, that I know of, to anybody that they were 

incorrectly recorded. 

Q. Members sometimes do when they feel that’s the case? 

A. Sure, I would hear about it, no question. 

Q. My final question is based on—well, at the time that the decision was made to abort the vote, and subsequent to that, do you 

think that that decision was made to try to destroy the evidence 

of the vote or to destroy the data so that it wouldn’t be able to be 

viewed at a subsequent time? 

A. No, I don’t think so. I just don’t believe that was true. I think 

that was a conscious decision made as a last ditch effort to clean 

things up so we could move on. And I don’t think there was any— 

any thought in anybody’s mind about killing it so that it could 

never be found and burying it someplace. I just don’t think that 

was anybody’s thought, I really don’t. 

I think it was a totally conscious decision to how do we best— 

what do we do? We have obvious things going on here, we’ve got 

to move, how do we effect clearing that off so we can get to the 


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next point? And as it turned out, I mean, we all know that that 

data is stored anyway. So it was retrievable. 

But, no, I don’t think so. I think everybody was just, what do we 

have to do to move this along and how do we best do it. And that 

was the only option we had at that time. 

Now, given the atmosphere, I mean I can’t go back to that 

enough. On a quiet evening, with no controversy, maybe you do 

things differently, I don’t know. I mean personally, would I have 

liked to have seen somebody take a microphone and inquire of the 

Chair, ‘‘Could the Chair please tell us where we are, what’s the status, where are we here?’’ that would have bought maybe everybody 

some calming time, maybe a little bit of—it certainly would have 

bought us a little time to maybe regroup and maybe, I don’t know, 

handle things more smoothly, a little better, I don’t know. But that 

never happened. 

It was just not that kind of a night. It was never calm and it was 

never collected. It was just rat race after rat race after rat race, 

and it was one side and the other trying to move things along. 

They all had their own business and their own goals as to what 

they were trying to achieve. None of that matters to any of us. But 

we do need to pay attention to it because it requires a response 

from us under normal circumstances. If a vote is going to be called 

on something, we have to be ready. 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. And just to reiterate what you said earlier that although you 

weren’t—as I recall—you weren’t sure, but you believed that the 

voting stations were closed when that final announcement was 

made? 

A. I think so, yeah. De’Andre could probably fill that in for you 

a little better. But again, under perfect circumstances, I probably 

would have been able to answer that question for you better because De’Andre would have said, ‘‘I’ve closed them, write the tally.’’ 

Q. Right, right. 

A. We never got to that point, so I’m guessing as to what may 

or may not have happened. It’s difficult. If you’re in that chair you 

do all sorts of things. And you have more going on in your head 

than I care to remember sometimes, you know. 

Q. And you’re good. 

A. The second people who have the worst situation are the Parliamentarians. Those guys, I give those guys that night, on a scale 

of 1 to 100, they get a 200 for just putting the pieces back together 

and trying to make things go forward as best as possible. It was 

a bad night. I don’t know, maybe one of the worst ones I’ve seen, 

if not the worst. And the workload that 3 months, June, July and 

August, was maybe the worst I’ve ever been through in my time 

here. We set a record last year with roll calls. And I can only say 

that this works and it’s been substantiated by the 813 votes prior 

to that and the 300-some-odd that we had afterwards. And the outstanding differences were just what we’ve talked about today. And 

if you throw protocol out the window, you get August 2nd a lot. 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you so much. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Thanks. 


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Mr. HANRAHAN. I hope it was helpful. I appreciate you letting me 

talk. I know I talked your head off. 

Mr. SPULAK. I think we all learned a lot. 

Mr. HANRAHAN. I appreciate that. If you need anything else, I’m 

available. 

[Whereupon, at 12:24 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008. Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: ETHAN LAUER 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building commencing at 2:15 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Ethan, thank you for being here today. As you may know, the 

Select Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities of August 

2nd, 2007 was formed to investigate the events surrounding roll 

call vote 814 and the subsequent motion to reconsider. Matters including the duration of the vote and calling of the vote are things 

in which we are interested. So we would like you to address that, 

your involvement in those events, your observations. We will ask 

you specific questions about those as well. 

But before we start, we would like you to, you know, introduce 

yourself, tell us what your current job responsibilities are, what 

you do, and then begin in a narrative form, if you will, to tell us 

your recollections of the events of August the 2nd related to roll 

call 814 and the subsequent motion to reconsider? 

A. Okay. Well, my name is Ethan Lauer, E-t-h-a-n L-a-u-e-r. I 

am an assistant Parliamentarian in the office of the House Parliamentarian since 1999. I was in the House Chamber August 2nd 

during the events in question. And my role was to advise the Chair 

on the proceedings, as we do every day. And you just want a recap 

of things from my perspective on that? 

Q. Sure. Sure. 

A. Okay. The vote on the motion to recommit was pending. And 

it was a 15-minute vote. And I remember as the time began to 


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wind down, a lot of times we rely on a message or a signal from 

someone on the Speaker’s staff as to what they predict for the vote, 

whether there is a big meeting going on, or elevators are stuck, or 

there is any reason that the vote is going to be delayed for some 

reason. And I wasn’t really paying attention to what was going on 

during the vote. We were kind of relieved that the end of the day 

was upon us. And the Speaker’s aide said you should be on your 

toes, have the Chair on his toes, this may be a close vote. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Who said that? 

A. That was Catlin O’Neill—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. From the Speaker’s office. And so that was kind 

of when I snapped into consciousness of what was happening. And 

it was very close. You have, I am sure, seen the review. There was 

a lot of changing of votes and late—I guess late, people just waited 

until the very last second to vote. So I assume that the vote wasn’t 

held open very long. I guess as soon as the minimum of 15—I think 

that’s right, pretty much shortly after, or as soon as the minimum 

15-minute duration expired that we were at—almost everyone who 

had voted or was going to vote had already voted, and there was 

some changing, and it was close. And so we were—I was—the job 

that we do at that point is to get the signal from the Speaker that 

everybody who is in that they know of in the vicinity has voted and 

there are no problems, no subway problems or whatever that would 

cause a delay. 

And then we wait for the tally clerks to finish processing all of 

their votes, well cards. You probably heard all the description of 

how the well voting works. And to get a final result from their 

standpoint that all the changes and all the votes and all the vote 

changes that are going to happen, that they have been processed 

and plugged in. And then we get a slip from them indicating what 

the final tally was, relay that to the clerk—I am sorry, to the 

Chair. And so that she can announce what the final was. I guess 

it was he that night can announce what the final was. 

So that is kind of where I was, standing as you have seen kind 

of next to the rostrum next to the highest level of rostrum where 

the Speaker is, and focusing on the tally clerk to finalize everything that they had going. And the Chair tried once to announce 

a result. I guess it was a 214–214, a tie vote, which is a tie vote 

loses, and he was—we were—able to stop him from going any further because there were still votes. Tally clerks hadn’t finalized everything on their end. It was still a moving, a moving—a shifting 

tally. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. How did you do that? You said you were able to stop him. 

What did you say or do to stop him? 

A. Usually, we—one of the tools we have is a mute button. We 

can turn off the Chair’s amplification so that he can’t—his announcement can’t be heard. I am not sure if that—if we were able 

to do that. I think it was that the Parliamentarian, John Sullivan, 

came up and must have said something to him to pull him short. 


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Because I remember that his—I think his words were amplified 

when he tried to announce that result. 

Q. Do you recall, did he start to give that result with amplification, and then Mr. Sullivan hit the mute button so that the back 

end of that was cut off or did Mr. Sullivan just say something to 

him mid-stream, at which point he stopped saying anything at all? 

A. I can answer that based on the review of the tape, honestly. 

I don’t have a personal recollection. Is that—you want me to tell 

you what I have seen? 

Q. What you have seen. If that refreshed your recollection, that’s 

fine. 

A. Well, I think what I saw was that it was, his announcement 

was amplified, so I was not quick enough with the button. I don’t 

think anyone else hit the button. Maybe he even saw, maybe Mr. 

McNulty even saw that there were Members in the well who were 

saying they were still trying to get in, or someone from behind me 

was able to get his attention. 

Q. Do you recall whether he stopped on his own volition or 

whether you or Mr. Sullivan affirmatively said or did something 

which caused him to stop the first time? 

A. That I don’t know. I would like to think we instigated the 

stopping, but I can’t really tell you whether that’s the case. 

Q. Okay. You think we would be able to tell that from the video? 

A. That’s—some of what I am saying is coming from recollections 

of watching that. I would be happy to look at it. As I said, I think 

he was amplified. And then in the tape, as I recall, Mr. Sullivan 

does come up shortly thereafter. So he may have been indicating, 

trying to have a desire to stop it at that point. 

Q. And why did Mr. Sullivan stop it at that point? 

A. I think he probably saw the same thing that we were seeing, 

that there was no finalization from the processing in of the votes 

at that point. There were still Members whose cards—when the 

Members vote in the well they fill out a—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. Card, and then they hand it to the one tally 

clerk, who I guess maybe writes the roll call vote number on it or 

something, makes some notation on it and hands it to the second 

tally clerk, who has actually got the computer terminal. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. If I can interrupt you there. 

A. Yeah. 

Q. You said you would like to believe that you or someone in the 

Parliamentarian’s office indicated to Mr. McNulty to stop. But you 

don’t know for sure that somebody did ask him to stop. As far as 

you know from reviewing the tape and your recollection, Mr. 

McNulty might have stopped on his own volition. Is that true? 

A. Yes, that’s true. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. I am going to hand you a document. Let me know 

whether you have ever seen this before. 

A. Yes, I have. 

Q. Can you tell me what this is? 


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A. Yes. This is a combination of notes. The portion that is typed, 

typewritten was done by another assistant Parliamentarian, Max 

Spitzer. And the handwritten notes were mine. Right after the 

whole evening was over, I tried to jot down bullet points of what 

had occurred as blow by blow as I could. And then I asked Max 

to do that independently, because he was in the Chamber for some 

or all of it. And then I wanted to compare the two to make sure 

we had an accurate recollection, written recollection of what happened. 

Q. So are all the handwritten notations on this yours, even the 

ones that are up at the top—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Next to the written portion? 

A. Yes, those are mine too. 

Q. Okay. And did you review the written portion that Max had 

done to see if that was your recollection as well? 

A. Yes. And then I made those handwritten notes on points of 

clarification or correction. 

Q. Okay. So number four, it says the Chair begins to call it at 

214–214, but John says there are still Members’ cards that need 

to be processed in the computer and the Chair holds up. When you 

were—I guess actually technically when Max says, but John says 

there are still—who is John? Is that Mr. Sullivan? 

A. That’s Mr. Sullivan. 

Q. And who is Mr. Sullivan saying that to? 

A. I assume he is saying it to Mr. McNulty in the Chair. 

Q. Okay. So does that refresh your recollection as to whether you 

or Mr. Sullivan said something to the Chair to get him to cease the 

call at that point as opposed to the Chair doing it on his own volition? 

A. It makes sense, because Max was sitting down at the lower 

sergeant at arms desk. So someone who was entering the rostrum 

space and coming up to the Chair would have to walk right by 

Max. So he would have had a good vantage point to know who was 

coming up. And as I said, not my own recollection, but from viewing the tape, I see that Mr. Sullivan does come up behind me right 

after Mr. McNulty begins that first announcement. So that does 

jive. I don’t remember personally whether he did actually walk up 

behind me. I don’t think I was able to focus on that. 

Q. But you believe he said something to the Chair? Would there 

be any other purpose for him walking up behind you but to say 

something to the Chair? 

A. Well, sure. I mean he could have been coming up on any number of things, either ongoing or in the future or something he needed to tell me. 

Q. But he didn’t—when he came up behind you, he wasn’t talking to you, was he? 

A. I have a hard time remembering. 

Q. Let’s go through number four. You made some additions to 

what Mr. Spitzer had said. You want to read the first one under 

point number four what you added? 

A. Yes. I am just going to use another copy that’s clearer. On 

number four? 

Q. Uh-huh. 


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A. Well, the first note I made was Max had typed, the Chair begins to call it 214–214, and then I wrote in, without paper. 

Q. What does that mean? 

A. That indicates that the Chair had not yet received that slip 

of paper that I had mentioned earlier. 

Q. The tally sheet? 

A. The tally sheet from the tally clerk, from which ideally the 

Chair would announce the vote. 

Q. Well, you say ideally. Have you ever seen the Chair announce 

a vote without a tally sheet? 

A. I can’t—I don’t think I have ever seen that. 

Q. So instead of ideally it should probably be universally? 

A. Yeah. I can’t speak for all time, but I can’t remember a time 

when I have been assisting the Chair that the Chair has called it 

without a slip. 

Q. Okay. And what about the notation at the end? 

A. My note at the end says there are two Members in well with 

cards plus two at tally’s desk. 

Q. Okay. So that means there are a total of four members who 

are filling out well cards at that point? 

A. I think that would mean that there would be, yeah, two members in the well manipulating cards. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Plus just two, two cards that were sitting on the tally’s desk 

waiting to be addressed by the tally clerk in the total. 

Q. I just want to back you up one second. The item number 

three, Hoyer yells to the Chair, close the vote. Do you recall what 

Mr. Hoyer said specifically and how many times he said it? 

A. I do not. I do not recall what specifically he said or how many 

times he said it. 

Q. Okay. So the gist was to close down the vote. And do you remember his tone or—was it very matter of fact, go ahead and close 

this down? Or was it more of a directive to close it down now? 

A. It is—I don’t know more than just general—Max wrote ‘‘yells.’’ 

And that’s—that would be—I can’t remember any more than just 

hearing—because I was trying to focus on watching the tally clerk, 

so that I knew when the vote had stopped moving so I could get 

the slip. So I don’t know—I don’t think I looked at Mr. Hoyer at 

that point. But you could hear—there was a lot of ruckus, but you 

could hear people trying to help the Chair, help the Chair do his 

job, which is not helpful to getting it done the right way. But I 

don’t know what—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. Specifics were yelled. 

Q. Let’s back that up. When you used the euphemism there were 

a lot of people trying to help the Chair do his job, I assume you 

mean that Mr. Hoyer was giving instructions to the Chair. Is that 

right? 

A. I would assume there were people trying to give instructions 

to the Chair. 

Q. Who typically gives instructions to the Chair in your experience? 

A. I don’t know if there is a typical individual, but I have seen 

over time representatives from the various vote counting entities, 


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the whipping systems try to send signals up to the Chair to say you 

have to close this down now or, you know, things that convey that 

message. 

Q. Okay. And is that that your recollection that something like 

that happened on August 2nd? 

A. I think—I don’t—I wasn’t—I wasn’t looking back there. So I 

don’t know if I can tell you who did it or what was said. But I know 

there was pressure trying to be put upon the Chair to close the 

vote. 

Q. And do you recall that said? Well, let me back that up. What 

is the time differential between the end of item three and the beginning of item four? Okay? So presumably, you know, you looked 

at these notes from Mr. Spitzer roughly contemporaneously with 

the vote, and I assume that if you disagreed with any of those, you 

would have made an edit or something, a correction to it. Is that 

fair? That if there was something in here you disagreed with you 

would have changed it. 

A. Yeah, I think that’s fair. 

Q. Okay. So Mr. Hoyer, in some fashion, directs the Chair to 

close the vote. You are not entirely sure of the exact words he used. 

And then at some point thereafter, the Chair begins to call it at 

214–214, and Mr. Sullivan holds him up. Do you know how long 

after Mr. Hoyer directed the Chair to close the vote, it was before 

the Chair attempted to call it at 214–214? 

A. No. 

Q. Was it seconds? Was it minutes? Was it—— 

A. I hate to answer that, because I can’t even tell you—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. With a positive ID who was—where the pressure 

was coming from. It was—like I said, it wasn’t—I don’t remember 

there being a lot of time elapsing between the clock having exhausted the minimum 15 and, you know, the events escalating. But 

I don’t know if I can give you—— 

Q. Good. 

A. [continuing]. A specific on that. 

Q. So the Chair holds up, looks, I am just going through these 

steps, the Chair holds up, it seems like there is some additional 

well cards that are entered. Then we get to step six, where it says 

the vote again reaches 214–214. Hoyer tells the Chair to call it. 

The Chair calls it. And then in parentheses, without any paper and 

without the computer refreshing. Okay. Is that your recollection of 

what happens? I understand that these are Mr. Spitzer’s words, 

but is that your recollection of what happened? 

A. That is,—again, I am trying to recall on his part where he 

wrote Hoyer tells the Chair to call it. You know, my back—my back 

was to everything behind me. I was facing the Chair and the tally 

clerks. So Mr. Hoyer or anyone coming up on the rostrum would 

have been to my back. So I don’t know if I can verify that part of 

it. But the rest I agree with what he wrote. 

Q. Okay. When you say without the computer—or well, when Mr. 

Spitzer says without the computer refreshing, can you tell me what 

that means? 

A. Yes. That indicates that there was a vote, a vote from the well 

on the card that the tally clerk had processed, had entered into the 


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computer terminal, but the display, the displays in the Chamber 

had not yet picked up the fact that that vote was entered. 

Q. Well, does it mean that he had fully entered it or could he 

have been in the process of entering it? 

A. It could have been in the process, I guess. 

Q. Okay. How long does it take for the system to refresh once 

it is entered into the system? 

A. I have been told about a second. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. It is my understanding that—and if any of this is incorrect, 

please, stop me, correct me—that the typical process for closing 

down a vote is once it reaches zero-zero-zero, the Parliamentarian 

will inquire to the Chair or direct the Chair to give the admonition, 

‘‘are there any members wishing to vote or change their vote,’’ looking around and seeing that there aren’t Members in the well. And 

the Chair will do that. That the tally clerk will wait for instructions, seated tally clerk will wait for instructions from the Parliamentarian that they should begin the process of preparing the tally 

slip, which is then filled out, sent back to the Parliamentarian, and 

given up to the Chair, at which point the Chair will close out—and 

direct that the motion is laid upon the table, bang, and everything 

is closed. Is that typically the way it works? 

A. Yes. Can I modify one thing you said? 

Q. Please. 

A. At the very beginning, I just wanted to make sure that there 

wasn’t a misunderstanding that the Parliamentarian would be instructing the Chair on when to begin to wrap up the vote. I would 

just like to say we would be just passing on that, that the decision 

that was made that the vote was ready to be closed, as opposed to 

the ones actually making that decision. 

Q. Sure. How is that done, though? You are working hand in 

hand with the Chair and you are trying to sort of advise the Chair 

essentially that you are good to go to close the vote if you want to. 

A. Right. 

Q. Correct? 

A. Right. 

Q. And how is that decision made? Are you receiving instructions 

from leadership staff, from the Speaker’s staff? Are you just literally looking around to make sure that there aren’t any Members 

in the well who might be voting? I mean how are you—what cues 

are you taking to advise the Chair, look, you are good to go to close 

it if you want to? 

A. From the Speaker’s staff. 

Q. From the Speaker’s staff? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Do you recall on 814 looking to the Speaker’s staff to 

get that instruction? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. 

A. That was, I mentioned Catlin O’Neill was the one that first 

contacted me about the vote. 

Q. Okay. And you said I think that—— 


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BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I thought she said you should be on your toes? 

A. Yes. 

Q. That is not closing the vote? 

A. No, but that just means they are going to be ready to go close 

rather quickly on this one as opposed to normally when it is the 

first vote, a 15-minute vote you would maybe have it open for 20 

or 25 minutes or more. But I think that was an indication this one 

wasn’t going to be that way. This was one we should be ready to 

close rather quickly after the minimum time was up. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So how would that work? You get that instruction. And is that 

something that is conveyed to you verbally? Is it something that is 

a hand signal? How does that work? 

A. It could be either. 

Q. Okay. You remember what it was in this case? 

A. I don’t remember—well, this one—well, she talked to me originally, the warning that Mark mentioned. 

Q. But that was verbal? 

A. That was probably the last contact I had with her. 

Q. And that was verbal—— 

A. That was verbal. 

Q. [continuing]. As opposed to an e-mail or anything like that. 

And so at that point, you received that instruction. And then when 

the clock goes down to zero in this case, and you have been told 

that once it gets to zero, you should be looking to wrap it up pretty 

quickly, what is your cue at that point? Are you solely looking at 

the well to see if there are Members in the well? Are you looking 

at the seated tally clerk? What are you looking at? 

A. Both. Yeah. Once we know that it is ready to be closed, then 

I think part of our job is to help the Chair scan the Chamber to 

be on the lookout for anyone who may be coming in late who has 

got—who is still trying to be entered. So we help watch the aisles 

and the well and the tally clerks to make sure that they are done 

as well. And we also do tell them, they will ask us are we okay 

to close this? Because then they do certain things and turn off electronic terminals and so forth. 

Q. And that is also their signal to direct the standing tally clerk 

to prepare the tally slip. Correct? 

A. I assume that those two go hand in hand, that they don’t prepare that tally slip until all the stations are closed, obviously, so 

the vote doesn’t move. 

Q. And they won’t do that without conferring with the parliamentarians too, correct? 

A. Right. I mean because we won’t take the slip until—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. They give it to us. 

Q. Now, let’s take a hypothetical. If you receive an instruction 

that we want this thing to be closed down pretty quickly after it 

reaches zero-zero, and you had looked and seen that De’Andre Anderson or whoever the seated tally clerk happened to be was not 

processing well votes, okay, if there were well votes, they had been 


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put into the system, would you have then said to Mr. McNulty you 

are okay to go ahead and close this? Would that be the normal 

course? 

A. Yeah. I mean, the normal course would be to hand—to get the 

slip. 

Q. But isn’t there a preliminary—don’t you—you give him some 

instruction or some—that might be the wrong word. There is some 

communication between the Parliamentarian and the Chair which 

causes the Chair to then say are there any Members wishing to 

vote or change their vote. Right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And that is separate, that’s before the parliamentarians get 

to the point of handing up the tally slip, which allows the Chair 

to finalize the vote. Right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So what would cue you typically to say to the Chair you are 

okay to go ahead and call for votes or for changes? 

A. A signal from the Speaker’s office. 

Q. Okay. And did that take place in this case? 

A. All I can say is I think it must have, because it is so—it is 

such a part of the routine. But—— 

Q. So is the tally slip, and that apparently didn’t happen here 

either. 

A. That’s true. 

Q. I mean wouldn’t that have shown up in this chronology if it 

had happened, if it is such an integral part of the process? 

Wouldn’t you expect to see it somewhere in this chronology? 

A. To tell you the truth, maybe not. It is just such a formality. 

It happens on every vote. That I don’t know that we would note 

when the Chair had, you know, made those statements asking for 

votes and for vote changes. 

Q. Okay. But that would be something that would happen after 

the zero-zero-zero? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Let me just, where were you, Ethan, during this? Where were 

you on the rostrum? 

A. I am to the right, the Speaker’s right. 

Q. And you were looking forward? 

A. Yes. Forward into the well at the tally clerk and the Chair. 

Q. And do you remember Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle? Because in terms of trying to recollect, do you remember, you know, 

Ms. O’Neill’s thing about being on your toes, and I know that in 

terms of closing the vote, that happens a lot, you are saying, right, 

so if you are trying to recollect, do you remember Mr. Hoyer coming 

down and saying close the vote, and that might be sort of the triggering action as opposed to the Speaker’s sort of indicating to close 

the vote? Is that jogging anything? 

And I am just asking because you are facing forward. Apparently 

he comes down the aisle, right, and we have had several people tell 

us, you know, he says something. And you don’t seem to recall it. 

I am just thinking visually, you know, that do you recall that at 


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all, him coming down the aisle and approaching the rostrum and 

giving directions so that—it may be that that’s what is setting off 

the closing as opposed to the Speaker in the normal course of the 

Speaker’s staff saying close the vote. Is that? You don’t remember? 

A. Well, I have seen it on the tape. 

Q. Right. 

A. I am sure it happened. I don’t know that I was focused on 

him, his movement down the aisle at that point or not. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. So Ethan, if you saw it on the tape you might also recognize 

or realize that when the Majority Leader comes down the center 

aisle and clears the well that there is nobody in the well except Mr. 

Cleaver, who has been engaged in a conversation with somebody? 

So there is nobody in the well at that moment trying to change 

their vote? Do you recall that when you reviewed the tape? 

A. At the moment when—— 

Q. Mr. Hoyer—— 

A. [continuing]. Mr. Hoyer comes down. 

Q. [continuing]. Comes down the aisle and then clears the well. 

A. Well, I thought maybe the Speaker was voting as well. 

Q. They actually cross each other—— 

A. Okay. 

Q. [continuing]. As she is going on her way to the well, but she 

is not in the well at that moment. 

A. Okay. Then I take your word that there was no one there. I 

don’t remember. But I take your word for it. 

Q. Okay. Did you listen to the tape with earphones on? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. Because you can audibly hear the Speaker pro tem ask 

if Members have other Members who wish to vote or change their 

vote. You actually can hear him if you have the headphones on 

when you are listening to the tape. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I guess my question is you seem to think that the conversation between the Parliamentarian and the Chair about saying it is 

okay to say are there Members wishing to vote or change their vote 

would likely have happened because it was so routine, but yet one 

of the triggers for that would be to see that there were no tally 

cards being processed and that there are no Members in the well. 

Am I misunderstanding that? 

A. Well, that could be a trigger, or sometimes that announcement 

is made even when there are still Members there, because just the 

act of the Chair maybe hitting the gavel and asking those questions will jar people who are not paying attention to the fact that 

there is a vote about to close and will get, you know, stragglers to 

get their votes in. So it can occur before the well is cleared. 

Q. Okay. When we get to item 6, where it says the vote again 

reaches 214–214, Hoyer tells the Chair to call it, which you have 

stated that you don’t particularly remember Mr. Hoyer saying anything at that point, and the Chair calls it without any paper and 

without the computer refreshing, we have heard testimony from 


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other people that occasionally, and I don’t know if this is the right 

word for it, but there is some gamesmanship on the part of the 

Chair, that the Chair, to motivate Members to make up their 

minds and cast a vote, will sort of go to the brink of announcing 

a vote just to finally get them to vote and so it can be closed. Do 

you see that? 

A. I am not sure I see that. You think in other instances? 

Q. Well, we have been told that in other instances the Chair will 

sort of initiate some of the magic words in order to get people who 

might be milling around in the well with the vote card to finally, 

you know, decide to vote so that the thing can be closed out. Have 

you ever seen that in your experience? 

A. No. Well, the announcements, or the questions the Chair, the 

two questions the Chair typically asks, have all Members voted? 

Does any Member wish to change his or her vote? That I know can 

be done, has been done when there are Members milling about. 

Q. What about the next announcement, which is the Chair will 

start to actually announce the vote total, suggesting that the vote’s 

about to be closed in order to motivate Members to vote? Have you 

ever seen that? 

A. I am not sure how that would happen in the normal course, 

because we wouldn’t—hopefully wouldn’t have a passing of a slip 

of any sort while there were still Members who had cards in their 

hand on that vote. 

Q. Don’t on occasion you get multiple slips? 

A. Sure. 

Q. Okay. And wouldn’t that be one event that would result in 

multiple slips, where he gets a slip, the Chair goes to announce it, 

some other Members at that point sort of rush to get their cards 

in and it causes a new slip to be sent up? 

A. Yes, that can happen. 

Q. Okay. Looking here on 6, when the Chair calls it, was it your 

impression from Mr. McNulty’s actions that he intended to close 

the vote at that point? 

A. I assume that’s why he—that’s why he tried to call it at that 

point, to close it. 

Q. Okay. And do you know whether he had been made aware, 

as you had, that this vote, the leadership wanted this vote closed 

as quickly as possible after the clock hit zero-zero-zero? 

A. I don’t know if he was made aware of that or not. 

Q. But you had been made aware of that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And I think we have covered this before, but you personally 

have never seen a vote closed without a tally sheet. Is that right? 

A. I believe that’s accurate to say. I have never been assisting 

a Chair when a vote was called without having a slip in hand. I 

believe that to be the case. 

Q. And did the seated tally clerk look to you for instructions that 

it was okay for them to proceed with preparing the tally sheet in 

this case, as they typically do? 

A. Well, yeah, usually it is the standing tally clerk, the one who 

gets—receives the well votes that actually does—writes out the 

slip. 


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Q. But isn’t the communication typically between the seated tally 

clerk and the Parliamentarian, and then the seated tally clerk will 

convey to the standing tally clerk that it is appropriate to go ahead 

and prepare the tally sheet? 

A. Yeah, it’s kind of a three-way conversation. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Basically, you know, they will—yeah. 

Q. Whichever combination. Let’s look at the tally clerks collectively, because I don’t want to make this more complicated than it 

needs to be. 

A. Okay. 

Q. The tally clerks collectively will look to the Parliamentarian 

to give them the green light to go ahead and prepare the tally 

sheet so that the vote can be closed. Is that accurate? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Because we have been told, and if I am wrong please 

correct me, that the tally clerks are not going to prepare a tally 

sheet without the okay of the parliamentarians. They are just not 

going to do it as a matter of principle. Okay. Is that your understanding? 

A. Well, I don’t know—it is more—it is more logistical. I mean 

they can—once the seated—the tally clerk who is operating the 

electronic machines, and plugging in changes—— 

Q. Uh-huh. 

A. [continuing]. I mean once they have done everything they are 

going to do, I mean then they—then I think they tell the other one 

who is preparing the slip, you know, that the system is closed. 

Q. But they are not going to do that without checking with you 

guys first. Right? 

A. Yeah, I guess that’s accurate. They ask is it okay to close. 

Q. Yeah, so they check with you—— 

A. Okay. 

Q. [continuing]. And then you say yes or no, and once they—if 

you say yes, they tell the standing tally clerk go ahead and prepare 

the sheet. 

A Okay. 

Q. Did that happen in this case? 

A. I don’t think we ever got that far. 

Q. De’Andre Anderson is actually still entering names? 

A. Yeah, he still has cards that are being entered, so—— 

Q. Okay. So. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Let me ask, I mean, do you know that for a fact? 

A. Pardon? 

Q. Do you know for a fact, Ethan, that he had not entered all 

the cards that were in front of him? 

A. Yes. I mean, well, we know that—that the system hadn’t 

taken everything that had been fed into it. 

Q. Yes, understood. But that’s different than whether he had finished entering the three cards that he had in front of him. Isn’t 

that right? 

A. Yeah. I guess that is a distinction. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. Thank you. 


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BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Well, let’s sort of play that out a little bit. You said that from 

the time De’Andre finishes, whoever the seated tally clerk finishes 

inputting a name into the system it takes I think in your words 

about a second for it to refresh. Is that correct? 

A. That’s what I have been told, yes. We have been told that. 

Q. Okay. So playing that out, the Chair calls it at 214–214 and 

then gavels it, there is no way he can get that all out in a second. 

So if De’Andre or whoever the seated tally clerk was had already 

finished entering a well card at that point, by the time the Chair’s 

done announcing it 214–214, that thing is going to have refreshed. 

Would that be a fair statement? 

A. I don’t know the actual amount of time this refresh cycle takes 

versus the amount of time it took the Chair to make his announcement. 

Q. Well, do you think somebody can, say, call a vote at 214–214 

in under a second? 

A. Probably not, if you also announce what the outcome is, the 

motion is or is not agreed to. It would seem that would take more 

than a second. 

Q. And that’s what happened here. It was not just a number, but 

it was also that the motion wasn’t agreed to. Right? 

A. I assume that was the case the second time, the second time 

through, of 214–214. 

Q. That would probably take a lot more than a second. I would 

say it would probably take two, three, four, five seconds at least? 

A. I assume it would take more than a second, yes. 

Q. Okay. So would you think it would be safe to assume that Mr. 

Anderson was still in the process of entering a well card at the 

time the Chair began to call the vote based upon those numbers? 

A. Based upon those numbers that makes sense, yes. 

Q. Okay. Did there come a point where you became aware that 

there were problems closing out the vote and bringing the boards 

down? 

A. Was there—I am sorry? 

Q. Was there a problem that you became aware that the tally 

clerk was having a problem getting the vote closed out and bringing down the boards? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And when did you become aware of that and how? 

A. I don’t really have a good answer here either. It seemed like 

by the time the proceedings had gone all the way to where we had 

a motion to reconsider pending. I don’t really know where the problem originated, but there was talk of having to abort the vote in 

order to get onto a new vote. 

Q. I think I have gotten a little bit ahead of myself, so let me 

back up. We talked to Mr. Wickham this morning. And at some 

point after the Chair called the vote, the parliamentarians drafted 

a statement for the Chair to read. Were you part of that effort to 

draft a statement for the Chair? 

A. I was observing, yes. 

Q. Who drafted the statement? 

A. I think Mr. Sullivan drafted it. 


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Q. And do you know the gist of what that statement was? 

A. Yes. The gist was that the Chair had—was premature in the 

first—his first effort to try to call the outcome of the vote, and that 

there were still changes and/or new votes being processed, and that 

once all those were in, the result was actually as follows. 

Q. Okay. Well, actually, just so we are clear, the Chair tried to 

call the vote twice. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Right? And what you are referring to is actually the second 

time? 

A. Yes, it is. 

Q. When the Chair actually did close the vote. The first time 

they tried to close the vote and Mr. Sullivan interceded and the 

Chair stopped. The second time the Chair actually announced the 

total and gaveled the vote. And that’s what you are referring to? 

A. I am referring to the second time. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. For point of clarification there, although the Chair announced 

214–214, the motion is not agreed to, the vote was not closed. 

Other votes were processed after that. 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Okay. 

A. That’s correct. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So what was the gist of the statement that Mr. Sullivan wrote 

out? 

A. It was a way for the Chair to announce the final in more detail than simply filling in numbers to indicate the premature calling and then a processing of additional votes and then a new total. 

Q. When we are in step six and the Chair calls it, did Mr. Sullivan say anything to the Chair at that point like—— 

A. I don’t believe so. 

Q. [continuing]. What are you doing? You don’t have a tally 

sheet? I mean, was there any of that conversation? 

A. I don’t think so. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Excuse me. Ethan, why did Mr. Sullivan write that statement? Why do you think it was necessary to say the words that he 

did? To have to have Mr. McNulty say those words? 

A. I think because it was an unusual circumstance that required 

more explanation by the Chair of what was happening. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Why was it unusual? 

Mr. LAUER. Well, it was unusual because the Chair made an announcement of a total and then the board changed to reflect a different total. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Did anyone tell the seated tally clerk or the standing tally 

clerk or anyone at the rostrum not to accept any votes during that 

period of time after the second attempt to close the vote? 


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A. I didn’t, and I am not aware if anyone else did. 

Q. So during that time, it was as if he—as if he never attempted 

to close it the second time, would you say, for all practical purposes? 

A. I think from the—from the tally clerk’s perspective, I think 

that’s true, because as was shown, additional votes were entered. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. What about from your perspective? Did you view this as a definitive declaration from the Chair that the vote was to be closed 

at that point? 

A. I think I would say that the Chair tried to—tried to pick a 

point in time to close it but, as was shown, it wasn’t really—that 

wasn’t really a time of closure, it was a time of movement. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you know if—I think you answered this—do you know if 

the Chair was aware at the time that he was calling or tried to call 

it that second time of whether there were any votes that were 

being counted? 

A. Do I know whether the Chair was aware of that? 

Q. Yes. 

A. I can’t say specifically. I mean, he had seen—he had seen that 

from the first time of trying to close it that that was the problem 

the first time, was that the vote had not yet settled. So it is very 

possible that he would still—should have still been aware that 

there could be—that could still be an ongoing issue. 

Q. Right. But my question was more specifically whether—I 

mean, again, I think that’s true, of course, that he—there could 

have been others. But do you know that he knew for a fact that 

there were votes that were being entered that might not have already been reflected on the board? 

A. I don’t know that. I don’t know if he would have known that 

for a fact. 

Q. Do you remember—you said you don’t recall who it was that 

was talking to Mr. McNulty, if there were any instructions being 

given to him. But do you remember where he was looking at the 

time that folks were giving him instructions? You were looking at 

him probably. Is that correct? But he would have been looking 

somewhere else. Were you able to know where he was looking? 

A. I can’t say. I was looking at him and at the well at the tally 

clerks. I can’t say where he was specifically looking. 

Q. I am going to ask you to speculate, if you would. If someone 

were giving him instructions it is possible that it was to his right. 

Is that right? I mean is that—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Where that might have come from? 

A. That makes sense, yes. 

Q. So he would be looking, if he were to look at who was giving 

him instructions, he would be looking to his right. Is that right? 

A. That is correct. 

Q. So if he was looking to his right and having a conversation, 

or maybe not even a conversation, listening to what was being told 


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to him, he wouldn’t be looking straight ahead into the well. Is that 

correct? Well just based on my hypothetical. 

A. Correct. 

Q. I am not saying that happened. But isn’t that right? 

A. That’s correct. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. But he does have the ability to move his eyes even though his 

head may be looking this way, right, over to the well. You didn’t 

see his eyes move, or do you remember his eyes moving? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. All right. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me make sure I understand the sequence again. I apologize if we have hit this before. But the first time Mr. McNulty begins to call it, Mr. Sullivan steps in and says that there is still 

Members in the well, and the Chair holds up. I assume that’s not 

particularly uncommon for that type of thing to happen. Is that 

right? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. When that does typically happen, oftentimes when the Chair 

then wants to call a vote in the future, at some point in the future 

will the Chair typically look to the parliamentarians to see if it is 

now an appropriate time to do that? Essentially, there has been 

one incident, they have sort of been put on notice that it is not an 

appropriate time to call it because there are people in the well or 

for whatever reason. The next time they go to close the vote, do 

they typically check with the Parliamentarian to see if, you know, 

now would be a good time? 

A. I would say no, because if there are subsequent votes or subsequent changes that will result in a new slip. So kind of I guess 

they are receiving the slip from us. I assume they would take that 

as saying we don’t see anybody else milling with a vote card. 

Q. Okay. But this is a little bit uncharted water, because in neither case in this particular vote did the Chair have a slip. 

A. Correct. 

Q. So the answer to your last question from my hypothetical was 

based on the fact that the Chair really wouldn’t need to do that because the Chair would have a tally slip from you all, the parliamentarians, indicating that it was okay to go close the vote. Right? 

A. Right. 

Q. But that never, in fact, happened here because there wasn’t 

a tally slip to start with? 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. So I guess it makes it not all that good a hypothetical, 

I guess. 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. Can I ask a question, Ethan? If De’Andre released the vote 

right after the Chair’s 214–214 second announcement, and he released it of course, but there was the uptick of the 215–213, 

wouldn’t the precedents have supported that that would have been 


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the final vote? The final tally would have been 215–213, and that 

his announcement would have been merely an erroneous announcement? 

A. That is a possible outcome if that was it. And then the Chair 

had said—— 

Q. Yeah, assuming that De’Andre released it, assuming that the 

possibility of Members in the well voting—this is again another hypothetical—that that wasn’t an issue, so you know, we don’t have 

the possibility of Members voting in the well, De’Andre released, 

the final tally would have been 215–213, and not as McNulty called 

it at 214–214, because at that point, you know, those votes were 

in the system. Otherwise there would not have been the uptick. So 

those votes were in the system. So that would have been the final 

tally. 

A. Yeah. It is uncharted, as we said, but yeah, that’s right, it 

could have been—it could have been an outcome where we would 

have had the slip and the finalization, then the Chair—then it 

would have been 215 to 213. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Right. But as long as the boards hadn’t gone down, if someone 

else presented themselves in the well and you recognized that, that 

slip would have been moot and you would have moved onto another 

tally presumably. Isn’t that correct? 

A. I am confused on where we are in the hypotheticals. 

Q. We are at 215–213. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. But the vote’s still on. The vote’s still out there. 

Mr. SPULAK. The vote’s still on, but a slip is given. If you can 

think about the facts of this case. 

A. Okay. 

Q. A slip had been given at 215–213, and as we know, other 

Members appeared in the well immediately thereafter, immediately 

after the 215–213 uptick. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I am sorry, did you say a slip had been given? 

Mr. SPULAK. I am saying if a slip had been given. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Oh. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But other Members appeared in the well, would you not have 

allowed them an opportunity to vote and a new total would have 

ensued? 

A. That happens. Yes. That would be—that would be an acceptable course to get all the votes in that are supposed to be coming 

in. 

Q. And so do you remember that after that uptick, were there 

other—you know what I am talking about after, after it went from 

214–214 to 215–213—that other Members appeared in the well? 

A. That’s my recollection of what happened. 

Q. And their votes were entered? 

A. Yeah, I believe they were. That’s why the subsequent changes 

took place. 

Q. Yes. Right. Okay. 


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BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. All right. I am going to ask you one question, and then 

sort of jump back a second or jump up. Two questions actually. Do 

you remember John Sullivan speaking to De’Andre Anderson saying—about closing the vote after he had gotten the three cards and 

he was entering them? Do you recall John Sullivan saying 

De’Andre, are you going to close the vote? 

A. The three cards following—— 

Q. The Diaz-Balarts and the—— 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Ros-Lehtinen. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Ros-Lehtinen, right, the three Floridians. Okay. And De’Andre 

is entering them in. And as Mr. McNulty calls 214–214 and then 

Mr. Sullivan has a conversation with De’Andre. Do you remember 

that? It sounds like you don’t. 

A. No, I don’t remember that. 

Q. Okay. All right. Now, as we understand it, De’Andre was trying to clear the vote after those three that he inputted, all right, 

so the 214–214, and he is inputting that last one, McNulty calls it, 

and then it ticks up. Okay? That he is trying to clear the vote, 

okay—— 

A. Oh, okay. 

Q. But the button is stuck, the computer is not—the board is not 

responding. Okay? 

A. Okay. 

Q. Okay. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Were you aware of that at that time? 

Mr. LAUER. No, this is news to me. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. Okay. Now, let’s put it in the hypothetical category, 

okay? He is trying to, okay, clear the board because Mr. Sullivan 

has asked him are you clearing the vote? Mr. McNulty has just 

called it at 214–214. If he releases the board, which is what he was 

trying to do feverishly, all right? 

A. Okay. 

Q. And it goes down, right? And then Members show up in the 

well? What do you do there? 

A. I think it is too late then. 

Q. You think it is too late because why? 

A. Because the logistics overtake any discretion of the Chair. It 

would be I think the best approach there. 

Q. Okay. And so you are not—so you are not aware of De’Andre 

trying to clear the vote or Mr. Sullivan talking to him? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. So sort of the jump up question is, big picture, is this 

any way to run a vote, in your view, based on your experience as 

the assistant Parliamentarian since 1999? I mean what we are 

talking about is—well, so, based on your sort of experience and 

knowledge of how to close a vote, how to record a vote, is what happened on 814 any way to close a vote? 

A. No. 


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Q. Okay. And why not? 

A. Because things like what happened can happen. 

Q. Well, just delineate them for me. 

A. Well, any number of problems. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I mean, the mere case of the refreshing not taking place, or 

even not entering, the tally clerk having validly submitted well 

votes or well changes in his possession that just have not yet been 

plugged into what the Chair might be looking at on the boards. 

Q. Okay. And as a basic baseline for closing a vote do you think 

it is, you know, a requirement, if you will, for good practice, okay, 

not requirement in that there is a written policy or written rules, 

of having a tally slip in hand so that it relieves the Chair of having 

to know are there people still in the well or that there has been 

some sort of first cut that this is—that this is ready to be announced? Do you understand? 

A. Yeah. I am sorry, the question was—— 

Q. Do you think as a basic, you know, minimum you would need 

to have a tally slip at least once presented to the presiding officer? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And that wasn’t followed here. Right? 

A. No, it was not followed. 

Q. So that was unprecedented in your view, right? 

A. In my experience. 

Q. Okay. And the fact that we are talking about and questioning 

you about do you remember exactly when things were inputted was 

all—sort of flows from the fact that the Chair didn’t wait for a tally 

slip to be given to him. Would you agree with that? Something sort 

of caused this river of confusion or, you know, and so I am trying 

to sort of pinpoint as to where something went, you know, off track 

to have all these questions about exactly when is a vote closed. 

A. Yeah. I think that this case demonstrates the need, the utility 

of that slip where not just being an unnecessary formality, but actually serving a purpose. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember Mr. Boehner’s well card being given 

to the clerk, tally clerk? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you remember if that was entered or not? 

A. My note indicates that it was not. 

Q. Okay. Right. And do you know why it wasn’t entered? 

A. No. I don’t know why. 

Q. Do you think he was disenfranchised? 

A. I think—well, gosh, I don’t know. That’s kind of a big question. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Are you aware that he complained about the fact that his vote 

wasn’t counted? 

A. No. 

Q. Has it happened on occasions that Members might complain 

to the Parliamentarian’s office about a vote that they thought they 

were entered or it was the wrong way? 

A. Can I come back—go back for one second? 

Q. Absolutely. 


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A. I think—I thought part of the plan was it was a possible motion to reconsider coming from Mr. Boehner if the vote, in fact, was 

going to be one where the motion to recommit was rejected. I 

thought maybe he was switching from a yes to a no to make himself eligible to move that reconsideration. So I don’t know—unless 

that was his first vote of the day—or first vote on that issue. I don’t 

know. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. It was a change. But it was in the—it was in Mr. Anderson’s 

possession and it was never entered. Do you remember—— 

A. Oh. 

Q. Do you remember Mr. Sullivan—do you remember De’Andre 

Anderson asking Mr. Sullivan what to do about it? 

A. I mean, can I answer from what I viewed? 

Q. Yeah. 

A. I mean, I think that was at the time when Mr. Sullivan had 

prepared the explanation for the Chair. I think that the Chair’s 

reading of that—— 

Q. Right, but—okay. I am sorry. 

A. I am trying to keep my timeline accurate. I thought maybe 

that preempted, that they were trying to squeeze that vote change 

in—I don’t know. I think it got overtaken, the entering of that got 

overtaken by the Chair going ahead with that announcement. 

Q. Yeah, just under the scenario of it is never closed until it is 

announced, this thing was sitting in the rostrum’s hands, if you 

will, not called yet, and it was never counted? 

A. Yes. Yes. Well, that’s bad. That’s a mistake then. 

Q. Okay. And that’s why I asked do you think he was 

disenfranchised? 

A. Then yes, his vote or vote change should have been counted. 

If it was in the possession of the rostrum staff, absolutely. 

Q. Right. And so when—I believe Mr. Sullivan said something 

like hold on, we have bigger problems? 

A. That’s what it sounded like on the tape. 

Q. Okay. So he doesn’t have the authority to say don’t count a 

vote, right? 

A. Yeah, I wouldn’t think he would say that, no. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I leapt back from your question. And I didn’t want to forget 

about your question. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. No, that’s okay. I was just saying I asked you if you were 

aware of any concerns after 814 about Mr. Boehner’s card not being 

counted either by him or anyone else. And then I went on to say, 

to ask isn’t that something—I mean doesn’t that happen occasionally, where a Member may believe their vote wasn’t recorded or recorded accurately, and might they not come to the Parliamentarians and make them aware of that? 

A. Yes. Yeah. When someone doesn’t get entered, or when the 

Chair doesn’t stop for someone running down the aisle waving their 

hand, absolutely, the Chair has issued apologies. 


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BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. But let’s be clear here. This was sitting in De’Andre Anderson’s hand. 

A. Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

Q. The well card was in his hand before the vote was called, 

right? 

A. Yeah, that’s right. 

Q. I mean under the scenario that it’s not called until it is called, 

which is when he said 212–216, the motion is not agreed to, right, 

that is sort of the final time it was called. Right? 

A. Right. 

Q. That well card was sitting in De’Andre Anderson’s hand and 

it wasn’t counted. 

A. That’s—I think that’s what happened. 

Q. So that’s different than somebody running down to the well 

and the Speaker pro tem has cut off the voting. Right? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You said that—you said that it happens where leadership 

staff or others will inform or instruct the Chair that it is time to 

close the vote. Is that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And you have been—have you been on the floor since ’99, 

since you started with the Parliamentarian’s office? 

A. Yeah, not so much in the early years, but more and more as 

the years go by. 

Q. So I would ask is that a common role of the leadership to communicate with the presiding officer about when a vote should be 

called? 

A. Yeah. And the reason I say hand signals is because—— 

Q. Well, I am just saying anything. Is it just a role? You can be 

more specific if you would like, but my question was is that a common function or role of the leadership to tell the Chair call it now, 

let’s close the vote, or perhaps conversely, say let’s leave it open? 

A. It’s—I would say it’s routine that the Chair, usually through 

our office, gets confirmation from someone on the Speaker’s staff, 

usually one person, one designated person that after the minimum 

time has run that it’s okay for the Chair to begin to try to close 

the vote. That’s—that’s how we do it. I mean that’s how a vote is— 

that’s how all the votes are completed. 

Q. Right. Right. I don’t want to interrupt you. Go ahead, please. 

A. But I was going to say when the larger leadership input—I 

would call it intervention, it comes between that routine practice 

of the Chair relying on one person to convey that message, that we 

have seen from time to time try to jump, to get a jump-start on 

things or to cut off that normal chain of communication. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Sorry, you lost me there a little bit. It is typical to have communication with one person or—— 

A. Yes. 


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Q. Okay. And in this case that was different, there was more 

than one person? 

A. Well, I was kind of speaking more generally to the question 

is does from time to time—do from time to time other representatives from leadership positions try to coax the Chair, help as we 

say, help the Chair take an action in closing a vote? And I say, yes, 

that does occur and is not helpful to that normal established line 

of communication. 

Q. And did that happen with respect to 814? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And the normal line of communication would be you and 

Catlin O’Neill—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Saying something to one of the Parliamentarians. What was the additional unhelpful line of communication that 

took place on August 2nd? 

A. That’s—that’s the intervention of who we are focusing on, Mr. 

Hoyer, trying to get the Chair to close it at certain points. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Why would that be any different? He is in the leadership as 

well, isn’t he? 

A. Yes, it’s different in that the problem when—I am speculating 

from the Chair’s—any Chair’s standpoint is to cut corners, that 

they will be tempted to cut corners when someone in a leadership 

role is saying this thing has to be closed at such and such point 

that we lose out on the kinds of things that other people view as 

extra formality, but actually serve, as we have demonstrated, serve 

a real purpose of verifying that everything is settled. 

Q. In the end, whose responsibility would it be to decide when 

to close the vote, even if being encouraged by an actual member of 

the leadership? Who has control of the situation? 

A. Well, the Chair. 

Q. You know, we heard some interesting testimony, someone said 

that they have been doing this for 29 years or so, and that they 

have seen this happen many times, but this was the first time that 

they had actually seen the person in the Chair do what the leadership was telling them to do. Would you agree with that? 

A. I would verify that that is the first time I have seen the Chair 

not wait for the formality of the slip. 

Q. So it would be—I am not testifying for you, but it would be— 

I mean you have seen, you have seen the Chair be informed or instructed to close a vote, but they decide—and, in fact, they may do 

it, but they do it, they do it in a more measured fashion, allowing 

the process to proceed. 

A. Yes. I agree that there have been attempts to influence the 

Chair and say I also agree they have not been as successful as they 

were that night. 

Q. And would you say that you saw that over the last 8 years? 

A. Yeah, that’s—I mean that’s why I mentioned the hand signals, 

because when it was the Republican side, we would have to look 

all the way across the rostrum for the Speaker’s person. And 

then—— 

Q. How would they do that? 


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A. They would just basically come up and give a head nod, some 

sort of notification to us that there were no problems, no reason to 

keep holding it open. 

Q. And then you would communicate that to the Chair? 

A. Yes. And then we would tell the Chair so and so has said it’s 

okay. 

Q. Who would that so and so have been in the past, if you can 

remember? 

A. That would have been the equivalent of Catlin O’Neill in this 

case, Emily Seidel or Karen Haas for Mr. Hastert. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. But it basically is a hand signal to say okay, start closing— 

begin closing the vote. Right? So it is get that tally sheet collected 

up, and they are looking in the well and all that stuff. Right? 

A. Yeah. I don’t know where they are—I think they are more focused on their own vote counters that they say we have got everybody who we know is in town has been entered or there is no major 

problems. 

Q. Right. It is usually a staff person, right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. So in this case, it was Mr. Hoyer, who you don’t remember, but virtually everyone else who remembers it says he was 

quite exercised, right? 

A. Yes. Oh, yes, I remember his being exercised. 

Q. You remember him being exercised? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So could that have created a dynamic that Mr. McNulty was 

reacting to that hey, this isn’t Catlin O’Neill who is telling me to 

close the vote, this is actually Steny Hoyer who is coming straight 

at me, you know, quite exercised? 

A. Absolutely. 

Q. Okay. So was that—do you remember that kind of stuff happening in the past, too—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Where a Member would come straight at him 

and say close the vote. 

A. Yes. 

Q. And what would happen in those instances? 

A. We would have to try to stop the Chair and intervene, and intervene with the person who was trying to intervene with the 

Chair. 

Q. Okay. And then things got—you got the tally slip together and 

handed it out? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Why do you think Mr. McNulty actually called it like he did? 

Because it looks like when he called it at 214–214, that’s what he 

wanted the—you know, that was the result up on the board, and 

that’s, you know, when he called it, right? He didn’t wait for the 

tally slip, right? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Okay. Why do you think he did that? 


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A. I don’t know. I assume it was the pressure to win the vote— 

well, lose the vote—no, defeat the motion, basically. 

Q. Right. 

A. And the pressure he was getting from off the rostrum. 

Q. You have been there 9 years as a Parliamentarian? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Nine years? 

A. Almost 9. 

Q. Almost 9. Okay. And you haven’t seen any other vote called 

without a tally slip, right? 

A. Yeah. And I said that, and then I had this—and I don’t know 

if I can say that. There may have been one. There may have been 

one other. And nothing happened. I mean there was no controversy 

surrounding it. There was no change. 

Q. What about Mr. McNulty? 

Mr. SPULAK. I am sorry, what? 

Mr. LAUER. I know. I first said it never happened, and then I 

said I can’t guarantee that that’s accurate. There may have been 

one other time. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. If you think of it, let us know. 

Mr. LAUER. I don’t remember the issue, I don’t remember the 

vote. It was in the—a prior Congress. So it was with the Republican majority. 

Mr. SPULAK. Were you working here then? 

Mr. LAUER. Yes. I was working here. I might have even been on 

duty. I don’t remember. I don’t know if I can ever document that 

happening. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. Mr. McNulty, he—well, if you do think of it, please let 

us know. 

A. Absolutely. 

Q. Mr. McNulty, is he experienced in the Chair? 

A. I wasn’t here the first time—or the last time this party was 

in the majority, but I think he was, was an occupant of the Chair 

with some frequency during that regime. 

Q. Okay. 

A. So I think he did have prior experience. 

Q. Was he doing it, though, during the past several months? This 

is August, so 8 months, right? 

A. I think he did. We can verify that, but I think he did some, 

spent some time in the Chair. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Yeah, he spent some time in the Chair. He did. 

Q. When you heard him call out the vote, you know, at that point 

were you surprised? What was your reaction? 

A. Yeah. I was stunned. 

Q. You were stunned? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Okay. Why? 

A. Both because the vote changed and because he hadn’t—you 

know, he hadn’t gotten any verification of what the final from what 

had been entered was going to be. 


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Q. And do you remember—and I apologize—in terms of the discussion of aborting the vote, do you remember any discussion about 

losing the data? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. 

A. You want me to elaborate? 

Q. Yes. 

A. Okay. Yeah, that was the whole problem was that was what 

was keeping the clerk from aborting was the fact that that would 

cause a loss of all the vote data from that vote. 

Q. And what was your understanding of that at the time? Do you 

remember the discussion? 

A. Yeah. And I never understood, and I am not sure—I still don’t 

understand why it couldn’t just be closed out normal, like a normal 

vote. And part of my theory was maybe that because it was a weird 

case where there was, you know, unanimous consent requests to 

vacate it, which got objected to, and then a motion to reconsider 

that maybe De’Andre might have thought they wanted to redo. 

That wasn’t like closing out a vote and starting a motion to reconsider as a whole new vote, that somehow what was being asked 

of him was basically a redo, like the unanimous consent request to 

vacate it. But I don’t know, that’s really—that doesn’t—that’s really not a very nice thing to say, because that presumes that he 

didn’t know what a motion to reconsider was, which I am sure he 

does. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So you are suggesting that that was more of a—I mean, that 

wasn’t—that decision was not based so much on the sort of technological situation where they were, but more on his belief that—— 

A. No, I don’t want to—I don’t want to put those words in his 

mouth and presume that he didn’t know what he was doing. That’s 

not what I am—I don’t mean to imply that. But I don’t know that 

we ever heard if there—what the technical problem was or why 

that was—the only option was abort. 

Q. Why did you say that you thought that it was—words you 

used, strange or whatever—because all the data of the vote would 

be lost? Why did you believe that? Why did you believe that the 

data would be lost? 

A. I believe we were told that. 

Q. By whom? 

A. By Ed. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sorensen? 

Mr. LAUER. Sorensen in the Clerk’s Office. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you know what he meant by lost? Was there any discussion about what that meant that the data would be lost? 

A. Well, eventually, you know, he said they could get it back 

through some laborious retrieval process. But I don’t know if that— 

that might have come up later. I mean they might have—the decision to abort might have been done prior to learning that you could 

actually in some way reconstruct the vote. But yeah, I think about 


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it, I think you are right that that was not presented as an option 

at the time. 

Q. But in order to actually, in a parliamentary sense, abort a 

vote, wouldn’t you have to vacate the vote? In other words, notwithstanding what happened to the actual data, wouldn’t the vote 

still have stood? 

A. Yes. I would—yeah, I think they would be different, different 

events. I mean, vacate would indicate that whatever action the 

House took as a result of that vote is also vacated. 

Q. Correct. Correct. Except vacate is—I am sorry, abort is not a 

parliamentary process. Isn’t that correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. So if you made a decision to abort a vote, first of all, it would 

just be among—it would be among the folks at the rostrum trying 

to decide how to deal with the EVS system, right? It would have 

no consequence or bearing on the votes that were cast, notwithstanding the fact that you might not be able to figure it out right 

away. But if I were a Member and I voted aye, and there was a 

decision to abort the vote in the EVS system, I would still have 

voted aye. Isn’t that correct? 

A. Yes, that’s correct. 

Q. What I am suggesting is you would have had to have vacated 

the vote to actually have some consequence to the vote. Separate 

from the data. 

A. Yes. Yes. The act of abort was a technological event, not one 

that changes whether a vote actually happened or that there was 

an outcome. But yeah, I agree with that. 

Q. Just a few more questions. Going back, did you say that—did 

you say that in the past, you have seen Members, in addition to 

staff, give instructions to the Chair about wrapping up a vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And that was Republican Members as well as Democrat Members? 

A. Yeah. I am more conscious of the Democrat because on that 

side of the rostrum. So if people were—— 

Q. I am talking about when the Republicans were in the majority. 

A. Right. I would be less aware of that because we are on the 

opposite side. So them coming up to the Chair is not as—it is not 

as much in our little work space. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. That would have been done on the time keeper’s 

side. 

Mr. LAUER. Yeah. Right. I am pretty sure it was done. There 

were influences. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And we are talking about closing votes, but presumably that 

also—I actually shouldn’t say ‘‘presumably,’’ did that also happen 

for keeping votes open, where Chairs—where presiding officers 

have been instructed by Members of leadership to not close a vote, 

to leave it open? 

A. I guess there is less—there is really less—there is less need 

for that because the Chair normally wouldn’t even begin to take action until given some kind of assurance that it was okay. 


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Q. But are you aware of instances where after 15 minutes expired maybe a longer period of time transpired, 15, 20 minutes, 

where there is no activity in the well and no apparent new votes 

coming in or vote changers, but the vote remaining open? 

A. Yes. 

Q. When Mr. McNulty called the vote 215–213, what was the— 

what was the mood on the floor after that? 

Mr. SNOWDON. I am not sure he ever called it. 

Mr. SPULAK. I am sorry. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. When the board changed to 215–213, what was the mood on 

the floor? 

A. Well, there was outcries, jubilation I guess from the side that 

had prevailed. It was very noisy. 

Q. Did they prevail? 

A. Well, that’s a good question. 

Q. But why would they have prevailed? 

A. From the look at—from the display on the two displays that 

are above the side doors showing the 215 and 213 tallies. 

Q. Right. But would it—were there Members in the well at that 

time from what you are aware? 

A. I think there were. 

Q. Let’s assume. You think there were, but even if you are not 

sure, and I would say let’s assume that at the moment there was 

the uptick of 215 to 213, there were Members in the well. Would 

those Members have been given an opportunity to have their—to 

have their votes—normally to have their votes counted? If they 

were in the well at the time that that happened? 

A. That’s a very—that’s a very fine line. That’s difficult for—to 

know what will happen, because sometimes—we have seen the 

Chair pull back and take additional votes. And we have seen sometimes they haven’t. And there is outrage and outcry afterwards. 

Q. Isn’t there an opening—isn’t there the Speaker’s opening day 

statement that says that if Members are in the well, they will have 

an opportunity to vote? 

A. I think that I would have to review the language, but it says 

something like that presiding officers will have the Speaker’s support to endeavor that all those who are in the well trying to vote 

will be counted. 

Q. Right. 

A. Yes. That’s a longstanding statement. 

Q. Right. So based on that, if there were Members in the well, 

they should have been counted. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did you think that the motion to vacate was a good solution? 

If you think—if you believe there was a problem, do you think the 

motion to vacate was a good solution at that time? 

A. I think that would have probably been a good solution. It 

would have been a solution. I don’t know if it would be good or not. 

But given the way that—yeah, I mean given the way it was—it 

concluded, it might have been a good idea to try to start it over. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I have a few things. A couple things. 


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BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember, Ethan, again, we have gotten some testimony, you may not remember it, but Mr. Hoyer came down, you 

heard some, you know, direction, he comes back up on the rostrum. 

Do you remember him talking to Mr. Sullivan then? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you remember what he said? 

A. He said we control this House, not the Parliamentarian. 

Q. And do you remember anything like don’t ever do this to me 

again? 

A. No. That was the only thing I heard him say. 

Q. That’s the only thing? Okay. 

A. I think he was engaged with Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Wickham 

on lower tiers of the rostrum at different points. 

Q. I see. 

A. I don’t know what they have said, but he was a presence 

there. 

Q. And do you remember Mr. Sullivan saying anything, or any 

responses he had to Mr. Hoyer? 

A. I think he tried to point out the fact that there were still cards 

the tally clerks were still processing. 

Q. I see. So Mr. Hoyer—what did Mr. Hoyer say? Did he realize 

that there were people in the well and he was trying to close the 

vote or—— 

A. I don’t remember, or I don’t know that I heard anything more 

after his initial statement to us, to John. 

Q. Okay. Do you think this is the worst sort of vote closing you 

have seen since you have been here? 

A. Trying to answer it objectively, as far as this is probably the 

worst breakdown of the mechanics of the way a vote is supposed 

to be closed. Other than that one time. As I said, there may have 

been another instance where there was not a slip given. But this 

was much worse because of the change that occurred. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Right. Okay. 

Mr. LAUER. Can I add? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yeah. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. I think you have some questions. 

EXAMINATION BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. Well, a couple things. When you said that you couldn’t hear 

John’s response to Mr. Hoyer, but that you think that he was 

pointing out that there were votes being processed at the time, did 

you recall Mr. Hoyer trying to intervene in that process, or did he 

just accept John’s point of view or information that in fact these 

things were being processed at the time? 

A. I don’t know what—I don’t know what his response was. I 

don’t know. 

Q. Okay. And on the other conversations that they were having, 

do you think they were having conversations on vacate and the motion to reconsider? Do you think that the Parliamentarian suggested vacating and the motion to reconsider as a way to try to, 

you know, remedy any problem that may have been going on? 


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A. I don’t know where the idea originated from, but I know that 

was—that was discussed up there was—and I would like to—I assume Mr. Wickham talked about that, about his role in trying to 

make sure there was someone qualified or knowing who was going 

to make certain motions. And so that was being discussed on the 

rostrum, yes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If I might, as I recall on the tape at one point, Mr. Blunt was 

up there behind you on the right side of the rostrum, and maybe 

even other Members of the Republican leadership. Do you remember that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And do you remember did they speak with anyone? 

A. Again from review of the tape, I think Mr. Blunt, possibly Mr. 

Price of Georgia spoke with Tom Wickham. 

Q. And do you know what they spoke about? 

A. No. 

Q. You wouldn’t know if it was suggested to them that the best 

course of action would be to vacate the vote, do you? 

A. No. I don’t know if that’s the case. 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. And just as a point of clarification, a unanimous consent request to vacate is not under the Speaker’s guidelines something 

that is required to be cleared by the minority? 

A. I can check that, but I don’t think so. Those are reserved usually for consideration of legislative items. So I would not think anything of that nature would have been ever covered by the guidelines. 

Q. Okay. And one last thing on the—do you think that most 

Members really understand—who are in the Chair, in your experience, really understand the uptick issue, you know, that the computer actually has a little bit of a lag time to refresh the board, 

or do you think that some Members may see it as instantaneous? 

A. Oh, absolutely that’s not understood. Even the notion of the 

lag between a Member submitting a well card in the first place, 

and that well card being reflected in some sort of electronic display. 

That can take quite some time if there is a backlog, especially 

when there is frequent use of well cards. 

And I know that has come up that they don’t understand why 

their vote hasn’t been shown or hasn’t been changed and we actually have to show them a stack of unprocessed well cards. So I 

think that’s—— 

Q. So perhaps a good recommendation for the select committee 

would be sort of an education in that kind of—in that part of the 

process? 

A. Yes. Or ways to minimize well voting in general if it causes 

this misunderstanding and displeasure. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I was going to ask would that be a recommendation that, perhaps difficult to construct, but if possible, to eliminate well voting? 


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A. Yeah. I don’t know if it could be eliminated, but I know that 

unnecessary or excessive use of well voting does cause backlogs 

that then lead to problems—lead to short tempers and impatience 

and things. So it is always probably in the best interests of Members to vote electronically. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do presiding officers get any sort of primer or instructions on 

how to run the vote? 

A. Well, I know that when the new batch of presiding officers 

came on board in January of ’07 that Mr. Sullivan did offer private 

tutoring sessions with anyone who wanted—thought they were 

going to want to be in the Chair. And I don’t know what he covered 

in those sessions. But there at least was some instruction on how 

to behave generally in the Chair and—— 

Q. Did that instruction, did all of the presiding officers receive 

that instruction? 

A. I can’t say that for sure. I don’t know if that’s the case. I 

would be surprised if some of the ones who had presided in the 

103rd or earlier would have signed up for that. I assume it would 

be all new Members, but—— 

Q. Okay. You talked about Members not necessarily understanding the concept of an uptick or that, you know, not knowing 

why it took so long for their well vote to show up on the board. Do 

you know whether Mr. Sullivan emphasized to the presiding officers that they needed to wait for a tally sheet, and why they needed to wait for a tally sheet before calling a vote? 

A. I don’t know if that was covered. But we do—new to this Congress was we prepare a sheet for almost every vote that has the 

two standard questions that the Chair asks, have all Members 

voted? Does any Member wish to change his or her vote? As well 

as how to announce it, on this vote the yeas are such and such, the 

nays are blank, and then the result, the bill is passed or whatever. 

And that is new for this Congress that we didn’t used to use that 

when we had more experienced chairs. So there was that modicum 

of instruction I think was given. 

Q. I mean that instruction gives them the magic words that they 

are supposed to use for these various steps. But does it also give 

them the cues that they are supposed to either give or receive in 

order to get to those various steps? 

A. Well, there is, there is a parenthetical that mentions ignoring 

the board and getting the number from the slip. 

Q. And where is that? Is that posted or glued to the rostrum that 

they have so that they can easily refer to it? Is it something that 

is given to them on a laminated note card? Is it something—how 

do they get this? 

A. It is just a sheet of paper. 

Q. Where is it? 

A. We put it on—we put it in front of them during the vote, with 

things circled and crossed off that don’t apply. It is just a fresh 

sheet on every vote. 

Q. So would Mr. McNulty have had that document for this vote? 

A. I assume he would have, since we give it to the Chair almost 

on every vote. 


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Q. Do you know what happened to this document? 

A. I do not. I would have been the one to have given it to him 

if he had it. 

Q. And would this document have said, for example, to ask them 

if there are any Members to vote or wishing to change their vote? 

Would that have been—— 

A. It would have said that, yes. 

Q. And would it have specifically referenced the tally sheet, reading off the tally sheet and not looking at the board when announcing the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And would it specifically have said that the motion to recommit is laid upon the table as the final language to close the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And did you mark this document up in any way? Were there 

certain sections that you circled or starred or highlighted? 

A. Yes. There would have been things basically crossed off. Because it lists seven or eight frequent outcomes of events, motions, 

amendments, bills and so forth. And normally I cross off the ones 

that don’t apply to the pending vote. 

Q. If Mr. McNulty had followed the steps as laid forth on that 

piece of paper that you gave him prior to 814, would we be in the 

situation we are in today? 

A. No. 

Q. And did anybody retrieve that document at the conclusion of 

the evening of August 2nd? 

A. Not—I didn’t. And I don’t know if anyone else did. I would 

doubt it. But I—when there is a more experienced person in the 

Chair, sometimes we don’t—we don’t give it to them. But I don’t 

remember if I gave it to him or not. 

Mr. SPULAK. Why would you—why would this document have to 

say don’t read the tally off the board but from the tally slip? Why 

do you think someone has to be told to do that? Is it possible that 

it’s sort of instinct to try to get them to read the tally off the board? 

Would Members think that that was an accurate reflection? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. What does the language say on that page? 

Mr. LAUER. I wish I would have brought one. I think it is a parenthetical. Ignore—it might say ignore board. And there is reference to the slip. I can’t remember the language. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Can we get a copy? 

A. ‘‘Get number from slip,’’ or something like that. 

Q. Can we get a copy of that? 

A. And it has been refined and updated throughout the Congress, 

so the question would be whether we have August 2nd vintage. 

Q. How about giving you the current, and if you can track one 

back to the August 2nd vintage, that would be great. 

Mr. SPULAK. Right. But let’s be sure that—well, I think we need 

to also try to get one from August 2nd, unless there have been any 

changes. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. You are pretty certain that the August 2nd one 

would have said something about the tally slip and the board, not 

relying on the board? 


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Mr. LAUER. Yeah. I am pretty sure it did, it did say that, to make 

sure that that was the way they did it. 

Mr. SPULAK. Again, if you will, can you come back to my question? Why is that something that you think is important to point 

out? 

Mr. LAUER. I think—because of all the inexperienced presiding 

officers that were going to be taking the Chair starting this Congress. And also as a bulwark against them relying on anything 

other than the slip, either the board or instruction from people who 

are trying to intervene in the proceeding. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Why do you think they would take tally off of the board? 

A. If they were feeling pressure to close a vote before it was 

ready to be closed. 

Q. You don’t think it could be because they thought that the 

board reflected the vote? 

A. Well, yeah, I guess—I mean that’s where they would naturally 

look. Those are the only two places they can see the outcome. 

Q. So if you will, they could take it off the board, believing that 

that was the accurate indication of the vote, and think they were 

doing the right thing. And I am not asking you to agree with that 

if you don’t agree with that. 

A. Sure, if they weren’t told anything else. 

Mr. SNOWDON. But they had been told something else? 

Mr. LAUER. Yeah. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Again, let me say, Ethan, and I am not trying to put too fine 

a point on this, they could be told to wait for the slip because that 

is the process. Right? 

A. Right. 

Q. We do things because that’s how we do things. But they could 

also believe that the board would have the same vote as the slip 

would have and that the board would be accurate. I mean, isn’t it 

possible for them to believe that? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. And in fact, when we had our briefing on the 

floor, when they ran through the voting system with Kevin 

Hanrahan, if you recall, was asked or said that he got the numbers 

to put on the slip from the board. So it’s very circular in terms of 

where does the number come from to read from the slip. It comes 

from the board. Well, don’t read the board, read the slip. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Not entirely. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. No, that’s what he said during the briefing. Get 

the numbers from the board. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Right, but he is looking at that and he also knows 

there are no more well votes to be counted. 

Mr. Crawford. We are talking about—— 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you believe that to be true, that the numbers for the tally 

slip come off the board? 


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A. Yes. 

Q. Why don’t they come off the machine? Why don’t they come 

off the display of the terminal? Wouldn’t that be the most accurate 

number? Wouldn’t that give you total assurance that all the upticks had happened? 

A. Well, I guess logistically the standing tally clerk. I don’t know 

if they can see. 

Q. Understood. 

A. If they would, they would be reading upside down. But I guess 

your question is couldn’t the seated tally clerk make the slip? 

Q Make the slip? 

A. I guess they could. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Doesn’t the seated tally clerk—I mean, I believe what Kevin 

Hanrahan said, and I could be wrong about this, was that there 

was a process, some point in the process does he pass—does the 

standing tally clerk, once he has filled out the slip, does he pass 

that to the seated tally clerk? 

A. No. 

Q. No. It goes straight to the parliamentarians? 

A. Yes. 

Q. I thought there was some point in the process where somebody checked the tally slip against what was on the computer 

screen—— 

Mr. SPULAK. If you will—— 

Mr. SNOWDON [continuing]. As a double check. 

Mr. SPULAK. If you will, we were told by Mr. Anderson that he 

listens to what the Chair calls and verifies that by looking at the 

screen to make sure that it reflects what that’s what he said, which 

gets to my point that that seems to be the best quality control, 

since he is checking it and he has the numbers in front of him. But 

anyway, we are having this discussion because of recommendations, which is part of our mandate. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Ethan, I would like to ask you just a couple questions about 

the tally slip itself. The tally slip is an indication that the system 

has been closed for further input and that all the well votes and 

well changes have been processed. Is that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. But the tally slip is blind when it comes to whether other 

Members are trying to vote once that tally slip has been produced? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So that’s what leads to situations where multiple tally slips 

have to be filled out during a vote—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Where other Members appear? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And then those votes processed, and another tally slip is then 

produced. Are you aware of any situations when a Chair has announced a vote off of a tally slip while other Members have appeared and has refused to open the vote? 

A. Yes. 


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Q. And is that—in your opinion, would that be a disenfranchisement of those Members even though a tally slip has been produced? 

A. Definitely there have been situations that are inconsistent 

with the notion of taking any vote of a Member who is in the well 

trying to vote. It is always a fine line and very difficult for the 

Chair and the rostrum to recognize when that has happened, when 

there is someone who is yelling just to be yelling across the Chamber at anything else versus someone who is yelling one more, which 

is the standard phrase they use to indicate that they are coming 

down to vote, or whether someone is yelling one more because 

there is someone, you know, 50 feet outside the Chamber. 

And it is difficult, the Chair is reading the slip and often times 

the sheet, so they are not necessarily looking at the well. But yeah, 

there have been times, I am sure, when Members righteously felt 

that they were prevented from voting when they were in the well 

or the proximity of the well trying to get in on a vote. 

Q. So the production of a tally slip, in and of itself, is not a guarantee that all Members have had the opportunity to vote? 

A. Well, it’s supposed to be a guarantee that—— 

Q. That the system has been closed to further input. That’s what 

the tally slip represents, that the system has been closed to further 

input at that point. 

A. Yes. And that all the input that the tally clerk has been—— 

Q. Processed? 

A. [continuing]. Processed. 

Q. But does not reflect, in and of itself, the fact that there may 

be Members who are trying to vote, but the system has been closed 

at that point. There may be Members who are pulling cards from 

the well, at the table at the well, for instance, while the Chair has 

the tally slip? 

A. Yes. 

Q. All the tally slip indicates is that all the votes that have been 

cast at the voting stations, have been cast via well card or changed 

via well card have been processed. But there is no reflection in that 

tally slip that other Members are attempting to vote, and the Chair 

can read from that tally slip with the knowledge that the votes 

have been processed up to that point, but can ignore the votes that 

are attempting to be voted. Does that make sense? 

A. Well, the first part, that the Chair is supposed to be able to 

take that slip as an indication that the tally clerk is done entering 

what’s in the tally clerk’s possession. 

Q. In his possession, yes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You said something. The receipt and the reliance upon a tally 

slip does not necessarily include the fact that people who wanted 

to vote weren’t given an opportunity to vote. Is that correct? 

A. Say that one more time. 

Q. The receipt and reliance on the tally slip by a presiding officer 

does not reflect the fact that there might have been Members who 

wanted to vote, who were in the well but were not given an opportunity to. Those votes would not be reflected on the tally slip. 


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A. Well, I mean I would hope it would be an indication that the 

tally clerk was not aware. 

Q. Yes. 

A. Was not ignoring—— 

Q. Yes, understood. 

A. [continuing]. Cards being thrust in his direction. 

Q. Understood. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I guess—yeah, but one of the reasons you have 

a tally slip is to prevent those things from happening, so that you 

have the professional staff, right, calculating and figuring out who 

is still desiring to vote, and that there is something made that is 

a manifestation of the professional staff’s seeing that there are no 

more Members desiring to vote. And when you short-circuit that by 

calling a vote without a tally slip, then you run the risk of 

disenfranchising Members who wish to vote. Right? That’s why you 

have a tally slip, is to actually prevent, you know, or help minimize 

the possible disenfranchisement of a Member who wishes to vote. 

A. Well, it certainly with regard to any well votes or vote changes 

that have been submitted to the Clerk, that absolutely is what it 

is meant to verify, that those have been entered. And just the second part of whether it assures the Chair that no one is being 

disenfranchised, that no one is trying to vote, I don’t know if it goes 

that far. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Ethan, are you aware of any time where the Chair has been 

in possession of a tally slip and has not allowed Members who have 

appeared in the well to vote and announced the vote from the tally 

slip in his possession at that point? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So there are—that’s my point, is that the tally slip only 

verifies a closed system and the votes being processed within that 

closed system, but does not necessarily reflect that there aren’t 

other Members who have appeared subsequent to the production of 

that tally slip and who want to vote and who are not allowed to 

vote. That was my only point. 

Mr. SPULAK. In that instance, are you aware of an instance 

where that occurred and where the solution was to vacate the vote? 

The vote on which the Members were not allowed to vote? 

Mr. LAUER. Yeah, I think that has happened. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Do you remember when? 

Mr. LAUER. No, I think it might have been before I joined the office, but I think I had read that that had occurred in the mid-90s? 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Okay. That’s all I have. 

Mr. LAUER. Can I add one thing? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yeah. 

The WITNESS. I just wanted to go back to I feel bad that I disparaged De’Andre. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. And I didn’t take it at that. 

Mr. LAUER. And really I should have remembered what you had 

said, that he was trying to finalize, or he was actually trying to 

electronically move on. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yeah. 


jbell on PROD1PC69 with HEARING
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Mr. LAUER. And that wasn’t working. So that should have told 

me right there that that was—it was not because he wasn’t sure 

what the next action was, but rather it was because he was facing 

electronic problems. So—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

Mr. LAUER. That makes sense then. 

Mr. SPULAK. We are going to make every effort we can to keep 

these transcripts just among ourselves for our own purposes. And 

so you shouldn’t worry that someone will see your statement. 

Mr. LAUER. Okay. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Let’s go off the record. 

[Whereupon, at 4:14 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(223) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: THOMAS J. WICKHAM 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 10:09 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. We will go on the record. 

Tom, this is the Select Committee to Investigate the Voting 

Irregularities of August 2nd, 2007. It is charged with investigating 

the events of that day, and what happened, and the duration of the 

vote, and the calling of the vote, and also to make recommendations regarding perhaps future ways of avoiding the issues of that 

day. So we would like your comments about what happened on that 

day. And I will ask you any recommendations you can make. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. To begin with, however, we ask you to identify yourself, give 

us an idea of what you do, what your responsibilities are, how long 

you have done that, and then we will begin to ask questions to you 

about the day. So please begin. 

A. My name is Thomas J. Wickham. I have been with the Office 

of the Parliamentarian since 1995. I served as the Deputy Parliamentarian since 2005. The office provides parliamentary advice 

and consultation to the Speaker and the Members, committees, and 

outside groups. My job as Deputy Parliamentarian is to oversee the 

office’s role in some respects, and report to the Parliamentarian on 

the various issues. 

The first responsibility of our office is to guide the presiding officer during the sessions of the House on the proper parliamentary 


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procedure. I think that is probably the area of focus today. I, also, 

in my capacity, review the Journal of each day’s proceedings so 

that it can be approved. The Journal, obviously, of August 2nd was 

an interesting one. In addition to that, we work with the committees on referrals of bills and on proper committee procedure with 

regard to meetings and hearings. And we get calls from the public 

on a whole range of parliamentary issues occasionally, things that 

are dealing with parliamentary issues at the State legislatures. 

Plus your local garden club or professional association will call us 

for help. We try to be available to everyone, but we are a small office with six attorneys and three Clerks. So our main aim is to satisfy our responsibilities to the House, assisting the presiding officer, and then going down the line in descending order of importance. 

Q. Thank you. Now I will just ask you to describe to us in narrative form what you would like to tell us about what occurred on 

the August the 2nd roll call vote 814. 

A. Yes. I think what I prepared and submitted to the committee 

was an attempt to do that in August. I haven’t really revised it 

since August. And that represents the most real-time explanation 

of what I saw. 

At that time Ethan Lauer, another of the assistant parliamentarians, was advising the Chair. And a number of us were also out 

there. We try to have as many of us out during votes, as many parliamentarians out during votes, so that we can handle—that is the 

time of greatest contact with the membership and time in which 

questions arise about past acts or future what is going to happen 

from a parliamentary sense. And during that proceeding, Ethan 

was assisting the Chair. John Sullivan was also out there. 

During the vote on the motion to recommit, I was over discussing 

a matter with Mr. Bishop of Utah. He is a former Rules Committee 

member. And I consider him to be one of the Members I am friendly with. I saw that the vote was getting close. I think somewhere 

around the 2- or 3-minute range, I went back over to the rostrum 

to see if I could be of assistance. And then I sat, as my written submission—— 

Q. You said, and then I—— 

A. And then I took my place at what I sometimes call the elbow. 

There is—the Journal Clerk sits on the rostrum, and then there is 

just a little section of the rostrum that juts out. It is about 5 feet 

from the presiding officer. And I watched the events unfold and 

saw that at one point the presiding officer attempted to close the 

vote at 214–214 and got maybe a couple syllables into it and 

stopped. And then, during that time, there was a lot of movement 

up in the well. And then, at that point, went back to waiting, as 

we do, for the processing of votes in the well, waiting for the official 

tally slip to be prepared and such—— 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Can you elaborate on that a little bit? We have heard from 

some of the Tally Clerks that the typical process is, if a well vote 

comes in, it will be passed to the standing Tally Clerk; standing 

Tally Clerk will pass it to the seated Tally Clerk, who enters it into 

the EVS system; and at some point, when the Chair gives an indiVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00230 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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cation that they are supposed to start the process of closing the 

vote, that the seated Tally Clerk will look to the Parliamentarian 

to get direction that, yes, in fact we are ready to close the vote. The 

seated Tally Clerk will then give a verbal instruction to the standing Tally Clerk to that effect, that yes, we are ready to close the 

vote, that he should go ahead and start to prepare the tally slip. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Tally slip is filled out by the standing Tally Clerk, passed to 

the seated Tally Clerk, passed to the Parliamentarian—or I guess 

it goes actually directly from the standing Tally Clerk to the Parliamentarian? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Parliamentarian gives it to the Chair, and then the vote is 

closed. Is that a correct sequence of events? 

A. Yes. I think you started after the point where we would tell 

the presiding officer, ‘‘you can now ask if all Members have recorded their votes and then ask if any Member wishes to change 

their votes.’’ 

Q. Okay. And at what point—what would cue you to ask the presiding officer or tell the presiding officer that? 

A. Well, a number of things. We obviously would wait for the duration of the vote, the electronic voting board to reach zero—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. At that point. And then we observe the numbers 

of Members voting. If we are obviously a long way from having a 

full complement of Members, we realize that it is going to take 

longer than the minimum duration. And so we get a feel from it 

there. We also take input from the whips’ tables, from other Members, anyone who comes up and says, ‘‘listen, this is a special situation for reason X or Y; we need to—we might need to keep the vote 

open or not.’’ 

Q. Do you also take into account how many Members are in the 

well? 

A. Yes. I mean, we would not want to start closing the vote when 

Members are in the well. The Speaker’s opening day policy is to not 

close a vote when a Member is in the well. 

Q. Do you also take into account if there have been earlier votes 

that evening and you have a sense of how many Members—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Have voted? And just for his sake, for the stenographer’s sake let me just finish the question and you can answer 

it. Do you take into account how many people have voted in those 

earlier votes, so you have a sense of how many Members are in the 

Chamber and how many Members are likely to vote in this vote? 

A. Yes. And one of the ways we do that is once again referencing 

the Journal. The Journal would keep the total number of votes cast 

on the past votes in official form. And we would consult that in 

comparison to where that current vote stood. 

Q. Okay. And the sequence of events we talked about before, 

where you give—you say something to the chair to the effect that, 

you know, it looks like you can go ahead and use the magic words, 

‘‘Are there any Members wishing to vote or change their vote,’’ and 

then that leads to the tally slip and ultimately the closing of the 

vote. 


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A. Yes. 

Q. Had that process been carried out in its entirety in the prior 

votes that evening? 

A. Yes, I believe so. 

Q. Okay. So why don’t you tell us now, going back to 814, pick 

up from there and tell us how 814 differed from that typical process? 

A. Well, I think that there was an attempt, first attempt to try 

and close the vote—to bring the vote to finality without the official 

tally slip. I think he may even have got some numbers out. And 

then there was a stoppage there. I was hoping that was a realization that the process had not come to its completion. 

Q. I am going to give you this document, which I believe is the 

memo that you prepared shortly after the events. The second bullet 

talks about Mr. McNulty making an initial attempt to close the 

vote at 214 to 214. Is that where you are in the sequence—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. That you are describing? 

A. A verbal statement on this vote. And then I believe he may 

have gotten out 214. I am not sure. It does say 214 to 214, so perhaps he even said that. 

Mr. SPULAK. If I may. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You said that you were hoping that that indicated that he recognized that the process—— 

A. Had not come to full completion—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. At that point. 

Q. But in fact, he did stop? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And he did—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Allow the process to continue? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do you know what caused him to stop? Was it something that 

the Parliamentarian said? Was it something that leadership said? 

What—— 

A. I don’t know. My hope is an acknowledgment that the process 

had not run to its completion. 

Q. Right. But there was something that sounds like he got to 

mid-sentence and pulled back initially. Could you get a sense of 

what caused him to initially pull back? Was he looking around and 

seeing people in the well? Was he looking over to the Whips’ table 

or the Leadership and then saying something? Could you get that 

sense? 

A. I can’t say, no. I did not get that sense as to why. 

Q. So it wasn’t the Parliamentarians waving their arms going, 

whoa, wait, stop, we are not there yet? 

A. I don’t believe so. I don’t know. Maybe there was a verbal exchange between Ethan and the presiding officer. But I am not 

aware of that. 


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Q. Okay. And then your next bullet talks about Mr. Hoyer approaching Mr. Sullivan? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Chronologically, how long after step two did step three come? 

A. As far as time-wise? 

Q. Time-wise. 

A. Matter of seconds, I would imagine, 10, 15 seconds. 

Q. Okay. Why don’t you elaborate on three? You said Mr. Hoyer 

expressed his displeasure. Do you want to be as specific as you can 

about how he voiced—— 

A. I believe he said, ‘‘the Parliamentarians don’t run this place 

or run this House.’’ I can’t remember it exactly. I have seen the 

video a couple of times and heard the audio, but it is something 

to that effect. 

Q. Okay. At some point, we have been told that Mr. Hoyer has 

said several times, ‘‘close the vote,’’ directing to the Chair, to the 

Parliamentarians, to whoever is on the rostrum, ‘‘close the vote 

now.’’ Did you hear him say that? 

A. No. Not on that occasion. I don’t think I have ever heard him 

say ‘‘close the vote’’ or—I mean, ‘‘I want it closed.’’ However, that 

wouldn’t be something unusual to hear from a lot of sources. 

Q. Sure. Do you recall him saying it that evening? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. You say expressed his displeasure. What was the tone 

of his voice? 

A. It just seemed like it was—he was displeased. He specifically 

referenced the Parliamentarian and running this place, and that 

we do—or I am not sure what the second part of that was, but he 

was displeased about something and made his point and then left 

very quickly. 

Q. Okay. Have you ever heard that type of comment made before? You said you have heard ‘‘close the vote,’’ and that is not necessarily that uncommon. Have you heard somebody indicate to the 

Parliamentarians that the majority controls the Chamber and not 

the Parliamentarians? 

A. Not in so many words, but that—that is not an unusual expression. In our line of work, we are often seen as umpires, someone trying to uphold the proper procedure, and that sometimes upsets people. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If I may, notwithstanding how it was said, is that not a true 

statement, what Mr. Hoyer said? 

A. Yes. Absolutely true. The Parliamentarians don’t run the 

House. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. But it was your understanding that Mr. Hoyer seemed upset 

because the Parliamentarians were trying to uphold proper procedure? 

A. He was making a point to Mr. Sullivan about who ran the 

place. And he seemed to be making it in a—he seemed to be irritated. 


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Q. Okay. At that point, had in your mind the Parliamentarians 

or the Clerk’s folks on the rostrum done anything improper? 

A. Not that I could tell, no. 

Q. Okay. Why don’t you go ahead and finish walking us through 

these points. So Mr. Hoyer leaves. I am sorry, let me back up. Did 

Mr. Sullivan respond to Mr. Hoyer? 

A. He may have. I didn’t hear any response. He may have, but 

I didn’t hear a response. 

Q. Okay. So pick up on point four. Mr. Hoyer makes his point. 

Then what happens? 

A. Immediately we turned to each other, and I’d say, ‘‘there were 

Members being—Members in the well trying to vote.’’ And then Mr. 

Sullivan said, ‘‘yes,’’ and the cards were being processed by the 

Tally Clerks as well. 

Q. He said that to whom? 

A. To me. 

Q. And do you recall whose well cards were being processed by 

the Tally Clerks at that point? 

A. I don’t remember the specifics, just that there were cards 

being processed. 

Q. Okay. So De’Andre Anderson is the seated Tally Clerk that 

evening, is still processing well votes. Was he in the midst of processing well votes when we get to step five, which is Mr. McNulty 

announcing the vote at 214 to 214, the motion failed, and banged 

the gavel? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Can I ask, when you say he was in the process of entering, 

I mean, do you know if he had completed entering the cards? 

A. I don’t know. I would just say generally that cards were on 

the computer screen or in the working area. 

Q. Is it possible that he had already entered them? 

A. It is possible. Just between Mr. Sullivan and I, and our discussion was in reaction to the situation, I saw Members in the well. 

My back was turned when Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Hoyer were talking. I saw Members in the well. And John stated to me that he had 

seen cards being processed. So the next step I would have assumed 

was those cards coming up and then being processed by the Tally 

Clerk. But I can’t say where he was—where he was in the process 

at that time. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. So the next step is the Speaker again announced the 

vote at 214 to 214 for the second time; says that the motion failed; 

and he bangs the gavel. Explain what the difference was between 

this step and what you have listed as the second step, which is that 

he made an initial attempt to close the vote. What additional language, what additional actions did the Speaker do this time 

around? 

A. From my recollection, it was just more of a complete, or an 

attempt to be a complete action. Saying that the motion failed and 

banging the gavel, rather than just saying the numbers. 


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Q. Okay. We have heard from some people that sometimes 

Speakers, for lack of a better term, engage in a little bit of gamesmanship for a variety of purposes, including to sort of prod Members to finally go ahead, get your vote in, so we can get this thing 

closed out, that they sort of say some things, kind of get to the 

edge, you know, to get people to finally make a decision. When we 

get to the, I guess it is the fifth step, and he announced the vote, 

motion failed, bang the gavel, was it your understanding that that 

was some sort of gamesmanship to get people to vote, or was it 

your impression that he was truly trying to close the vote down at 

that point? 

A. I think it was the latter. 

Q. Okay. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Latter meaning he was trying to close the vote down? 

A. He was trying to close the vote. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. Was it your impression that him trying to close the vote 

was related to any of the comments made by Mr. Hoyer? 

A. I don’t know. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. What was your reaction? 

A. My reaction to the closing of the vote? 

Q. Yes, at that point. 

A. Well, I think it took a little bit of time to sink in, and then 

a realization that the computer was still processing votes, and that 

the statement that he had made was not reflective of the board. 

Q. Frankly, do you remember your reaction that obviously there 

were Members still in the well, cards were being processed, and 

your hearing a vote sort of closed, do you remember what you were 

thinking? 

A. I don’t really have a sense of what I was thinking at that 

time. I was watching the events unfold. And then when I saw the 

board and the board expressing one total and the—what he had 

just said saying something else, I knew that something was amiss. 

I wasn’t quite sure of what that was. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Tom, you said that you knew something was wrong because 

the board did not—I think you said the board did not reflect what 

he had called or something. Is that right? 

A. Correct. 

Q. But at the time that—well, do you know on what the Chair 

relied to make the call? 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. Do you know if he was looking at the scoreboard? 

A. I would suspect that. I don’t know that for sure. 

Q. So you don’t know for sure. You don’t know what the board 

said at the time that he called it? 

A. That’s correct. 


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Q. You don’t know that at the time that he called it—— 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. [continuing]. The board didn’t say something differently than 

what he pronounced? 

A. That’s correct. I do not know that. 

Q. Do you know that Mr. McNulty didn’t know that votes had 

been entered or that votes had been entered but didn’t reflect on 

the board at the time? 

A. I don’t know what his state of knowledge was at that time. 

Q. From what you know—well, were you observing him? 

A. Yes. I was observing him, watching the Tally Clerks, and 

watching what was going on in the well. Mostly at that time, one 

of the things that the Parliamentarian who is not assisting the presiding officer does is try to watch the well to see where Members 

are in the process of voting, whether there is someone else coming 

in, someone else in the well that desires to vote or change a vote. 

Q. So it sounds like you and—you were looking at a lot of different places at one time, or at least you were trying to look a lot 

of places? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Would you have seen where Mr. McNulty was focusing his attention in the seconds preceding his announcement? 

A. No, I do not know that as a certainty. 

Q. Do you know where Mr. Hoyer was standing? 

A. I don’t know. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Thank you. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. I just want to go to the next step here. It says, within 

a second or two thereafter, the tally board, reflecting well votes 

that had been cast but not yet integrated into the system, switched 

to show 215–213 and also indicated final. Would that suggest to 

you that at the time Mr. McNulty said that the motion failed and 

banged the gavel, the seated Tally Clerk was still in the process 

of entering well votes? 

A. Yes. 

Q. All right. We talked a little bit about the process whereby you 

have a conversation with the Chair saying that you can go ahead 

and use the magic words of, ‘‘does anyone wish to vote or change 

their vote?’’ Did you have that conversation with the Chair? 

A. No. 

Q. So that’s—that part of the typical process never took place on 

814? 

A. I wouldn’t be the one to have done that. 

Q. Who would be doing that? 

A. Mr. Lauer. 

Q. When I say ‘‘you,’’ I guess I should be more specific that it’s 

someone from the Parliamentarian’s Office. Do you know whether 

that conversation ever took place between Mr. Lauer and the 

Chair? 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. Okay. But then we also went through the process whereby 

you would—seated Tally Clerk would look to you to give you, you 


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being the Parliamentarian, whoever that may be, I guess Mr. 

Lauer in this case—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Would give a verbal that, okay, we have entered 

the well votes and looked for direction from the Parliamentarian 

that they can go ahead and prepare the slip which would lead to 

the closing of the vote. Did that ever take place here? 

A. I don’t know. I don’t know. I was watching the general proceedings but was not in verbal range of either of those two parties. 

Q. Okay. What about the preparation of the tally slip? Did that 

ever take place here? 

A. Not that I know of. 

Q. Okay. Have you ever been involved in a vote where a written 

tally slip was not prepared and sent up to the Chair prior to the 

closing of a vote? 

A. No. 

Q. Going to the next step, at that moment, it became clear that 

the vote had been closed prematurely. Explain that. I mean, how 

did it become clear at that point? Was it solely because there was 

no tally slip or—clearly, you noticed—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. That things were off the tracks at that point—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Pretty much right away. 

A. The thing that was most obvious to me is that the rostrum 

staff was operating as if the vote was still ongoing. It was the processing of votes, the Reading Clerk was reading votes that were cast 

in the well or changes. 

Q. But in your mind, the vote had been closed? 

A. That there was an attempt to close it, but that was clear that 

that attempt did not correspond with the work of the other rostrum 

staff. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Professional staff. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. The professional staff was continuing to do what they were 

supposed to do, even though the Chair had attempted to close the 

vote? 

A. That’s correct. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And so, at that point, not only—let me ask, not only were the 

staff doing their job, but in fact, were votes still being—well, were 

well cards still being submitted? 

A. Yes. Yes. As far as I could tell, I mean, the—and the difficulty 

of this is I have seen the tape on a couple of occasions. And I made 

these notes. But my belief is that there were still cards being processed well after the 214–214 statement was made, indicating to me 

that there was really no finality here from a parliamentary standpoint. 

Q. Did the Chair do anything to try to foreclose the continuing 

acceptance of votes? 

A. Not that I know of. 


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Q. So you had used the term, and I may have misinterpreted it, 

but you said the vote was closed at one point. But in fact, although 

the Chair attempted to close, the vote was never closed? 

A. That’s correct. It was an attempt to close the vote, and it was 

a premature attempt. 

Q. So would you think that anyone was disenfranchised on that 

day? 

A. The vote and the discussions that occurred after the initial attempts took a lot of time. So I assumed that they were still processing votes at that time. And the displays were changing as well. 

So I don’t know of anyone disenfranchised. 

Q. I mean, either personally or from what you heard, any Member complain that their vote was not recorded or recorded accurately on that day? 

A. Not that I know of. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember whether Mr. Boehner’s vote was recorded? 

His change? 

A. Mr. Boehner’s change? 

Q. Yes. 

A. There was an attempt by Mr. Boehner to change—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. For purposes of the motion to reconsider. I am 

not sure what occurred with that particular vote. 

Q. Let’s just go back to sort of the—so when the Chair called, the 

presiding officer called the vote at 214–214, right, it was your view 

it was his intent to actually close the vote at that moment. Right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. And he had not to your knowledge gotten any tally slip; 

right? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. So, in your view, had he broken with regular practice by not 

waiting for a tally slip to be handed to him? 

A. There was an attempt to close the vote, and it was premature. 

It did not follow the regular procedure. 

Q. He did not follow the regular procedure? 

A. The attempt was premature and did not follow the usual practice of getting an official tally slip handed to him. 

Q. And what does the tally slip do, in your view, in terms of a 

check on calling a premature vote or a vote which would result in 

someone being disenfranchised? 

A. It is a certification that the system, the electronic voting system, is closed to further input; that there is not going to be any 

changes after that. 

Q. Okay. And you have never been involved with a vote where 

an official tally slip hasn’t been handed up to the presiding officer? 

A. Not that I know of. 

Q. Are you aware of one? 

A. No. 

Q. And at 214–214, if it had been closed, right, with the intent 

to reflect the intent of the Chair, it would have resulted in it being 

an incorrect call, right, an incorrect result because there was another vote that clicked up? Right? 


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A. Yes. 

Q. Which reflected the vote that was being processed at the time 

that Mr. McNulty intended to close the vote? 

A. Yes. I think that my notes indicate that the most sanguine or 

the most telling part of this whole process was the closing of the 

vote without that official white tally sheet. 

Q. Were you aware that De’Andre Anderson was trying to clear 

the vote? He was trying to release out of the system? 

A. The only indication I would have of that is the word ‘‘final’’ 

on the board. 

Q. Okay. 

A. That’s one of the steps towards clearing the system. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do you know if he was having problems with that? 

A. I did not know until later in the proceeding, until the Deputy 

Clerk advised me that we needed to talk to Mr. Sullivan about 

that. 

Q. Okay. It says here that the Parliamentarians as a group 

began to work on a statement for the Chair to indicate that the 

vote had been closed prematurely and to provide for an official 

tally. Who drafted that statement? And to the best of your recollection, exactly what did it say? 

A. Mr. Sullivan drafted it. And I believe it was a statement just 

to say that the vote had been closed prematurely and to indicate 

that—what the real official tally was. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And would you call that a tally slip? 

A. In that situation, since there wasn’t a tally slip at the beginning, it was going to be the equivalent of a tally slip at that point. 

Q. And Tom, you said, just back—I just want to be clear, you 

said that the tally slip was the way to know that the EVS system 

had been closed, I think you said, and reflected the vote. But in 

fact, aren’t there occasions where there are more than one tally slip 

because the Chair will allow others to vote? 

A. Absolutely, yes. 

Q. So I guess ‘‘closed’’ is a sort of an ephemeral term, I guess. 

It could be closed several times? 

A. True. There are tally sheets that are prepared and then are 

discarded for one reason or another. Usually, it is because of the 

arrival of another Member. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Right. But were you ever involved with a vote where there 

was never a tally slip? There may be multiple tally slips, but were 

you ever involved with a vote where there was not a single, not a 

single tally slip prepared? 

A. Not that I can remember. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. No. Okay. 


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EXAMINATION BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. And on the point where the Chair announced the second time 

214–214 and there was the uptick, so that it actually was 215–213, 

had there been no other Members in the well, so that that was indeed the final vote, do you believe that the precedent suggests that 

in fact it still would have been a premature announcement because 

his announcement did not reflect the actual tally? And so, at that 

point in time, don’t you think that at least the Parliamentarians 

would have advised that the 214–214 was still premature, and in 

fact, the actual tally would have been 215–213? So nobody really 

would have been disenfranchised because at that point we would 

have been in a place where—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. The Chair would have had to recognize the tally was wrong, 

or his announcement was wrong. 

A. It was an erroneous statement of result. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. But with that result, it would have been an entirely different 

outcome; right? The motion would have—the bill would have gone 

back to committee; right? 

A. On a tie vote, the motion does not carry. 

Q. No, no, it would have been 215—— 

A. Right. 

Q. I mean, if it was premature, and Muftiah is saying, it was 

really 215–213, right, it would have been an entirely different outcome? 

A. Correct, 214–214 would have resulted in the motion not carrying. 

Q. And Mr. Anderson was actually trying to clear the vote at 

that second, right? 

A. The use of the word ‘‘final’’ would suggest that. 

Q. And he was trying to push the button to actually clear the 

board, which would take down all the numbers, which would have 

been at 215–213? 

A. My understanding is that it’s the second to last button that 

he pushed. The second to last button in the process—the second to 

last step. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If in fact, if in fact the board did reflect 215–213 at that time 

and there were other Members in the well, would you have advised 

the Chair to leave the vote open and allow those other Members 

to be counted? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And that could have changed the 215–213 outcome—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Yet again. Isn’t that right? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. What would happen if the board cleared? Because that was 

Mr.—John Sullivan had said, ‘‘are you closing the vote?’’ I have one 


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more vote left. And when I finish the vote—once he entered that 

third vote, right, which became 215–213, he was attempting several times to clear it. Okay. Once that board goes down, right, what 

happens to the vote? 

A. At that point—— 

Q. Yeah. 

A. [continuing]. It is over. I mean—— 

Q. Right. So there would be no—Tom’s point is it would still be 

premature. But if the vote went down, okay, at that point, would 

you be able to re-up the vote again and then—obviously, it was 

chaos, right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. So do you understand this point? 

A. I don’t want to suggest that at that point we would say the 

vote is over. There is no—there is no way to—— 

Q. Have you ever cleared the board before where it went—I 

guess, right, all the votes went down, all the names went down, 

and then reopened it again and had the same tally? 

A. We have had malfunctions much earlier in the process and 

then dealt with it in other ways with regard to the displays. 

Q. Right. This would have been—this wasn’t a malfunction. This 

would be the person on the rostrum clearing the vote per the Parliamentarian’s directive, right, are you closing the vote? So have 

you ever had an occasion—— 

A. I don’t know if I would say that the Parliamentarian tells him 

to close the vote. I think that the discussion is whether the system 

should be closed to further input. And I think the Tally Clerk could 

speak to this, but their action with regard to clearing the displays—— 

Q. Yes. 

A. [continuing]. Is cued off of the Member’s statement—off of the 

statement by the presiding officer. 

Q. Have you ever been involved in a situation where the board 

cleared and then you opened it, you put—aside from malfunctions, 

okay, have you ever been involved with an instance where they 

cleared the board, and then because it was premature, they put it 

back up sort of with the same vote tally? 

A. Not that I can recall, no. 

Q. Okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. It is my understanding that—and if this is not correct, you let 

me know—that De’Andre Anderson is processing three well cards. 

A. Yes. 

Q. I believe it is Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and the two Diaz-Balarts. And 

he gets, he is in the middle of processing Mario Diaz-Balart’s well 

card when the vote is called. At that point, the third card finally 

enters, and it shows 215 to 213. There is a second batch of three 

well cards that I believe are Gillibrand, Space and McNerney. Do 

you know, did you see those three individuals in the well at the 

time Mr. Anderson is trying to close out the system? 

A. I can’t say as to who I saw. I saw Members in the well, but 

I did not see what specific Members were trying to vote. 


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Q. Okay. Do you know, at the time he was trying to close out the 

system and was having trouble with it, whether those individuals 

had filled out well cards at that point? 

A. I don’t know. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. So, Tom, you don’t recall that when Ms. Ros-Lehtinen and 

Messrs. Diaz-Balart were at the table filling out their card, you 

don’t recall Mr. Space filling out his card at the exact same moment? 

A. I don’t recall the specifics. I may have notes, handwritten 

notes, as to the specific Members, but we usually don’t identify 

them specifically. I do remember the Floridians just because it was 

unique, them coming up as a group. But after that, which Members 

did what is—— 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. I want to hand you this document. It is some handwritten notes. Take a look. And I have some specific questions, but 

is there anything on here that refreshes your recollection at all? 

A. Yeah. It looks like Lampson and Mitchell are the ones that 

I identified. But this—the fourth point here was—was in response 

to Mr. Hoyer, immediately after Mr. Hoyer approached, when I 

turned to Mr. Sullivan, and we had that discussion that there are 

two Members in the well. And then I see the Floridian switch, but 

I am not sure I have a recollection of who else was involved, whether there were other Members. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. To that point, Tom, can you remember when you saw Mr. 

Lampson and Mr. Mitchell approaching the well—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Do you remember if the Floridians were also in 

the well? 

A. I don’t. I remember, and the reason why sometimes we are 

able to remember the specific Members is that we are giving verbal 

cues to the Tally Clerks and the Parliamentarians that there is 

someone else who wants to vote. Sometimes we will say ‘‘Lampson.’’ 

Sometimes we will say ‘‘Mitchell,’’ so that the Clerk will know that 

Members are still trying to vote and to not close the vote. 

Q. But I just want to clarify what you said, because it sounded 

like, it sounded like this all occurred at once. But you don’t remember if the Floridians were also in the well at the same time? 

A. I can’t tell. I just know there were Members there. And which 

ones and who was filling out a card, I just don’t remember specifically. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Tom, when did you prepare these handwritten notes? 

A. That looks like it was—— 

Q. And I guess I should ask the preliminary question, are these 

your notes? 


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A. Yes. They are my notes, and I believe I looked at them—I 

composed them after watching the video maybe 1 or 2 days after. 

Q. And if you say, Floridians switched, do you have any reason 

to think they wouldn’t have been in the well at the time? 

A. No. 

Q. And it says, vote continues, Hoyer arrives. 

A. Yes. 

Q. What happened there? Did Mr. Hoyer say anything else? 

A. That I believe is the second coming of Mr. Hoyer. I apologize, 

but I don’t know if we are at the same point in the timeline. But 

as the draft is coming up of what the Chair should say in response 

to this premature attempt to close, I started thinking ahead as to 

what the next step is—reconsideration. And that’s when I tried to 

get Jay Pierson, the Senior Floor assistant, and basically anyone 

that I talk to on the way there, to indicate that perhaps the next 

step is a motion to reconsider. Mr. Hoyer then comes up, and then 

there is discussion about what the next action should be. 

Q. Did you suggest to Mr. Hoyer a motion to reconsider? 

A. I probably did. I told a number of people that. I think the discussion then took place of whether the motion to reconsider was 

the best course of action or a unanimous consent request to vacate 

the vote. 

Q. And he initially asked for a unanimous consent to vacate the 

vote? 

A. That’s correct. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. To your knowledge, did Mr. Hoyer attempt to clear that unanimous consent request with the minority prior to making it? 

A. I don’t know. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. On the third page of your typed-up notes, it says: The Deputy 

Clerk approached me and informed me that we needed to engage 

Mr. Sullivan about a problem with the voting machine. What did 

Mr. Sorensen tell you about problems that they were having with 

the voting machine? 

A. Well, he was very insistent—to his credit—that we go and find 

Mr. Sullivan and talk to him and have him report to John what 

the problem was. Obviously, John was engaged elsewhere. So Mr. 

Sorensen and I went to John, and then he indicated that the machine was stuck. 

Q. He, being who? 

A. Mr. Sorensen indicated the machine was stuck and that he 

needed John’s permission to abort the vote or—whether John wanted to abort the vote. 

Q. At that point, was the option of terminating the vote discussed? 

A. No. 

Q. So did Mr. Sorensen present it that aborting was the only option? 

A. That is the way it sounded to me, but I will tell you that I 

don’t have a great familiarity with the technical nature of the voting system, so—— 


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Q. Well, let me—I want to hand you this document. And we will 

get to some other of your recommendations later. But if you look 

at the third point which is on the second page, it says: A greater 

understanding of the options available to the body when the machine malfunctions is necessary. This was evident when the seemingly unnecessary decision to abort the vote of August 2nd, 2007, 

was made. When you said ‘‘seemingly unnecessary decision,’’ what 

did you mean by that? 

A. I thought that there was another way. But I realize that I 

may be speaking beyond my technical capabilities here. But clearly 

more knowledge was required of that situation. I wish that discussion had been longer and covered more ground and there had been 

more questions asked by myself. And that didn’t happen. 

Q. So did—I am a little unclear. Who came up with the recommendation to abort the vote? Was that Mr. Sullivan, or was that 

Mr. Sorensen? 

A. It was presented to us as, do we want to abort the vote? 

Q. Okay. Were any other options presented? 

A. Not to my knowledge, no. 

Q. Okay. Aborting a vote sounds, for lack of a better term, sort 

of like the nuclear option, okay, the option of last resort. Would you 

agree with that? 

A. I think the question of aborting it—the way that term was 

used—could have been taken to say ‘‘abort,’’ meaning clear the displays, get the vote off or, as you say, something greater than that. 

Q. Doesn’t it mean something more than that? Because in 

order—I mean, every single vote, even a typical vote, at some point 

you got to get it off the board? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So, clearly, we are not just talking about getting the vote off 

the board. There is a technical problem, and they are trying to find 

how to fix that. Right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. You didn’t just think that ‘‘abort the vote’’ meant simply getting the vote off the board; did you? 

A. No. It was something more than that. But whether or not it 

was just taking the displays down and storing that data elsewhere 

or something more extreme is—was not clear. And that’s the greatest failure on my part—not exploring that more. 

Mr. SPULAK. If I could ask—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. Sure. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But go to this point, what would nuclear have meant to you? 

Because it is not clearing the board. May I suggest, is what you 

are saying that the data would have been lost? I mean, what else 

could it have meant—the ‘‘nuclear option?’’ 

A. Some option other than exiting the vote. And whether ‘‘abort 

the vote’’ was a technical term to throw out the data short term 

or throw out the data forever, I didn’t have a full grasp of that. 

Q. If I can ask, the situation at the time was that it could not 

close the vote. Is that correct? 

A. According to what was reported to us, the electronic voting 

machine was stuck. It was not moving from its current display. 


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Q. Right. But did that mean that votes couldn’t be entered? 

A. I don’t know at that point. I know that with the term—with 

the word ‘‘final’’ up there, votes can still be entered and can 

still—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. Be reflected on the displays. But based on where 

we were at that point, I don’t know. 

Q. And when ‘‘final’’ first appeared, and that was at 215–213, 

other votes were entered and were reflected on the board. Is that 

correct? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And there had been several minutes that had transpired during which votes were entered and the system was whatever its status was at the time. Is that correct? 

A. It was operational. It was ticking one way or the other, and 

it had the word ‘‘final’’ on it. 

Q. So, at the time that there was this concern about the system 

being stuck and the discussions about abort, all the votes had been 

entered? 

A. As far as I know, yes. In fact, the concern was that we were 

actually proceeding with another vote—on a motion to reconsider. 

Q. Yes. And so that’s my question. At that point, the desire or 

the need to do something, which included aborting, was in fact to 

bring an end to that vote so that you could proceed to a subsequent 

vote? 

A. Use the electronic voting system for the current pending vote. 

That’s right. 

Q. Do you believe that this desire to abort the vote had anything 

to do with the results of 814, or was it just to get to 815? 

A. I believe it was the latter. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Why didn’t somebody say, ‘‘stop, stop, we are having trouble 

with the voting machine, with the EVS system, you guys are trying 

to go onto the next vote, we are not in a place to do that now. 

Stop.’’ I mean, I recognize that the Chair controls the proceedings. 

But this is an unusual set of circumstances. Why didn’t somebody 

just say ‘‘stop’’? 

A. I don’t think anyone put the two pieces together that—that 

the voting machine was stuck and that we wanted to proceed with 

the motion to reconsider. I was thinking solely about the parliamentary situation; we need to be ready for a motion to reconsider or a unanimous consent to—at first the unanimous consent 

to vacate the vote; second, if that were not successful, a motion to 

reconsider. The technical aspect of the vote was not something that 

I was thinking about, the voting machines or the displays. 

Q. Let me ask you this, do you think that if the motion to reconsider wasn’t proceeding at that point that they would have aborted 

the vote? The impression that I get, maybe I am wrong here, is 

that things were so confused and they—we need the system because we are in the process of another vote, so the only way we 

can get there is to abort it. Is that fair? 

A. I think yes. The Chair had already begun the proceedings on 

the vote on the motion to reconsider. Then it became evident to me 


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that the vote on the previous recommittal was still—the displays 

of the vote—were still on. And then that was pointed out to me by 

the Deputy Clerk to say, ‘‘listen, we have a problem. We are on 814 

and we should be on 815.’’ 

Q. Is there a process by which you can back up and say, ‘‘we are 

having a technical glitch, we can’t clear the boards, let’s take a 

pause, let us fix the problem and then we will move onto the motion to reconsider’’? 

A. I am not aware of one in the middle of a vote. I think the vote 

had already occurred, and it was now just having the technical aspects of our system catch up with the parliamentary part. And I 

was not as expert in the technical parts as I would like to have 

been. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. What was the mood on the Floor during that time? 

A. A lot of anger, a lot of acrimony. 

Q. And this was coming from the minority side? 

A. Most of my conversations were with the minority side, but I 

am sure there were members of the majority that were not happy 

about it as well. 

Q. So would you say that the Chair was under a great deal of 

pressure from the minority to do something? 

A. Yes, I think that there was anger about the circumstances 

surrounding the vote on 814, and people were looking for a way to 

address that situation. In my mind, the next parliamentary step 

was to move to reconsider that vote. 

Q. Well, do you think that if the situation had been calmer that 

maybe there wouldn’t have been so much pressure to try to find a 

solution immediately? 

A. I would like to hope so, yes. I have never been in a situation 

where we were on the next vote and the machine continued to reflect a previous vote. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Tom, have you been in a situation where a recorded vote by 

electronic device has been ordered, the machine has malfunctioned, 

and the vote takes place by other means? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So that could have been an option, although it would have 

taken an hour to call the roll? 

A. That would have been an option, yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me ask this. The boards haven’t come down for 814. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Isn’t it standard operating procedure, before moving onto the 

next vote, for the Chair to look up and see that the boards have 

come down? 

A. I don’t believe the Chair would be—— 

Q. I mean, the Chair is the one that has to call for that vote; 

right? 

A. That’s correct. 


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Q. And so isn’t there some—I mean, if the boards are still up 

from a previous vote, wouldn’t you expect the Chair to at least see 

that the boards have cleared before calling for a new vote? 

A. No. I just think that the normal operating procedure would be 

to look to the Member seeking recognition—determine whether it 

is a valid parliamentary motion, and allow the boards to take care 

of themselves. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you think that the best course of action would have been 

to vacate the vote? 

A. My thought at that time was that it was an option for the 

membership. I don’t know if I would have a recommendation between the two. I mean, I think that is something for the body to 

decide—whether or not the Members wanted to wipe that vote 

clean or rather use the available parliamentary method of a motion 

to reconsider. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Has the motion to vacate been successfully used in the past 

on circumstances where there has been confusion over a vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And was that used during the time, in your recollection, was 

that used during the time when the current minority was in the 

majority? 

A. I believe so. I don’t have the specifics. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

Mr. HALPERN. Can we go off the record for just a minute? 

[Discussion off the record.] 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Question, Tom, have you ever been involved with an aborted 

vote before? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. And was there any discussion at that time, when they 

were considering aborting the vote, right, Mr. Sorensen comes over 

and says that you were going to lose all the data; at the time that 

they were considering aborting the vote, was there anything about, 

we are going to lose the data—— 

A. There was something to that—he said that all the data associated would be lost. 

Q. Would be lost. Okay. Do you remember hearing that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. So, at the time they were considering aborting it, the 

thought process was that they would lose all the data? 

A. That was what he said to us. Whether that was short term, 

long term, or—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. That’s beyond my technical capability. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Final question. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You prepared a memo of recommendations? 


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A. Yes. 

Q. Do you still stand by all these recommendations in terms of 

improving the process? 

A. I would like to revisit them in light of some of the presentations we have had on the voting system. Those are from August, 

and I did not change them. 

Q. Okay. 

A. But expanding on them in light of the presentations that the 

Clerks had, I would like to have that ability to revise. 

Q. We would very much appreciate that. One of the things we 

have been charged with is coming up with some recommendations 

to improve the system. If you would like to supplement or edit 

these, please feel free to do so. And we would obviously like any 

recommendations that you have. 

A. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Tom, I have one question. And just to follow-up on your question to Mr. Paoletta, losing data could have meant, in your words, 

were sort of short term and long term. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Which meant losing could have meant for now, but we restore 

it? 

A. Temporary or permanent, that’s right. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Let’s go off the record. 

[Whereupon, at 11:11 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: GEORGE KUNDANIS 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 2:00 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh N. Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. George, thanks for coming here today. 

As you know, this Select Committee to Investigate Voting Irregularities of August 2nd, 2007, is charged with investigating the circumstances surrounding roll call vote 814 and subsequent motion 

to recommit including the duration of the vote and related occurrences. So we’d like you to tell us about your own personal experiences related to that. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Before you do that, we’d ask you to tell us about yourself, your 

position in the House, your experience. And you can begin that narrative. 

A. Okay. I’m George Kundanis. I started with Tom Foley, Congressman Tom Foley in December of 1976. He was, at that time, 

the Democratic Caucus Chairman. And I took up his leadership duties as his staff person in 1977. He then became Whip leader and 

eventually Speaker. He then, of course, got defeated and left. 

And I became Dick Gephardt’s, the Minority Leader’s floor assistant—one of his floor assistants. And then he left. And I became one 

of the assistants and eventually policy director and then deputy 

chief of staff for Leader and then Speaker Pelosi. 

A lot of my job revolves around interaction with Members, and 

that’s, I think, what value I have at this point. I might have done 


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other things in the past, but, I mean, I tend to be giving them information, taking their complaints. As many leadership staff do, we 

are surrogates at times. I mean, there’s 200 Members, and they all 

want to talk to Ms. Pelosi at the same time, but obviously they all 

can’t. So our presence on the floor often serves as a place for them 

to come and tell us something that they want her to know. 

And also, related to this matter, we’ve tended also—you know, 

lately each of us, a number of us, have tended to try to make sure 

that everyone has voted. So some of us spend time on the floor seeing who hasn’t voted and looking around at Members and reminding them. As most of you probably know, since both of you worked 

on the Hill before, Members will just sit there sometimes and forget. Especially if there is more than one vote, they’ll forget that 

they voted or whether they have voted or haven’t voted. 

So we have, sort of, gotten a system where a number of us, sort 

of, run people down and make sure that they vote. And sometimes 

if we feel they haven’t the right way, we ask them if they haven’t. 

You know, we have no control over them, but we—did you really 

want to do this? And they tell us yes, and we walk away. 

And, obviously, we want to make sure our own boss, the Speaker, 

you know, she has the option of voting or not voting, so we have 

to, sort of, deal with that situation on the floor and make sure we 

know that. And sometimes we direct people to talk to people who 

we think we would like to try to influence. 

Then, do you want me to go into the day? 

Q. Sure. 

A. My history, as I’ve just said, is with Tom Foley. My first 17 

years here, I worked with Tom Foley. And Tom Foley was known 

in the House as being a fairly—he ran the Agriculture Committee, 

and it still is but at that time it was a very bipartisan committee. 

And also, when he took over, I think he was perceived as not being 

as partisan of a Speaker of others, you know, Jim Wright. 

And I think that Foley, sort of, always was very—was a parliamentarian—was parliamentarian to the Democratic convention, 

parliamentarian to Speaker O’Neill when Speaker O’Neill was 

Speaker. And he always instilled in me and was always the model 

of, sort of, making sure that you have to be nonpartisan in your 

rulings in the Chair and nonpartisan in the way you deal with the 

Chair. And so, he drilled that into me in many, many different 

ways. 

And so, whatever mess was occurring on the floor at that time, 

I mean, my thought at the time was just let everybody vote, and 

if something goes wrong, let’s revote, and let’s make sure that everybody votes. Because we’re not going to gain anything—having 

been in the minority for 12 years, I know what it looks like when 

it looks like you, sort of, pulled one over on people. I said, let’s 

make sure that everyone has voted and everyone is happy with the 

vote and, if necessary, do it again. Whatever it takes to ensure the 

minority that they feel that they didn’t get some kind of a screwy 

deal. 

And so, that was all I was thinking on the floor, at the time. I 

didn’t have control over the Chair. Others, sort of, deal with the 

Chair. And the Speaker wasn’t in the Chair, obviously. And so, 

that was, sort of, my thoughts at the time. 


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But I didn’t have any, sort of, direct—I remembered seeing the 

numbers changing and him gaveling, but I didn’t have any direct 

communication with him or direct communication with the people 

that were directing him to the Chair. 

So I didn’t know why it happened. All I could think of was the 

minority experience that we’d had and, if I had been in the minority, what I would think. And I just kept thinking we have to find 

some way to assure the minority that they are getting a fair deal, 

and we have to do whatever we need to do to do that. 

That’s why I suggested—and, you know, I was one of many people, and I’m sure he probably would have made the decision on his 

own—but I suggested to the leadership that we do something like 

this, because I think it’s really important that people find out what 

happened and make sure that, if it’s something that in any way aggrieves the minority, that it never happens again, but also sensitizes our own people to the need to make sure that everyone 

who’s on the floor and voting gets to vote and there is no, you 

know, no fooling around. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Where were you standing at the time that 814 started? Do 

you recall that? 

A. Well, I usually—my position I like—it’s like the Members always go to the same spots on the floor. The staff, in a sense, does 

the same thing. As you know, both sides have the computer in the 

back and computer in the front. And I usually, sort of, stand right 

around where, God rest his soul, Congressman Lantos used to sit. 

He used to sit next to the computer, and I stood facing him, you 

know, sort of, looking at the computer upside down, and just sit 

there and watch and see if people voted. Sometimes we’d end up 

calling—let’s say, whatever Member hadn’t voted and you know 

that you’d seen them during the day, you say, well, call his office 

and make sure he comes over here, or something like that. 

So we’re watching the computer and a printout of what’s going 

on in the vote, mostly to see, you know, obviously, who has voted 

the opposite way that we voted, but also the absentees. And we 

look around the floor. Sometimes, as I said, one of my great concerns is people sitting on the floor and then missing a vote, and 

then they come up and scream at us and say, ‘‘Why didn’t you tell 

me?’’ So we try to work to try to make sure that—for a while there, 

we had Jesse Jackson, Jr., helping us, of all people—no apparent 

reason why. But we would tell him somebody hadn’t voted, and he 

would just scream at them and say, ‘‘You haven’t voted yet,’’ you 

know, across the hall. And so finally they told him to stop, because 

they felt like they were being abused. He was our interlocutor 

there for a while. 

It’s not a glamorous job, but a part—you know, we are part of 

a team. Everybody does their own job. I mean, that’s usually where 

I am. I rarely, sort of, stray from there except if I’m going to do 

something for her, I mean, if she tells me to go get somebody or 

to find somebody. 

Q. And when do you recall first noticing that something was not 

going according to standard practice? 


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A. Well, my recollection was that it was when the other side 

started getting angry. I saw the flip—I remember looking up and 

seeing the flip for the vote. And then he had called—maybe I’m 

wrong; this is just a vague recollection—but he called it, and then 

the vote looked like it was the wrong way, and then it was like, 

what are we going to do now? And then the thought, at that time, 

was stop and let’s just make sure that everybody’s, you know, copacetic before you—and, you know, don’t go any further. You know, 

if you don’t have everybody, you know—again, we’d been in the minority for 12 years, so, you know, we had all of our feelings of feeling, at times, that we were not being fairly dealt with. So, you 

know, I was highly sensitized to that idea that I didn’t want to be 

in a situation where I was any part of it. 

But, I mean, I wasn’t, at that point, in an actual situation that 

I could have done anything about it. I was just like an observer. 

I was in the gallery, looked back. That was that. 

Q. Do you remember Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle? 

A. I’m—— 

Q. Because you’re off at a table, right? 

A. I’m the other way. 

Q. So you may not—but he comes down the aisle. Do you remember that at all? Do you remember him saying anything? 

A. No, sorry. 

Q. Okay, so the first time you’re, kind of, aware of anything—— 

A. Is when I hear the gavel, and I look up, and the number 

switched. 

Q. It was 214–214, and then right after it says that—— 

A. It flipped to—— 

Q. It kicks up to 215–213? 

A. Yeah, that’s right. I looked up, and I thought, how is that possible? 

Q. Okay. 

A. I’m thinking hopefully that time would cure it out or that 

somehow somebody would explain to me what had just happened. 

Q. And what did you do when that happened? 

A. I was like an observer. I was waiting—— 

Q. Did you stand by your station there? 

A. I think I was still there, yeah. I don’t remember moving. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Again, I was sitting there staring at the—I mean, again, some 

of our Members tend to—Pennsylvania people sit in the same spot; 

the Blue Dogs sit in the same spot. A lot of our Members vote in 

the same spot when they vote. The staff is a little bit like that, too. 

We, sort of, stay where—because there isn’t a lot of leadership 

staff, so if I start floating around, it’s like I’m in other people’s 

space. So I, sort of, stay where—I try to feel like I’m part of a team, 

and not just that I solve all problems, you know, ‘‘I’ll do it.’’ 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I believe you said that you generally don’t have direct communication to the Chair? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Who on the leadership staff would generally have direct communication to the Chair? 


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A. The way that we established it in our office is that Jerry 

Hartz is our floor assistant. Let’s say it’s a noncontroversial issue 

that we feel we can deal with. In a noncontroversial or almost any 

situation, Catlin O’Neill is the person who is the person who will 

communicate to the Chair that she thinks that, you know, we think 

everybody has voted, and then the Chair will dispense. 

Now, Jerry Hartz is also the person, because he is our main floor 

assistant, who will—she’ll say to him, ‘‘Jerry, is everybody in?’’ But 

even in those situations, you know, Jerry to Catlin—and sometimes, I remember, people know—Members know what they want 

to do, but if they are looking for direction—I’m sorry; put quote 

marks there—‘‘direction’’ from leadership staff, it usually comes 

from Jerry to Catlin to the Chair. 

Q. Now, will you have any involvement in communicating with 

Jerry about what Catlin should tell the Chair? 

A. Very, very, very rarely. I mean, occasionally there will be a 

situation where, you know, 435 people have voted and I’ll say, ‘‘435 

people have voted. Can we go now?’’ It is sort of like, yesterday, 

where we had, like, eight suspension votes and everyone was trying 

to leave for Valentine’s Day, it’s like, ‘‘Come on, get where you’re 

going.’’ 

But, I mean, that’s sort of what it is, that level. But he still does 

what he wants, and I don’t direct her, because I don’t feel that’s 

appropriate. I’m part of a team; it’s not my job to do that. And so 

I try to just stick to complaining or something like that. 

Q. It’s our understanding that Catlin O’Neill, with respect to 814, 

told the parliamentarians, ‘‘This is going to be a fairly close vote. 

We want you to, essentially, as soon as it gets to 0–0–0, wrap it 

up pretty quickly.’’ Were you involved in—did you know she was 

telling the parliamentarians that in advance? 

A. No. Like I said, I mean, if consulted, my sense is it will always be a losing game to try to prevent Members from voting, 

Democrat or Republican. I think this is what happens when, occasionally, if there’s misunderstandings or disagreements. I just 

think it’s just easier to, sort of—like yesterday on the floor, or the 

day before yesterday, we lost a big vote on extending FISA. Well, 

we lost. You know, the world went on. We’re all alive. You know, 

we survived it. 

And having been in the majority for so long, from ’77 to ’94, we 

lost an enormous amount of times in those years. I mean, there 

would be big votes. They discharged the majority from, you know, 

consideration. They’d beat us on the floor on things. But, you know, 

we lived, and we fought another day. So it was not the end of the 

world. 

I think, ultimately, the majority is going to find its way to majority, and I just don’t see any reason to, sort of—and I’ve had to deal 

with Democratic Members who have been angry with me at times 

for quick dispensations of votes, and I just don’t—I don’t want to 

deal with them. 

Q. You cut yourself off there. I think you said, you don’t see any 

reason to sort of—and then you moved on to the next. What were 

you intending to say? 

A. I don’t see any—I don’t know that she did that. I mean—— 

Q. I know, but you meant? 


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A. I’m operating independently, but I’m saying that I don’t see 

any reason not to ensure—I mean, one of the things that I try to 

do is ensure that everybody has voted on our side, because I know 

everybody and that sort of thing. And I don’t see any reason not 

to try to find a way to get 435 people voting all the time, if that’s 

possible. 

Q. Do you think that’s what happened on August 2nd? 

A. I was confused. I wasn’t involved, and I didn’t see what was 

going on. I was confused. I wanted that to be the result, and I 

would’ve wanted a revote, if that was necessary to assure the minority. I would’ve wanted this to occur if people still had questions. 

But I honestly—if I wasn’t standing up there, I don’t think I 

would have—if I was standing up—I used to do it when I was in 

the majority, is I used to stand up there with Foley in chair and, 

sort of, be with the parliamentarians and see what was going on. 

So, in that situation, I know what it’s like to know all the backsand-forth and who’s, you know, screaming and whatnot. 

But I was distant from that, so I couldn’t—and it wasn’t part of 

my job, so I was just, sort of, like I said, I watched it and was looking at it. I mainly just, sort of, stared at the numbers, because, 

first of all, I couldn’t believe it when I saw it, and then I thought, 

well, they’re going to change it or something’s up. I couldn’t figure—— 

Q. You said that Mr. Foley was—something about a parliamentarian in his own right. 

A. Definitely. 

Q. In the times—you guys spent a lot of time on the floor. Have 

you ever seen a Chair call a vote without having a written tally 

sheet? 

A. I can’t remember an exact instance. I can remember people 

sometimes reading things off the monitors. But I don’t know if, in 

that times, they may have had the thing in their hand—or, I just 

can’t—I don’t recall. I don’t recall—I don’t recall an instance of 

that, no. 

Q. Did you ever hear any discussion that Mr. McNulty was directed to close the vote when it got to a certain number? 

A. No. 

Q. For example, 214–214? 

A. No. Absolutely not. I would have—no. 

Q. Would you have heard that, do you believe, if that had been 

his instruction? 

A. I doubt it. Again, I’m not in that, sort of, line of control. I 

mean, people weren’t asking my opinion, as far as, you know, there 

was—it is a separate, you know, separate structure that deals with 

the Chair and who’s in the Chair and how the Chair, you know— 

that advice goes up to the Chair. Like I said, sometimes I’d have 

the ability sometimes to, at the margins, be able to influence the 

chain, but I’m not in the chain. 

Q. Well, the reason I ask is, have you watched the videotape? 

A. I have seen it once, yes. 

Q. I don’t know if you recall this or not. There’s one instance 

where, after all this has started to blow up a little bit, Mr. McNulty 

says—and it’s a little unclear exactly who he says it to—but says, 

‘‘I called it at 214–214,’’ almost like he’s saying, ‘‘I did what I was 


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told.’’ That’s the impression that comes across to me from the tone 

of his voice. 

Do you recall seeing that instance on the tape? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you recall—— 

A. But I wasn’t—I watched the tape once just to see what happened, and that wasn’t the part I was paying attention to. I can’t 

say—I wasn’t there. I just didn’t see it. 

Q. What part were you paying particular attention to? 

A. Me. 

Q. How’d you look? 

A. Not very good. Old. 

Q. What were you looking at? What were you—you said you were 

looking at yourself. 

A. Usually when I look at the floor or any tapes of the floor, I’m 

looking for friends, looking for myself. It’s egotistical, but that’s 

just, sort of, what I do. 

Q. Did you notice on the tape Mr. Hoyer having a little bit of a 

confrontation with Mr. Sullivan? 

A. At the time I watched the tape, I saw Mr. Hoyer up there with 

Mr. Sullivan. You know, I couldn’t discern what was going on, but 

I did see the two of them up there, sure. 

Q. And did you see Mr. Hoyer pointing his finger at Mr. Sullivan 

in a fairly animated tone? 

A. I think that’s probably right. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember seeing that the night of? 

A. No, I wasn’t looking there. 

Q. You weren’t looking there, okay. 

A. I was looking at the numbers. Part of what we try to do is 

try to win the votes, you know, in a fair way. So, you know, since 

you don’t have complete control over the vote, you’re trying to figure out, what do I need to do to get back into the vote? Is there 

somebody who we can change or ask them to change? So I’m more 

consumed—my part of the job is more consumed with that than it 

is who’s doing stuff in the chair. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me ask you this. If the vote is prematurely called at 214– 

214—and I’m basing that off the Chair’s own acknowledgment of 

that subsequently—and meanwhile the board shows 215–213, and 

then shortly thereafter I think there are three additional change 

cards that are turned in—Gillibrand, McNerney and Space—did 

you have any involvement in discussing with those people changing 

their vote? Because, ultimately, I believe that the final—do you 

know what the final vote was? 

A. No. 

Q. Did you speak to any of those three people about changing 

their vote? 

A. No. Sometimes part of my job is to, sort of, talk to people, to 

talk to people. But I don’t recall being involved in that, in that part 

of it. I think it was—the people that were working on—to the extent that there might have been people working those people, they 


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were working them throughout the vote. I mean, it wasn’t like 

something that would have come spontaneously or suddenly you 

think I’m going to go up to this person and talk to them. 

It was much more—I mean, in these key votes—and I’m sure it’s 

true on the Republican side, too—you, sort of, have a good idea of 

who you’ve got and who is, sort of, floating. And so, the people that 

are floating probably have little guardian angels who are, you 

know, talking to them. But there’s there is not really a need to say, 

‘‘Oh, by the way, go get that person.’’ You know who’s with you, 

you know who’s against, and you know who’s in play. 

Q. Well, and is that true for changing votes, as well? I mean, if 

somebody has voted—— 

A. I—— 

Q. Just for her sake, let me just try to spit it out for you. 

A. Yeah, yeah. Okay, I’m sorry. 

Q. Is that true that somebody may have voted one way, they essentially get a pass on a vote even though it might be going against 

what the majority wants, because they are in a difficult district or 

whatever. But then if things get tight at the end, they need to be, 

sort of, encouraged to vote with the majority, if things are really 

getting neck and neck? 

A. Yeah, there’s a lot of motivations for it. There is an ultra-safe 

Democrat who, over the last few months, has been pursuing other 

activities, but who also, at times, you know, comes in and out, you 

know, is willing sometimes to help if necessary, but would like— 

has a balancing act on those kinds of things. 

And so people, yeah, a number of people for a number of reasons, 

when we get to those kinds of votes, have a certain ambivalence, 

they have conflicting pressures. And so, sometimes when you’ve 

gotten it down to the yeses and the noes, and the small amount of 

people that are in between, the small amount of people in between 

usually are in between because they have conflicting imperatives 

that are upon them, maybe multiple imperatives. And so that’s 

why, I think, both Democrats and Republicans end up occasionally 

switching, because, well, you know, I can see why I can go yes, I 

can see why I could go no; you know, I’m down to the last minute. 

In the old days, when we first got the voting machines, where 

you actually put the thing in, they would tabulate how many times 

people switched votes, because you have the little machine and you 

could just go back and forth. One time somebody 1,200 times 

changed their vote. Now, obviously, they were just playing with it 

or if they had a little child who was playing with it. But it’s just, 

sometimes, people just—it’s just not that clear in their minds. Now, 

obviously we’re trying to influence them sometimes, but other people are influencing them the other way. 

So I think if you did a study of the floor, you would see that 

there are a lot of people on both sides who change a lot of times. 

When it gets to key votes, it’s usually—we’re trying—we are obviously trying to influence; they’re obviously getting pressures from 

others, you know. 

Q. Sure. Understandably. Do you know whether anybody was 

working those three people? 

A. No. 


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Q. At some point, there was a discussion about aborting the vote. 

Do you know anything about that? 

A. I remember being on the periphery. Again, my only thought 

was, at that point—and I don’t even know what the state of play 

was at that point. My only thought was, let’s find a way to make 

sure that everybody is copacetic with the vote. And so, whatever 

would further that, that would be what I would be for. Because I 

didn’t think it was, as I said before, I don’t think it was—it wasn’t 

personally, to me, that important what the final result was, yes or 

no, or victory or defeat. It was that, if in victory, it would be that 

both sides were comfortable with it and, in defeat, that people understood there was a fair vote, you know, we lost and we lost. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Can I interrupt, George? I think you might be confused by Andrew’s question. 

Were you ever aware that there was a problem with the computer? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I mean, we were all obviously wondering what happened, but 

nobody knew why that happened. 

Q. So when you’re talking about making sure that people are fine 

with things, are you talking about a way to—the motion to reconsider or—attempt to vacate? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. That’s a different issue than the decision to abort the vote to 

pull the display down. 

A. Oh, okay. I was thinking much more the idea that, for a motion to reconsider, just if the minority felt something had happened. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. I just wanted to clarify that. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Sure, no, I appreciate that. I think that was perhaps misunderstood. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Did you have an opportunity to speak with Mr. Hartz or 

Catlin O’Neill about these events after the fact? 

A. You know, I mean, I tried to get—sometimes tried to get a 

hold of information, but they both felt that they were on the periphery and didn’t really feel that they had that much involvement. 

Mr. McNulty has been a Chair for a number of times and was 

one of the, what we thought, better Chairs that we put in the 

chair, and he took a lot of pride in it personally. And so, at least 

from a staff perspective, it would seem unlikely that he would take 

my order, take Catlin’s order. Catlin’s junior to me too. And Jerry 

usually hangs out at the computer with me. So it would never 

occur to me to think that they would’ve had that kind of an influence over him. 

Q. What about Mr. Hoyer? Would he have had that kind of influence over Mr. McNulty? 

A. I don’t know. Mr. McNulty is a very—if you haven’t already 

interviewed him, he’s an extremely strong person. He may not look 

like it because he’s got the back problem or whatever, but a very 


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strong person. And, like, when we—to us, one of the most important votes was the vote on the war, and when the Speaker went 

to talk to him to try to see if we could get his vote on a deadline 

for the war or, you know, what was a compromise which would 

have also seemed to be somewhat supporting the war, he was rigid. 

And nothing she could say could get him to change his—his brother 

had died in Vietnam. He was never going to vote for anything that 

had anything to do with war. 

And so, in that sort of situation—I bring it up now to make the 

point, here was the Speaker, it was the most important vote to her, 

and she couldn’t move him an inch. And so, that’s, sort of, my view 

of Mike McNulty, like, he just, you know, he doesn’t move very easily. And she’s not an inconsiderable push either. And since it was 

the most important vote to her, I’m sure she would have tried to 

convince him pretty hard, but — 

Q. What do you think happened that night? Why do you think 

Mr. McNulty closed the vote prematurely, or called the vote prematurely? 

A. I think, up to that point, he had a spotless record, I think, as 

the Chair. I think even probably the Republicans felt that he had 

a spotless record. And I think, for whatever reason—I mean, that’s 

the only way I can figure it out—is he made a mistake. And he has, 

since that time, announced his retirement. I think he was appalled 

at what happened and appalled that his judgment was being called 

into question. And I think that had an impact on his decision not 

to run again. 

Q. What was his mistake, in your opinion? 

A. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know if it was the machines or 

if it was the—if he felt that he may have called it early. I don’t 

know. 

Q. I’m going to read you something that somebody we’ve spoken 

to earlier has said. He stated—and this is a person who has fairly 

considerable experience on the floor. And he stated that he’d seen 

pressure previously on Chairs to close down or hold open particular 

votes, but prior to August 2nd, he—and I’m going to quote now— 

‘‘had never seen the Chair buy into it, never.’’ 

Is that your opinion as to what happened on August 2nd? 

A. I just don’t know. But I do know him, and I do know his— 

I have seen him in the chair before. I know he’s a person we put 

in the chair a lot for these kinds of votes. He was in the chair because he was a strong person who could deal with a difficult situation. And it is, as I said, an example of the vote that the Speaker 

wanted. I find it very hard to believe that he would do other than 

what he thought was right at the time. 

That may, in retrospect, as you guys analyze this, turn out not 

to be the correct situation and he may have made a mistake, I 

don’t know. But my experience with him and the Speaker’s experience with him is that he is very hard to—once he decides something, it’s very hard to get him to do something other than what 

he feels is best. 

Q. We’ve heard from several people that Mr. Hoyer directed the 

Chair to close down the vote and close it down now more than once 

that evening, and that after one of those times, seconds after one 

of those times was when Mr. McNulty said that it was not agreed 


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to, called it a 214–214, banged the gavel. And you didn’t see that 

or hear that happen? 

A. No. 

Q. And if—— 

A. And also, a lot of times, random people scream at the Chair, 

‘‘Gavel it.’’ You don’t even know who they are, half the time. I 

think, had somebody not been in the chair a lot before that, I could 

see maybe somebody thinks, oh, they can be swayed. But an experienced person in the chair knows that the imperative is that everybody votes. That’s imperative, and it should not be altered. If somebody is in the chamber, even if somebody is down the hall and 

they’re screaming, ‘‘One more,’’ you wait until everybody votes. 

And that’s why he’s been perceived, I think, in the past, by Republicans and Democrats, as a good Chair of the Whole, because 

I think it’s perceived that he is trying to make sure that that occurs. 

So, I mean, like I said, she tried to influence his vote and 

couldn’t influence his vote. I mean, somebody coming up to him and 

telling him to do it, I just don’t think—this is all speculation, but 

the type of person that I know, I wouldn’t be able to do that, I 

wouldn’t be able to convince him. 

Q. But it’s not just somebody; it’s Mr. Hoyer. 

A. Well, even the Speaker, she couldn’t change him on something 

that was important to her. 

I’m not trying to argue. 

Q. Sure. 

A. This is something you guys are going to have to discover. 

You’re going to have to talk to him, you’re going to have to talk 

to Hoyer. I’m just saying that my personal experience would lead 

me to think that it’d be very hard to get him to do something that 

he doesn’t want to do. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. George, it may not have been in this case, but I think you said 

that there is always pressure on the Chair to close the vote. Has 

that been your experience over your career? 

A. Well, there are always random people who scream, ‘‘Shut it 

down,’’ or, ‘‘It’s time to go.’’ But that’s why you put an experienced 

person in the chair, because you’re supposed to ignore that. Because of this. I mean, I don’t think Mike McNulty would ever, in 

his worst nightmares, have wanted this to occur, where his judgment is being questioned and that he was perceived in any way of 

not having been fair. 

So I think that an experienced Chair would realize you’re supposed to tune people out. That’s not—you know, you know, just, I 

mean, you know, when—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Off the record? Oh, do you—— 

Mr. HALPERN. No, I just have a couple very quick questions. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. The Speaker voted during this vote? 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Q. Obviously the Speaker doesn’t have to vote. Can you tell me 

was it her decision on her own to vote on this one, or was there 


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a discussion from staff or from another leadership office that it 

would be important for her to vote on this? 

A. Well, if you know the Speaker, the Speaker, she almost 99.9 

percent of the time will make her own decisions on this stuff. So 

she would’ve thought about it—any of these kinds of critical votes, 

she would’ve thought about it beforehand and decided on her own 

whether she was going to vote or not. 

And so, I mean, the staff—I mean, I’m not trying to be too humble here, but staff play in this would be, ‘‘Mrs. Madam Speaker, 

you said you wanted to vote; you haven’t voted yet,’’ or something 

like that. It wouldn’t be, ‘‘Don’t you think you ought to vote?’’ 

I mean, when she first became Speaker, she, unlike—I mean, 

Foley reveled in the idea of not having to vote. Once he became 

Speaker, he never wanted to vote again. He was happy and delighted, didn’t want to go to the floor. But she, having ran as a person who spent a lot of time with the Members, she spent a lot of 

time on the floor, and we couldn’t get her out of voting. So she was 

voting for, you know, the suspensions and stuff like that. So finally, 

after a while, we convinced her, you know, that she didn’t have to 

vote on everything and she should only vote on things that she 

thought was important or made a difference. 

But she decided that. Most of the time, if we tell her that, she’ll 

say, ‘‘Yeah, I know,’’ or something, but she won’t—— 

Q. Were you aware that the Speaker was the tying vote on this 

particular matter? 

A. No. But I would think that, in any situation where it’s going 

to be a close vote, I would hope that she would vote. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I haven’t looked at the tape at this part in a while, but my 

recollection, George, is that you’re at the table and you signal to 

her—she’s talking with a bunch of people—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Or Members, and you signal to her and she 

turns and goes to vote. Do you remember that? 

A. No, but it could’ve been that, it could’ve been a reminder, but 

it also could’ve been—we were working the computer. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. I think that’s Jerry who signals for her, motions 

for her—— 

Mr. KUNDANIS. Well, in any case, I mean, we were talking to her. 

What I’m supposed to do is translate to her if she hasn’t voted, or 

if she said she was going to vote, or if there are people that it 

might be useful for her to talk to. If I was pointing or wasn’t pointing, it would probably have been, you know, ‘‘These are some of the 

things you need to do.’’ 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay, but it looks like it’s right at the time when it’s going 

to become a tie vote. So is there any recollection of that, like, we 

need to—— 

A. No, I think she would’ve decided a long time before she got 

to the floor that she was going to vote. And it may have just been 

that she had just not done it at that point, because she may have— 

it may have been that she was trying to work the voters first, figVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00260 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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uring she could vote, nobody is going to gavel her down, so she 

doesn’t really have to rush. 

Q. Right, okay. 

Mr. SNOWDON. You wouldn’t think. 

Mr. KUNDANIS. You wouldn’t have to rush up there to vote. She’s 

going to get to vote when she wants to. I mean, sometimes her initial—her usual MO is to come up and ask us, you know, how is it 

going, how does it look, how many absences on both sides, who is 

voting, you know, which way, are there people who I should talk 

to, and stuff like that. It’s more informational than it is directional. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. Thanks. 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you, George. 

Mr. KUNDANIS. Thanks, everybody. 

[Whereupon, at 2:43 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF: JAY PIERSON 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 10:10 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLTANIA AVENUE NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006–4706 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006–5403 

Also Present: Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Good morning, Jay. Thank you for coming here this morning. 

As you know, the Select Committee to Investigate the Voting 

Irregularities of August 2, 2007, was formed to investigate the circumstances surrounding roll call vote 814 and the subsequent motion to reconsider. We are interested in any observations or comments that you have about those events, including the duration of 

the vote and related matters. 

We would like to begin by you giving us some background about 

yourself and your experience in the House, and then after that tell 

us in narrative form any comments or observations about roll call 

vote 814. 

A. Well, my name is Jay Pierson. I have worked on the Hill and 

on the floor for 30 years; did a year at the rostrum as a journal 

clerk, my first year; 7 years in the Republican cloakroom; and the 

rest as a floor assistant to either Speakers or Minority Leaders, as 

the case may be, for the rest of that time. 

My job is basically to make sure the Republican Members know 

what’s happening when they walk on the floor—I’m a parliamentary procedure-type guy—timing of votes, what legislation does, 

and a little bit about every piece of legislation, not a lot, but a little; and then basically as a kind of a liaison when we were in a 

Majority, mostly a liaison from what was happening at the rostrum 

to the cloakroom, make sure they knew what we were doing. And 


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now it’s just any information you pick up on the floor, making sure 

what our cloakroom knows what is going on, because they are answering so many phone calls and stuff and so we have to keep 

them up to snuff. That’s all it is. 

Q. That’s a lot. August 2. 

A. Well, I would say there are three things about August 2 that 

I remember most. I mean, I thought you would be asking me specific questions, but I will tell you what I think happened. What I 

think happened is a factor of three things. 

One is overreaching by the Majority Leader or the leadership on 

the Democratic side, but it was Steny Hoyer pushing hard to close 

a vote when it wasn’t ready to close; a mistake by McNulty in the 

chair—who I want to mention is probably their best Chair—he is 

a wonderful guy, and he just got a lot of pressure; and their—just 

really bad timing on what actually happened technically at the rostrum when the vote actually happened. So those three things are 

what happened. 

You probably saw me on the video going across to talk to Hoyer. 

I am sure you will probably ask me about that. As best I can recollect, I said to him, we are going to move to reconsider, and he said, 

we are going to do that. I said, fine, and walked away. That’s the 

only time I was talking to him. I normally wouldn’t talk to him, 

but I just thought that the whole thing was such a mess that we 

ought to figure out what to do from there. And he said, no, we are 

going to do that. 

And that’s my take on it. 

Q. Well, to that, was there any discussion about vacating the 

vote? 

A. I don’t recall. That’s certainly not—not with myself and Hoyer, 

no. I actually don’t recall that. 

Q. Would—to you, would that have been an option? 

A. Well, the problem with the whole thing was that they were— 

you know, I brought all this stuff home and looked at it, and it got 

moved. [Non-relevant material redacted.] I couldn’t find it, so it’s 

not real fresh. 

But, basically, as you all know, the vote total did not change. So 

from a Republican point of view, had you vacated the vote and 

done it again, we would have lost the vote. That’s sort of obvious. 

So that’s one way to get out of a parliamentary snit is to vacate 

and revote or to reconsider either way. But there were other factors 

involved in the terms of wanting to win the vote. We thought we 

had won the vote. 

If you vacate or you reconsider, you are going to lose the vote. 

So in the sense it wasn’t really something that you would want to 

do. You wanted it to stick on the—you wanted to stick it up there 

as 215–213 final, if my numbers are right, and leave it final, not 

revote it and say, oh, you lost. 

So I don’t recall specifically, certainly not with Hoyer, and I don’t 

recall on our side thinking about vacating, probably for that reason. 

Q. I don’t want to get ahead of ourselves because you probably 

want to go back, but that’s a point that I think we will want to 

revisit is this question about whether the vote changed and whethVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00264 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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er, when it was 215–213, the Minority had won. But we will talk 

about that later. 

Does anybody want to—do you want to back up a little or — 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sure. 

Mr. SPULAK. Go ahead. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Well, why don’t we start with you mentioned three points that 

contributed to this problem. 

Let’s start with the first one, I think you said overreaching by 

Mr. Hoyer, pushing him to close the vote when it wasn’t ready to 

be closed. Do you want to elaborate on that? 

A. Yeah. I mean, you guys who have worked on the floor or the 

Hill know the Majority closes down the votes. There’s an understanding that if anybody is in the Chamber, not just in the well, 

but in the Chamber somewhere, and the Chair is looking out there 

before they close, and they say, hang on, they hear somebody yell, 

that you are going to hold the vote open for that person. 

So most votes, as you know, are overwhelming. It’s not a problem, but on a close vote it’s a difficult thing to decide when you 

close it and when you don’t. I think the Democrats are the same 

as we are. The push is never to close the vote when someone is in 

the well especially—or in the Chamber. You know, there’s noise, 

it’s 400 guys out there talking and whatever, and sometimes the 

Chair can’t hear. But generally that’s the way we always did it. On 

our side we always closed the gate. 

We had a person kind of in between the Chair and being the 

whip. The whip is looking at the vote and deciding we want to close 

the vote. We know where our votes are. We have got a couple of 

guys off the reservation; that’s fine, because we are going to win 

it anyway. 

They would never close it directly from the whip to the Chair. 

They would always close it to Karen, who became the Clerk, but 

somebody like Karen or Emily out there in between kind of negotiating it. It’s just a bypass through that person. 

I don’t see that on the Democrat side so much, so it could be a 

problem. Actually, I am not sure it’s a problem, it’s just a different 

way of looking at it. Steny on that particular vote was basically 

trying to close that vote himself. 

If you watch the video, you will know he went up to the Parls, 

and if I had my notes, I could tell you exactly what he said. But 

I think he pointed at John or one of the Parls and said, ‘‘We control 

this House, you don’t.’’ 

And that’s okay, that’s true. There’s nothing wrong with that except in the tight position at the moment. It just showed how much 

he was pushing to get this thing closed. In a sense, technically it’s 

true he does control it, but the people who really control the votes 

are the tally clerks who can say everybody is in, here is the slip, 

read the slip. And that was where that problem happened. 

So we wanted to win votes just as bad as Steny did, obviously, 

when we were in the Majority. It’s just that combination of things 

that caused—caused the problem. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Just curious. Did you use this intermediary, the staff, to relay 

the message because of the fact that the whip would have been on 

the other side of the rostrum and really couldn’t have the same access to the—— 

A. No. 

Q. I am just curious. 

A. Well, I don’t think we did this on purpose, it just happened 

this way. But I am guessing here that we—the Speaker controls 

the Chair. The whip does not appoint the Chair, the Majority Leader doesn’t appoint the Chair. It’s the Speaker’s Chair. 

We had always felt that we would have a Speaker person who 

is the telling the Chair, okay, it’s ready to go. So I don’t know how 

the Democrats feel about that or have even thought about it and— 

but I think that’s usually the reason we have Karen or Emily or 

somebody in between, you know, telling our Chair what to do. 

We put them there. So it wasn’t that we would stop that, stop 

that. It would just be an intermediary thing. Don’t forget, it’s our 

Chair. We are all on the same team, supposedly. You all know how 

that works. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Say, you mentioned Mr. Hoyer speaking—I am sorry, Tom, 

are you done? 

Mr. SPULAK. No, that’s all right. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Speaking with Mr. Sullivan about running the place, do you 

remember anything before then with Mr. Hoyer coming down the 

aisle and directing comments to the Chair or to the rostrum—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. About the vote? You don’t remember that? 

A. No. The only reason I know what Hoyer said was I could hear 

on the video. 

Q. Oh, you weren’t there. 

A. There was too much noise, but you could clearly hear that on 

the mike. 

Q. When you said the three things, you said that Mr. Hoyer was 

trying to close down the vote. From your recollections of that night, 

what gave you that impression? 

A. Oh, that he was actually trying to close it down? 

Q. Yes. 

A. I wouldn’t know directly from the first point, only when you 

put all three of them together, he was obviously trying to close it 

down, because you could see him—I mean, I would see him going 

up to the rostrum and back. 

Q. Right. 

A. I don’t remember him yelling at McNulty or anything like 

that. They do, partly because they do close the votes. 

Q. I am sorry, where were you during the vote? 

A. Oh, I am all over the place, but generally on the Republican 

side in the aisles or up the toward rostrum of the Republican side. 


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I may have gone to the Parls at once. I can’t remember, but I 

did see Hoyer that one time. Other than that, I am just on our side 

pretty much, and there’s a lot of noise. 

Q. I am really interested in what you—I know it’s been a while, 

and I have great familiarity with losing my notes, too, or misplacing them, so I completely understand that, too, but I am really 

trying to focus on what you remember from that night. The videotape we have shown to some people because it’s helpful, because 

they were so in the mix, okay, there, and all that. 

But at the beginning of this vote here on the Republican side? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Right, okay. So the first thing you kind of remember from that 

night, not necessarily from the tape, from that night, is what, in 

terms of the going off track in terms of closing the vote? What’s the 

first thing that you can remember thinking, hey, there’s something 

wrong here? 

A. The first thing I would know that was actually wrong was at 

the end when McNulty read from the board instead of the paper, 

and that goes to my three points. I mean, what basically happened—I will just explain it this way, and you can ask a further 

question if you want. 

Q. Okay. 

A. What basically happened, because he was pushed so hard to 

read the vote, and the board read something like 214–214, I 

think—— 

Q. Right. 

A. And he read that. And you look up at the board, and by the 

time—what happens basically is when he says, and the motion to 

reconsider is laid on the table, then the tally clerk kicks the button 

that says ‘‘final.’’ Unfortunately for the Democrats, because he 

wasn’t reading from the board—or from the paper, there was no 

paper, and unfortunately for them, when the vote card changes 

were coming in, it takes a second or two to get a vote into the system, so that even if the guy has it there, and he is typing it in, 

it takes a little bit of time for the computer to actually click in and 

show. And then between the time McNulty said a motion to reconsider was laid on the table at 214–214, and the button was hit and 

it went 215–213, it went final. 

That’s obviously a huge problem. I don’t think before that, I am 

thinking the whole time, gee—again, you generally lose in the Minority, you don’t win. I wasn’t thinking, oh, there were guys who 

were sitting in the well trying to vote, or we had some changes, but 

they went in. 

Q. Okay. So this first time really, as you can recall, becomes an 

issue for you in terms of this is sort of not regular is when Mr. 

McNulty calls and the tick goes up on board? 

A. Yes, because, you know, I am not watching the Speaker—you 

see the paper, every vote, and I have seen thousands of votes. 

Q. Right. 

A. You always see the guy with the paper. I am ready to write 

the votes down. So until they have that paper and actually do it— 

because sometimes someone says, one more, and you crumple the 

paper and get another one. So you are not always looking to see 

if, you know, the paper transferred. 


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I didn’t even think about it because it’s just routine until I saw 

that the vote was like that. 

Q. Did you see any paper transferred? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. So when the uptick goes, right, and then there’s some 

commotion on the floor, right, what do you recall then? 

A. Well, if it hadn’t said final, the vote would still be open. It 

wouldn’t be a problem. That was the problem. If—I mean, you see 

215–213, you won; but if it doesn’t say final on the board, and, say, 

you haven’t said, a motion to reconsider is on the table, you can 

have switches. That happens all the time. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. May I interject? When you review the tape, what Mr. McNulty 

says is, 214–214, the motion is not agreed to, and he never gets to 

the point of saying a motion to reconsider was laid on the table. 

The video shows that. 

A. Okay. Where I am getting my information from is what should 

happen when it goes final then. 

Q. Yes. 

A. What should happen when it goes final, when he lays it on 

the table, then the computer is hit, and then the final goes up. So 

in that case whoever was the tally clerk might have jumped the 

gun. 

I don’t know. I don’t want to get the tally clerk in trouble. I don’t 

recall whether he, you know—in August whether he actually laid 

it on the table. But I am told that that’s when it actually goes up 

final. So somebody hit that button. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Jay, aren’t you familiar with perhaps many instances when 

final is on the board, but, in fact, due to new votes in the well or 

vote switchers, that that number is changed? 

A. I am not. I am not saying it doesn’t happen. As I said, 90 percent of our votes, 95 percent of our votes, things you look at the 

board, you never think—I never thought about the actual process 

of the tally clerk and what happens when. 

Because of this problem, I kind of looked into it. But I have never 

looked up and saw final and then have them take that back off. It 

shouldn’t happen. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Once a motion to reconsider is laid on the table, and someone 

comes into the well and says, hey—so if the process worked correctly, and if the tally clerk waits until it is laid on the table and 

then hits the button, it wouldn’t be changes. Now, I have seen a 

couple of votes in my time, less than a handful of votes, where they 

had to—the Chair announces the vote, tally change due to mistakes 

somehow. It wasn’t important to a big vote, but the actual number 

had actually changed. And in the cloakrooms we get a copy of all 

the votes and people coming in with a new copy saying, hey, this 

is the final, there was some problem. 

But I don’t ever recall seeing final and then changes. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So let me revisit what I mentioned earlier. That’s why you 

would say that when the vote said 215–213 immediately after 

Chair had called it 214–214, a final was up, it was your impression, and perhaps the others on your side, that the vote was over 

and should have been called in favor of the prevailing side? 

A. Yes, yes. 

Q. So, was that the crux of the unhappiness on the Republican 

side? 

A. Oh, yes. If you hadn’t seen final on the board, the vote was 

still open. 

Q. So the fact that there were others in the well at that point, 

and if you saw the tape, you would see that there were others that 

were representing themselves in the well, and that the votes were 

cast after that, which ultimately changed the 215–213, it would 

have been—it was your opinion and perhaps those of others that 

those votes should not have been counted? 

A. Yeah, once it says final. I am assuming that the reconsider 

was laid on the table. It apparently wasn’t. So that’s a screw-up 

there. 

Once it says final, it should be final, especially when it is in 

print. You know, the mistake on the board—as I said, if they 

hadn’t seen that, you could say the vote is not over. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. We have also heard testimony from the folks in the Clerk’s 

Office as well as in the Parliamentarian’s Office that the presentation of the word ‘‘final’’ on the board has no parliamentary significance, that it is a step along the way of closing down the vote, 

and it signals that the time value has been set to final, but it 

doesn’t indicate that the vote itself is closed down. 

Are you familiar with that distinction? 

A. Yes. As Tom asked, I had never seen like a final and then 

changes, although that may happen. But I suppose there’s nothing 

in the rules that says when the board says this, the vote is over, 

that’s true. 

It’s just that the emotion of the moment is, it says final; why 

does it say final if it’s not final? Yes, I don’t know any rule that 

states that the board has anything to do with it, yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Jay, you said you were somewhat of a student of parliamentary procedure, and you obviously have had a lot of experience on 

the floor. Have you ever seen a vote closed out without the written 

slip or the written sheet handed to the Chair? 

A. No, never. The only reason I would be the kind of a person 

who would notice that, almost always, talking to some Members, 

is that I write those votes down. There have been times when I 

have written them down and I find out, whoops, somebody is still 

voting in the well. 

So what I do, I start looking at the paper specifically when I 

write it—I don’t write the paper before he reads it, because, as I 

said, he crumples it up and throws it away sometimes, and you 


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have changes. But I am looking to see—you know, when the vote 

is really over is when I see the guy with the paper, so I write the 

vote down. 

No, I have never seen that. 

Q. You mentioned that when the Republicans were in the Majority, there was an intermediary that would essentially convey instructions from the whip or, I guess, even the Majority Leader to 

the Chair. 

Was that—and if you answered that, I apologize—but was that 

purely a factor of convenience, or was there some other reason why 

that intermediary would be used? 

A. My guess is—you could talk to one of these people. My guess 

is it was more of—not convenience, and it’s not like we wouldn’t 

shut—I don’t think we ever had that person count a man what the 

whip wanted, but it’s simply a way of saying that it’s our Chair. 

We put them there. We are all on the same team. We are all Republicans, of course. But we schedule the Chair, and that’s why we 

had this person there. 

Some of these things on the floor happen because somebody just 

happens to develop that as part of their job. I mean, we didn’t 

write anything, we didn’t even think about it. Probably it’s just 

that Karen or one of the—it was always a woman—was always out 

there during votes and did that. It’s not that we would have said, 

don’t close it down, it’s just a pass-through kind of. 

Q. We heard from somebody yesterday that, in fact, the Parliamentarians regularly get instructions from the now Majority staff 

to give them an idea of if it’s going to be a close vote, and they may 

want to begin the process of closing down the vote very quickly 

after the clock strikes zero zero zero. Is that your understanding 

of how it happens? 

A. Probably, and I don’t mean to say that Steny does that a lot 

of stuff, but Catlin in the Speaker’s Office is out there. I don’t 

watch to see whether when the whip says close it down, Catlin 

says close it down. She is usually up at the rostrum. Coming up, 

they probably do some form of this also. But on a close vote like 

this, obviously, he—I didn’t see them doing that. 

Q. Okay. Well, let me represent to you that we were told that 

in this particular vote, Catlin O’Neill did, in fact, inform one of the 

Parliamentarians that—especially this was going to be a close vote, 

so when it gets to zero zero zero, you guys should be looking to 

close it down pretty quickly, so be on your toes. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. If that is all that had happened in this particular instance, 

do you think we would have had the problem that happened on August 2? 

A. Well, yeah. You take the Steny part of it out of it—I am 

sorry—Mr. Hoyer out of it, and you still have the problem with the 

paper, you know. Even if Mr. Hoyer—if that was the only thing he 

did, close the vote, and you wouldn’t have the final, and then screw 

up with the paper, then it wouldn’t have made any difference. But, 

in this case, yeah. 

Q. Let’s just back up a second because there are a lot of different 

steps in that sequence which you talked about. 


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I think you said that there were three factors resulted in the 

problem, right? You identified those three things, the second being 

a mistake by Mr. McNulty. 

Do you believe that Mr. McNulty would have made that mistake 

but for Mr. Hoyer’s direct involvement in the process? 

A. No, he wouldn’t have made that mistake. He is the best Chair 

they have, or he is among the best Chairs they have. He used to 

do it back when we were in the Minority before. 

I mean, I have never—I don’t think any Chair would do that, except in this case I think it was pressure on him. A Chair couldn’t— 

we have Chairs that make mistakes on the floor all the time, as 

you know, say funny things like that. But I have never seen any 

Chair close it down, probably because the Parls are right over right 

here making sure that the paper—to do it otherwise—yes, Chairs 

make mistakes all the time. They say funny things, and you might 

have a Chair over-read. So I think it was that pressure. 

Q. I am sorry, do you think this was a mistake, a simple mistake 

by Mr. McNulty? 

A. Depends on how you define simple mistake. I mean, it was a 

tremendous pressure on him from their leadership, and he is put 

there by their leadership. No, I don’t think it was a simple mistake. 

I think it was due to the pressure that Steny was putting on them 

to close the vote. 

A simple mistake would be someone who didn’t know—maybe his 

first time in the chair. He didn’t know about the paper, so he read 

the board. That’s a simple mistake. This is a lot more complex and 

a lot more pressure on him to do that. That is why he read without 

the paper. He knows about the paper. He had done it many years 

before when they were in the Majority, so. 

Q. Well, I assume that when the Republicans were in the Majority, there were certain votes where there was pressure from the 

leadership to either close the vote down quickly or keep the vote 

open for some period of time after the clock went to zero zero zero; 

is that right? 

A. Sure, sure. 

Q. Did you ever see any situations when the Republicans were 

in the Majority where there was pressure that resulted circumventing the established procedures for closing down a vote? 

A. Oh, boy, that’s a hard one to think about. There had been 

times on the floor when both parties were in charge when Members 

thought they should have been able to vote, and the vote was shut 

down. Somebody was in the well or coming down the aisle. We used 

to see them out the back when they are coming up the steps. You 

could hear people yelling and coming up the steps from the outside 

and keep votes open. 

So I honestly do not recall a time when we shut down a vote and 

disenfranchised somebody, and there was, you know, a stink about 

it, and somebody came and said, hey, I am sure it happened, big 

vote, little vote, whatever. They are all mixed up in my head. 

But there are times when the votes have been shut down, and 

someone was in the well. Some of the time you can see the Chair 

looking—can’t hear, it’s a mess, a lot of noise. Sometimes the Chair 

just can’t hear somebody saying, one more, and so they shut the 

vote down. 


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So, yes, that’s happened, but not without reading the slip. I 

mean, that’s kind of the key to the thing. So it would be inadvertent in that case, I think, inadvertent. 

Q. And at some point there needs to be some finality, right? I 

mean, Members can be hanging out in the lobby or coming—— 

A. Sure. 

Q. [continuing]. In late. At some point, unless you finalize a vote, 

you are never going to get any business done. 

A. Right. 

Q. I assume some Members are procrastinators, for lack of a better term; is that right? 

A. Sure. 

Q. And are certain Members more notorious about that than others? 

A. Yes. I couldn’t—if you asked me to name one, I couldn’t name 

them. But of course there are. They come when there’s 2 minutes 

left. They run over from here because they know it’s going to be 

held. 

Probably the biggest mistake we ever made in the Majority is not 

in ’95 coming in and saying, all right, we mean when we say 15 

minutes with 2 grace minutes, and we will shut down votes except 

in extraordinary circumstances. We just kind of let it slide. And 

they have done the same thing. 

Steny was on the floor 2 months ago maybe talking about that 

very thing. We need to close votes down. But it’s always a difficult 

thing sometimes when you have Members—you know, sometimes 

you have Members at the White House, sometimes you have Members in a meeting, you get the Appropriations Committee doing 

something important, they are almost done. You can’t make any 

hard and fast rules. You have got to have, you know, flexibility. It’s 

where you draw that line on each individual vote that gets you in 

trouble. 

In fact, I was surprised many times when I was near our whip 

and we were in the Majority on difficult votes where they wouldn’t 

shut the vote down, even though you would look at the board and 

we had won, because the whip delayed in this case—knew that X 

and Y needed to vote ‘‘no’’ even though everybody else was voting 

‘‘yes,’’ go get them—even though I would have closed it down if it 

was mine—if we won it, let’s close it. 

They held it open for that very reason, but it’s generally in the 

case when everybody has voted, and you knew that; you knew 

that—the Democrats didn’t—you guys have all voted. You have 

guys who vote a certain way for their folks in their districts. 

So, yes, that’s a hard thing to go back and try to remember if 

we ever closed a vote on purpose when we knew somebody was in 

the Chamber. I doubt it, but it’s hard to say. 

Q. In your opinion, what is the purpose of the tally slip? 

A. The purpose is the tally—there’s only two people on the floor, 

one person maybe, but maybe two people, who really know whether 

or not the vote should be closed, and that’s the guy on the machine—— 

Q. Seated? 

A. Seated—and the person who is talking to him, taking the 

cards, hands in the cards. That person knows if there’s any more 


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cards because there’s nobody in the well, and when the tally guy 

is done, she writes—she usually writes the slip, and those two people know when the vote should actually be final. 

The number goes on the slip and back up. At that point if somebody else runs in the Chamber, and it’s up to the Chair to say, I 

am reading it or not. But those are the two people are the ones who 

actually know. That’s where the 2-second error was. I don’t know, 

I haven’t talked to the tally people, but whatever time it takes to 

get that card in, that’s where one of the screw-ups was. So they 

didn’t get that slip because neither of those people were ready to 

write the slip and hand it up to the Speaker. 

Q. So why do you think the Speaker, in your opinion, read the 

result and banged the gavel at that point if he hadn’t received a 

slip? 

A. Pressure from the leadership, the Democratic leadership. 

Q. What we were told yesterday, the leadership had, through 

Catlin O’Neill, already instructed the Parliamentarians that—the 

rostrum folks that when it got to zero zero zero, they were supposed to begin closing the vote down. That message had already 

been communicated. So why would you think Mr. Hoyer would 

need to interject himself directly into that process? 

A. I don’t recall how the vote changed, except from 214–215, 

213–216—212, what it was prior to that. I mean, Hoyer can read 

the board or the computer. I don’t know if he was—he probably 

didn’t look at that computer very often on the floor. He can read 

the board. And any leader can read the board and know whether 

they are losing or winning. And you close the vote down when you 

win, not when you lose. So his pressure would be, hey, we are 

starting to close this thing down. 

As I said, it’s fuzzy on just how you close the vote down, who is 

in the Chamber and who is not. We know so and so is here, and 

yet—oh, I saw him in the cloakroom, okay, we will wait. You got 

all that in the mix. But generally you are looking at the board. If 

you are going to win the vote, you close it down. 

That was the pressure. I don’t know when he looked at the 

board, but I am assuming he wanted to close it, and it was 214– 

214. I mean, that’s fairly simple. You want to win the vote, so you 

tell him, hey, now is the time, close it down. 

Unfortunately for him he got caught in the middle with the 

cards, you know, from going in and out, and it wasn’t really final. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Jay, to that point, although the message was delivered to the 

Chair, or was offered by the Republicans and their staff, are there 

no instances when Members would communicate to the leadership 

or otherwise communicate their desire to the Chair? 

A. Oh, sure. Sure, sure, sure. We have people, by—in the whip, 

when the computer is going, you know, cut it off. But generally, I 

mean, it would have been cut off, but generally we had somebody 

in between saying, okay. So, yes, it would have happened anyway. 

Q. And notwithstanding the fact that this particular process or 

lack thereof was followed, I think you just said that when there 

were votes that were close and, perhaps, with the Republican Majority in the lead, would there have been some sort of sense of urVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00273 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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gency communicated to the Chair that the vote should be called not 

at that specific time, but let’s close down the voting—— 

A. Start the process. 

Q. I understand, you start the process. Maybe in this particular 

case—— 

A. Sure. 

Q. I mean, isn’t that the role of the Majority to win votes? 

A. You got it. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do you think that that justifies the Majority bypassing established protocols in order to win votes? 

A. Established protocols. No. I mean, if you mean—I mean, as we 

talk, the idea that you have a slip and that the board says final, 

that is not the Rules of the House. So if you mean by that kind 

of established protocol, no, you shouldn’t do that. 

But there are no rules. Rules of the House weren’t broken. Just 

like we held the vote open for 3 hours, you can hold the vote open 

for 3 days if you want. There’s a fuzzy area in there. No, they are 

not rules, but protocol, no. 

This is what happens when you do. It got really screwed up big 

time by not waiting for the slip, you know, making sure. Had he 

had the slip at that point, then, I mean, all bets are off at that 

point. I don’t know what the slip would have said. Depends on 

when he actually called. And in the end they lost the vote anyway. 

So had Hoyer waited—we didn’t know this at the time, I assume, 

but had he waited, it would have been 212–216. We would have 

had the slip, and the vote would have been over, we lost it. We 

would have screamed that they held too long, but that happens all 

the time. 

Q. Do you think that’s what happened here? 

A. Yeah, definitely. 

Q. At some point a decision was made to abort the vote. Do you 

know anything about that? 

A. I don’t recall anything about that. I mean, you can’t vitiate— 

I don’t know if that’s the term the Parls use—but vitiate a vote by 

unanimous consent and go back and revote. But obviously you are 

not going to get unanimous consent in a situation like that. 

It’s not a motion, it’s my understanding, it’s a unanimous consent 

request. And we would never let that happen, so—— 

Q. When I said abort, this is actually a technical term for the 

people who run the EVS system, that one of the options on the system, because they got stuck apparently, was to abort the vote. 

Were you aware of any discussions going on about aborting a vote? 

A. Not that I recall about aborting a vote. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Excuse me. Were you aware of the fact that they were having 

problems with the computer system during the minutes after the 

215–213 appeared on the board and the word ‘‘final’’ appeared on 

the board? 

A. I was aware that for some reason the vote never appeared in 

the system, yes, yes. It disappeared and couldn’t find it. And then, 

of course, the next day the system malfunctioned. But that day, 


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yeah, if I remember rightly, it disappeared from the screen—the 

computer screen on our side. 

Q. But you weren’t aware why that happened? 

A. No. I am now because I talked to them about it, but it was 

just bad timing to have that happen after the vote, like, what happened here, you know, it disappeared. 

So, yes, I don’t know whether that affected the actual vote. 

Q. At the time did the disappearance of that information on the 

screen, did that contribute to the mood—— 

A. Oh, definitely. 

Q. [continuing]. On your side of the aisle? 

A. Oh, definitely, yes. It was like throwing gas on the fire. 

Q. Why? 

A. Well, because you just had a very controversial vote you 

thought you won, and then of all of a sudden, where is it? It’s not 

on the screen. And people were like, this is nuts, corruption, or 

whatever. We can both call it a cover-up. 

Q. Cover-up? 

A. Cover-up. You can’t even find it on the screen. So, yes, that 

was kind of bad, not good. 

Q. But as far as you know, there was no intention—either then 

or now, was there any intention on the part of the Majority to 

make that go away because of a desire to cover up what had happened? 

A. Huh-uh, I don’t think so. I think it was just bad timing, a bad 

cable, whatever it was. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. You were not aware of the machine freezing up with the seated tally clerk—— 

A. No. 

Q. [continuing]. When that was transpiring? 

A. During the vote? 

Q. During the vote. 

A. No. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Jay, did you hear of anyone complaining on the rostrum, you 

know, when they called the vote without the slip, you know, right 

after that? 

So you are not aware of the problems with the computer, but as 

somebody who was there in that vicinity, did you hear anyone from 

the professional staff in particular from the Clerk’s Office or the 

Parl’s Office talking, making comments about what was happening, 

the fact that there wasn’t a slip? 

A. Huh-uh. 

Q. No? 

A. Never heard a thing from over there. 

Q. Okay. So what was going on? The vote is called, uptick, commotion in the Chamber, right? And so what do you remember after 

that? What did you do? 

A. I don’t—I don’t—I mean, other than screaming and yelling, 

you know, the same thing they used to do to us when it was a close 

vote. 


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This is a little worse, because it was a problem, but just totally 

unhappy. And you couldn’t find out from the computer screen either. It just erupted. Now, I didn’t look at what happened after 

that vote other than reconsideration. I think we walked out or 

something. 

Q. When the 215 went up, where were you? 

A. When they actually called it and said final? 

Q. Yes. 

A. I was probably in the well, but I don’t remember. I mean, I 

move around a lot. 

Q. Do you remember what you did after that; like when it went 

up to 215, where did you go? 

A. Well, I was thinking about reconsidering and all of that. I was 

probably listening to Members and then went to Steny. I presume 

it was after that. 

Q. Okay. 

A. But that took some time. I mean, there was a lot of stuff going 

on. So other that that, I just—I mean, I wandered all over the 

place listening to Members and asking questions. Members wanted 

to know what is the next step, what could we do, you know, that 

kind of stuff. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Jay, do you remember being called up by the Parliamentarians up to the rostrum? 

A. You know, I have no idea what—no, I don’t. But I remember 

seeing that tape that John came over to me in the well and said 

something. I have no idea what he said. 

Q. But you don’t recall somebody called Tom Wickham; and then 

Kevie leaning over and telling you that they wanted you; you walking over and having a conversation with Mr. Wickham; Mr. Blunt 

up on the rostrum? 

A. I don’t remember. 

Q. You don’t recall? 

A. Huh-uh. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Why do you think—obviously I will just ask you why do you 

think your Members objected to the request to vacate? 

A. Part of it was psychological, I suppose, but, I mean, practically 

speaking, if you vacate the vote and have it again, you are going 

to lose. You know you are going to lose. So why do it—leave it out 

there as something that was done wrong by the Majority. If you vacate it, you kind of give an imprimatur of validity. Okay, well, vacate the vote. Of course vacate the vote. You know you are going 

to win it from the majority side, so let’s get rid of this thing and 

have another vote, and now it’s all okay. So you never want that 

to happen if you can help it. 

Q. So if you move to reconsider, you would just take a few more 

steps? 

A. Right. 

Q. And that’s what happened, right? 

A. Right. 


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BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Jay, you have said that you were thinking about the motion 

to reconsider. Did you take steps to ensure that that would occur? 

A. I don’t remember if it was Blunt or Boehner or who was at 

the table in that general area. I must have talked to somebody 

about reconsidering, and that’s why I went up to Mr. Hoyer. 

I have known Mr. Hoyer for a long time. It’s not like we are 

friends, but he will talk to me. He is pretty nice about stuff. And 

so I just thought it might be nice to let him know that this is a 

must that we might reconsider. 

And that’s when I went over to him and said that. He said he 

was going to do it. So I don’t think we—I don’t think I had papers 

out, all this stuff out, and said, here is what we ought to do. We 

didn’t even go that far. When Hoyer said they were going to do it, 

obviously they would go to him, not to us. I don’t think we had 

really started that process at all. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I am sorry, but, in fact, if Mr. Hoyer had not moved to reconsider, Mr. Boehner would have? 

A. Hypothetical, counselor. But I think if we had our heads on 

straight, we probably wouldn’t have. I don’t know. Sometimes in 

the middle of that stuff, you do something and you think back on 

it and think, ‘‘ahh, probably wasn’t the best thing to do.’’ Just let 

it hang out there. So probably we would not if we had been thinking about it. 

BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Do you recall after Mr. Hoyer asked unanimous consent to vacate and that was objected to, that Mr. Sullivan came off the rostrum and met you? 

A. I do recall him, but I can’t remember why or what he said. 

I didn’t know that’s when it was, but I do remember he came down 

and said something to me. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You mentioned some factors that resulted in the problem. 

What do you think can be done or should be done to ensure that 

this type of thing doesn’t happen again? 

A. You are always going to have pressure on votes. You can’t 

take that part of it out. 

I find it hard to believe that anybody will ever be in the chair 

again and read a vote without a slip. I personally don’t think—I 

haven’t really thought about this, but I don’t think there’s anything 

that can be done. I mean, this is politics. You have got moments 

when people are excited about stuff, and I think it was an odd combination—if Mr. Hoyer hadn’t put that kind of pressure on him, 

none of it would have happened. 

But nevertheless, there was that kind of 2-second cap, kind of, 

or whatever you want to call it, and the non-slip. All of that, put 

it all together, was the problem. 

I don’t think there is anything you can do. I think the Parliamentarians will either be more aware of the fact, as if they weren’t alVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00277 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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ready, that you have got to have that slip before you do the vote. 

So I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it. 

Q. Is there anything that can be done institutionally in order to 

insulate the Chair from that direct pressure from the leadership of 

whichever party is in control of the House? 

A. No, I don’t think so. I mean, if you had an independent Chair, 

someone who is totally independent of either party, not a Member 

or something, perhaps; but, no, that’s just part of the process, just 

the way the place works. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Jay, do you believe that the Chair was aware that these votes 

that eventually expressed themselves on the tally board—do you 

think that he was trying to make the announcement before those 

actually were reflected on the board? 

A. Do you mean going to his motives, whether he saw them and 

read it anyway? 

Q. Yes. 

A. I don’t know when he saw, and I don’t think McNulty would 

do that. But, under pressure, people can do anything. But, no, I 

mean, he is a very decent guy. 

I just—I think it was simply the pressure on him. And I don’t 

think he looked down and saw two guys ready to change and did 

it anyway, but I wouldn’t know that. I didn’t ask him, so—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you so much. 

[Whereupon, at 10:55 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF ROB COGORNO 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 10:08 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVE., NW., WASHINGTON, DC 

20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. Rob. Good morning. Thank you for coming in with 

us today. 

Mr. COGORNO. Sure. 

Mr. SPULAK. As you may know, the Select Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities of August 2, 2007, is charged with 

investigating and making recommendations on sort of matters related to roll call vote 814 and the subsequent motion to recommit, 

including the timing of the vote and sort of subsequent actions to 

that. So we’ll ask you to in a narrative form tell us your recollections and your involvement in that vote. But before that I’ll ask 

you to identify yourself and tell us a little something about your 

background and your experience at the House. 

Mr. COGORNO. Okay. My name is Rob Cogorno. I was the floor 

director for the majority leader up until last week. And I had 

worked for him in both the minority and majority status in that 

same capacity. And so my primary role in the majority was to set 

the schedule. I mean, that’s the majority leader’s role is to determine the schedule and the flow of business. And so that was I 

would say overall you know my biggest responsibility was to work 

with the committees and so forth, and you know make sure that 

the bills were ready to go when we wanted to have them ready to 

go. 


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EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Good. Okay. Can you tell us about your recollections of August 

2 in relation to roll call vote 814? 

A. Okay. Well, I’ll preface it by saying that was, as any of us who 

were around then, a fairly intense week. So you know, it was a lot 

of late nights and all of that. But we were trying to get a lot of 

business done that week. If memory serves me, the children’s 

health care bill, energy bill, finishing up appropriations, and I’m 

not sure I’m missing a whole bunch of other stuff, so it was a very 

hectic week. But what I do recall is you know we were finishing 

up the ag appropriations bill and it was I think sort of—I don’t 

know. I couldn’t tell you the exact time. But that whole week was 

somewhat still a blur. But we were finishing up that bill and obviously we had had the recommit vote. 

And you know as in all these situations, you know, I frankly, 

until towards the end of the vote, I wasn’t even paying that much 

attention to how the vote was going because my mind is always on 

the next—you know, you’re on to the next thing and what’s next 

and what’s next. And towards the end of the vote, you know, it became a very close vote and you know Members were switching 

votes right and left, and you know, my recollection is basically that 

Mr. McNulty, when he called the tie vote, what I recall is that he 

had not gotten the slip from the clerk yet. And there were still a 

few votes, as often happens where when Members are changing 

their votes, it takes a while before their vote—you know, when they 

either change their vote or vote for the first time for the card to 

get translated and then show up on the computer, and then the 

final vote was, you know, what the final vote was when, you know, 

when he actually called it. 

Q. Okay. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Where were you at that time, sort of during that—near the 

end, so you start paying attention to it, you realize it’s close? 

A. Right. 

Q. Where are you actually on the floor? 

A. Memory serves me, I was where I normally—I tend to stand 

kind of by the computer terminal on you know near the front there 

on our side. 

Q. Okay. And what do you remember happening as it got close? 

Do you remember? Did you speak to Mr. Hoyer about the closeness 

of the vote? 

A. He came over. At one point in time he did—there were a 

bunch of us, as there normally are, a bunch of staff, not just myself, but staff from the whip’s office and other people huddling 

around the screen when you know there’s any kind of a close vote. 

And at one point he did—I do remember him coming over at that 

one point in time, but he had also been kind of up by the, you 

know, by the desk, by the—— 

Q. In the well? 

A. Yeah. Up, sort of up by where, like, where the Parliamentarians are. 

Q. Oh, okay. Let me back up one second. 


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A. Sure. 

Q. Have you watched the tape at all of that night? 

A. We—yeah, once like way—I mean, way back at the, like, at 

the beginning. 

Q. Right after it happened? 

A. Yeah. Yeah. 

Q. And you haven’t watched it since then? 

A. No. I mean there was—there was—well, there was—that 

night we had a meeting, I think, afterwards, like there was a small 

like leadership meeting and lots of back and forth and people were 

trying to you know capture what they could capture. I don’t know 

however they were doing it from C-SPAN, little snippets. And as 

I recall, the Clerk’s Office did provide a CD that had the whole 

thing on it. And I watched it. I can’t say whether it was the next 

day or the day after, something like that. 

Q. Okay. So you’re at the table with the computers, right? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. And at some point if you recall, Mr. Hoyer actually walks towards—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. The desk? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Towards the well, right, towards the rostrum? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. And had you talked to him at that point? You know you’re 

sort of—you said you weren’t paying attention, you are thinking 

about the next vote and the next stuff. So at a certain point you’re 

starting to pay attention. And do you talk to him before he starts 

walking down? Because you see on the tape—we have the tape 

here? 

A. Sure, sure. 

Q. But he starts walking down and I’m just trying to get a sense. 

Had you just talked to him or not? Do you remember anything like 

that? 

A. No, I don’t. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember him walking down? Do you visually 

sort of recollect him walking down towards the rostrum and he’s 

saying something to the Chair or directed to—— 

A. Well, I saw him at one point standing there, yeah, talking to 

the Chair. But I don’t recall having spoken to him before he did 

that, no. 

Q. No? Who would be responsible on the floor and his team for 

sort of alerting him that there’s a close vote, and you know, he may 

need to sort of do what majority leaders do? 

A. Well, oftentimes, you know, he—he’s sort of on his own. You 

know it’s not an unusual circumstance that you know you’re in a 

situation where it was a close vote or just in the course of business, 

he’ll come from wherever he is, and I’m kind of doing, you know, 

my thing. And he’ll show up and sometimes he’ll come right up to 

me and ask me something, what’s going on. Other times, Members 

will come up to him and he’s doing, you know, what he’s doing, responding to what they’re telling him or asking him or—— 

Q. Do you remember him coming up to you on this? 


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A. At one point, he did come over and I don’t know the sequence. 

I don’t know if it was when he first came in, you know, to the 

Chamber and walked up to the, you know, into the well or not. But 

at one point—as I said you know there were a bunch of people, you 

know, kind of hanging around the screen. And he did come up at 

one point. But I couldn’t say exactly where in the, you know, sequence that was. 

Q. And do you remember what he said or what the conversation 

was? 

A. It was basically about, you know, closing the vote, have people—has everybody voted, you know, that kind of thing. It was sort 

of a typical thing, I mean, at the end at any close vote, whether 

you are majority or minority, you know, both sides are tying to 

make sure, all right, has everybody voted? Who’s here? And are 

they recorded the way they want to be? And, you know, you’re 

working at it at the last minute. So it was sort of in that context 

as I recall, yeah. 

Q. And do you remember any response from you or anyone else 

in terms of the people that were gathered, that responded to him 

or—— 

A. I mean, it was just sort of general chatter like it is sort of at 

the end of, you know, of any close votes, like who’s still out, you 

know, who, you know, is the whip, you know, talking to, that kind 

of thing. I couldn’t say specifically. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember Mr. Hoyer saying close the vote? 

A. He came over and said—it was something, about you know, 

is it time to close the vote or something, something to that effect, 

yes. 

Q. I’m sorry. Okay. Do you remember him saying it as he’s walking towards the rostrum? 

A. No. It was more—no. It was more in the context of—again, 

when I was kind of sort of standing where I was, there were a 

bunch of people coming around and then him—I think he’d already 

been down there and then was like coming back as I recall. 

Q. I see. I see. Okay. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. What was his demeanor when he came back? 

A. Demeanor? 

Q. Demeanor. 

A. Well, I guess I would say agitated. I mean, you know, it was 

the heat of the moment. So—— 

Q. What was he agitated about? I mean, because—we’ve heard 

from one person who’s described him as ‘‘livid,’’ that the vote was 

not being closed down when he wanted it closed down. Would you 

agree with that assessment when he came back to you from being 

up on the rostrum? 

A. Livid? That’s a little strong. But yeah, I mean, he was definitely—he was definitely agitated, yeah. 

Q. Why? Why was he agitated? 

A. I think partially because, you know, it was, you know, we 

were in the heat of the moment there. It was a close vote and I 

think the, you know, the people get hot. 


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Q. Well, but it’s one thing to be anxious that the vote may or 

may not be going your way. 

A. Right. 

Q. Agitated suggests that there was something that was happening that he didn’t like. Do you understand the difference? Or 

maybe I’m putting too fine a point on it. But to be anxious that you 

may lose a vote is one thing. To be agitated is, to me, something 

different. Agitated is your word. Can you tell me why he was agitated or with whom he was agitated? 

A. I think just—I don’t know if any one particular person. I think 

more just, you know, the situation, you know, that we found ourselves in. I mean, it’s a tough—it’s a tough spot. I mean, you know, 

when you’re, you know, at that—the razor’s edge of a close vote like 

that. So—— 

Q. Did he express any annoyance with Mr. McNulty? 

A. I don’t—not that I heard, no. 

Q. What about with the Parliamentarians? Did he express any 

annoyance with them at that time? 

Mr. SPULAK. Andrew, can I interrupt for one second? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Sure. 

Mr. SPULAK. I’m confused. I think the questions are asking Rob 

if this was directed to him. But I’m not sure that Rob said that Mr. 

Hoyer came back at any time and spoke directly to him. Is that— 

did that happen? Did he come back after he approached the podium—you said, he approached the—he won vote over, did he come 

back and talk directly to you? 

Mr. COGORNO. Well, I mean, it was sort of he came—he came 

back and there were a bunch of us standing there. So I would say 

me, along with, you know, other people. It wasn’t I—as I recall, it 

wasn’t, you know, pulling me aside and saying, hey, you know, 

what’s going on here kind of thing. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. I’m sorry. So go ahead. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I’d be happy to have her read back the question if you want. 

But what did he seem agitated about? Was it just the closeness of 

the vote? Or was he agitated at somebody in particular, either the 

Chair, Parliamentarians, the folks from the Clerk’s Office, his 

staff? Who did he seem agitated with? 

A. I mean, there was no—just it was just sort of generally. I 

mean, I couldn’t say—I mean, it wasn’t like he came up to us and 

say, oh, I’m upset about this person or that person. It wasn’t that. 

It was just sort of like, why don’t we—like why aren’t we done? 

Why isn’t the vote closed, essentially. 

Q. Was the vote closer than you all anticipated it to be? I mean, 

I would assume that before you start a vote, you probably have a 

decent idea of how your Members are going to vote. Maybe—that 

could be a completely erroneous assumption on my part. But was 

this a closer vote than you anticipated? 

A. Well, we—I mean, yes and no, I guess. I mean, on recommits, 

since by the nature, we don’t know what they are until—oftentimes, until, you know, we first get them. So yeah, and there have 

been, you know, some close ones in the past. Whether this one was 

unexpectedly close, I mean, again, I was sort of—to be honest, not 


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paying much attention until, you know, until towards the end. And 

then it was like wow, this really is going to be a close one. But anticipating that ahead of time, no. As a general rule, the majority— 

your job is to try to defeat the recommits. So you know, whether 

we would have anticipated this particular one would have been any 

closer than any others, no. 

Q. Okay. We’ve also been told that Catlin O’Neill, at some point, 

as the vote starts to wind down, gives a heads up to the Parliamentarians that when it gets to 0:00, they should be on their toes and 

try to close the vote as quickly as possible. Were you aware of that? 

A. In a general sense, I think that’s right. I mean, she is the one 

that you know when we’ve checked and we know that you know everyone you know has voted that we know is here you know on that 

day or night, she’s the one that ultimately sort of gives the nod to 

the Chair. 

Q. Who would—who would tell her that? Would she do that on 

her own or would somebody—— 

A. Well, it’s kind of a combination of the whip’s people, basically 

that cluster of us that are sort of hanging around the terminal. 

Q. And how do you tell her that? She’s up sort of at the edge of 

the rostrum. Is there a hand signal? Does somebody walk up and 

tell her? Does somebody send her an e-mail? How—— 

A. Usually it’s—I think if somebody will just like give a nod or 

say yes, it’s time or we’re done, you know, whatever. But it’s usually just because of the distance and especially if there’s a sequence 

of votes and so there’s a lot of people, you know, filling that space. 

A lot of times it’s just with a nod or something. It’s not—or somebody actually goes over and says something to her. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Did you walk over to her at all during that time period? 

A. I don’t recall having done so. 

Q. I’m just sort of curious. I spent 10 years on the Hill, but I did 

oversight, never sort of floor stuff. So I’m more or less oblivious to 

that stuff. Are there—is there a lot of e-mailing going on at that 

time? Or is it because you’re all standing right there, you are talking to each other? 

A. No. I mean, generally speaking, like in the middle of the 

vote—I mean, there may be e-mails about, you know, oh, you know, 

Congressman or Congresswoman so and so is like 20 seconds away, 

you know their plane just landed and they’re in the car and they’ll 

be here in 20 seconds. Can you see about holding the vote, you 

know, so that he or she can make it kind of thing. But—— 

Q. When Catlin O’Neill’s standing, you see her on the tape sort 

of off to the side. But before that vote gets started sort of, is she 

over at the table with you guys and then sort of drifts over there? 

How does that work? So for each vote, you’re saying, okay, here’s 

what kind of happens and—— 

A. Yeah. In general she kind of comes—she sort of does move 

back and forth. I mean, yeah. 

Q. Okay. 

A. So that she can also see what the totals are, how we’re doing, 

who’s out. 

Q. On the computer, into the screen. 


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A. Correct. Correct. 

Q. I see. Okay. So you don’t recall Mr. Hoyer going towards the 

rostrum and saying, close the vote? 

A. I don’t recall that. I recall sort of afterwards, like I said when 

he came back—— 

Q. Do you think he’s already gone down there and come back up? 

A. As I recall it, yeah. 

Q. Do you remember him talking to John Sullivan up in the rostrum? 

A. He was definitely talking to the Parliamentarians, whether it 

was John or Whitcomb, I couldn’t be positive. But he was definitely 

having conversations with them. 

Q. Did you hear it? 

A. No. 

Q. No? Okay. And did he recount it to you at all afterward? Or 

did anyone who was there recount it to you? 

A. Not that I recall, no. 

Q. Okay. Now you mentioned, Rob, that Mr. McNulty, you—I 

think you—correct me. I think you said—did you notice that he 

was calling the vote without the tally? 

A. When he—when he, yeah. When it was tied. 

Q. Yeah. 

A. It was crazy and it was loud and all that. But I don’t recall 

having seen the piece of paper that normally—the white slip that 

normally goes up. I don’t recall him having received that. 

Q. And did you—were you cognizant of that at the time, I mean, 

when he was calling it, was that going through your mind, where 

is this slip? 

A. I don’t—I couldn’t say that I was actually sort of consciously 

thinking about it. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I mean like dwelling on it. But just hey, it seemed to me that 

he kind of looked up at the—— 

Q. Display? 

A. Display on the side and saw that it was 214–214 and then he 

gaveled it and called it that way without having—at least, from 

what I can remember—without having received the slip. 

Q. And do you recall any other vote on the floor where it was 

called without a slip being handed up? 

A. Yeah. Gosh, I mean, it may have happened. But—yeah. I 

mean, most of the chairs I think are pretty well, you know, I 

think—my understanding is, and that’s not sort of my daily work, 

sort of managing that part of it. But they’re instructed I think to 

wait until the slip you know comes up. 

Q. Do you know if there’s—are you aware of the—we’ve learned 

about there’s a sheet that’s sort of is up there on the sort of podium. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. For the Speaker Pro Tem to sort of walk you through what 

you’re supposed to do. Are you aware of that sheet? 

A. No. That’s not really my—— 

Q. Okay. So you saw him look up—— 

A. My recollection was—right. He looked up and then called it 

tied 214–214. 


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Q. And then what happened? 

A. As I recall—well, again, it was like obviously very loud and 

confused. But some people had still not either—I don’t remember 

the exact sequence, whether some people were still changing their 

votes or if they had already put in their cards and they just hadn’t 

been um you know properly tallied yet. But it was clear that there 

was still something going on that, you know, after that because it 

was crazy and you know people were talking and yeah. Yeah. 

Q. Okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. When he called the vote, did you look up at him in the rostrum? 

A. I was looking—well, I saw—I mean, like we all were, looking 

at the total. So I remember seeing that. And then looking—looking 

back over to him, obviously, you know, when he gaveled it down 

and when he called the vote. So—— 

Q. Did you see what the reading clerk or the tally clerks were 

doing at that point? 

A. I don’t recall—I don’t remember like staring at them particularly, no. It was more looking at—looking at him, I guess. 

Q. Okay. Do you know why he would have called the vote without getting the tally sheet? 

A. No. I don’t know. I think he must have just—since things 

weren’t—I guess, maybe total hadn’t moved. I’m just get guessing 

here. I have no idea. But maybe because the total hadn’t moved 

and it seemed like nobody else was hanging around. I don’t know, 

but—— 

Q. Did anybody ever—either that evening or subsequently ask 

Mr. McNulty what happened? 

A. I know there were some conversations that happened, you 

know, people definitely talked to him and, you know, I think the 

next day—was it the next morning? At some point, you know, he 

made a statement expressing, you know, his regrets or however he 

said it, you know, for having you know gaveled it when he did. But 

anybody talking to him, you mean, like right then? 

Q. Well, did you or any of your colleagues—— 

A. Talk to him? 

Q. [continuing]. Have a chance? 

A. No. 

Q. Did Mr. Hoyer talk to him? 

A. I wasn’t—I believe that Mr. Hoyer and a couple of other Members did talk to him later that night and/or the next morning. But 

I wasn’t part of that discussion. So—— 

Q. Was that related—was that discussion relayed back to you? 

A. I think in sort of general—nothing specific as I recall, just sort 

of in general terms. Obviously, he felt, you know, very badly because he took his role as, you know, presiding in the chair very seriously. Excuse me. You know, when we were in the majority before, he did it a lot and I think the Members always considered him 

to be very good in the chair and very fair and all that. So I know 

he was very, you know, he was very personally, you know, upset 

about it. 


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Q. So he sounds like an experienced Chair. Did he offer an explanation as to why he would have not followed what is by all accounts pretty standard operating procedure for closing down a 

vote? 

A. Again, I don’t—I would just have to look at, you know, what 

he said and I guess it was the next day when he—when he, you 

know, either almost did a 1 minute or in some way he made an 

apology to the House. I would have to look at that. 

Q. I mean, we’ve seen some pretty generic things including, you 

know, a memo that I guess was circulated to you among others, describing what happened that evening, talking about the—he had— 

this is the second paragraph on the bottom. Announced to the 

Chamber that he erred in prematurely closing the vote. I guess my 

question is—that’s sort of a conclusion. And was it ever articulated 

why? Was it a simple mistake? Was it pressure he was feeling from 

Mr. Hoyer or somebody else to close the vote? What caused him to 

close the vote prematurely? 

A. I mean, I couldn’t—I don’t know. I couldn’t say. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Well, okay. We’ve talked to a lot of people? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Virtually everyone sort of recalls Mr. Hoyer walking towards 

the rostrum, sort of—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. In sort of a forceful way saying close the vote. But you don’t 

remember that, right? 

A. I don’t remember him—I don’t remember him sort of saying— 

again, my only recollection of actually talking to him was sort of 

after those discussions, whatever he was doing with the Parliamentarians down there and then coming back sort of afterwards, you 

know, as, you know, as we talked about. But I don’t—I don’t recall 

him, no. 

Q. You don’t recall him doing that. Okay. And I think we’ve gotten a fair bit of testimony that talks about the pressure on Mr. 

McNulty to close the vote and that was coming from Mr. Hoyer. 

But you don’t have any sense of that or any recollection of that? 

A. I mean, I—I mean, not that I—in the sense of having like 

heard him say anything, no. I mean, clearly, you know, he was 

down there talking to the Parliamentarians. He was down in the 

well. So, I mean whether he said something directly to Mr. McNulty, I—I mean, I obviously wouldn’t have heard it. I don’t recall him 

saying anything directly. But he may have. I don’t know. I 

couldn’t—I couldn’t speak to that. 

Q. Okay. Or to the Parliamentarian, John Sullivan. If you’ve 

watched the tape, as you indicated you did—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. I think one of the things everyone hears on it is, 

We run this place. You don’t. Do you remember hearing that on the 

tape? The foundation of the question would be, do you remember 

him saying that during that night, you know, do you recall him 

that night him going up there? 

A. Something—when he came—when he came—after the conversations he was having in the well when he came back and sort 


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of, you know, said—I think that—he may have said something to 

that effect to kind of the staff, you know, to those of us here, is 

something, you know, that were standing by the computer, something to that effect. 

Q. You mean that he had said that to Sullivan or that he was 

just saying it to you guys? 

A. To—I think more to us, like sort of, you know, we run the 

floor or we run the House or something, yeah, something to that 

effect. 

Q. Okay. And did he say—there is at least one comment we 

heard was that he said to Mr. Sullivan, John, don’t ever do this to 

me again. I won’t stand for it. Or words to that effect. I don’t know 

if you guys remember that. But did he say anything like that along 

those lines when he came back to you? 

A. No. 

Q. Did you hear him say that? 

A. No. 

Q. And when he came back, he didn’t recount anything along 

those lines to you? 

A. Not—no. 

Q. Okay. So again, what’s sort of puzzled us is, Mr. McNulty’s 

a very experienced, you know, Chair. And there’s no slip handed 

up, which, from our understanding, may be the only time that’s 

ever happened. Nobody has pointed out a specific instance when 

that hasn’t happened at least one slip. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Other slips have come up—— 

A. Something changes. Right. 

Q. But in terms of a baseline slip going up, this is the only time. 

And so—so it just seems to sort of—like we’re just trying to get an 

understanding of what would have caused Mr. McNulty to close it 

down from the people who were actually on the floor such as yourself. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. When he did. 

A. Again, I mean as best I can recall from, you know, my vantage 

point where, you know, I was standing, it was just sort of that, you 

know, again like the heat of the moment. I mean obviously, you 

know, it’s a close vote. And, you know, look at the board and well, 

okay, 214–214, you know, it’s done, I mean, you know, proposition 

fails on the tie vote and he did it. Whether, you know, meaning 

closed it down. Whether that was in response to something that he 

was specifically told, I can’t, you know, I can’t speak to that. 

Q. All right. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You said that Mr. Hoyer came back and said something to the 

staff to the effect that we run—we run this place. What was his— 

can you put that in context for me? Because there’s a couple different sort of connotations to that, depending on how it’s said. And 

did you get a sense of what he meant by that? For example, was 

he angry with the staff for not doing something, that the vote 

wasn’t being closed down quickly enough? Was he angry at the 

Parliamentarians for doing something? Was he saying it in the conVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00288 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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text of, I just had a conversation with John Sullivan and this is 

what I told him? Was he just sort of generally saying it? I mean, 

does that make any sense? 

A. Yeah. I mean, I think, at least from when the bit that I 

caught, it was more like I said just kind of a general sense and I 

think expressing a sense of frustration. But I don’t know what had, 

you know, transpired between him and Sullivan that may have, 

you know, that he may have been reacting to. I don’t know. I 

couldn’t—I couldn’t, you know, say. 

Q. I will show you this. And excuse my lack of knowledge. But 

what is this document? Who prepares this? And when is it prepared? 

A. This—I think, this—somebody in our staff I’m sure did this 

to—it wouldn’t have—I couldn’t tell whether you it was that night 

or the next morning. But it was definitely, you know, after the 

vote. 

Q. So this isn’t something you would know sort of in advance? 

A. No, no. This is definitely—yeah. No. This is—— 

Q. I realize it says that they were switching. But do you ever 

know in advance somebody’s going to switch a vote? 

A. Well, no. I mean—you mean like before a vote? No. I mean 

there would be no way of knowing. I mean, switching happens during the vote normally. And especially I mean that’s part of what, 

you know, the whip operations on both sides do. I mean, if you see 

somebody, you know, that might not be voting with the party, you 

know, the whip or, you know, the whip’s operation will talk to 

them and say, you know, why are you voting, you know, that’s—— 

Q. Do certain people sort of get a pass on a difficult vote for 

them, but then if it gets close—they get a pass with the understanding if it gets close, they’re going to sort of be whipped into 

back voting with the rest of the party? 

A. I think those conversations happen, sure. 

Q. I mean, is that something that you would know in advance? 

A. I don’t really—in my—in my responsibilities, no. I mean, I 

very rarely have those kinds of conversations. Yeah. 

Q. Do, you know, why this document was created? 

A. I think—my guess—and it’s just a guess. My guess is that he, 

you know, must have asked somebody on the staff. And I think I 

know. My guess is it’s Brian on our staff would have looked at. But 

it could have been somebody else looked at the vote. And again, I 

don’t know if it was that night or the next day. But, you know, sort 

of said, okay, I want to, you know, I want to know, who did we end 

up in the parlance losing and who changed their votes, you know, 

in either direction? 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. In your experience, which is rather lengthy on the floor, both 

in the minority and in the majority, I presume you’ve seen a lot 

of close votes, if you will? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Would you describe this as a close vote? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. During a close vote, is it common for there to be a lot—I’m 

sorry. Is it common for there to be sort of expressions of Members’ 


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desire that a vote be closed if perhaps their side is ahead or kept 

open if their side is behind? 

A. Sure. I mean people will, you know, everybody will, you know, 

start, oh, you know, we’re up by one, we’re down by two or whatever it is. Sure, people will sort of scream, you know, scream that 

out. Yeah. 

Q. And to whom are they screaming, is it the Chair? 

A. Yeah. I mean, a lot of people—a lot of times there are Members that will just sort of generally yell up, hey, hey, hey close it, 

close it kind of thing. 

Q. And this has happened both when Democrats were in the majority and Republicans as well? 

A. Sure. 

Q. Specifically on August 2, after the vote was called the second 

time, from watching the tape, there’s lots of—apparently lots of agitation all over the Chamber. Is that your recollection? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. And from where was that coming? Or is there—was there one 

particular side of the aisle from where that was coming? 

A. Well, sure. I mean, I think there were—and I don’t recall the 

exact sequence. But there was some talk on the Republican side. 

I don’t remember if somebody actually took a mike and said something. But I know that it was clear that, you know, that they were 

upset. And as I recall then there were some other discussions. And 

I think—I think the sequence was then either Mr. Hoyer asked to 

speak out of order to, you know, or to move to reconsider—made 

an offer to reconsider the vote or something like that. 

So there was some back and forth, you know, in that—in that 

context. But I couldn’t say, anything—any specific conversation 

that at least I was privy to in terms of, you know, clearly what was 

going on on the Republican side and what their response would be. 

Q. Did you have any conversations with anyone from the Republican side, with any, you know, staff or a Member? 

A. At that time? 

Q. Yes. 

A. I don’t recall. 

Q. You don’t work for Mr. Hoyer now, but you did for a long 

time. And is it correct that you’ve been on the floor with him in 

a lot of close votes? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Have you ever seen him—have you ever seen him or know 

him to ask the Chair to break any procedure or any rule? 

A. Break rules? 

Q. Or to do anything improper? 

A. No. 

Q. Have you ever known him to do anything improper? 

A. No. 

Q. You’re talking about his demeanor when he came back from 

the Chair, although you don’t have much recollection about what 

he was doing when he was there? 

A. Right. 

Q. But he came back and you used the word ‘‘agitated.’’ I think 

Mr. Snowdon was trying to get to the bottom of what that was. Is 

it reasonable to say that it had been a long day, this was a close 


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vote and at that time it didn’t appear as though it was coming out 

the way that the Democrats would have wanted it to come out, and 

that he was not happy about that. Is that fair to say? 

A. Yeah. I guess. I guess that’s fair. Yeah. 

Q. I mean that’s just—generally with all of your experience, is 

anybody ever happy on the floor when their side doesn’t win in the 

vote? 

A. The answer to that is no. 

Q. So it would not be uncommon for him to be upset? 

A. Correct. Correct. 

Q. I don’t have anything else. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Oh, well, I—Rob, do you remember after sort of the first calls 

it right and then do you remember the—are you aware the tally 

clerk was trying to sort of clear the vote off after—it clicked up, 

right. It was 214–214. 

A. Right. 

Q. And then it happens that just as he calls it, it goes up one. 

A. Yeah. 215–213. 

Q. That’s when everything erupts. 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Do you remember or were you aware at that time sort of that 

night that the seated tally clerk, De’Andre Anderson was trying to 

clear the computer and it froze up, did you hear any discussions 

about that? 

A. No. 

Q. At that time, or even sort of that night in terms of what happened? 

A. No. My only recollection was, it did tick up but then there 

were still some other cards, some other Members, I don’t know, 

three—however, many here and there was some—I do remember I 

think somebody said oh, the Florida Republicans are changing or 

something. And I don’t know when those cards actually got into the 

system or not. But—— 

Q. Okay. And there was a—at some point, right, they were moving onto the next vote. But the board hadn’t come down, it was 

still—it was still up there and he was trying—the seated tally clerk 

was trying to clear the board. Were you aware of any discussions 

about—— 

A. No. 

Q.[continuing]. Aborting the vote? 

A. Well, the only discussion that I recall was, as I said, you 

know, before, that there was—because there was all this angst 

about what had gone on, I think there was an offer of either essentially vacating that vote and doing it, again, kind of thing. But I 

don’t recall anything about a particular clerk or something being 

frozen and having trouble clearing it or anything. 

Q. Or Ed Sorensen, did you have any discussions with him that 

night about how to deal with essentially what they were considering a malfunctioning, you know, computer? 

A. No. I don’t recall that. 

Q. Okay. And did you have any discussions with Mr. McNulty 

that night? 


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A. I don’t recall anything—having any discussions with him. The 

next morning if memory serves me there was a—I think maybe we 

had a caucus meeting or something where, you know, I’m sure I’ve, 

you know, must have said something to him but sort of in passing 

like no conversation. 

Q. Right. What about when—again, from the time he calls it, 

right, and there’s the uptick and then, you know, he calls it again 

and then, you know, then it’s ultimately 216–212 is it? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Or 212–216. And there’s a lot of time when people are sort 

of milling about, right, and then the Republicans leave. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Did you at all at that time during that whole sort of sequence 

talk to Catlin O’Neill about what happened, you know, she’s the 

one who’s supposed to be giving the signal to the Chair, right? 

A. Right. Right. 

Q. What—do you recall any conversations with her? 

A. I don’t, no. 

Q. No. Okay. So there’s this really tight vote and there’s no slip 

handed up and pandemonium breaks out. Do you recall talking to 

anybody about sort of what just transpired? Because to my—in my 

sense, you know, from what I’ve learned, it’s unprecedented, right, 

to have called the vote without a slip, unprecedented. So on a vote 

that, you know, it could have been, you know, you know 250 to 

whatever the remainder is, right, nobody would care if a slip was 

not handed up. But they can’t even remember that. There’s always 

a slip, even if it’s, you know, a blowout vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. But here it’s a tie vote and there’s nothing, you know, handed 

up? 

A. Right. 

Q. But you seem to sort of not be dwelling on, but you kind of 

remember. 

A. Right. 

Q. So did you ask anyone what just happened up there? Did you 

talk to the Parls or did you talk to—I know you had a lot of things 

going on so if you didn’t, you didn’t. I’m just trying to get a sense. 

Did you walk around to Catlin or did she come over or—— 

A. Gosh, if I talked to her right after that, I have no—no recollection of it. 

Q. Okay. And what about McNulty’s staff or anybody about, hey, 

what happened there, you know, why did he do what he did? 

A. No. 

Q. No? Okay. Do you recall if Mr. Hoyer specifically, on a previous vote, telling the Chair to close it down? I mean there’s a lot 

of, as you said, there’s a lot of Members who yell lots of things. 

A. Right, right. 

Q. But they’re not the majority leader. 

A. Correct. 

Q. So do you remember any other time—and I will sort of stipulate that you don’t remember him saying that in this instance? 

A. Right. 

Q. But do you ever remember Mr. Hoyer, you know, making comments to the Chair to close it down? 


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A. I mean, I couldn’t cite a specific example, but I think, sure, 

like a lot of, you know, like a lot of the Members probably—hey, 

it’s time to, you know, shut her down kind of thing. But I couldn’t 

point to like a specific, you know, instance but yeah. I’m sure that 

that has probably happened. 

Q. And when that usually happens, Rob, based on your experience on the floor, what happens when somebody says, close the 

vote down, what then—what’s next supposed to happen? 

A. Well, I think it’s the Chair’s call ultimately. They have to 

make sure that—and they’re pretty, you know, pretty I think— 

what’s the right word? Sticklers about making sure, you know, 

making the announcement, is there anybody in the Chamber who 

hasn’t voted? Is there anybody in the Chamber who wishes to 

change their vote kind of thing. So ultimately it’s, you know, I 

think it’s, it’s their call. People are going to be screaming at them 

all the time. But at the end of the day, they have to, you know, 

they have to make that, you know, make that determination when 

in their view, you know, it’s done and everybody who wants to cast 

their vote has, you know, has casted their vote. 

Q. And does that generally include, you know, because again, 

down on the floor it certainly seems more raucous. But that 

slipped, you know, close it. You start saying those words about does 

any Member wish to vote, record or change his vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. And then the slip? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. So even though Members are sort of yelling that out and even 

if it’s the majority leader, it’s going to trigger a process to close the 

vote? 

A. Right. Yeah. I mean, you know, sometimes people will come 

in, you know, close vote or not, you know, 400–2, somebody comes 

running in. The slip’s being written and it’s on its way up. And 

somebody will come running, one more and somebody will come 

running down the aisle. So you have to take their vote and then, 

you know, then—— 

Q. Change the slip? 

A. Exactly. 

Q. Okay. But this didn’t happen here, right? 

A. No. I mean I think it was more—everybody, you know, who 

was—I don’t know that the total ever really changed. I mean, I 

suppose I’d have to go back with you guys to figure that out. So 

I think it was more about people—it wasn’t a situation where 

somebody came running in at the last minute, oh, I haven’t voted 

yet. It was more people changing their votes and the delay it took 

in getting all those switches recorded. 

Q. Right. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Rob, we’ve heard from a variety of people and yourself included that it’s not uncommon for the leadership to want to close 

down a close vote. And that obviously makes a lot of sense. In your 

experience with Mr. Hoyer though, since he’s been the majority 

leader, is it typical that he would say that to you or someone in 

his staff who then relays it to Catlin O’Neill, who then conveys it 


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to the Parliamentarians or the Chair? Or is it on occasion where 

he will directly—as it appears in this case, directly relay that to 

the people on the rostrum? 

A. Again, I mean I couldn’t say that he never had, you know, a 

conversation like that, you know, in the past in a close vote. 

Q. Would it be typical? 

A. Typical? I mean, I wouldn’t say typical in the sense that, you 

know, there are lots of close votes. But not—and, you know, not— 

it’s very rare that you get into a situation like this one where it 

was, you know, very heated and so I wouldn’t—no, not typical I 

guess I wouldn’t say. 

Q. Can you appreciate though the distinction between he wants 

to close the vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. Can you appreciate the distinction between him coming to his 

staff and saying, let’s close this down and going up to the rostrum 

as I will represent to you we’ve heard from several other witnesses 

and saying in a fairly loud voice, close it down now. Can you appreciate the distinction between those two things? 

A. Sure. Yeah. 

Q. And I would assume that the former is a lot more typical than 

the latter. Would you agree with that? 

A. Sure. 

Q. And can you think of any other specific examples where you 

either saw or heard at the time or subsequently where Mr. Hoyer 

directly interjected himself into the process as opposed to either 

saying something to staff and having it run sort of the normal 

course? 

A. I can’t think of a specific one. But I also couldn’t say that that 

didn’t happen, you know, at some point in time. 

Q. Would it be fair to say it’s a lot more common that if he wants 

to close down a vote, which is I think perfectly natural, that he 

would come to you all and have you guys—have his staff put the 

wheels in motion to do that? 

A. Yeah. I mean, that would be—I guess. But he’d also—that’s 

why—I don’t know that I would say typical or not because he’s, you 

know, he kind of moves around. And there will be plenty of times 

where he’s looking for me and I can’t find him and vice versa. So, 

you know, he kind of—to use the staffer’s parlance, like freelances. 

He’ll do things. He’s the majority leader. It’s not like he comes to 

me or anybody on the staff and like, you know, checks off everything. 

Q. Well, sure. But maybe he’s not going to you. Maybe he’s going 

to another staffer if he can’t find you. I want to sort of distinguish 

between sort of running this through the staff versus doing it himself, whether that’s through you or through Catlin O’Neill or anybody else on the staff, depending on who he can find in a particular 

moment. 

A. Right. 

Q. Can you comment on that distinction? I mean, I would assume 

that if he interjects himself directly you would probably hear about 

that, either at the time or afterwards, is that fair? 


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A. Sure. Yeah. I mean I’m sure I would have. Like I said, I 

can’t—I can’t think of a specific instance, but it would not surprise 

me that, you know, that there were some. I mean—— 

Q. Would you say it’s uncommon? 

A. Uncommon? 

Q. Uncommon for him to do that directly? 

A. Well, it’s not—I mean uncommon in the sense of day in and 

day out, yeah, uncommon. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Is it uncommon for there to be what we’ve been calling votes 

of consequence, something that is an important vote and it’s very 

close, is that a daily occurrence? 

A. Daily? No. I mean—but, you know, with some regularity, but 

not—— 

Q. But is it more likely in the instances that you’re describing 

that may occur with Mr. Hoyer directly intervening as opposed to 

through a staff that he would do so on votes that were—that were 

more important than—and what I’ve suggested are more uncommon? 

A. Sure. 

Q. Than common votes which are either not that close or not that 

important? 

A. Sure. Sure. 

Q. You know, we’ve been talking about the involvement of Mr. 

Hoyer in specific instances. But let me ask you and I think you’ve 

said this already. But isn’t it—isn’t it, I mean, in your experience 

both in the majority and in the minority that leadership will play 

a role in communicating with the Chair about the timing of a vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And while we’ve heard that—and even with the—well, we’ve 

heard that a lot of this communication today is done through a representative of the Speaker’s office and that when Republicans 

weren’t were in the majority, there was a similar practice. You may 

or may not know about that. I mean, are you aware of that? 

A. Yeah. I mean, I can sort of recall the same sort of thing, a 

hand signal or a nod or something to the Chair, you know, when 

they wanted to close a vote. 

Q. We also heard from at least one, if not—if not more of our witnesses who said that they were familiar with times when former 

majority leader Tom DeLay would sit in the front of the—in one 

of the front rows in the Chamber and would make a motion, sort 

of a cutting sign to the Chair to indicate when he wanted a vote 

to end. Are you familiar with that? 

A. I mean, I couldn’t say that I, you know, recall a specific instance of him doing that. But clearly, you know, signals go from, 

you know, send mirror image from the computer screen on that— 

on the Republican side of the aisle, somebody there signaling to the 

Chair when it was time to, you know, to shut it down. 

Q. But in this instance, and I’m asking specifically, are you 

aware of actual Members of the leadership and not their staff—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Sending signals orally or—— 


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A. I mean, I can’t—sitting here right now, I can’t recall a specific 

incidence of that but I wouldn’t be surprised if that had happened. 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. On the ‘‘signaling’’ issue, Rob, and in your experience on the 

floor, you have the Chair that needs a signal, you have the Parliamentarian that needs a signal, you have the clerks that need a signal. You have the whip operation that’s doing some signaling, you 

have the Speaker’s Office, whichever side, waiting for the whip operation. But all of this signaling is in one Chamber; and in your 

experience, is the signaling sometimes a little murky? It’s not like 

there’s a chain of command so that a signal goes to that person, 

and that person signals to that person, and that person signals to 

that person. Sometimes is it a little murky where there is a signal 

and everybody’s watching it and almost simultaneously people engage, has that been your experience as well? 

A. Uh-huh. Yes. 

Q. And one other question, on the notion that the whip operation 

knows where the votes are, particularly a motion to recommit, 

which is sometimes not shown to you until it’s actually called up. 

A. Right. 

Q. But just generally, we’ve had almost 1,200 votes last year. Of 

those votes, what percentage would you say was actually whipped? 

A. Percentage. 5 to 10 maybe. I mean—— 

Q. 5 to 10 percent of 1,200 votes? 

A. I mean, like a big bill like the budget resolution or something 

like that, there aren’t that many of those kinds of votes in a given 

cycle, so maybe something like that. 

Q. So the notion that the Whip operation comes to the floor sort 

of knowing where every vote is going to end up, is actually, you 

know, I mean, you have your common sense and the Members have 

their common sense and the whip organization has their common 

sense. But the extent to which people are whipped on any given 

vote is maybe 5 to 10 percent—— 

A. Right. I mean I’m just ball parking it. But yeah. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Did you have anything? 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Yeah. Actually I wanted to back up a little bit. Can we talk 

about sort of the immediate aftermath of what was going on? I 

want to start before the vote actually closed. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. There was a point at which everything had sort of slowed 

down, most of the changes had been processed at that point, but 

the vote still wasn’t actually closed. Do you remember at any point 

around there Mr. Boehner going down to the well and submitting 

a change card? Or submitting a card, I should say. 

A. Yes. I do—I don’t remember if I actually saw him do it or 

somebody said, oh, Mr. Boehner is, you know, going to the well. 

Yeah. Yeah. 

Q. At that point, did you or to the best of your knowledge anybody else have a conversation with Mr. Hoyer about what that 

could signify or next steps or anything like that? 


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A. I don’t know if I said anything to him specifically. But yeah, 

I mean, there was definitely some discussion as I recall now, some 

discussion about, you know, is he going to move—is this like a reconsideration thing or something, it would be sort of general chatter about, you know, why he might be doing that, yeah. 

Q. Are you aware that the majority leader then submitted his 

own well card at that point? 

A. I don’t remember that. 

Q. Okay. He did. We have it. It was a duplicate of his machine 

vote. But he did, he did submit it. 

A. Okay. 

Q. So there wasn’t any—to the best of your knowledge, any direction from the staff to the majority leader asking him to do that or 

suggesting that he do that? 

A. No. Huh-uh. 

Q. All right. Let’s step forward just a minute. The Chair has then 

called the vote, called it for the majority. At that point, at least on 

the video recording, the majority leader makes an unanimous consent request to vacate the vote? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. You know, from years of working on the floor, both in your 

latest position and from years in Mr. Hoyer’s whip operation that 

the standard procedure when you’re going to make a unanimous 

consent request is try and, you know, get a signal to the other side 

or try and clear it with the other side. Do, you know, was there 

any effort made to try and clear that particular unanimous consent 

request? 

A. I don’t recall, no. 

Q. Okay. Obviously that was objected to, given the—and then at 

that point the leader decided to make the motion to reconsider. 

Again, was there a suggestion from the sort of assembled leadership staff that that should be his next move or was that done on 

his own, to use your word, sort of freelancing? 

A. Yeah. I’m trying to—I don’t recall any sort of specific, you 

know, direction or conclusion. I think it was more when—when 

the—with when it was—when he, you know, asked UC and that 

was turned down. I think he just sort of did it on his own. I mean, 

I don’t recall any specific conversation about that. 

Q. One last thing, and forgive me if this crosses a little bit with 

Mark’s questioning. When you have sort of the assembled group at 

the leadership table, if I understand what you’ve described correctly, the normal process would be there’s some consensus decision 

that everybody’s in, that it’s time to shut things down. You always 

signal to Catlin. Catlin would then signal to the rostrum, okay, 

let’s close that down. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Clearly that didn’t happen here. Was there any sort of surprise or confusion among the group at the leadership table at the 

time Mr. McNulty, you know, started calling the vote at 214–214 

that he was doing that without the—without the input or without 

the signal from the leadership table? 

A. I don’t know that I would say—I mean, again, because it was 

so kind of heated moment that I don’t know that anybody was— 

that that sort of—what you describe accurately as sort of the typVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00297 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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ical, you know, process happened or didn’t happen, no. I mean, 

yeah. 

Q. Okay. Thank you. 

A. Uh-huh. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So I just wanted—so do you think that Mr. Hoyer’s actions 

that night in any way had anything to do with Mr. McNulty calling 

the vote in the manner he did? 

A. I mean, you know, obviously I—I have not spoken to him 

about, you know, why he did what he did but, you know, just sort 

of human nature I would think that sure, he might have, you 

know, had some effect on him. I mean—— 

Q. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Rob, you said earlier when I asked you if you were aware of 

Mr. Hoyer ever doing anything or wanting something improper, 

what I meant by that was in violation of the House rules. I think 

you said the answer to that was no. And in light of what you just 

said that, that what Mr. Hoyer said could have had an impact on 

Mr. McNulty, in your opinion, based on your experience with Mr. 

Hoyer and based on it personally and professionally, do you think 

Mr. Hoyer was asking Mr. McNulty to violate the rules or practices? Do you think that Mr. Hoyer was thinking—and it’s your 

opinion, that he wanted Mr. McNulty to call this vote without receiving a tally slip? 

A. No. 

Q. And finally, when you think Mr. Hoyer was trying to do what 

leadership has done for—what leadership typically does and that is 

communicate to the Chair their interest in the vote ending or—— 

A. Sure. 

Q. Okay. 

[Whereupon, at 11:11 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF JERRY HARTZ 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 2:12 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING, LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., WASHINGTON, 

DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Jerry, thanks for coming today. As you may know, the Select 

Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities of August 2nd, 

2007, is charged with investigating the circumstances surrounding 

roll call 814 and the subsequent motion to reconsider. We are also 

interested in issues related to the matters affecting that, including 

the duration of the vote and other types of events of that afternoon. 

So if you will, first begin with telling us a little about yourself, your 

experience, your job responsibilities, and then start telling us about 

August the 2nd. 

A. Okay. Jerry Hartz. I worked on the Hill for 21 years. I started 

with David Bonior 1987, was associate to Rules when Tom was up 

there. Have done a lot of different jobs in leadership, all pretty 

much pertaining to the floor. Bonior was whip, and then Pelosi became Leader. I switched over from Bonior to her. And then she became Speaker. 

So my current job is to be Director of Floor Operations, which 

means sort of overseeing all the different functions on the floor in 

a big way, not a, you know, micromanaging kind of way, making 

sure that offices kind of fit together, you know, pretty much make 

things go as they are supposed to for the Speaker. 

Q. August the 2nd. 


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A. Long time ago. You know, I mean, there was this vote. It was 

close. You know, it was back and forth, seesawing, as they often 

do in these kind of situations. You know, the vote was closed. I 

think it was closed prematurely in terms of the paper not being 

read that was handed to the Chair. That was the mistake that was 

made. And, you know, then all the controversy ensued from that. 

On top of it, you know, the complication was these machines 

went down, which caused a big problem. It is a very fragile computer system that we have, and it doesn’t, you know—it wouldn’t 

be like these BlackBerrys. Let’s put it that way. It needs—can be 

fragile. So all of that, you know, compounding in terms of the situation caused the events. 

Q. Were you aware that the computers were malfunctioning 

when they were? 

A. No. No. I mean, I don’t think we had had any of that happen 

while we were in charge in 2007. I don’t remember when the last 

time was when we had sort of a stall like that. 

Q. But, I mean, if you will, on August the 2nd, during roll call 

vote 814, were you aware that there was a problem with the computer system at the time? 

A. Only after the fact, only after it became apparent that we— 

you know, everything was like nothing was moving and—you know, 

so not ahead of that. 

Q. Were you involved in any discussions relating to the computer 

malfunction with people who were trying to fix it? 

A. Well, I think we were trying to figure out how long it was 

going to take to get it back up. I don’t remember at this point how 

long that took. But, you know, just trying to get people to get the 

thing back up so people can function and the Members could, you 

know, vote. 

Q. Okay. We are getting ahead of ourselves here, but go ahead 

if you guys have something. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. So, Jerry, when the vote is proceeding, right, and it is 

getting close, where are you on the floor at that time? 

A. I am usually either at the computer or helping trying to find 

Members who haven’t voted. 

Q. Okay. And do you remember where you were at that time, you 

know, specifically on August 2nd around, you know, when it is zero 

zero zero, and it’s, you know, somewhere around 214–214? 

A. I don’t remember precisely. I assume I was at the computer 

looking to see who hadn’t voted, making sure people get in to vote. 

I think the Speaker voted. We wanted to make sure she got in to 

vote. 

Q. Okay. Did you encourage the Speaker to vote? 

A. Yes, I encouraged her to vote, yes. 

Q. Okay. And do you remember when you—because I have seen 

the tape, you know, and there is a signal, and she goes to vote. 

Was there any discussion about making sure she votes so that it— 

because it was that close, or had you discussed it with her beforehand; do you know? 


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A. Before that particular vote I don’t remember that I talked to 

her about, you know, voting. She only votes occasionally. So, you 

know, no, not ahead of time I wouldn’t have. 

Q. Okay. And when it is getting close, do you remember Mr. 

Hoyer walking down the aisle towards the rostrum? 

A. No, I don’t remember. 

Q. Okay. So in terms of just I am trying to get your best recollection. 

A. Right. 

Q. I know it’s a while ago. But you are at the desk, it’s close, and 

what is the first thing you remember sitting here today about, you 

know, what happens? Do you remember Mr. McNulty calling the 

vote? 

A. Not off the top of my head. I mean, I know that it was close. 

I remember some of the stuff that happened afterwards, when we 

were trying to figure out what was going on. 

Q. Okay. 

A. But—— 

Q. Do you remember any efforts to have him close the vote either 

from Mr. Hoyer or from Catlin O’Neill or whomever is generally, 

you know, in charge of signaling to the Speaker pro tem, you 

know—— 

A. Right. 

Q. Do you remember anything about that? 

A. In this instance it seemed like it all happened very quickly. 

I don’t remember a particular signal or anything like that, if that’s 

what you are asking, no. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Not that I was involved in. 

Q. Do you know why he closed the vote in the manner he did? 

A. I don’t. I mean, like I say, normally the paper comes up from 

the well. I don’t know if he just looked up at the board and just 

decided, you know, close it or—without, you know, getting the 

paper. The normal process is through the paper. And I don’t know 

why he did anything sooner. 

Q. And, Jerry, do you remember—and I am just trying to piece 

together—— 

A. Sure. 

Q. [continuing]. You know, what sort of people remember from 

that night. Do you remember looking at Mr. McNulty and noticing 

he wasn’t using the paper, or is that just afterward? 

A. Yeah, that would have—I mean, none of that would have been 

all that visible from where we are. I mean, you know, there is a 

lot of activity, a lot of hustle and noise, and, you know, how that 

all flowed, and just all of a sudden, boom, no, I don’t remember 

that that—you know, seeing all of that. 

Q. Okay. So—— 

A. I don’t think I was near the rostrum, as I recall. I was probably at the committee table, so I am quite a ways away from there. 

Q. Right. Like I said, I am just asking—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Whether you remember whether the paper was 

passed up or not, and you don’t. 

A. I don’t remember. 


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Q. Okay. And did you have occasion to speak to Mr. McNulty 

afterward, you know, immediately afterward, or during that period 

as to why he called the vote in the manner he did? 

A. I don’t think I talked to Mr. McNulty about it. 

Q. How about Mr. Hoyer or the Parls or anyone like that? 

A. Well, the Parls, yeah, I mean, clearly once that all happened 

and there was—you know, the machines went down and everything, then, you know, I was trying to figure out what was going 

on at that point and would have talked to the Parls primarily. 

Q. Do you remember who you spoke with? 

A. I know I talked to John Sullivan, I am sure Tom Wickham, 

you know, both at the time, after, trying to piece together what 

happened. 

Q. What do you recall them telling you? 

A. That Mr. McNulty had not waited for the paper, as we normally would before we close the vote. 

Q. Do you remember who said that? 

A. I think that would have been John Sullivan. 

Q. Okay. 

A. And that, you know, that’s a problem. And I think we all recognized that was a problem. And then I think, you know, Mr. 

Hoyer asked to have the vote vacated. It was objected to. 

Q. Right. 

A. McNulty then, I think—I am not sure who did what first, but 

McNulty said, you know, I made an error, the Chair made an error. 

I remember him announcing from the Chair that he had made a 

mistake in terms of not waiting for the paper. 

Q. Now, do you consider McNulty a pretty experienced Chair? 

A. I would, yes. 

Q. Yeah. So that’s sort of what’s puzzling, right, as we sort of try 

and piece together that night, and we will talk to him in due 

course, but as to why he, who by all accounts is a pretty experienced Chair—— 

A. Right. 

Q. And we just got this paper today, I don’t know if you are familiar. This is, I think, what was up on the rostrum. Are you 

aware that there is a piece of paper that’s up on the podium for 

the Speaker pro tem? 

A. Yeah. I mean, those are—I mean, the Parliamentarians handle all the paper up there, but these are the prompt sheets for— 

you know, for what the Chair is supposed to do. 

Q. Okay. Are you aware of any other time, other than this vote, 

when a vote was called or closed without a tally sheet being handed up? 

A. I don’t remember another occasion. There might be, but I don’t 

remember. 

Q. Okay. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Does Catlin O’Neill work for you? 

A. She is under my direction and supervision, yes. 

Q. Okay. We have been told by one of the Parliamentarians that 

with respect to 814, she had indicated to the Parliamentarians this 

is a close vote, essentially be on your toes when it hits zero zero 


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zero, you know, you should start to close it down pretty quickly. 

And apparently that’s not a completely uncommon—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Thing to do. Would she have initiated through 

that communication with the Parliamentarians without you directing her to do that? 

A. I think we work in concert in that way. We sort of know what 

the situation is going to be if there is a close vote. So, yeah, I 

mean, we would have probably had a conversation about it. But, 

you know, I think she would have also had the ability to initiate 

something on her own as well. 

Q. Do you remember specifically whether or not the two of you 

had a conversation about it that night? 

A. I think we all knew this was a close vote. I don’t remember 

specific conversation with her about it, but, you know, it wouldn’t 

surprise me if there was. I mean, we knew this was going to be 

a difficult vote, so, yeah, we would probably have had a conversation. 

Q. Okay. And did you have an opportunity to speak with her 

after these events to have her tell you what she told the Parliamentarians or what she told the Chair? 

A. Yeah. I mean, we talked about this, because it was—you 

know, it was a controversial vote, and we were all trying to figure 

out exactly what happened, what things went wrong. And, you 

know, we all had different pieces of the puzzle. We were in different locations. So, yeah, we would have talked about it afterwards. And we were trying to, you know, determine what had happened, when it happened, why it happened, you know. So, yeah, we 

talked about it. 

Q. And is that communication between the Speaker’s senior 

staff—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. And the Parliamentarians, is that fairly common? 

A. Well, I mean, ultimately the person in the chair, you know— 

the Parliamentarians, at least I think, they would say—you know, 

they are there to help and—— 

Q. Sure. 

A. [continuing]. You know, prompt and everything. But, you 

know, the person with the gavel has a lot of power in terms of the 

moment of the time. So, you know, there is only so much you can 

do and think about ahead of time. And, you know, ultimately, you 

know, McNulty made his decision when he made it to do the gavel. 

And it, you know—you are not able to precisely time all of that. 

Q. Sure. 

A. He has got an issue of his own. 

Q. But if it is a vote that—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. That you want to close down fairly quickly—— 

A. Right. 

Q. And I understand this happens when the Republicans are in 

the Majority—— 

A. Yes. 


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Q. [continuing]. And now that the Democrats are in the Majority, 

and that is nothing inherently problematic with that. That’s sort of 

the way it operates. 

When that is communicated, is that communicated to the Chair, 

or is that communicated to the Parliamentarians, who sort of indicate to the Chair that, you know, we have gone through our checklist to close down a vote, and we are going to maybe start that 

sooner than we otherwise would if the vote wasn’t—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. So close? 

A. I mean, normally—— 

Q. Walk me through that process. 

A. Yeah, I think normally we would—you know, that probably 

would be to the Parliamentarians. The Parliamentarians do the 

prompting to the Chair. I mean, you know, I can’t account for everything that Catlin would say at one moment or another up there, 

but, you know, I think generally our view is that the Parliamentarians are the ones who are there to prompt the Chair. 

Q. Okay. 

A. You know. 

Q. And would you say that on a vote that you knew was going 

to be close, that that was the exception or the rule? 

A. To? 

Q. Well, just that there would be some communication. I presume you don’t need communication on every single vote. 

A. No. 

Q. The process sort of works itself out the vast majority of the 

time. 

A. Right. 

Q. And when you are giving directions to the Parliamentarians 

or the Chair, it is for a specific reason, and that that’s—correct me 

if I am wrong here, but that would be when it is going to be a close 

vote or a controversial vote or something of that nature? 

A. I think that’s a fair assumption. I mean, normally what we 

are trying to do is just make sure our Members voted, or, if they 

made a mistake, that they get corrected. But yeah, I mean, if there 

is a close vote coming, I think we would have thought, you know, 

maybe to communicate that, you know, we are going to be sort of 

on our toes. 

Q. Okay. We have been told by several people that towards the 

end of 814, Mr. Hoyer comes down, comes up to the rostrum and 

says several different times in a variety of ways, essentially, close 

this vote down now, and that he is fairly animated when he is 

doing that. Did you see that at all? 

A. I didn’t hear that. I don’t think I was up there. I mean, I can’t, 

you know—I have heard about that, but, I mean, I didn’t witness 

that myself. I mean, I—— 

Q. Is that something you would consider—and again, we are saying that the communication from the leadership staff to the Parls 

and the Chair isn’t all that unusual. 

A. Right. 

Q. How unusual is it in your experience for the Majority Leader 

to directly interject himself into that process? 


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A. Well, you know, I mean, the Majority Leader does, you know, 

at least nominally have control over the floor. I mean, that’s his responsibility. But, you know, again, I don’t think it would be a 

hugely normal thing to do. But it wouldn’t be abnormal if it happened on a close vote that, you know, we are trying to, you know, 

get everybody in, get the thing closed and move on. So he wouldn’t 

interject himself on every vote, but, you know, on a close vote he 

might. 

Q. Why would—and maybe this is just sort of my own naivete ́

in terms of how things actually operate on the floor, but why 

wouldn’t—if he wanted it closed, why wouldn’t he come to you all, 

the staff, and say, you know, say what you need to say to the Parliamentarians or the Chair and route it through you all as opposed 

to doing it himself? I mean, that’s been my lingering question here, 

because it seems like things get off track because of the additional 

pressure that Mr. Hoyer personally asserted over the Chair. Do you 

agree with that? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. What was your sense in that? 

Mr. HARTZ. Well, he is a Member. 

Mr. SPULAK. I am sorry, what is the question? 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. The question is do you think that Mr. McNulty, because of the 

manner in which the call to close the vote came about, which is 

that Mr. Hoyer specifically addressed Mr. McNulty to close the 

vote, did that cause Mr. McNulty to sort of bypass normal protocol, 

which is to get the slip, right, and just close it down right away? 

A. Well, I would—to finish your question, I mean, Mr. Hoyer’s a 

Member. And so, yes, normally—I mean, we have very close working relationships with, you know, both his staff and with him. But, 

you know, he is a Member, and, you know, when he decides, as 

Members do, to—I mean, they have the ability to—you know, they 

are above us. 

In terms of your question, I didn’t—I don’t—I was not on the podium at that point, so I can’t—I mean, I think it would be speculation and hearsay to say what the interaction between those two 

was, because I wasn’t up there. I believe I was at the committee 

table or looking for Members to vote, so I didn’t hear any interaction with them. 

Q. At some point, though, you go up to the rostrum? 

A. I think after the fact—— 

Q. To talk to Sullivan? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Were you there when Mr. Hoyer is talking to Sullivan? Because there are a couple moments, right, a couple points where he 

actually has a conversation with John Sullivan. Do you recall that? 

A. I don’t remember, you know, who all was in the conversation. 

It could well have been that Hoyer and Sullivan and I and others 

were all together at one point, or a couple times. I think this, 

again, was sort of figuring out, you know, what had happened and 

when it had happened. And I don’t think there was an understanding by most of us that, you know, the card hadn’t been read. 

John was explaining to—you know, as this had happened that, you 

know, as he calls it the—you know, the card coming up the pipe 


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has to be coming up to the Chair, and that hadn’t happened when 

McNulty called the vote. 

Mr. SPULAK. You mean the slip? Excuse me. 

Mr. HARTZ. The slip. 

Mr. SPULAK. The slip. Okay. 

The Witness. Exactly. The slip of paper with the final tally on 

it. If I am—part of my memory is that there was actually more 

than one piece of paper, and then people kept, you know, switching 

or adding their votes to this thing. So while there may have been— 

I don’t know that it actually got passed to the Chair, but, you 

know, as there are in these kinds of things, there are multiple 

pieces of paper flying around. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I don’t think there was a paper ever produced. 

A. It never actually got sent up. 

Q. No. Because there was one well card vote that was still being 

processed, right, by De’Andre, as I understand, the seated tally 

clerk, and Kevin Hanrahan hadn’t—— 

A. Put it up. 

Q. [continuing]. Written down, I believe, to hand up. 

A. I couldn’t remember if the switching caused different tallies 

or something. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember, Jerry—again, what we have heard 

is that Mr. Hoyer said something along the lines of, we run this 

place, you don’t. Do you remember that comment? 

A. I don’t remember it specifically. 

Q. And it was directed to Mr. Sullivan. 

A. Well, I assume. 

Q. Yeah. But I just wanted to be clear. You don’t remember that? 

A. I don’t think I heard that, no. 

Q. And—— 

A. Not directly. 

Q. Okay. And was there anything else? You mentioned that you 

had talked to Mr. Sullivan, and he said that Mr. McNulty hadn’t 

waited for the slip? 

A. Right. 

Q. Did he say anything else; do you recall? 

A. I think he might have indicated to me that Mr. Hoyer had 

been putting a lot of pressure on, you know, the vote. But again, 

I didn’t hear that directly, so, you know, in terms of my understanding and trying to figure out what had happened—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. I mean, that was mentioned by John. John is the 

one that helped me piece together what happened after the fact. 

Q. And that’s—I mean, that’s helpful. So that’s why I am sort of 

focusing on it. Do you remember what else he said? 

A. Other than the slip hadn’t been sent up, and that Hoyer was, 

you know—no, I mean, I don’t remember anything specific. I mean, 

the machinery going down was a whole situation in and of itself. 

Q. Okay. On that one I think what happens is, you know, once 

again I think it is called, right, and then there is an uptick, and 

I think at that point is when it is not going down, it is just frozen. 

A. Right. 


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Q. Like they are trying to clear the computer? 

A. Right. 

Q. The seated tally clerk is trying to push the button to clear it. 

A. Right. 

Q. Do you remember that part? Or what do you remember about 

that? 

A. Just everything was frozen on, you know, the boards, and 

nothing was being added. So, you know, everybody’s immediate 

concern is how long is that going to take to repair? And I don’t 

know actually what the process is. I don’t know if they reboot, they 

shut it all down and reboot or what. 

Q. And do you remember any discussions at that point at the rostrum around there, Mr. Sorensen in particular, about how to fix 

this? 

A. Yeah. I don’t remember specifics, but definitely we were trying 

to figure out how to get this vote going again. And I think that’s— 

the combination of both what had happened with McNulty calling 

the vote too soon and the vote going down led Mr. Hoyer to want 

to move to vacate the vote and start all over. 

Q. Do you remember whether Mr. Sorensen—do you remember 

what Mr. Sorensen said in terms of trying to fix it? It’s been a 

while, I know. 

A. I don’t remember. 

Q. Do you remember him saying—so you don’t remember what 

he said? 

A. Not specifically, no. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember him saying anything about aborting 

the vote? 

A. No. 

Q. No? Okay. Terminate versus aborting? 

A. Tell me what that means. I mean—what do you mean ‘‘abort’’? 

Q. Well, as I understand it, it’s not something that’s typically 

used, very rarely used, but it is where you would essentially abort 

the vote so that essentially the vote would have never happened. 

So 814 would actually get reset, and the next vote that you would 

take would actually be 814. 

A. Oh. No. I don’t remember that specifically. I think we were 

all trying to figure out after the fact, you know, then vacating the 

vote and starting over. I mean, that’s what Mr. Hoyer moved. 

Q. Okay. 

A. But I don’t remember anything during this frozen period. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember—you went up and talked to Sullivan. 

Do you remember what you did sort of after that? Did you go back 

to the table or—and again—— 

A. I don’t remember. 

Q. Did you turn left or right? 

A. That was a crazy period of time, with a lot of legislation moving through. So I don’t remember. I am sorry. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Jerry, you have been on the floor for over 20 years. Is it fair 

to say that on votes of consequence like this, that whether it was 

the Republican Majority or the Democratic Majority, that there is 


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communication with the Chair by either Members or staff about 

closing the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And ultimately that’s so that their side would prevail; is that 

correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Is it fair to say that in those 20 years that there is no one 

set way that those communications happen; that is, usually or only 

through staff, or usually or only through Members, or no, leadership members? Is it sort of dependent upon the circumstances? 

A. I think that’s correct. 

Q. I think there was a reference that Catlin O’Neill said that this 

was going to be close, so close it down. I think what Mr. Lauer’s 

testimony was, ‘‘it is going to be close, so be on your toes.’’ 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Be on your toes, yeah. 

Mr. SPULAK. Be on your toes, which I think is different. But be 

that as it may, presumably, and correct me if I am wrong, that that 

kind of message probably happens a lot: It is going to be close, be 

on your toes. Right? 

A. Uh-huh. Yes. We actually haven’t had that many close votes 

normally, but, yes, if there is one, I think, yeah, we would say that. 

Q. If you were to say that, is the purpose to tell the Chair to violate the House practices? 

A. No. 

Q. Or the House rules? 

A. No. 

Q. And, in fact, if it has happened—if it happens somewhat on 

a regular basis related to close votes, has there been any other instances when, in fact, any Majority, to your knowledge, has somehow violated the rules or the practices in calling the vote? 

A. No. I mean, I think one of the frustrations, like in 2003, when 

we had the Medicare vote that was held open for 3 hours, the frustration we had in talking to the Parliamentarians is that the rules 

on holding open votes, there aren’t any. So, you know, we actually 

put in our rules package because of that vote, you know, a desire 

to close votes quickly. And we have tried, I think, to actually operate as a Majority to not hold votes open. So, I mean, that—I don’t 

know what factor, if any, that played into this night. But so—— 

Q. Correct any of this statement that I am going to make. 

A. Okay. 

Q. Stop me, tell me I am wrong or that—you know, in a close 

vote, with the Majority prevailing, after all time has expired, after 

the House has been notified by the Chair, does anyone desire to 

vote, does anyone wish to change their vote—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. And there is no one in the well at this particular 

time, and the Majority was prevailing, do you anticipate that the 

Chair would probably gavel the vote closed? 

A. Yes. 

Q. I mean, isn’t—I ask you in your experience, Republicans in 

control, Democrats, isn’t that what Chairs do? 

A. Yes. 

Q. It is not as though they wait some period of time to make sure 

that no one in the Chamber is even thinking about changing their 


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vote. You know, it is they are ahead, no one is in the well, time 

has expired, they make the announcement, and so they gavel it 

closed. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Isn’t that just the general way that the House is run? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Can I give you a twist on that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Let’s assume that it’s a close vote, and the Majority is prevailing, and there are people in the well either filling out vote— 

well vote cards or mingling, would you think it is appropriate for 

the Chair to close the vote at that point? 

A. No. I think that if there are people still in the well casting 

their votes, that the Chair should not close the vote at that point. 

The practices of the House would be not to do that. 

Q. Okay. And what about if the tally clerks are still entering well 

votes? Would you consider it improper procedure to close the vote 

at that point? 

A. Yeah. Until the paper comes up, you know, official, you 

know—you know, that is when the vote is supposed to be closed. 

Q. And you never had after those events a conversation directly 

with Mr. McNulty to ask him what happened? 

A. Me with McNulty? I don’t believe that I—— 

Q. Who would have spoken with Mr. McNulty? 

A. I don’t know that a staff person would—I don’t think I engaged—if I did, it was in a context of a number of people being 

there. But I don’t believe I talked to Mr. McNulty directly. 

Mr. SPULAK. Would you ever have that kind of conversation with 

a member? 

Mr. HARTZ. No. That’s really a Member conversation. It is not 

staff. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. Did your boss have a conversation with Mr. McNulty 

about that? 

A. I don’t know that she did actually. I don’t know. 

Q. Did Mr. Hoyer; do you know? 

A. Well, in the context of what was happening around the podium that night, he might have. 

Q. After the fact, postmortem. 

A. Nothing that I know about. 

Q. Okay. I mean, you are the Director of Floor Operations—— 

A. Correct. 

Q. [continuing]. For the Speaker. So you are the sort of senior 

staff person in charge of what’s happening on the floor of the 

House; is that right? 

A. Correct. 

Q. Okay. And this is obviously something that was a pretty serious problem in terms of the activities on the House floor. 

A. Correct. 


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Q. And were you ever asked or did you take it upon yourself to, 

you know, inquire of Mr. McNulty’s staff or anybody else as to 

what went on that night? 

A. I am a staff person. The difference here is that Members are 

probably going to engage on their own, and I can only do so much 

of as a staff person. I work for the Members. I don’t remember 

talking to McNulty’s staff about this, no. I don’t think I did. I mostly talked to John Sullivan and Catlin to sort of understand what 

had happened, since she was closer to the situation than I was. But 

that was pretty much the extent of my involvement with this was 

to sort of understand, you know, that the card hadn’t been handed 

up, and the vote was prematurely called. I mean, Mr. Hoyer did 

move to vacate the vote, and there was an admission from the 

Chair that it had been prematurely called. So I think that, you 

know, there was acknowledgment here that a mistake had been 

made, and it was attempted to be corrected, and the Republicans 

objected. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Can I ask you a question on that part? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. To the best of your knowledge, was there any effort made to 

communicate that to the Minority, either at the Member level or 

the staff level, prior to the unanimous consent request being made? 

A. I don’t know, Hugh. I don’t know. Typically, there is—you 

know, the communication goes through the Leader’s staff to—you 

know, the Leader’s staff, not necessarily through the Speaker’s 

staff. I mean, not that I don’t talk to the Leader’s staff, but whether that communication happened Leader to Leader, I don’t know. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you recall during the time after the vote was called and 

there was confusion that Mr. Blunt was up on the podium on the 

Democratic side? Do you remember that? 

A. No, I don’t remember. 

Q. Do you remember Mr. Dreier speaking with Mr. Hoyer or with 

John Sullivan? 

A. Well, there was a meeting—I mean, I don’t know what happened that night per se. 

Q. No, no, no, this is — 

A. This is right at the time? 

Q. This is during 814. 

A. I don’t remember. 

EXAMINATION BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. And also, Jerry, in your understanding, a unanimous consent 

to vacate the vote and start over again would essentially be the 

same as adoption of the motion to reconsider, had that passed. You 

are still back to redoing the vote. 

A. Redoing the vote, yes. 

Q. So even though the UC was vacated, there was still the opportunity—I mean, even though the UC to vacate was objected to, 

there was still the opportunity to move to reconsider. 


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A. Didn’t we do that? 

Q. There was. There was. 

A. I don’t know which order was which. 

Q. The vacate first. There is still the opportunity. And were you 

aware that there was, you know, conversations back and forth 

about the opportunity to move to reconsider and whether that motion was going to be—— 

A. Between the two sides? 

Q. Uh-huh. 

A. I don’t recall that I was involved in that, but there might have 

been. I mean, I assume Mr. Hoyer was talking to Mr. Boehner and 

Mr. Blunt on this. But that’s my assumption. 

Q. And also, Jerry, in all your experience on the floor as well, the 

unanimous consent request to vacate a vote, is that under the 

Speaker’s guidelines as something that absolutely has to be cleared 

by the Minority before the Chair could recognize for that unanimous consent request? 

A. Gees, I don’t know. I would assume it would be, right? No? 

It’s not? I don’t know. I honestly don’t. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. At the end of the day, was it your impression that—you know, 

false starts and changes—was it your impression that at the time 

the Chair made his announcement—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. Of the error and announced what he believed to 

be the final tally, was it your impression that all the votes submitted had been counted? 

A. When McNulty announced it? No. I mean, people were still in 

the well. 

Q. No, no, I mean, at the end, after—— 

A. Oh. 

Q. After he—— 

A. The 216 or whatever it was? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Right. 212–216. 

Mr. HARTZ. Yeah. I think at that point the votes had been cast, 

as far as I could tell. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Would it surprise you to find that there was at least one well 

card that had not been entered into the system at that point? 

A. Yeah. I didn’t know about that. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Yeah, on the—it’s Mr. Boehner’s. And you can see on the tape, 

you know, De’Andre asks—— 

A. Is this for reconsideration he did this or something? 

Q. Yeah. But he says, I have this card, and Sullivan says something like, we have much bigger problems than that. Hold off, we 

have much bigger problems than that. And it never gets entered. 

A. Cast. 

Q. Cast. So sort of, you know, at the 10,000–foot level perhaps 

what do you think happened? 


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A. Uh-huh. 

Q. You know, why do you think, you know, that vote happened 

the way it did, the closing of that vote happened the way it did? 

A. I think it was a close vote. I think there was a lot of pressure, 

there was a lot of switching and confusion. And whenever that is 

going on in the well, it causes a lot of—I mean, this is all—it is 

machinery that is doing this, but it is humans as well. So there is 

a lot of confusion. So I think there was a lot of confusion about 

what was happening, when it was happening. 

I think Mr. McNulty didn’t wait for the card as he should have, 

and he made a judgment to go ahead and gavel it at whatever it 

was, the tie vote marker. He admitted that was an error. And then 

we tried to redo the vote by, you know, reconsideration, vacating 

and et cetera, because we realized that that was not what should 

have happened. And his own admission and Mr. Hoyer’s admission 

were indications that—you know, that that’s—that shouldn’t have 

happened that way. So we were trying to do it the right way. 

Q. And, Jerry, in terms of sort of, you know, looking forward and 

sort of making sure that—you know, doing things to sort of ensure 

that those types of things don’t happen again, what would you recommend in terms of either change of procedure or, you know—— 

A. I think it is just really important, and, you know, we as a new 

Majority have a lot of Members, some experienced, but not many 

experienced in terms of being the Chair. So there is a learning 

curve that, you know, the Republicans had after 12 years that we 

didn’t have. I think we are getting much better at that now. But 

this was one of those things that happened along the way where, 

you know, people need to be reminded how it’s supposed to work. 

And so that happens through instruction, but it also happens 

through experience. 

So I would be hopeful that, you know, as we get people in the 

Chair we will make sure that they understand that that slip of 

paper has to be coming up, and that’s the final word before they 

gavel, and sort of what the general protocol is for closing a vote. 

And, you know, you try to avoid problems like that in the future. 

But it comes a lot through both telling somebody to do it, and then 

they just have to learn it. They have to experience it. There is a 

certain rhythm to being in the Chair, and I think our Members 

would admit that they still are learning it. 

Q. Yeah. The thing that’s just obviously strange, not to belabor 

it, but obviously McNulty was pretty experienced. So, you 

know—— 

A. I can’t get into his head. I don’t know exactly what he did and 

why he did it. But, you know, he admitted that he made a mistake, 

so—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you remember what happened after the Speaker voted? Do 

you remember who voted after the Speaker voted? 

A. I am not sure where she voted in the process, but there was 

all this—there was several of our Members that came down, I 

would say four or five of our Members that came down, and then 

there were like Diaz-Balart and Ros-Lehtinen and some people 


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from the Republican side. So all of that was happening. I assume 

she voted before that, and all that happened after the fact. But 

that’s what was going on at the end was that tallying or, you 

know—— 

Q. Did you say that you saw the Chair talking with Mr. Hoyer? 

A. I think Mr. Hoyer was up on the podium at some point talking 

to the Chair. I don’t know just when. 

Q. And where would he have been? He would have been on the 

right side of the podium; is that correct? 

A. Yes. Yes. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. We are off. 

[Whereupon, at 2:52 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 22, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF JO MARIE ST. MARTIN 

The interview in the above matter was held at 1017 Longworth 

House Office Building, commencing at 10:00 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING, LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., WASHINGTON, 

DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt; and Zuraya Tapia, Clerk of the Committee. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Jo Marie, thank you for coming this morning. As you may 

know, the Select Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities 

of August 2, 2007 is charged with investigating the circumstances 

surrounding roll call voting for the Committee to pass the motion 

to reconsider. Now, that would include also things like the duration 

of the vote and things related to that. So if you will tell us in narrative form what you know about it personally or any recollections, 

and we’ll ask you questions about that as well. But before you 

begin that let me ask you to give us a little bit about your background, your experience on the Hill and the like. 

A. Okay. Sure. My first experience on the Hill was 1983 working 

for the House Rules Committee. And that’s actually when I met 

Tom Spulak. He was the—you were the General Counsel, weren’t 

you, or were you Staff Director? 

Q. Both. 

A. Okay. For Claude Pepper. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. More Pepper? 

Ms. ST. MARTIN. Yeah. I did that for a summer. It was between 

my first and second year in law school. Then I did not return to 

the Hill until after I graduated law school and graduated in ’85. 

I’m licensed in two jurisdictions; Tennessee and the District of CoVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00315 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6601 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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lumbia. Right after law school I worked for the Department of 

Labor for a year. And then in 1986 I actually took a job with the 

Committee on Education and Labor. Was hired actually by Jim Jeffords, who was the ranking Republican at the time. And then really 

actually worked for, my boss was Bill Goodling. And my boss was 

Bill Goodling up until ’92. And I left the Hill, went home to Tennessee for a couple of years and was in private practice down there. 

And then when we won the majority Mr. Goodling asked me to 

come back and do his general counsel work for what was renamed 

the Education—well, actually it was renamed the first time the Economics and Opportunity—whatever it was called, Educational Opportunity—Economics and Educational Opportunities Committee, 

something like that, which was not exactly the best choice of 

names. But anyway it was renamed again the Committee on Education and Workforce. And was Mr. Goodling’s General Counsel for 

the six years he was chairman. And then when Mr. Boehner became chairman of the committee he asked me if I would stay, and 

I was very happy to do that. And so he was my chairman at the 

committee, Education and Workforce Committee until he was elected the majority leader. And he asked me to come and be his General Counsel in the majority leader’s office and to run his floor operations. So I’m also his Director of Legislative Operations, which 

was one of the toughest years of my life actually. And then of 

course the elections didn’t go so well. We went back into the minority. And Mr. Boehner then asked me to stay, you know, and run 

his floor operation, which is what I’ve been doing still as General 

Counsel and his Director of Legislative Operations, now in the minority. And that’s pretty much my life Story. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Very good. Can you tell us a little bit about August 2nd? 

A. Where do you want me to start? 

Q. Well, pretty much where you’ve been. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Around 10 o’clock. 

Ms. ST. MARTIN. All right. I would say my first, and I have really 

pretty clear recollections, at the point when the vote was extraordinarily close. I was standing, this is what I recall very pretty distinctly, I was standing up at the Republican leader table. And as 

I recall, I was also chatting with Mr. Lewis. Mr. Lewis was there, 

he was managing the bill, and had actually offered the motion to 

recommit. And when it was getting close, you know like in the 212– 

212 range, that’s when people were like oh, my God, we’re having 

all these Democrats vote with us. And it became very apparent 

that the Democrats were struggling, I mean really struggling with 

this vote. And it became somewhat hurried or frantic, I guess is the 

word I would use, on the Democrat side. Because realizing it was 

getting to the point where we were going to win this motion to recommit, and we had won other motions to recommit. It was on the 

heels of, and I don’t remember how many we had won at that 

point. I think we were up to 22 recommits we’ve won. Which just, 

and I know, I know Muftiah is aware of this, I don’t know if you’re 

aware of this, Mark, but it is unprecedented for the minority to be 

winning motions to recommit, I mean it’s just unprecedented. It 

happens so rarely. So it was one of these things that you could tell 


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they were having a very tough time. So I became very aware. You 

know, like watching where our guys were going. The issue, the 

underpinnings of the issue of course had to do with illegals getting 

Federal money for jobs, which was really a difficult issue, I guess 

is the right way to put it, for a number of Democrat Members. So 

anyway we were really heading into winning this vote. And at the 

point at which Mr. McNulty banged the gavel and said 214–214, 

the boards showed very clearly 215–213 final. And there was this 

almost stunned sense on the floor of like what just happened. And 

Republican Members, it went pretty quickly, went from stunned to 

anger. And that’s when the chanting began, you know shame, 

shame. Because—and it stayed up there on the boards I would 

say—and I’m just, you know, sort of trying to estimate because 

time seemed to stand still at that point. But it probably was about 

maybe a minute and a half it stayed up on the boards. And then 

the boards went blank. And the chanting I think went on for, I 

don’t know, maybe 30 seconds, maybe longer. And it was real—I 

mean, I can’t tell you how much chaos there was on the floor; 

Members shouting, you know they stole the vote, and people turning to me and saying you know, what do we do. 

And my mindset, and I guess it’s from my years of, and I don’t 

know you all know this, but my training and my background, I do 

parliamentary procedure, I know parliamentary procedure extremely well. So my mindset was how do I protect minority Members, how do I protect Boehner, how do I make sure that there is 

a preservation of minority rights. And I remember people turning 

to me and asking me like has this ever happened before, because 

I’ve never seen anything like this ever. It was just, it was stunning. 

And at some point I needed to find out, because it was becoming 

apparent that even though McNulty had called it 214–214, it was 

very apparent that something else was happening, like either the 

vote wasn’t going to be closed or something like that. So I actually 

went around to find out from the Parliamentarians where are we; 

you know, where do you consider this procedurally to be. And as 

I recall, I was told that they decided to reopen the vote, something 

like that. And I went back over to tell Boehner, you know like even 

though the vote was closed, you know it was gaveled closed, now 

they’re saying it’s open. And they started letting Members vote 

again. And they were switching Members to vote, to switch the 

vote. 

And at some other vote I, again thinking Boehner, thinking protecting Boehner, thinking protecting the minority, I knew I wanted 

Boehner to switch his vote to the prevailing side so he could move 

to reconsider. So at some point I’m pretty sure I told John Sullivan 

that I was going to get Boehner to change his vote to the prevailing 

side so that we could move to reconsider. And then Hoyer actually 

preempted that and then went to a reconsideration of that vote. 

And you know Boehner was not happy about any of this obviously. 

And I think Boehner actually moved to adjourn during some point 

of this. And again, the floor, I can’t just even explain it to you, it 

was loud, it was chaotic, it was just a very interesting point. And 

so then once the reconsideration vote came along, it was this feeling of a kangaroo process, like we were a Third World Banana Republic at that point. And so Boehner actually decided we’re not 


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going to vote final passage, because we won this motion to recommit; they’ve stolen it from us, you know we’re not going to participate in this anymore. And so we actually left the floor and actually 

went to the Republican cloakroom trying to get Members not to 

vote final passage and, you know, to leave. And after that we ended 

up over in Boehner’s office to discuss what had happened and sort 

of what the next step was going to be. 

And that’s actually when we decided to create the resolution creating this committee. And I actually set up a meeting for that 

night. And we all met in the conference room. And I doled out assignments to people about what I needed in order to put this resolution together. And people, you know, provided me with information about—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. You know, we don’t need to—I mean unless you 

are—— 

Mr. SPULAK. No. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. We’re really just interested in the vote. I mean 

it’s helpful, but we just want to sort of keep it to sort of what happened in terms of why it happened the way it did. 

Ms. ST. MARTIN. Sure. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. When the vote is going on and you started noticing it 

was real close, you were at the Republican table? 

A. Uh-huh. That’s what I recall. I mean I was over there in that 

area. I might have been right behind the table, maybe in the aisle. 

Q. And look, it’s been a while since all this happened, so recollections are—you know, whatever you can recall. 

A. I know I was on the Republican side at that point. 

Q. Were you looking at the rostrum, do you remember? 

A. You know, it’s funny. I have impressions about that night 

about exactly what I remember. I can remember seeing the stress 

on the Parliamentarian’s face. 

Q. Okay. Mr. Sullivan? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I can remember that. I can remember it being—you know, it 

was incredibly chaotic and incredibly stressful that I remember. 

Q. So before it hits 214–214, okay? 

A. Right. 

Q. Do you recall, or as it’s hitting 214, do you recall Mr. Hoyer 

coming down the aisle? 

A. I have since seen the video, and I’m very aware of what that 

video conversation was. And I’m very aware—because that actually 

became part of what we wanted to be in the resolution. And the 

resolution that created this committee Hoyer actually suggested we 

strike all the whereas clauses. So one of the whereas clauses actually had to do with what Mr. Hoyer had said to the Parliamentarian, that I run the floor, you don’t. 

Q. I see. Okay. Do you remember him that night doing that or 

is it mostly from the video? 

A. You know, I saw—I honestly cannot tell you if it’s my actual 

recollections. I remember I was watching the Democrats like crazy 

though. And I remember them doing like this and waving people 


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like you have to vote this way and you know doing the finger in 

the face you know. It was very, very chaotic. And it was—you could 

tell there was a lot of pressure, a lot of pressure put on people. Because this was one—I mean I don’t know if you’re aware of this or 

not, but to lose this vote meant the bill went back to committee. 

It was a promptly recommit, which is a—this is the one you as the 

majority cannot afford to lose, you cannot, because it sends the bill 

back to committee and you have to re-report the bill, you have to 

go through a number of procedures, you cannot report the bill that 

night. And you could tell that the level of stress on the Democrats 

was to the breaking point, you could just see it. 

Q. So as you saw from the video, but Mr. Hoyer walks down, 

right? 

A. [Nods head.] 

Q. Do you remember—but you don’t specifically recall that, sort 

of it was chaotic in terms of whether you saw him coming down? 

A. I don’t know if my memory is from watching the video or if 

it was actually from watching him. I have watched him quite often 

on the House floor. I have watched him—you know, he is one that 

doesn’t spare words on what he thinks that ought to happen. So 

it may be my actual memory, it may also be my memory—— 

Q. From the tape? 

A. [continuing]. From the tape. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Have you ever seen him talk to the Chair before? 

A. Yes. 

Q. How was that? 

A. I would say in the same sort of vein, you know coming over. 

Now, he hasn’t done it since this, but yes, he would actually go 

over and you could tell that there was an exchange that was not 

exactly particularly the most cordial of exchange. 

Q. And this was an attempt you think to have the Chair close 

the vote as well? 

A. I would not presume to know what was in Mr. Hoyer’s mind, 

but my observations of what was happening, the absolute answer 

to that is an unqualified yes. 

Q. But have you ever seen the Chair close a vote in the same 

manner that this one was closed? 

A. Again, as I say, this was an extraordinary. I had never seen 

anything like this before where the vote got closed before—what 

obviously happened was it wasn’t done yet. 

Q. So again to sum up what you said, although Mr. Hoyer may 

in the past have communicated to the Chair in a harsh way to 

close the vote, that’s never happened before; the Chair has never 

closed the vote in this manner or in any—you know, in any improper manner? 

A. Again, Tom, I will have to tell you that sequence of events and 

having the Chair gavel a 214–214 final when clearly the board was 

saying 215–213 final, it’s extraordinary. Now, whether or not it has 

happened in a situation where—and I will tell you, when we are 

in the Committee of the Whole and it’s getting close to having to 

force a revote because you have the Delegates voting, I have seen 

those sorts of pressures exerted because they don’t want to have to 


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have a revote. So the Committee of the Whole situation I have seen 

that sort of pressure exerted, yes. 

Q. So my next question to that was but has the Chair ever done 

anything that you think that was improper in closing the vote? 

A. I’m not sure I would know. I’m not sure that I would have the 

ability to be within the realm of knowing. It’s not like they’re going 

to be talking in front of me when I walk over there. 

Q. You said that he called the vote at 214–214 when the board 

said 215–213? 

A. Final. 

Q. We have heard testimony from a lot of individuals that said 

that the board did say 214–214 when he called it, but there was 

the sort of instantaneous uptick from votes that were entered by 

the Tally Clerk—I think in this particular case it was the DiazBalarts and Ms. Ros-Lehtinen—that registered almost, I won’t say 

contemporaneous but certainly immediately after he called it. That 

seems to be a little different than what you’re saying. You’re suggesting that he called it but the board said 215–213; in fact it said 

214–214? 

A. I don’t think I am saying anything different, to be honest with 

you. It was so close and it was so tight. And as I say, I was watching it because—I mean I was watching it because people were saying, you know, like they couldn’t get over how many Democrats 

were voting with us. And realizing, wow, you know, we’re going to 

win, this is a big one and we’re going to win it. And when literally 

he calls it, you know I’m looking towards the Chair, and then that’s 

when I’m looking at the board and it says 215–213 final. So your 

testimony from other people is not inconsistent with what I’m saying. 

Q. Okay. I didn’t think so, but I just wanted to make it clear. 

Were you aware that there were individuals voting in the well 

prior to his calling it 214–214? 

A. I was aware that Members were voting in the well. I was 

aware of the fact that it just—again, the only way I can describe 

this is it was this very feeling of rush, feeling of desperation, this 

feeling of—that broke into chaos. But it was very—you could see, 

you know as I say, there was waving arms and pointing and you 

know you got to get down there kind of gesturing. It was just very, 

very rushed. 

Q. At about what time during the vote was this attempt to get 

people to begin to vote? 

A. Towards the end when we were realizing when we were—no, 

correction. Before the call of 214–214, but—and I’m almost certain 

we were at 000 on the board, I am almost certain of that. But I 

began to watch it when, really closely when it was, you know, the 

whip guys, Blunt’s guys, were telling me like this is getting interesting. And that’s when I started watching it. And it was—I mean 

again this is impressions of my memory of exactly when that was. 

But we—and I also have this impression of remembering them telling me that you know we had like 17 Democrats voting. That is 

something I have an impression of. Whether that’s not—is absolutely the right, what I was told, maybe not. But it was that kind 

of discussion was going on about how many Democrats we had. 

And you could see. And it really gets interesting watching the other 


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side because you see the pressure they’re exerting trying to get 

their guys to change the vote. 

Q. Do you remember where Mr. Hoyer was when Mr. McNulty 

read the tally off the board? 

A. I have no actual recollection of his, you know exactly where 

he was. Again, the video, I watched the video. So that will have 

some impact on my memory, I’m sure. 

Q. And from watching that? 

A. Yeah. I mean he was walking actually all the way up onto the 

second tier of the dais yelling at John Sullivan. And my impression 

is he was yelling at McNulty. And when McNulty actually called 

it, that exact moment I’m not—I know he was somewhere down 

there but I don’t know where. 

Q. On the right-hand side? 

A. On the Democrat side, on the Democrat side. 

Q. You said that at some point about a minute and a half, I 

think you said, the board went blank? 

A. Yeah, I recall they—and when exactly it went blank I don’t 

have a present recollection of. But at some point the board did actually, like it came down. It wasn’t the 214—I mean, 215–213 final 

was gone. And that’s part of the reason why I had to go and ask 

like, okay, where are we, you know. 

Q. Did the names come off as well? 

A. And I will tell you, because the next day they had so much 

trouble with the boards my memory I think may be a little blurred 

on the names coming down. And I will also tell you there was discussion later about whether or not Boehner, because when I had 

to get Boehner to change his vote there was discussion about 

whether or not the boards actually ever registered Boehner as 

changing his vote. And he did. Because I got him to go down there 

and change it. So he could vote on the prevailing side on the motion to reconsider. 

Q. But it’s not—so you recall that, I don’t want to put words in 

your mouth, but that the boards went down. And then you said 

that people were allowed to vote again. So is it correct to assume 

that what you think happened was that the boards went down and 

voting or the ability to vote or to enter votes had ceased and that 

at some point thereafter there was—— 

A. I want to be really clear about this. 

Q. Yeah, me too. 

A. The board said 215–213 final. And that was up there for, I’m 

guessing, a minute. It felt like an eternity. But it was literally a 

minute and a half, and then that went off. But at some point I left 

the Republican leader table and went over to ask the Parliamentarians where are we, because I need to know where we are, because 

I need to protect Republican Members, I need to protect Boehner. 

I mean, that was my whole mindset, my whole thought is I have 

to protect Republicans. And that’s when I found out the vote was 

reopened. 

So I go back over to our side to report this. And I told Boehner, 

I was like you need, I’m going have to have you vote on the prevailing side, which at that point meant I’m going to have to have 

you vote no on the recommit so he could move to reconsider. And 

at some point I told John Sullivan this. 


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Q. When did you become aware that there were Members in the 

well who wanted to change their vote? 

A. Well, that’s an interesting question, because it was so chaotic 

at that—at the point right before McNulty calling it you could 

see—again, I cannot stress to you enough about how much pressure you could see going on with getting people to, attempting to 

get people to change their votes. Now, it’s getting people to attempt 

to change their votes and then actually—I mean, you know how 

Members are. They’ll pick up a card and then change their mind 

and not actually vote, or they’ll stand there and wait to think about 

what they’re going to do. So you’re asking me to presume what it 

is that I would think is happening. But I can tell you there were 

Members that were there. And it was just very shocking when it 

was gaveled closed. 

Q. You were on the—you were at the Republican leadership 

table. Do you remember where the Diaz-Balarts and Ms. RosLehtinen were at the time that the first two, at the time that the 

first vote was called, and the 214–214 was the second time, do you 

remember where they were the first time? 

A. No, no. 

Q. Do you remember the Speaker voting? 

A. Pelosi you mean? 

Q. Yes? 

A. No. 

Mr. SPULAK. Go ahead, Mark. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Jo Marie, you were standing at the table. Let’s go back to 

right before he calls 214–214. I just want to walk through that. So 

as you could tell from the tape you know Mr. Hoyer goes down. But 

do you remember when you’re looking toward the rostrum whether 

you saw a slip handed up to the Speaker pro tem? 

A. I don’t. I don’t have a recollection of that, no. But I will tell 

you I’ve watched the tape and I’m aware that there was no paper 

sent up. 

Q. How long have you worked on the floor in sort of responsibilities for floor operations? 

A. I became—well, for the committee I did all the floor operations 

for the committee, and took that responsibility really in ’89 probably. I have to figure that out, Mark, but about that time when we 

sort of really—well, Goodling realized that he needed to have somebody who really understood procedure and needed to really understand how that worked. And it was interesting, there was another 

guy and I sort of split those duties, and learned it. You know, I was 

schooled from the Bob Michel days with Billy Pitts and you know 

really sort of cut my teeth on that. So I consider myself learning 

the floor processes from probably ’89 forward. Then of course when 

we became the majority, not only do you have to know and understand what it is that the majority does, you need to really know 

what the minority’s rights are, and learned it even better as majority counsel. And then once Boehner became majority leader in February of 2006 you know I took over floor operations and have been 

in that role since. 


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Q. And in all that time have you ever seen a vote where the slip 

wasn’t handed up? 

A. Never. 

Q. What’s your view, what’s your understanding of the slip, like 

tally slip. What function is that supposed to serve, in your opinion? 

A. It’s supposed to be the official paper of the House that is what 

the actual final vote is. It’s like, in committee for instance, my 

clerk, her documents were the official papers of the committee. If 

there were ever a question about what a vote was in committee we 

would go back to her official documents. And it’s my understanding 

that that’s what that is, it’s an official document of the House. 

Q. And so that gets handed up from the Tally Clerk, right, the 

standing Tally Clerk? 

A. Yes. It’s either from Kevie, Kevie usually hands it up, or I 

guess you know now it’s Susan is the other one who does it. It used 

to be Paul Hayes. Since he’s retired, but, yes, the Clerk. 

Q. And so that’s sort of the check on calling a vote? 

A. Correct. 

Q. It’s ensuring that everyone who has wanted to vote has voted? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And you’re correct, that wasn’t handed up this night for this 

vote. So in your recollection you can’t remember any other time 

when it’s happened? 

A. No, no. Let’s put it this way, I am unaware of it ever being 

a situation where it didn’t happen. There’s a lot of negatives there. 

Q. No, no, no. 

A. To my knowledge it has never happened. 

Q. That’s what we’ve heard from a lot of people. The night of the 

vote, you know, right after he’s called it at 214–214, did you ever 

have any discussions with Democrats? I know you were sort of obviously focused on your Members and all that. 

A. No. 

Q. But did you have any contemporaneous explanation of what 

had happened? 

A. Not with Democrats, no. 

Q. Not with Democrats. And what about with any other Republicans that had just spoken to any of the Democrats or with Mr. 

Sullivan or, you know, any of the—— 

A. No, the Parliamentarians—I honestly did not go into, you 

know, what just happened. It was more I was trying to find out 

where are we, where do you consider this to be. They were under 

a lot of pressure, and I didn’t need to add to that, but that’s another story. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. What was your answer, Jo Marie, when you asked him where 

we were? 

A. Where we were? When I went to find out, you know, because 

it was becoming obvious that the 214–214 gavel may not be the 

214–214 gavel, I went over to find out is that true, you know, are 

you all still considering to reopen this vote. And the answer was 

yes. So that’s when I realized yep, you know, I got to do what I 

got to do, which was to get Boehner to flip his vote, you know, protect our rights. 


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I will tell you my whole mindset at that moment was I need to 

protect the minority, I’ve got to do that. So conversations that—I 

mean, you know your question about what kind of conversations 

were Members having, well, they were having things like they stole 

that vote, you know can you believe, you know, and asking me has 

this ever happened before. I was like, no. So that was the context 

of what was happening around me at that moment. 

Q. Jo Marie, forgive me if this sounds like I’m trying to serve a 

position here, because I’m not, but I’m trying to understand, you 

say that the vote was closed. At the time that the Chair called the 

214–214 did you think that the vote was closed? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Then the board said 215–213? 

A. It was, again it wasn’t and then. It was he called it and I 

looked up and it said 215–213 final. And Members were all going 

like, look. And I—you know you’re literally in this world of like you 

can’t believe you just witnessed what you witnessed. And literally 

I’m like you know he just called it and we lose because you know 

an even vote means we don’t win the recommit, but the board is 

saying we won the recommit. And it was one of those moments that 

you just go oh, my God, I can’t believe this just happened. 

Q. Do you believe that when he—well, first do you know where 

he got the tally, where Mr. McNulty saw it? 

A. I watched the tape very carefully, very carefully. 

Q. And where did he get it from? 

A. It appears from the tape, at least it is my impression of that 

tape, that he is looking at the board. And then he looks back front, 

he takes the gavel and that’s when he bangs it 214–214. So I think 

what he did, and again not that it matters what I think, but what 

I think he did was I think he was watching that, the board up 

there, and thinking he can go off the board and close the vote and 

not wait for the piece of paper and gavel it based on what he’s 

watching on that board. And the amount of time it takes him to 

look at the board, to go forward, take the gavel to the dais, it 

flipped on him. 

Q. So the information that he was calling the vote from was on 

the board at 214–214? 

A. That is my impression, although I will tell you, I will tell you 

it’s not like you can see in the video what it is he’s actually looking 

at. But it’s also very obvious that he’s looking up towards the gallery, towards the right-hand gallery if you’re standing on the dais, 

and it’s very obvious that he looks in that direction. Now, I don’t 

know, maybe somebody was standing up there saying to him, you 

know, like stop, I don’t know. Who knows. That would be totally 

you know speculation on my part. But the video makes it look like 

that. And that was the impression that we had that night when we 

were, you know, creating this committee. 

Q. But on this notion that the vote was closed, notwithstanding 

the manner in which he called the vote, if he called it at 214–214 

and closed the vote, then 215–213 would have been the wrong call, 

it would have been 214–214, isn’t that right? 

A. No. I don’t agree with that at all. I don’t agree with that at 

all. 


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Q. Again, I said notwithstanding the manner in which he called 

it. I thought it was your statement that he closed it at 214–214? 

A. No, no, I did not state that. You cannot see it in the video. 

Maybe it was 215–213 and he decided to say 214–214. That’s possible. I’m not going to concede that. I have no way of knowing that. 

You’re asking me to go into the land of speculation, and that’s exactly what that is. But I will tell you when he gaveled it, in the 

amount of time it took me to turn and look at that board, it was 

215–213 final. 

Q. I understand. But all I’m saying is that he called it 214–214 

and gaveled it, isn’t that right? 

A. Yes, absolutely gaveled it at 214–214. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Is it your view, Jo Marie, that given what we discussed regarding the tally slip and I believe there’s a piece of paper, are you 

aware there’s a piece of paper I guess up on the podium for the 

Speaker pro tem in terms of what you’re supposed to do? 

A. I didn’t know about that. 

Q. Okay. We’ve heard that there’s a sheet that’s put up there by 

the Parliamentarian? 

A. That I am aware of; that they’re very careful about the sequence of events that—— 

Mr. Paoletta. We each haven’t gotten it, have we? 

Ms. Tapia. No, we have. 

Mr. Paoletta. Well, we don’t need it right now. But it says—well, 

actually it’s in reference to this, I think. But there it is right there. 

It says rely on tally slip. But the point is that without necessarily 

having seen that your understanding is a tally slip was provided 

to the—and that’s a procedural step? 

A. Correct. 

Q. So is it your view that Mr. McNulty violated procedures by 

calling the vote from the screen and not relying on the tally slip? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And whether it was 215–213 or 214–214, the bottom line is 

it’s not the proper way to call a vote because there were people in 

the well, there were tally cards, well cards being entered. All of 

that would be—you know, you would avoid all that if you’re waiting 

for a tally slip to call the vote? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And that’s not what happened here? 

A. Correct. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If I can come back to my questioning. So the vote is 215–213. 

Is it your belief that at that point the vote should have been 

closed? 

A. At 215–213? 

Q. Yes. 

A. Well, the Chair had banged the gavel. It was clear from the 

board it was 215–213 final. Something was wrong. 

Q. What does final mean to you on the board? 

A. That it’s closed, the vote is closed, it’s done, you’re finished. 


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Q. Are you not aware of instances where it has said final and 

votes continued to be entered after that for whatever reason, someone appearing in the well or for some other reason? 

A. You know, since this has happened we’ve actually watched it. 

And I’m getting into the area of speculation, but there have been 

a couple of times where it has happened since. But we’ve been 

somewhat wondering why, as though it’s a—I suspect that it’s 

being done on purpose because it’s been since this vote. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember any time before? 

A. No, never. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If the Chair hadn’t closed the vote and it went from 214–214 

to 215–213, what do you think would have happened? 

A. What should have happened or what I think would have happened? 

Q. No, I’m sorry, not procedurally. What do you think the dynamic of the leadership would have been if it was 215–213? 

A. And they called it correctly? 

Q. They had not called it at all? 

A. At 215–213? 

Q. Yeah. 

A. That is such speculation I don’t know, I don’t know. 

Q. May I suggest is it possible that there would have been attempts to change Democratic votes to—— 

A. Well, that is what was going on at that moment actually. That 

was happening during that moment. So that would be a logical, a 

logical possible way to proceed, yes. 

Q. Are you, in your experience, are you aware of instances where 

000 is on the board for some period of time, there’s a close vote, 

somebody changes a vote and there’s nobody in the well and at that 

point the Chair bangs the gavel and announces it? 

A. If I can give actually just a little bit of history on this. The 

House rules were—the Democrats actually when they took over 

this past year prided themselves on we’re not going to hold votes 

open. And there’s even a House rule somewhat to the effect of, you 

know, it’s like a violation of a House rule if you hold a vote open. 

Q. I think it says in order to change the outcome of a vote? 

A. That would be correct, that would be correct. So there is this 

pressure that was going on for a while of not having a vote held 

open past, you know, so many minutes. And I can’t help but think 

that some of that may have been at play here. But it clearly wasn’t 

because then the vote was held open for a long time after it was 

called 214–214, which clearly changed the outcome. But it was— 

that House rule I think has been in the back of their minds that 

this has been something that they don’t want to be perceived as 

violating. 

Q. And part of the reason for this rule do you think was reaction 

to other votes that perhaps were held open too long when Republicans were in the majority? 

A. Again, I didn’t write the rule. 

Q. But you have no speculation as to why that rule was there? 


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A. I did not write the rule. 

Q. But my question was do you have any speculation as to why 

that was there? 

A. If we’re going to speculate, then I would speculate that they 

did it for exactly the reasons you’re saying. 

Q. Okay. Jo Marie, I apologize, I know you answered this. When 

you asked the Parliamentarians where are we, did you ask the 

question is the vote open? 

A. The—— 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Actually, Jo Marie, can you remember when you asked them 

that? 

A. It was after the 214–214. 

Q. Okay. 

A. It was—— 

Q. And where was Mr. Sullivan? Was he up on the rostrum right 

by the Speaker, by the Speaker pro tem? 

A. Again, this is one of the things that I have watched the video, 

and I actually do remember this, I remember talking to Wickham. 

I’m pretty sure that John Sullivan was preoccupied when I talked 

to Wickham. And Wickham was the one who told me yeah, the vote 

is opened. And I was like—and you know, and I have a long-term 

relationship with all the Parliamentarians, and it’s not like I’m 

going to stand there and scream at them about what happened. So 

I had a very quick conversation, went back to tell Boehner where 

we were, that the vote was opened. And at that point told him, I 

was like, you know, you’re going to have to vote the other way because I’ve got to get you to reconsider this vote. And that’s the ironic part about all this, is like you know the reconsideration, you 

know it’s always the majority is out is the way to do that, instead 

of pushing your Chair to gavel something that’s not accurate. 

That’s the way you do it. The majority has so many procedural— 

I mean they do. The majority controls so much of the process that 

to resort to something like this is just unthinkable. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. We’ve heard from—— 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Before you do that, in your conversation with Tom Wickham 

is it possible that he said the vote is open as opposed to opened, 

because certainly the latter suggests that it had been closed, the 

first indicates that it was never closed. Because this is the first 

time that we’ve heard someone speculate that the vote was closed 

only to be reopened. That’s why I’m asking? 

A. Again because it had been gaveled closed, because the board 

said final, that is my recollections of how things were. 

Q. I understand. But what I’m asking is, what I’m trying to ask 

here is notwithstanding the fact the vote was gaveled, I’m asking 

about whether the ability to accept votes continued uninterrupted 

after that happened? 


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A. There was almost suspended animation. When he called the 

vote and the board said 215–213 final, I will tell you people were 

in shock. There is just no other way to describe it. They were literally in shock. It was this—and it went immediately from shock 

to shame. And the chants began and it was shame, shame, shame. 

So were they taking votes during that period? I don’t recall them 

taking votes during that period. It felt pretty final. It felt like it 

was done, which is why you know when at some point I’m realizing 

that they are allowing more votes I went over to the Parliamentarian to ask, you know, had this been reopened. 

Q. So it was your belief that it had been closed at 214–214, it 

was final? 

A. Yeah, I mean he had banged it closed. 

Q. And this—— 

A. And announced 214–214. 

Q. That’s right. But then there was this instantaneous uptick on 

the board to 215–213, right? 

A. And again it said final, correct. 

Q. And it was your belief that the 214–214 would stand as the 

final vote and that the vote was over at that point? 

A. Well, again, people were asking me, you know, did we win, did 

they win, what’s the story. And I was like I’ve never seen anything 

like this ever. 

Q. But did anyone tell you that in fact the 214–214 was going 

to stand as the final call? 

A. The Chair did. 

Q. No, the Chair banged the gavel. I’m saying a subsequent time 

to that. 

A. Do you mean like a Parliamentarian or something? 

Q. No. Because if you watch the tape, just as you described, Mr. 

McNulty bangs the gavel, he announces this 214–214, now the 

board says 215—when I say now, please don’t give any temporal 

significance to that, but after that, and I don’t know when it happened, but after that it said 215–213 it was your belief that—— 

A. No, it wasn’t that. I’m telling you, Tom, it was there was no— 

there was no daylight. If you even asked me what I would believe 

what was happening, there’s a part of me that thinks that the second that that—I mean it may have said 213—I mean 215–213 

when he said it. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. When he turned away from the board it changed as he was 

calling it? 

A. You know, you’re asking me these split second moments. And 

I’m just telling you my—it was so fast where I’m looking at him 

and then I’m looking at the board and it was—— 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. For the moment I will concede in more specific terms. 

A. It wasn’t like 3 minutes later or it wasn’t even like 4 seconds 

later, it was right then. 

Q. We would concede that. But—I will concede that. But my 

question is it was your state of mind at the time that the 214–214 


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was in fact the final call and that your 215–213 vote would not be 

in play, if you will? 

A. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was—I actually honestly thought what 

was going to happen at that moment, I thought they are going to 

leave this at 214–213, they were going to somehow, you know, spin 

away the 215–213 final up on the board. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I’m sorry, Jo Marie, you said 214–213. You meant 214–214? 

A. Yeah. When he said 214–214 final, I assumed that that’s it, 

they’re going to stick to this. I assumed that it was, that this was— 

you know he called it, it’s 214–214. Again, our Members were furious because you know everything we were seeing was showing that 

we had won. And it was a—yeah, it was a tense moment. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You didn’t have any thought that maybe the Chair made a 

mistake and they’re going to keep this vote open at this point because of the obvious mistake in the call? 

A. The Chair had called it, Tom. I mean the Chair had said 214– 

214 final. I don’t—I’m not one who, you know, can step in and say 

to Mr. McNulty you know—— 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Can I—— 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Please finish what you were saying. Mr. McNulty—I’m sorry? 

A. I can’t tell Mr. McNulty, you know, excuse me, where did you 

get this from. I’m a Republican staffer. I can’t do that. 

Q. But couldn’t—I’m not suggesting anyone did anything 

wrong—couldn’t Mr. Boehner or someone have gone up to the 

Chair immediately and said what are you doing? 

A. Well, I’m sure people did, I’m sure people did. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Was it your view that it was the Chair’s, he was exercising 

his prerogative to close this vote, as improper as it was, was it your 

impression and your Members’ impression that he just at that 

point decided this vote is closed? 

A. Well, I will say it was closed, he closed that vote. He said 214– 

214 final and it was closed. And the minority even said it was 

closed. 

Q. And that was your impression? 

A. It just said a different thing than what the Chair had just 

called. 

Q. And you had Members asking you—— 

A. Furious. Oh, yeah. 

Q. [continuing]. Is this closed? 

A. Oh, yeah. 

Q. So they sort of had the impression it was closed? 

A. Oh, yeah. And literally immediately people were saying they 

stole that vote. I mean it was immediate. 


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EXAMINATION BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. Okay. So Jo Marie, with your 20 years of parliamentary expertise, can you explain to us the parliamentary significance of the 

gavel and the parliamentary significance of the gavel on the board, 

in your experience? 

A. Well, again, this was extraordinary. I have never seen anything like what happened that night. But when the Chair bangs 

the gavel and calls something that is supposed to be the end. 

That’s it. 

Q. Okay. So in your experience there is—and that’s very important I think to your view of what happened—that you really believe 

that there was a parliamentary significance to the gavel and to the 

word ‘‘final’’? 

A. Let me answer it this way. Every Member in that Chamber— 

well, I don’t know every Member, but I can tell you Republican 

Members in that Chamber thought it was final. 

Q. Right. And one other question. Are you familiar at all with 

the precedence where had the vote actually been closed at the time 

that he banged the gavel, because at the time he banged the gavel 

and the board flashed 215–213, if the precedence would support 

that that was a mistaken announcement and basically doesn’t 

count and basically under the precedence, you know, if there’s a 

disagreement between the Chair’s announcement and the final 

tally, the final tally wins out from the announcement? 

A. I think the question really, Muftiah, is why did he do it. You 

know where did it come from and why did he do it. 

Q. Yeah, we’re just trying to find out why he did it. 

A. In an extremely volatile atmosphere over a motion to recommit, why did he do it, why would he, you know, pull out of thin 

air a number and bang it closed, why would he do that? 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Wait. Let me ask, he didn’t pull the number out of thin air, 

according to your statement? 

A. No. I told you I don’t know. I saw him look over. Who knows 

what he saw because you can’t see it in the video. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. He didn’t pull it off the tally sheet? 

A. Correct, he didn’t pull it off the tally sheet, that’s clear. And 

who knows where he got that from. I don’t know, I don’t know. 

Maybe somebody yelled it to him, I don’t know. 

Q. If you look at this sheet now it says ignore scoreboard, rely 

on tally slips, so it is almost like it’s thin air because it’s telling 

you to ignore the scoreboard. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But—all right. I don’t think—let me just say for the record I 

don’t think the tally board is thin air, but that’s okay. Go ahead. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Jo Marie, we’ve been told that it’s not uncommon for the leadership to encourage the Chair or give some instructions to the 


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Chair to close votes quickly when it’s going to be a close vote. And 

you’ve obviously worked for Mr. Boehner when he was in the leadership and now the minority leader. Is that accurate? Does the 

leadership, whether it’s the leader himself or herself or the staff 

sometimes convey to the Chair that they want, you know, votes 

closed quicker, certain votes closed quicker than other votes? 

A. I’m not sure I have, you know, a—let’s put it this way. I never 

told the Chair to close a vote quickly, I never did. Whether or not 

that has happened or not, I would not be surprised if it hasn’t happened where you know you—because we’ve told the Chair before 

like, you know, on this particular vote it’s probably going to be 

close, so you know stay attentive, that sort of thing. It’s also been 

my personal belief that it’s better to do things in a deliberative way 

than do things in a hurried way. 

Q. When you say stay attentive, stay attentive to what? 

A. The Members voting, you know, making sure—on a vote 

where you’re having a close call or something, Members will actually hang back to find out can I vote a certain way, should I vote 

a certain way. And you know will hold what it is how they want 

to vote until pretty much the end to see how the vote is going so 

that the majority doesn’t lose the vote. When we were in the majority. 

Q. Was this vote different, was 814 different than the scenario 

we—— 

A. It was very rushed. 

Q. I’m sorry, let me just get it out so she can get a clear transcript. Was 814 different than the scenario we just described and, 

if so, how? 

A. Yes. It was very rushed. You could tell it was extremely chaotic. It was just very, very chaotic at the end. Members were 

changing their votes. It was just extraordinarily chaotic. Because 

usually what happens is you’ll get down to those last votes and 

then there’s—you know, there’s that point where you either know 

you’re going to lose the vote or you know you’re going to win the 

vote and then you’re done and you go through this normal process 

and you bang it closed. This one clearly was different because you 

know the piece of paper wasn’t there, it was just screaming and 

chaotic and Members still voting and it was just very different, yes. 

Clearly it was different. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t so different. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. It wouldn’t be any different if there were a piece of paper? 

A. Well, I think the answer to that is yes. If there had been a 

final piece of paper, then you would have known where the Members were that had voted. 

Q. But if the Chair had said quick, give me 214–214? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I don’t think the tally slip would have given it to 

the Tally Clerk because there was somebody just completing a vote. 

Mr. SPULAK. Don’t speculate on that. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Well, there were two well cards that were in 

De’Andre Anderson’s hand, so I don’t think Kevie Hanrahan would 

have handed up a slip without—— 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If there truly had been a conspiracy the Chair would have told 

the Clerk give me the piece of paper and whatever I say is on 

there, is on there. But anyway, so that’s my question. My question 

is would it have been any different if there was a piece of paper? 

A. Well, I will just tell you, Tom, there just seemed to be so much 

pressure that was exerted that night. I hate to even think what 

might have happened if that kind of pressure had — 

Q. Correct. But let me ask this. I think I asked this question and 

I wasn’t quite sure of the answer. You know, in all your experience 

have you not seen Chairs, both Democrats and Republicans, call a 

vote, in a proper way, but call a vote when their side was prevailing, again assuming — 

A. I’ve never seen a vote like this, I’ve never seen a vote like this. 

Q. But what was different about it, the fact that there wasn’t a 

piece of paper? 

A. The fact that the Chair calls it at 214–214, it is clear from 

everything you don’t know where he got that from, and the board 

says 215–213 final. What about that do you not understand? 

Q. I understand that. I’m asking you a more general question. 

And that is, is it not a rather common occurrence that—— 

A. No, no. 

Q. Well, my question—— 

A. What happened that night is not a common occurrence. 

Q. I understand that, but I’m asking this question. That the leadership would attempt to wrap up a vote following all proper procedures, but try to wrap up a vote quickly when their side was prevailing? When I say quickly I mean after 000 and in following all 

the proper procedures? 

A. I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here. 

Q. That the leadership will attempt to follow normal procedures 

but wrap up a vote, close a vote when their side is prevailing? 

A. You never disenfranchise Members, Tom. That’s what you’re 

asking. 

Q. No, that’s not what I’m asking. 

A. Well, then what are you asking? 

Q. I’m asking if after all the time has expired and there’s no one 

in the well at this particular time, will the leadership say okay, 

let’s close it now? 

A. Well, if there’s no one in the well voting, there’s no one appearing to be voting and it’s time to close the vote, then you close 

the vote. 

Q. When is it time to close the vote? 

A. When you’re at that point and you have—you know, it becomes obvious that Members have voted. 

Q. Let me finish, Mark. Go ahead. 

A. It becomes obvious Members have voted, you have your little 

piece of paper, you hand it up to the Chair, the Chair takes the 

piece of paper, announces the vote off the piece of paper and you’re 

done. 

Q. In your experience are you not aware sometimes where time 

has expired, one side is prevailing and that there is an attempt by 

the other side, the other side is losing, there’s an attempt by the 


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other side to try to change Members, either by seeing conversations 

on the floor of people who had voted, and in your experience, I’m 

asking that you would assume yeah, the other side is trying to 

change some votes, but they’re not in the well yet, they’re in the 

aisle, they’re back at the table, they’re talking, and it would be 

clear to you that yeah, they’re trying to switch some votes because 

it’s close and if they can switch a vote or two they might change 

the outcome? You’re not aware of that happening? 

A. I have never seen anything like what happened that night on 

this vote ever. 

Q. Let me just ask another question or two. Were you consulted 

about what you know? Was anyone on your side consulted about 

this unanimous consent request that they take the vote? 

A. Mr. Hoyer I think at one point attempted it on the floor. 

Again I’m remembering this from the video. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Yeah, but were you—sorry. 

A. No, no, no. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And the request was objected to? 

A. I know there were—no. Again, I’m remembering this from the 

video. I’m pretty sure that there were objections that were yelled 

out, I’m pretty sure. 

Q. I mean would that not have been a solution to—— 

A. No. The solution that should have been done in my personal 

opinion was it should have been a reconsideration vote, which is ultimately what finally they got to that point, but it was after they 

had switched some votes and after they had—you know, they realized—part of me thinks that I actually planted that idea in their 

head because you know I went over and said Boehner is going to 

change the prevailing side so he can reconsider his vote, and that’s 

you know—— 

Q. You said earlier that his vote was recorded. 

A. There was—— 

Q. Well, it wasn’t. 

A. It was not? 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

It was not recorded. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And so my question is you weren’t aware of that at the time? 

A. No. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Because of the chaos? 

A. Oh, it was so chaotic. I can’t even begin to tell you how much 

chaos there was. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If you were aware of it at the time and if you knew that Mr. 

Hoyer was going to move to reconsider, would you have—— 

A. I don’t know what I would have done, because it was such a 

mess on that floor. And, Tom, the level of anger over what had just 

happened, I mean, it was so—it was—it’s right up there with, oh, 

my God, they’ll do anything, including steal a vote. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Can I ask you just a couple of questions? 

A. Yeah, sure. 

Q. One, I would like to go back way before that particular night. 

A. Okay. 

Q. When you were working for the newly minted majority leader—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. And you were in something of a more unique situation because you were a new person coming into an already established floor operation—— 

A. That is correct. 

Q. [continuing]. At the beginning of that process, was there some 

discussion with the other floor offices as to sort of what the logistics were and how the mechanics of this worked? 

A. You know, I don’t know formalized—probably not formalized. 

I’ve worked, obviously, with you and Seth and folks so much that, 

you know, I felt very welcome and very, you know, much part of 

the team. 

Q. Was it pretty clear coming in sort of in the division of responsibilities that—well, let me rephrase that slightly. In the division 

of responsibilities, was closing votes the responsibility of the majority leader? 

A. No. 

Q. Was that—who was sort of in that chain? Was it the whip? 

Was it the Speaker? 

A. The Speaker is the one who actually gavels the vote closed. 

You know, clearly, there is—you know, when you’re watching a 

vote and watching it go to final, the Chair is taught and schooled 

about how you do close a vote. Now, I was never involved in that 

process of schooling the Chair on how to do that. 

Q. In your experience, was it usually—obviously, there was somebody from the Speaker’s office who sort of had the—was the final 

conduit to the Chair, saying you’re okay to start closing this thing 

down. But in your experience was that generally a communication 

between the whip folks and the Speaker office? 

A. Yeah. I’ll be honest with you. As the Republican leader, as the 

majority leader, we were not the ones closing votes. That’s correct. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Who was? 

A. The Chair. The Chair did it, the Speaker. The guy in the chair 

would be the one closing the vote. And the Parliamentarians, of 

course, watch very carefully. They watch to see if Members are 

coming, and you listen very carefully to what it is the ParliamenVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00334 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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tarians say, and you know at some point it’s obvious nobody else 

is voting and not changing the vote, and so you close it. 

Q. But there weren’t communications from perhaps the Speaker’s 

office to the Chair that, you know, let’s close down this vote, let’s 

wind up this vote? 

A. I have never seen what happened that night, ever. 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. Do you think then if it’s coming from the Parliamentarians, 

if the decision is to leave the vote open longer, is that a decision 

the Parliamentarians make? 

A. I will tell you I know John Sullivan feels very strongly about 

not disenfranchising Members. I know this. I am very aware of 

this, that he views this as the Holy Grail. You do not disenfranchise Members, and if Members want to change their vote or need 

to change their vote you don’t close a vote. If there’s a Member that 

is attempting to vote or change their vote, you don’t do it. And I 

have no reason to believe that his view would change. I mean, that 

has been my history of working with him, so—you know. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. On that question, are you aware of any instances where 

Chairs have tried to close a vote down only to be interrupted by 

the Parliamentarian because of this point that you’re making, of 

their deep concern about not disenfranchising any Members? 

A. I can’t tell you the specifics of like where in that process—of 

when it has happened. But I have witnessed where you’ll have 

somebody yell out like, you know, oh, Mr. Boehner is coming, you 

know. And they’ll actually raise their hand; and the Parliamentarians will see it and be like, oh, Mr. Boehner is getting ready to 

vote. And then the Member comes running down into the well and 

Boehner grabs the card, signs his name and turns it in. That is not 

an uncommon occurrence. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I have a couple of questions, but go ahead. 

Mr. HALPERN. Is it on this line? Because I want to bring her back 

to that era. Whatever makes sense. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Go ahead. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Sort of in the months leading up to that, I would like to talk 

about the mood of Republicans and sort of the level of trust that 

was out there. 

This was, obviously, a vote on the motion to recommit. To your 

knowledge, had Mr. Hoyer expressed some frustration with the Republican success on the motion to recommit? 

A. Oh, yes. As I say, this was extraordinary. I mean, I don’t 

know if you all are aware of this or not, but we even caused a bill 

to have to be pulled off the House floor right before the motion to 

recommit was going to be voted. It was on the D.C. vote bill. It had 

to do with a gun ban amendment in the District of Columbia. As 

I recall, it was Lamar Smith who offered it. 

And, you know, it’s an embarrassing thing when the leader has 

to pull a bill off the floor. And he did. He had to pull it off the floor 


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because he realized—at least I’m sure this is what he realized; otherwise, he wouldn’t have pulled the bill—that he would have lost 

that recommit, too. And that was, again, one of those recommits 

that the Democrats could not afford to lose. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. How many recommits did the Republicans lose when they 

were in control? 

A. You know, I should know the exact answer to this. I think, 

as a matter of fact, people have actually told me this, that one was 

done on purpose because we needed to fix a bill. So the recommit 

was actually adopted to fix the bill. And I think there might have 

been one other. But I’m just doing this based on, you know—— 

Q. But it was very, very, very rare? 

A. Never. You never lost a recommit. I mean, you just didn’t. It 

was one of the things that you just didn’t have happen. And that’s 

the reason why—it has been so amazing that, you know, we’ve won 

so many of them. And had this bill had to be pulled from the House 

floor—yeah, last year wasn’t actually the best year for the Democrats. 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. Well, can you explain for the benefit of Mark and Andrew the 

difference between the motion to recommit on that bill and the motions to recommit that have been adopted so far this year? 

A. Do you mean on the D.C. vote bill? 

Q. No, just generally, what has there been—20 something motions that have been—— 

A. That have been adopted? Yes. Two of which have actually become public law. 

Q. So the motion to recommit has been very successful this year. 

A. Extraordinarily successful. 

Q. I want to ask a question instead of saying something. Can you 

explain to them, because I think it might be helpful for them to understand the difference between the motions that have succeeded 

this year and that particular motion? 

A. You’re talking the promptly versus forthwith? 

Q. Yeah. 

A. The ones that we have had passed so far are done under a 

process that would immediately amend the bill. It’s just like another amendment. It’s a Republican amendment that’s being offered. 

And I also don’t know if you know this or not, but the Rules 

Committee has been just about as closed as it’s ever been. I think 

actually the Democrats just tied the number of closed rules in the 

history—recent history of the House in the closed rules they’ve 

done. So we haven’t been allowed to offer amendments. We haven’t 

been allowed to do anything. They just really shut this place down. 

So our only avenue really has been the recommit, and so we’ve 

been offering up Republican policy recommits. And we get to sort 

of choose if we want to amend the bill immediately or if what we 

want to do is to say, look, the bill really needs to get back to Committee. This amendment needs to be added. 


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So the forthwith is you amend the bill immediately. If it gets 

adopted, then you go to final passage and you know the outcome 

is the outcome whatever that is. 

If it’s a forthwith—promptly, I’m sorry. If it’s a promptly recommit, then what it does is it says that the bill needs to go back to 

committee for further amendment, including this one. The committee should adopt this one and conduct other ones, but they need 

to have the committee basically go back and really look at this bill 

again and then send it back to the House after they’ve dealt with 

this amendment. 

So the Lewis amendment that night and the Lamar Smith 

amendment on the D.C. vote bill, both were stated as—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Promptly. 

Ms. ST. MARTIN. As promptly, yes. I need to double-check with 

Lamar Smith, but I’m almost certain that was a promptly recommit. But I know the Lewis one was a promptly recommit, and basically it would send it back to committee with the amendment. 

So, you know, here we were. We were getting ready to adopt this 

amendment, and it would have sent it back to committee. 

You know, I actually—do you have a copy of the Lewis recommit 

here? I just want to make sure it’s promptly. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I don’t know. 

Mr. HALPERN. It was. 

Ms. ST. MARTIN. It is? I had that moment of like I’m pretty sure 

it’s promptly. Yeah, that’s right, yeah. So it would send it back to 

committee and then the committee would have to, you know, consider and then report back to the House and then you would be 

back at that stage again. 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. And why is it that the Republican leadership would offer 

promptly as opposed to forthwith if the promptly is just go back to 

committee and do this specific amendment and the Parliamentarians have said, well, if you go back to committee that’s the amendment that you have to do or consider? You know, I mean, why that 

instead of just doing a forthwith? 

A. Sometimes the bill is not so bad that you think, you know, 

this one additional amendment and then let the bill go. Other 

times, you think the bill—the underpinnings of the bill are such 

that the committee needs to consider this amendment in the context of a larger bill and actually rethink that process. So that’s why 

you send it back to committee as opposed to immediately amending 

the bill. I mean, we’ve done this over and over again on bills, that 

it’s just been an additional amendment that is considered. 

Q. But then why not just send it back? Why not just do a 

straight motion if you think that the bill—— 

A. Because you want it amended with that particular amendment on it. 

Q. But the committee can only do that one particular amendment. Then why send it back? Why not just do the forthwith? 

A. So that they can rethink the whole thing. 

Q. And maybe not report it back to the House at all? 

A. Correct. 


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BY MR. HALPERN

Q. Jo Marie, are you aware of some press reports where the majority leader expressed a desire to rethink the minority’s right to 

the motion to recommit? 

A. Yes, yes, yes. 

Q. Is it fair to say that our—that the Republican Members were 

also aware of those? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you mean before the vote? 

A. Yes, yes. After the—after the D.C. gun vote, the Democrats 

threatened to take away the recommit, which, of course, is really 

the Holy Grail to—— 

Q. The minority? 

A. Correct. It is a huge minority right. 

Q. How long has it been around? 

A. I think we actually guaranteed it in the 104th Congress. We 

guaranteed it to the minority. We guaranteed it to the Democrats. 

So we never took the Democrats right to recommit. 

Q. Is this going back to the 1800s? 

A. It’s been around a long time. You know, I don’t know exactly 

what year. But what the—I actually do not know what year the recommit came into being. I mean, I’m afraid to even guess. But it’s 

been around a long time. It’s been around ever since I’ve been here. 

But it was not a guaranteed thing. And the—— 

Q. The Republicans guaranteed it? 

A. [continuing]. Previous Democrat majority actually took it 

away upon occasion. 

Q. Oh, really? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Back in the ’80s? 

A. Yeah. Like a rule wouldn’t give us a recommit. 

Q. I see. 

A. But under—in the 104th Congress we actually instituted into 

the rules that the recommit is a guaranteed thing, and the only 

way you can take it away is if you get a rule to take away it in 

the rules. It’s a two-step process, is the only way it can be done. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. So you’ve got the sort of public statements? 

A. Yeah. 

And, also, just so you’re aware, when those public statements 

came out, you know, we had to sort of resort to the only tools available to us, which was tell Mr. Hoyer, you know, if you’re going to 

even think about changing the recommit—and what they were 

talking about doing is actually changing the test of germaneness on 

the recommit, which would have had an enormous impact on our 

ability to advance what would otherwise have been a legitimate 

amendment—Republican amendment onto, you know, completely 

under House procedure, and they were going to change the test of 

germaneness which hasn’t been touched since 1822 or something. 

And it would have changed how the germaneness rules work in the 


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House and this long-standing history of how germaneness rules 

work. 

At least the press accounts of it and sort of what Hoyer was actually stating at the time would have indicated that they were going 

to take this enormous right away from us. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But that never happened, right? 

A. It’s still out there, Tom. I’m still worried about it. 

Q. Isn’t it true that it was recent changes by the Democrats to 

rules which facilitated the opportunities for these? 

A. I’m sorry. Restate the question. 

Q. Changes to the House rules in this Congress that facilitated 

the ability of Republicans to offer these motions to recommit? 

A. How so? I’m not aware of it. How so? 

Q. Hasn’t the adoption of PAYGO assisted in the ability to have 

a wider test of germaneness? 

A. No, no, no. Those two things have nothing to do with each 

other. I know that that’s the argument that’s put forth, but that’s 

absolutely not right. 

BY MR. HALPERN

Q. So using all this sort of context that evening, would it be accurate to say that the Republican Members viewed what was going 

on at the rostrum as more than just a simple mistake? 

A. That Republicans did? Absolutely, absolutely. I mean, you’re 

absolutely—what you’re hearing right now is absolutely the mood. 

That we’ve been winning recommits, Hoyer threatens to take away 

our ability to do recommits by changing the test of germaneness on 

them, had to pull the D.C. vote, all of this, and led up to, oh, my 

God, they just stole a vote. I mean, that’s just the way it was. 

Q. Clearly, there was this divergence between sort of the utterances of the Chair, what was showing up on the board—there was 

little communication or no communication from the majority side, 

is that correct, on what’s going on here? 

A. You mean majority to us? 

Q. Yes. 

A. No communication. 

Q. So it’s fair to say that Republican Members were sort of left 

to guess what was going on here? 

A. Well, ‘‘guess’’ is a funny word because it wasn’t guesswork. 

They closed the vote 214–214 final. The board said 215–213 final. 

It was just—there was no guesswork in this. And it wasn’t until 

it became somewhat apparent that it looked like they were reopening the vote that, you know, I went over to ask and said, excuse 

me. 

Q. In the normal course of events, both when you were in the 

majority and over the past year, year and change, that the Democrats have been in the majority, when there have been errors in the 

Chair or wherever, has it been sort of the normal course that somebody would come over and flag that for you and say—and try to 

figure out a way to resolve it? 

A. If you’re asking me do I have a lot of communications with 

the Democrats on the floor, absolutely, you know. I will also tell 


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you—I mean, it’s one of these things—you know, every morning my 

staff actually talks to Pelosi and Hoyer’s floor staff about what the 

day is going to look like, how many vote stacks are we going to 

have, you know, what’s the day going to look like, you know, are 

we still going to proceed with suspensions, are we going to then 

turn to, you know, the energy tax bill and are we going to, you 

know, whatever, and just sort of map out the day for what it’s 

going to look like. 

On days where we feel particularly aggrieved over something the 

Democrats have done, you know a logical outcome of that is to expect process motions, which we communicate to the Democrats. 

A more recent example of it was actually last week where we had 

an agreement not to have the House open during Tom Lantos’ funeral and yet the Democrats decided to open the House during the 

funeral, which caused a great deal of consternation on our side 

coming on the heels of a closed rule providing for no separate vote 

on a contempt resolution against the President’s chief of staff and 

his former counsel. With no separate vote on that. The most closed 

rule I’ve ever seen in my life. So do we talk? Absolutely. Do we 

communicate? Yes, we do. Are we pleased with how the Democrats 

have decided to conduct these closed rules? No, not pleased; and we 

have communicated that as well. Is that what you’re getting at? 

Q. Well, I’m thinking more to this particular evening. There was 

no effort to try and flag for you, hey, there’s a problem here; we 

need to figure out a way to fix that. Is that safe to say? 

A. That is safe to say. There was no discussion. 

Q. Okay. Thanks. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Jo Marie, I just wanted to go back on a couple of things that 

we’ve talked about with other people. It doesn’t sound like you 

have any knowledge of, but I just wanted to just touch it. 

One is De’Andre Anderson. At some point, you know, after the 

vote, it’s been called, and then it up ticks to 215–213—whether it’s 

at the exact moment—but he’s trying to clear off the computer, and 

there’s a problem with the computer. Are you aware of that or were 

you aware of it at the time? 

A. Not at the time. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I found out later that they, quote, unquote, dumped the data, 

is what I was told. 

Q. Okay. 

A. And Karen Haas, who is the former Clerk at the House, she 

somewhere during—it was after, after we left the floor, we were 

back in Boehner’s office and then let’s say I had, you know, convened a meeting over in our conference room. Karen actually came 

to that meeting. And one of the things that Karen told us was you 

need to get them to preserve all the records. You just need to get 

them. And I remember that was one of the things. It was like, you 

know, Karen can you help with this, because, you know, she’s been 

a Clerk of the House. And then that’s when this idea of trying to 

assure records were preserved so that we would know and understand what happened first came into being. 

Q. I see. 


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A. But, no, I never even heard this guy’s name until this moment. 

Q. De’Andre Anderson? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Or Ed Sorenson? 

A. Ed I know, but I don’t know De’Andre. 

Q. At some point, you know, there’s a discussion on the rostrum 

about, you know, how to get that board to come down. Because 

that’s what was the problem, and he talked about aborting the 

vote. Were you aware of any of those discussions? 

A. Not at the time, not at the time, no. This was after the fact 

that—this might—may have even been like a couple of days later 

that I found this out. It might have been the next day. I just really 

don’t remember. But I do remember the term being, yeah, they 

dumped the data, being how it was sort of said. And, you know, 

at first I was like, oh, God. 

Mr. SPULAK. But that was afterwards? 

Ms. ST. MARTIN. Yeah. It wasn’t when we were on the floor, no. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And then I think the last thing is, we’ve had a little discussion here, but to the extent there’s been any efforts in the past that 

you’re aware of to close a vote by whomever, right, it’s always been 

with the understanding that every vote that’s sort of in is going to 

be counted. So even if it’s let’s close it down now, it’s that, whatever that means in terms of timing, it’s going to capture every vote 

that’s—certainly, if a well card has been handed up and is in the 

rostrum sort of area—— 

You know, there may have been instances in the past where 

somebody is running down the aisle and whether he’s in the well 

or not or something—but to the extent that they are in the seated 

Tally Clerk’s hand or the standing Tally Clerk, that whatever effort 

has been made to close a vote, it has been always the intention and 

the practice actually and in fact counting votes that have been in, 

you know, that the Tally Clerk or the seated Tally Clerk’s hand, 

right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And that whenever you close the vote, it is not to result in 

the disenfranchisement of any Member? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. SNOWDON. One last question. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I think one of the first things you said today was that you recalled when the vote got very close towards the end it became very 

apparent that the Democrats were struggling and there was a lot 

of finger pointing and it looked like efforts to persuade Democratic 

Members to vote or to change their votes. Do you recall who was 

doing the finger pointing or the convincing? 

A. Any specific people? 

Q. Yeah. 

A. These are impressions that I had, so specific people—I can remember—I want to say Hoyer was doing it. There was just a lot 

of movement on that side. I don’t know that I recall a particular 


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person. It was just very—a lot of movement, a lot of chaos and this 

feels of urgency, I guess is the right word. You could see it in the 

way people were talking to each other and staff are clearly all in 

that mode. 

Q. Who in particular if you can recall? 

A. I know Hoyer was doing it. It is one of those things where I 

wish I had a specific recollection of individuals, like, I do remember 

Catlin being pretty agitated. That’s—you know, to go into specific 

people, I’d rather have a very clear—it was just one of those things, 

watching people, watching their faces and watching conversations 

and I don’t—I’m not comfortable enough, I guess is the right word, 

to finger point at people. Yeah, I remember Hoyer and I am pretty 

sure Catlin was one who was trying to—you know, she was moving 

around a lot over there. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Is it uncommon in close votes and particularly important 

votes that as you get down to no time, that leadership on both 

sides doesn’t—I’m not talking about afterwards. I’m saying leading 

up to zero, zero, zero on a close vote of consequence, if you will, is 

it not uncommon for the leadership to be whipping, to be talking—— 

A. I have never seen anything like this, Tom. 

Q. You’ve never seen anything like the people trying to change 

votes? I’m not talking about afterward. I’m just talking about leading up to the vote—I mean, leading up to closing the vote. 

A. The—I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve never seen anything like this. I don’t know how else to respond to you. 

Q. I mean, I think—I think to the extent—in direct reference— 

to the extent there is—you know, it seems to me—I didn’t spend 

any time on the floor—but, you know, the difference is that if 

you’re trying to get people to change their vote and you’re keeping 

the vote open, it is not going to be frantic, it is going to be deliberate. And in this case, it was that they were closing a vote down, 

you know, without going through the process, and that is the part 

that seems to be a lot more frantic and chaotic because—— 

A. That is correct. That is absolutely correct. 

Q. The flip of keeping a vote open is a completely different dynamic than, you know, get a number, close it and there is no process followed? 

A. That is absolutely correct. 

Q. I mean, would you agree with that? 

A. Absolutely correct. The thought that you would attempt to create your own outcome by making the vote go faster is not an outcome you want. That is just not what you want. It is better to slow 

things down, make sure everybody has voted, make sure everybody 

has voted the way they want to and settle things before you go to 

bang that gavel and call that vote. I mean, that is just—that is the 

way it should be done. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Can I add something? 

BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. So listening to you this morning, it seems as though, then, 

given the relationship between the parties, what is going on with 


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the motion to recommit, you know, the frantic—the chaos, that in 

your mind there was an intention that—that McNulty’s state in 

your mind—that McNulty’s state of mind was to gavel that down 

and potentially even to disenfranchise Members? 

A. At that moment I thought they had stolen the vote, yes. 

Q. After all was said and done—I realize, you know there was 

a lot of chaos going on, but when all was said and done at the end, 

did any of your Members complain that they were not recorded— 

or Boehner’s side, your boss’ side. We realize that is a separate 

case there. But did any Member on your side of the aisle complain 

that they were not recorded or recorded properly? 

A. They complained bitterly that they felt like the vote had been 

stolen from them. That what the complaint was, Muftiah, and it 

wasn’t like we were getting into a discussion about, oh, so and so 

didn’t get to vote. The anger was really directed towards the fact 

that it—you know, now what? I’ll do anything, including steal a 

vote. 

Q. But no specific Member came to you and said they didn’t 

record my vote or they didn’t record it accurately? 

A. I have no recollection of a Member complaining about that to 

me. My recollections were all about how did this happen, have you 

ever seen this happen before, no. They stole the vote. That was the 

complaint. 

Mr. SPULAK. May I have one last question? 

Ms. ST. MARTIN. But I also didn’t ask anybody either, just so you 

know. I didn’t ask them were you disenfranchised. Did you feel 

disenfranchised. I didn’t ask that question either. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If I may ask you to speculate. 

A. It’s your favorite thing to do, Tom. 

Q. This is pure speculation. Given the outcome and given where 

the Democrat votes were, if they had just decided just to leave it 

open as long as they needed to change votes—and I say that because there were votes there in the end to—and switchers who 

were there to push it prior to the time that the vote was finally 

called. So what I’m asking you, do you think the result would have 

been different if they just decided to leave it open as long as they 

needed to find the votes and to switch the votes? 

A. The Democrats chose not to do that. They chose not to do that, 

Tom. They decided instead to do what happened that night. I don’t 

know why they chose to do that. It clearly was a mistake to do 

what they did, very clearly a mistake to do what they did. And I 

hope they learned a valuable lesson from it. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. It would seem that if they did that they might have been 

thinking there weren’t the votes to switch and, you know, they 

needed to close it at that moment. But that’s speculation. 

A. Speculation that I would also think is within the realm of possibility. Because I will tell you, Tom, once they reopened it after 

all of that that went on, you know, who knows if it had been held 

open what our side would have been able to do. You know, at that 

point when they had made up that kind of incredible breach of 


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House processes, it—I could even speculate to you that Democrat 

Members suddenly were like, oh, our team is in the toilet right 

now, we need to help them out. 

So maybe they wouldn’t have gotten the votes if they had done 

it properly. It would have been on the policy and not on the mistake that was made. And those votes that switched could have been 

based on that. You have to get into a Member’s head. 

Mr. SPULAK. I see. Okay. We’re done. 

[Whereupon, at 11:49 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 

CERTIFICATE OF DEPONENT/INTERVIEWEE

I have read the foregoing pages, which contain the correct transcript of the answers made by me to the questions therein recorded.—Witness Name. 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF CATLIN O’NEILL 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 12:10 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, SENIOR GOVERNMENT RELATIONS ADVISOR, KING & 

SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., WASHINGTON, 

DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. Catlin, thanks for coming this morning. As you may 

know, the Select Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities 

of August 2, 2007 is charged with investigating the circumstances 

surrounding roll call vote 814 and the subsequent motion to recommit. Some areas that we’re interested in include the duration of the 

vote and matters like that. We’ll ask you to describe for us in a 

narrative form what you remember about that afternoon. But first, 

I will ask you to tell us a little bit about your experience on the 

Hill, your job responsibilities today. 

Ms. O’NEILL. I was hired in 2003. George Crawford hired me. 

And originally I was more or less the minority leader’s executive 

assistant. And then about 2 years into that, there was a position 

open on the floor, assistant—floor assistant and I took that position 

and was trained by Howard Moon and Jerry Hartz and have been 

in that role ever since. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. What are your responsibilities now? 

A. My responsibilities pretty much have to do with making sure 

everything’s flowing and running on time. I mean from making 

sure that the Chamber is warm or cold—cooler, depending on 


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Members—and closing a vote, putting the presiding officer in the 

chair, scheduling the Chair, just exchanging information with 

whomever needs it. More troubleshooting I think, sort of catch-all. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So what did you do in furtherance of those responsibilities for 

roll call vote 814 on August 2? 

A. I—okay. Well, I think at 11:45 on a Thursday night or so, 

Rosa had just finished her remarks, people were going crazy. It 

went from a very great feeling on our side to, oh, my God, what 

the hell is going on? I remember getting the list of Members who 

hadn’t voted yet, seeing them on the floor, looking at the numbers 

and saying, oh, this is going to be tight; and then telling the Chair, 

I think we have—you know, we’re going to have a tight situation 

here and just wait for me to let you know. 

And then I—when I close a vote, I sort of look to the desk, the 

manager’s table, to see if we’re ready or not ready to go; if Members have gotten in, how many people have gotten in. So I don’t 

actually have much access to the minute-to-minute information on 

who’s voted, who hasn’t voted unless I’m running back and forth 

to the desk. 

So I said, let’s just, you know, bear with me until I get a signal 

from them. And then chaos ensued. And at that point I didn’t really know what was going on or what was happening or—— 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. What did you say to the—I mean, are you communicating to 

the Chair with hand signals, or verbally? 

A. Verbally. I mean it sort of depends on how many people are 

on the rostrum, who’s approaching the rostrum. I usually tell the 

Parliamentarians that we’re ready to close a vote. I told Mr. 

McNulty because I think there was 3—3 minutes actually left on 

the clock—and said, this is going to be tight, so just bear with me. 

Q. So what does that mean, ‘‘bear with you,’’ what are you then 

going to tell him down the road to—— 

A. We’re ready to close. 

Q. Okay. So does that mean he should be sort of on notice that 

when the clock gets to 0:00 that he should look to you to close it 

down quicker? Or what does that—— 

A. It’s sort of amorphous. I’m waiting for a signal, some sort of 

idea and then I can say to the Parliamentarians or the Chair at 

that point, we’re ready to go. Which doesn’t really necessarily mean 

that they’re going to do what I tell them to do. I mean, I think 

that—people who are in the chair tend to think that it’s their call 

because it’s the discretion of the Chair. 

Q. But if you, as a typical rule, tell the Chair sort of to wait for 

my cue, this is sort of an unusual vote, a close vote, to wait for my 

cue before you close it down, do they typically abide by that? Or 

do they sometimes go do their own thing? 

A. Go do their own thing anyway. They’re a Member of Congress. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. When you say you close the vote, as you’ve just said, you don’t 

close the vote. But is it essentially your role to—or as you see it, 

to let the Chair know when all the Democrats that you think are 

going to vote have voted? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Is that the purpose for the communication? 

A. Yes. And sometimes the Republicans as well. I mean, there’s 

a lot of let’s try and get everybody in and let’s get it timely. It’s 

more like, let’s keep things moving, let’s go. But it’s not me, obviously, talking to the Chair and saying, it must be closed now. Because I also know that there’s a process in place that has to happen. When I am to say, now would be a good time to close the vote, 

minutes go by. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Where were you standing during this vote, do you recall? 

A. Right by the Parliamentarian’s desk on the floor. 

Q. Okay. And did you stand there the whole time? 

A. No. I was moving around. I was giving out pieces of paper 

with the people who hadn’t voted to see if I could find them. 

Q. Okay. And when it got—as it got tighter, you got the list of 

Members who hadn’t voted yet. Randy said this is going to be tight, 

you talked to Mr. McNulty and said, bear with me. What happened 

after that? 

A. After that, I think—I mean at some point I definitely went to 

the way back desk to inform the floor staff that they should be 

looking for these Members in the back corner. 

Q. Okay. This is before he initially calls it? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Okay. 

A. And then I went back into the well and then—I never—there 

was no communication at that point I don’t recall, between me and 

him. 

Q. Do you remember, Catlin, Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle? 

A. Yes. Well, not the aisle, but I remember him being in the well. 

Q. All right. Do you remember what he was saying—or what was 

he doing? 

A. He and I had a conversation that I said, there’s 13 people who 

still haven’t voted. 

Q. Okay. 

A. And then that was all we said to—that’s the only words we 

exchanged. 

Q. Did you have a list of that? Did you show it to him or did you 

just say—— 

A. No. I had a list in my hand. I didn’t show it to him. 

Q. So we’ve heard—and, you know, we’ve watched the videotape, 

right, and Mr. Hoyer comes down the sort of the center aisle. Is it 

after he comes down that you’re talking to him? 

A. Yeah. I mean, I guess. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember him coming down? You know, you 

can hear it on the tape and we’ve heard it from others, he says 

something like, close the vote? 


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A. Yeah. He—I was in the well standing by the door where the 

Parliamentarian’s desk is. And that was after he and I had talked 

about there being 13 Members. And at that point I believe I went 

to talk to the floor staff to go find the 13 Members, and then came 

back. And what happened after that, I saw him in the well. It 

wasn’t—I was preoccupied with Members. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I can’t say definitively that I heard anything. 

Q. Okay. All right. And can you—at a certain point, right, Mr. 

McNulty calls out 214–214, correct? 

A. Numbers—correct, I guess. 214–214. 

Q. Do you remember anything before that? I mean you talked to 

Mr. Hoyer, you’re trying to find—you’re trying to find—talking to 

staff about finding Members. Do you remember anything else before that, before Mr. McNulty calls out the vote? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. And what’s your recollection of when he called it out? 

What was your reaction? 

A. I don’t remember him hearing—him calling the vote. I just remember looking out and thinking, something’s going on, what’s 

going on? And trying to figure out what had happened. 

Q. Oh, okay. So did you hear him call out 214–214? 

A. Huh-uh. 

Q. Okay. What do you remember Mr. McNulty doing? 

A. I mean, he was in the chair. I don’t have—I mean, after that? 

Or at that point or—— 

Q. Right. 

A. I mean, I had always put him in the chair because he was the 

best. He had been in the—the last majority. He knew what he was 

doing. 

Q. Okay. And let’s just back up a little bit. So the normal process 

is, you’re standing there when you get the signal from the table 

that it’s ready to close; is that how it works? 

A. There wasn’t a normal process. That’s part of the problem. I 

mean, between suspensions and recommits, I mean the Chair 

sometimes calls it before they think everyone’s in; they’re looking 

at the numbers, they think everyone’s in and they move forward 

to close the vote. And sometimes I just, you know—we let that go 

because we’re ready to move on. I mean, it—there’s no hard fast 

sort of rule that applies to everything. 

Q. Okay. But on a close vote, is there a general sort of procedure 

that you are following so that you know the folks at the computer 

are seeing who’s voted and they can—— 

A. I wish there was. 

Q. Really. Okay. So you had told them to bear with you—— 

A. I said I think this is going to be close. And I actually felt as 

though I was the only person that was aware that it was going to 

be close. I mean, it’s late at night and everybody’s carrying on, having a good time. We’re right off of this—— 

Q. Do you remember talking to any of the Parls, the Parliamentarian staff, about it being a close vote? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember saying anything like be on your toes 

to any of the Parl staff? 


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A. No. No. 

Q. Okay. 

A. They usually are. So—— 

Q. Okay. All right. So what do you next remember after, again, 

you—McNulty calls out the vote. You don’t remember that? 

A. No. It went from we’re voting to chaos. I mean literally. I 

mean, I don’t know what I was doing at the time, but I had to sort 

of backtrack and figure out what had happened. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember Mr. McNulty—I’m sorry—Mr. Hoyer 

speaking with Mr. Sullivan right—sort of right near you? 

A. They were talking; that I saw. 

Q. Do you remember what was exchanged? 

A. I wasn’t privy to that conversation. I was down on the floor. 

Q. Okay. How far away, though? I mean you’re—— 

A. Like by the door. 

Q. Okay. So you’re not in earshot to hear what was being said? 

Okay. Did you have any further conversations with Mr. Hoyer? 

A. No. 

Q. Or Mr. Sullivan? 

A. I’m not certain but I’m—I would probably have gone to Mr. 

Sullivan and said, what happened? What’s going on? But with regard to the vote. 

Q. Right. And do you remember—did you do that or—— 

A. Maybe one of the Parls, maybe I shouted it out. I mean just 

trying to figure out how do we move forward, what happened, 

what’s going on. 

Q. Okay. And do you remember anyone saying anything to you 

about what had happened? 

A. I’m sure someone did. I can’t—I don’t know who it was. It 

could have been a staff member. It could have been—at some point 

I realized that we need to move forward because something happened. I don’t—I don’t know. 

I mean, I’d be sort of speculating if I was just—I don’t—at some 

point I figured out what was going on. How I found out what was 

going on is up for discussion. 

Q. You don’t know? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Okay. Okay. Do you remember Mr. McNulty reading off the 

script that Mr. Sullivan gave to him? 

A. No. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Have you watched the tape? 

A. Yeah, I have. 

Q. How long—how long ago? 

A. Right after it happened. 

Q. Okay. And on that tape, there’s a point where Mr. Hoyer says 

to Mr. Sullivan, you know, ‘‘We control this Chamber, not you.’’ Do 

you remember seeing that on the tape? 

A. I remember him—seen talking to each other, but I don’t—— 

Q. Do you know what their body language was—you couldn’t 

hear what they said. What was the body language? Was it a happy 

conversation? 

A. No. No. 


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Q. Okay. There’s another point on the tape where Mr. McNulty 

says, ‘‘I called it at 214 to 214.’’ And he’s also—I’m not saying when 

he actually called the vote, but after this process starts to go on, 

he’s saying that almost looks like he’s providing an explanation to 

somebody. Were you near the rostrum when he said that? 

A. Well, I remember it from the video. But, no. I mean, I may 

have—I was probably out by the first door, by the Parliamentarian’s desk. 

Q. Okay. Does it jog your memory at all as to who he might have 

been talking to? 

A. No idea. 

Q. I mean, would you agree that it almost looks like he’s saying 

that I—you know, I did what I was supposed to do and sort of that 

was his demeanor when he made that comment? 

A. I can’t say. I don’t remember exactly what it was he said. 

Q. Okay. You—I think you said that you are aware that there’s 

a process in place for closing votes. So when you convey to the 

Chair or to the Parliamentarians that it’s time that, you know, 

wrap it up on a particular vote, that they have to do, you know, 

their process and that can take a couple of minutes; is that right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. What’s your understanding of what that process entails? 

A. My understanding of process is that if a Member votes by 

card, it is then turned into the first desk at the rostrum, at which 

point it is verified that—I believe this is right—that the person 

who accepts the card verifies that they have gotten it and from said 

Member. And then they turn it to the next desk at the rostrum, 

where it is manually entered. And then I believe once the Chair 

says, Have ‘‘all Members voted?’’ that starts the process of the 

Reading Clerk starting to read the names of the person who manually voted. And then once that’s all done, you have some sort of— 

whether they’re gratuitous or not—people yelling one more. There’s 

a wait to get people to the well. Then that process goes again. And 

then at some point everybody realizes that all Members who are 

present are voting, write it on a card, and they give it to—the person at the front desk writes it on a card. They give it to the Parliamentarian. The Parliamentarian hands it to the Chair. 

Q. Okay. Have you seen that process take place when you were 

on the floor? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Can you think of any situations where that process didn’t take 

place prior to August 2? 

A. Yes. But it was happening. 

Q. I’m not following you. 

A. The process was actually happening. Members have read off 

the board before—prior to receiving the card. 

Q. Okay. But the card was being prepared? 

A. On this specific occasion I have no idea. 

Q. Okay. What about on prior occasion? Have you ever seen 

somebody share a call vote without receiving a tally slip? 

A. In their hand, yes. 

Q. Can you recall any—the specifics of that? 

A. No. I don’t—specifics; maybe it’s a suspension, maybe I don’t 

know what vote it is. No. 


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Q. Okay. I’ll represent to you that we’ve heard from numerous 

people in this investigation that Mr. McNulty did call that vote 

without getting a tally slip. Were you aware of that at the time? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. And how did you become aware of that? 

A. I have no idea. 

Q. Do you recall being aware of that that evening, or is this 

something you learned after the fact? 

A. That evening. That evening. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. You mean when it was happening? 

A. Not when it was happening. After. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So you think somebody told you that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. It wasn’t like you were looking and saw Mr. McNulty, you 

know, reading off the board without the slip in hand? 

A. Did not see that. 

Q. Okay. Do you recall seeing Members in the well at the time 

he called the vote? 

A. I’m sure there were Members in the well. 

Q. Okay. 

A. There are always Members in the well. I don’t recall though. 

Q. We’ve also seen a document that the Parliamentarians put up 

on the rostrum, or up on the Speaker’s podium, that sort of walks 

through the cues that the Speakers are supposed to use to close 

down a vote. Have you seen that? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you, as somebody who is involved in scheduling the Speakers, give them any cues or guidance or anything before they take 

the Chair? 

A. Not really. It was sort of a learning process for everybody. 

Q. Mr. McNulty sounds like he’s a pretty experienced Chair. Do 

you know why he would have called a vote without having the tally 

slip in his hand on a particularly close vote? 

A. No. 

Q. If your job, or one of your responsibilities, is to signal the closing of the vote, is that true for every vote? Or is that really limited 

to particular situations? 

A. More or less true for every vote. 

Q. Okay. We’ve, again, been told by several people that Mr. 

Hoyer came up onto the rostrum and said several different times, 

close the vote, or close the vote now. Recognizing that you didn’t 

hear that that night, how common an occurrence is that for the 

majority leader to come up and give sort of direct instruction? 

A. To—— 

Q. The Chair, the Parls, the Clerks, whoever’s up on the rostrum. 

A. It’s happened in the past. 

Q. Can you ballpark it for me? Half a dozen times, 50 times? 

A. Half a dozen times. I mean, not frequently. 

Q. Okay. In what type of situations does that typically happen, 

if you can summarize that? 


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A. Time. Has to do with keeping votes open too long. I mean, in 

my experience it’s been not wanting to keep votes open too long, 

and move on to the next order of business. 

Q. So it’s not necessarily the fact that it’s a close vote? 

A. No. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you recall that any of them were—well, do you recall anyone in particular that the majority leader would have done it, on 

or did it on? You said half a dozen times? 

A. In the chair? 

Q. Yeah. Where the majority leader directly addressed the Chair 

to close it down. 

A. Directly addressed the Chair, no. Usually it’s me. 

Q. Right. But you mentioned that you thought he maybe had 

done it maybe a half dozen times? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Do you remember any of those votes that he did it on specifically? 

A. No. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Catlin, excuse me. Are you familiar that the majority leader 

has in the last, I don’t know, month or so admonished the House 

that he wanted to see votes ended just generally quicker? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Across the board; not just on some votes but on all votes? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So is this what you are alluding to sort of generally in trying 

to get the Chair to close the vote within a shorter period of time 

so that the House can move on? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. Did any of them have to do with—were any of them involving a close vote like this one? 

A. Not that I recall. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. How—did the majority leader ever come to you and say—give 

you instructions to tell the Chair to close down a vote? 

A. No. It’s more of a we need to move this along. 

Q. Said to who, to you? 

A. To me. 

Q. Okay. And then does he expect you to relay that to the Chair, 

to go ahead and close it down? 

A. Not necessarily. I wouldn’t think so. I think it’s more of a can 

we get on with the show, please? 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. But then, from that, you would probably tell the Chair to close 

it down? 


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A. No. I would make sure that the desk is—the manager’s table 

has the necessary people in or, you know, if they were looking for 

people who were coming in to vote, oftentimes—— 

Q. Okay. So let’s actually just focus on this a little bit more. 

Move it along, or we need to move along is one thing. Okay. Sort 

of the words, ‘‘close this vote,’’ ‘‘close the vote now,’’ or ‘‘close the 

vote’’ is a little different than ‘‘we need to move this along.’’ Okay. 

So do you ever recall the majority leader using those words or 

those type of words? I mean I can understand, let’s move this 

along, let’s go, what’s going on, you know. That’s not the same as 

sort of directing, you know, comments to the Chair that are—close 

this vote. Do you remember the majority leader saying close this 

vote? 

A. Not definitively, no. 

Q. Okay. You mentioned that you recall where the Chair has 

closed the vote without getting a slip. 

A Uh-huh. 

Q. I’m not sure if anyone else said that before in us getting testimony, so I’m sort of curious about that. Do recall any of the votes? 

A. It’s definitely more a casual atmosphere. A suspension vote. 

I don’t recall anything specifically. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I think it’s a case where they look at the board and they see 

400 people are voting for this, and 3—and we’ve been waiting for 

5 minutes. Have all Members voted? Does any Member wish to 

change their vote? And then they start to call the vote. 

Q. Okay. In your understanding, what’s the tally slip supposed 

to do? 

A. I think it signifies this is the final vote and it’s going to be 

read from the actual clerk. Quality control is put in place. I mean, 

I think that’s what it is. 

Q. So it signifies from the sort of professional staff that are taking the votes and the well cards and all that, they’ve all been 

inputted? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. Okay. So do you remember any other time when there was a 

close vote that it was read without a slip? 

A. No. 

Q. And Mr. McNulty’s an experienced chair, right? 

A. Very. 

Q. So do you have any idea as to why he may have closed it without a tally slip? 

A. Not a clue. He knows what he’s doing. 

Q. All right. 

Were you aware, you know—when he called it, did you look into 

the, you know, into the well or into the rostrum and see the seated 

Tally Clerk trying to input—or that he was still inputting cards? 

A. There were many things that confused me. But there was still 

action going on at the rostrum. People were—I just—it took me a 

minute to figure out that something even had happened that was 

going to raise everybody’s blood. So—— 

Q. Right. 

A. I don’t—I certainly don’t remember looking at the rostrum and 

thinking anything other than, What the hell is going on? 


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BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Well, did it look like—from what you saw on the rostrum, I 

presume—correct me if I’m wrong—that you looked to the rostrum 

pretty shortly after you sort of heard the commotion, right? Did it 

look to you from what was happening on the rostrum that the vote 

was in a—they were in a position to close the vote? 

A. I didn’t—that thought didn’t even occur to me. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. At a certain point, De’Andre Anderson is trying to clear the 

machine. You know, it’s up there and he’s trying to terminate the 

vote. And there’s a discussion with Ed Sorensen? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you recall that? 

A. I saw that. 

Q. You saw it? 

A. Yes. 

Q. What do you remember seeing? 

A. They were talking on the second level of the rostrum. I believe 

John Sullivan was there. And I guess it was De’Andre at the computer. I don’t know what the problem was. I believe that after that 

conversation happened, I asked what was going on, but I don’t— 

I mean, it was sort of just chopped up to I think the machine 

isn’t—it’s not responding. 

Q. Do you remember who said that? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. And I’m just trying—I haven’t looked at the tape in a 

little bit. But you’re over—as you are looking at the rostrum over 

on the left-hand side, Ed Sorensen is over there too. Is he close to 

you? 

A. No. 

Q. He’s not? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you remember where he was or what he was doing as that 

vote was sort of getting tight? 

A. No. 

Q. After he called it? 

A. No. Generally speaking, he’s in front of the first level of the 

rostrum. But I don’t remember seeing him there or not seeing him 

there. 

Q. Okay. And so you just—you saw them talking, Ed Sorensen, 

John Sullivan and De’Andre Anderson, on the rostrum on the second level? 

A. Yeah. Yeah. 

Q. And then you recall somebody saying their computer’s not responding? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. And you don’t remember who it is? 

A. No. I mean, it may have went to one of the other Parliamentarians. My belief in general is, when the Parliamentarians are in 

a discussion or something, that it will get worked out and then I’ll 

find out about it. 


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Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. Okay. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Did you subsequently, you know, the following day, days after, 

learn anything additional about what happened that night? 

A. No. I mean, outside of watching the video, no. 

Q. Did you ever talk to anybody who spoke to Mr. McNulty and 

he’d explained to them what had happened? 

A. Nope. 

Q. Okay. How—when you get instructions to close the vote, how 

do you typically get those? Is that by BlackBerry? Is that by hand 

signals? Is that by—— 

A. A lot of shuttling back and forth. 

Q. Who does the shuttling? 

A. Me. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Let the record reflect that she pointed at herself. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do you recall there being a lot of e-mail or any e-mail traffic 

that evening or the following day discussing what happened that 

night? 

A. Most of my e-mail traffic related to drinking heavily. So no; 

I mean, not really. It was a lot of sort of reactionary, like, what 

the hell? Let’s go out and not come back. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Okay. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Mr. SPULAK. Do you remember before the vote was called saying 

to one of the Parliamentarians, this is going to be close so be on 

your toes? And this was directly to one of the Parliamentarians. I 

think it was Ethan. 

A. It very well may have, but—— 

Q. And that would have been consistent with what you were saying, how you generally communicate with the Chair? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Or with the podium regarding votes that you think are going 

to be close? 

A. Well, it’s important for everybody up there to have as much 

information as possible. So I mean, I believe—and whether this 

happens or not, I have no idea—but if I tell the Parliamentarian 

or the Chair, they all are aware of it and tell each other. 

EXAMINATION BY MS. MCCARTIN

Q. And isn’t it also sometimes the case where the cues are given 

to one person but everybody sees them, so telling one person, it’s 

sometimes like telling everybody, because they’re all in the same 

space and people are listening and it’s not like you turn to different 

people and say the same thing? 

A. Exactly. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. CRAWFORD

Q. Catlin, you said that you get a signal sometimes by shuttling 

from the table that everybody’s in, everybody’s recorded and preVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00355 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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sumably the majority is prevailing, so you can move to close the 

vote. Did you get that signal from the table that night? 

A. Yes. There was—I mean no. No. I mean no. Actually, that’s 

not true. I didn’t get any definitive signal. But there was a lot of 

shuttling back and forth, trying to find Members to get in; who’s 

where? But there was no close the vote. 

Q. Okay. So in your mind when you—when you spoke to Mr. 

McNulty, were you giving him a signal to close the vote at that moment? 

A. Absolutely not. 

Q. So you didn’t get a signal or communication from the table to 

close the vote, and you didn’t pass on any message to Mr. McNulty 

to close the vote? 

A. No. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do you remember the Speaker voting? 

A. No. I mean, I know that she did. I think she did. But I don’t 

remember her actually voting. 

Q. Okay. So you don’t remember where she was in terms of the 

sequence of—— 

A. No. 

Q. [continuing]. The vote being closed down? 

A. No. 

Q. This looks like a situation where you told Mr. McNulty that— 

to bear with you. And then he closed the vote without bearing with 

you, I guess, for lack of a better term. I mean generally, you said 

Speakers are Members, and they can do their own thing, despite 

what you might suggest to them. 

Does that typically work where they—they hold the vote open 

longer? Or are there other instances you can recall where they 

closed it down quicker than you would have liked? 

A. There have been instances. 

Q. Instances of both? 

A. Where it’s been closed down more quickly than I would have 

liked or my staff would have liked—our staff. Oftentimes you 

have—there’s so many staff on the floor and they’re all receiving 

different pieces of information. X, Y, Z Members are in a van on 

their way back from the White House and they need to vote. 

Doesn’t get to me until the vote’s being closed, or closed. I 

mean—— 

Q. Do you ever go to the Chair and get them to, you know—before they put that period on the final sentence, get them to keep 

it open a little bit longer if you get that information, you know, at 

the 11th hour that somebody’s—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. And will they typically do that or—— 

A. Typically, because they’re in the motions of closing a vote, I 

will tell the Parliamentarians and say, can we hold on a second? 

We’re waiting for—you know, we’re waiting for someone. And yeah, 

they’ll try and stop. Sometimes they don’t. They just keep moving 

through. 

Q. And are you the one that typically catches backlash from the 

Members who don’t get the chance to vote? Or how does that work? 


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A. I don’t know if they know that yet. I’m hoping they don’t. But 

sometimes. But it—you know, it’s out of frustration always. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Did you talk to the Speaker at all about it? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you know if she was concerned or unhappy? 

A. No idea. 

Q. And anyone on Mr. Hoyer’s staff? 

A. No. I mean, again, after we got through the night, it was more 

of a what’s going on, what happened? 

Q. Right. And nothing during that night as it’s—— 

A. No. 

Q. And what about Mr. McNulty’s staff? 

A. The last contact I had with McNulty’s staff was probably earlier in the day, saying the motion to recommit and final passage 

will happen at approximately X, Y, Z time; can he be ready to go? 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 12:45 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(353) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 27, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF JOHN SULLIVAN 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1628, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 8:09 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVE, 

NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW 

SNOWDON, DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Members Present: Representatives Davis of Alabama, Pence, and 

LaTourette. 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt; Chanelle Hardy, Counsel, Representative Artur 

Davis; Russ Levsen, Communications Director/Deputy Chief of 

Staff, Representative Herseth Sandlin; Zuraya Tapia, Clerk, Select 

Committee to Investigate the Voting Irregularities of August 2, 

2007; and Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on 

Rules. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Let me begin by welcoming everyone this 

morning as the Vice Chair of the Committee. The Chair of the 

Committee will be joining us shortly. The Ranking Member of the 

Committee, Mr. Pence is here and the Vice Ranking Member, Mr. 

LaTourette is here, and John Sullivan, our witness of the morning 

is here as well. John, thank you for being here. Just so we have 

it on the record I’m going to ask every person who is present to go 

around the room by way of introduction. Starting across from me 

everyone simply identify yourself for the record. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. George Crawford with King & Spalding. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Andrew Snowdon with Dickstein Shapiro. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Mark Paoletta with Dickstein Shapiro. 

Mr. SPULAK. Tom Spulak with King & Spalding. 

Ms. WALSH. Davida Walsh with Congressman Delahunt. 

Mr. LEVSEN. Russ Levsen with Congresswoman Stephanie 

Herseth Sandlin. 

Ms. MCCARTIN. Muftiah McCartin, Committee on Rules. 


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Ms. HARDY. Chanelle Hardy, Office of Congressman Davis. 

Mr. HALPERN. Hugh Halpern, Committee on Rules. 

Ms. TAPIA. Zuraya Tapia, Clerk for the Committee. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Let me thank you all for being here. 

John, thank you. We’ve had some conversation before we started 

about the best format to manage your time well to give us an opportunity to discuss these events in a good fashion that allows us 

to be comprehensive but not redundant. What we’re going to do, 

the normal practice in these interviews has mainly been staff conducted. Because of your importance as a critical player, if you will, 

in these events, we wanted to be a little bit more structured with 

your interview. So both the majority and minority side, if you will, 

have elected to have Members drive most of the questioning today. 

And Mr. LaTourette and I have been asked to play that role. 

Again, the Chair ranking member of the committee will be here 

and certainly, if he wishes to ask questions yield to him. We’re 

going to begin by having the staff lay some foundation. As you’ve 

noticed to your right, behind our court reporter there is a video 

screen. There is a tape of the events that night. We’ve tried to narrow it down to the relevant portion of time. We’re going to have 

the staff on both sides of the aisle walk you through that videotape, 

so you can begin by, in effect, describing to us and laying some context around the things that we’ll see. 

You also have a statement that you’ve been gracious enough to 

provide. You’re certainly perfectly welcome to refer to that statement. We’ve all seen it. No need to read it per se as we’ve seen 

it. But again you’re welcome to refer to that at any time. If you 

have any other notes, you’re certainly free to refer to those too. 

So we will go through the tape, ask the staff to begin, lay a foundation and then after they’ve done that, I will begin the first round 

of questions. And then Mr. LaTourette will have a round of questions. I will finish with the concluding round. Do you have any 

questions about the procedure this morning or any general questions you want to ask us about how we intend to do this today? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, thank you. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. All right. Then with that said, let me ask 

which members of the staff will be laying our foundation with the 

videotape. 

Mr. SPULAK. I believe that Mr. Paoletta wanted to. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Very good. Well, we welcome our chairman. Thank you for joining us today. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. John, thank you for coming here this morning. I think the 

best way to sort of proceed with gathering your recollection of the 

events of that night is to actually walk through the tape. Not frame 

by frame, but various segments of it stopping and asking what you 

recall. We have all watched it a lot and you may have watched it. 

When was the last time you watched it actually? 

A. I think I’ve watched it about 1.2 times. That night I watched 

a segment of it. I forget exactly why. It was something to do with 

the transcript produced by the official reporter. And then once 

since I’ve watched the whole thing. But I didn’t want to study it. 

I wanted to have my recollection. 


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Q. Okay. Actually, before we start running the tape, just give me 

your best sense of when you first recall events that night. Do you 

recall the vote that’s 814 starting? 

A. No. I think I might have been in my office at the start of the 

vote. 

Q. Do you remember when you first got to the floor during this 

vote? 

A. My earliest recollection is I was on the west side of the Chamber talking with Lynn Westmoreland. We were sitting in chairs at 

or near the front row across the aisle from one another. He is an 

aficionado of prompt instructions in recommittal, and we were discussing that wrinkle of the pending motion. And then I was at the 

Republican manager’s table talking to Bill Sali because he wanted 

to know why the Chair wouldn’t entertain Mr. Barton’s unanimous 

consent request and make it a five-minute vote. 

And I was explaining to him why that kind of unanimous consent 

request is not entertained. And then I remember when I left that 

and walked over to the east side of the Chamber through the well, 

I noticed that the Speaker was voting. I don’t know how frequently 

she votes. But ordinarily when a Speaker is voting by ballot card 

in the well, that suggests something to me. So I looked up at the 

scoreboard. And that’s when I realized it was a close vote and it 

was nearing the end of the time. I don’t know, we might have been 

past the 15-minute point at that point, I’m not sure. 

I think from that point forward, I was mainly on the east side 

of the rostrum near the hopper or up near the Chair. But I do recall a couple times going back into the well. I remember talking 

with Jay Pierson and Mr. Hobson and Mr. Westmoreland at the 

center or west portion of the well. And I remember talking, whispering something to Mr. Hoyer and to George Miller at the east 

well microphone at one point. I also remember a number of discussions with Members at or near the hopper at the bottom of the rostrum during those closing moments. 

Q. We’re going to start the tape in a second, but do you recall 

Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle and saying something directed towards the Chair or towards the rostrum? 

A. Not down the aisle. I had I think three exchanges with Mr. 

Hoyer at the hopper or on the rostrum, but I don’t remember anything in the aisle. 

Q. Do you remember him saying close the vote? 

A. Words to that effect, yes. 

Q. Let’s cue the tape up. I think we tried to bring it pretty far 

along in this vote. I just wanted to start it a little bit early so that 

you could just sort of orient yourself with the screen. 

A. I think that’s probably me at the Republican manager’s table 

with my back to us talking to Anne Thorsen and Bill Sali. 

Q. Okay. He calls it at 22:50. Do you want to just move it just 

a little bit in to maybe 49. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I think before you do that he should see what 

he referred to as the Speaker voting. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Because that’s at the statement he just mentioned again. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. John, do you have a sense of where that 

is? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. After I leave that conversation at the Republican 

manager’s table, I come back to the Mace—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Can you stop the cue. Pause it when John is talking. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. After I leave that conversation, I believe I come 

through the well to the Mace side of the rostrum, and I believe that 

that’s when I saw the Speaker handing in a ballot card. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And the Speaker is right to the left of 193:9, 

right, that’s the Speaker of the House? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Okay. Right. That is me leaving the Republican 

manager’s table now. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Where are you, John? I see you, okay. 

A. I’m the guy drinking out of a bottle of water much to my chagrin. 

Q. John, can you point yourself out there? Where are you? 

A. Under the yea column header. 

Q. Okay. At that point John, I know it’s pretty noisy there, but 

it looks like there’s an interaction between Catlin O’Neill and Mr. 

McNulty. Did you hear any of that? 

A. No. Where is Catlin? 

Q. She is sort of right where the Democratic—maybe by the overseeing democratic. Mr. McNulty sort of turned towards her. You 

don’t recall anything from that? 

A. No, I don’t. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. John, you hear her call Mr. Lampson? What were you doing 

immediately prior to that? I know you’re coming up to the Chair. 

Why is it that you were coming up there at this point? 

A. I would have been up there sooner, but I think I was engaged 

with somebody at the hopper explaining why the vote couldn’t be 

closed yet. The two Tally Clerks there, one with his back to you, 

the standing Tally Clerk, Kevin Hanrahan, and the one just to the 

left of the Reading Clerk’s podium, De’Andre, were engaged in 

processing ballot cards processed in the well. And that process 

takes a little while. And sometimes long after Members have 

stopped submitting them, they’re still plugging them into the computer. Somebody standing at the hopper yelling ‘‘close the vote, 

close the vote’’ needed to be told you can’t, there are ballot cards 

being plugged into the computer, the vote is not ready to close. 

Q. It that a common occurrence for people to be yelling ‘‘close the 

vote, close the vote’’? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. John, do you remember who you were speaking with at what 

point? 

A. One of them was Mr. Hoyer. 

Q. So Mr. Hoyer, at that point, is speaking with you? 


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A. Yes. 

Q. That’s your recollection? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And what do you recall him saying? 

A. I was doing most of the talking. I was trying to explain to proceed at that point when the Tally Clerks were still trying to process cards was folly. 

Q. Obviously, you’re talking to him, but he must have said something to you to prompt you to explain it to him. So do you recall 

his exact words to you? 

A. No. He wanted the vote closed. I don’t recall his exact words. 

Q. Okay. So you think you’ve been talking to him just before you 

enter the screen here? 

A. There may have been others involved. Mr. Hoyer is the one 

I recall. I think I was probably just off the left margin in the screen 

there near the hopper. 

Q. Okay. So you’ve come up here. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Can I ask a question? At that point, John, when 

you’re down talking to the Member, Mr. Hoyer and others about 

why the vote can’t be closed, and Mr. McNulty halts the call at 

214–214, did you ask him to stop? 

A. No. I think that circumstances pulled them up short. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. Freeze it right there. Okay, John, do you remember this 

exchange? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay, please tell me what Mr. Hoyer said to you? 

A. Words to the effect of we control this House, not you, the Parliamentarian is not in charge here, something like that. 

Q. He seems to say something more when his back—we can hear 

that on the tape, right? But there’s a little bit more of an exchange. 

Do you recall what that was when you were talking to him? 

A. Just the kind of sentiments that I just expressed; that I 

wasn’t running the show basically. 

Q. And what did you say? 

A. I said I’m not trying to say that we run the place. I don’t know 

if this is exact. But what I was trying to communicate is we know 

we’re staff here, but the presiding officer can’t jump the Tally 

Clerk. I mean those guys are plugging votes into the computer and 

you can’t just read a number off the wall, you have to say wait for 

the product of a closed electronic voting system. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. John, up to that point, I think you just answered George’s 

question that you hadn’t said anything, but up to that point, had 

either you or Ethan Lauer, the Parliamentarian, given any instructions or commands or suggestions to the Chair? 

A. No. I was on my way to help Ethan explain to Mr. McNulty 

that you couldn’t read a result off the wall. 

Q. But do you know had Ethan done that? 

A. I don’t know what steps he may have taken in that direction 

at that point. They obviously had not been successful. The first 

time he tried to announce a number just from reading it off the 


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scoreboard, that was the signal that I had, you know, to stop him. 

I was detained a little bit down at the hopper. Then I was headed 

up to there to try and do that, and I was, again, distracted from 

that. But I think later on, there was a decent interval in which I 

could have got the job done and I failed to. 

Q. I’m just merely trying to determine whether, in fact, anyone 

had been telling the Chair to do something and that the Chair may 

have ignored or anything? 

A. I think the Chair was hearing a lot of advice on both ends. 

He was hearing people hold the sentiment Mr. Hoyer shared, ‘‘close 

the vote, close the vote.’’ And he was hearing arguments on the 

other side that the vote was being held open to change the result. 

And you know there were—the Chair gets plenty of advice from the 

Floor in situations like that and he was hearing a lot. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. The interesting thing, right, John, is that—and we’re sort of 

jumping off a little bit of just walking through the tape, but I think 

it’s appropriate here—it’s pretty common that Members are yelling 

to the Chair to close the vote, or you know, words to that effect, 

right, in various votes? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Okay. And in this one, Mr. McNulty starts to read the vote 

off the board without a tally slip, right? 

A. Right. 

Q. Have you ever seen that happen during your time in the Parliamentarian’s Office? 

A. I don’t think so. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a completed announcement without the benefit of a tally slip. By ‘‘tally slip,’’ I 

mean, a little white sheet. A tally sheet is a very large document 

if we had a call of the roll. 

Q. So let’s be clear. We’re talking about the tally slip that the 

clerk writes out—the vote for reading? 

A. It’s a little white form. And its main purpose is an assurance 

that the numbers written on it were put there after the system had 

been closed for further input and the numbers were static. It’s 

probably the most important quality control device in the announcement of a vote. So to read a number off the wall, that’s not 

a static number, that’s a snapshot of that computer refresh cycle. 

And there might be other electrons on their way to the board. And 

to read a number from that board is liable to be contradicted the 

next time the computer refreshes. So I believe it’s true that we’ve 

never before closed a vote like that 214–214 announcement without 

the benefit of a tally slip. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. John you said that you had never seen a Member actually 

complete it. And by that I would interpret you saying that Members sometimes try to do it—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Whether it’s purposeful or inadvertent? 

A. No, I don’t think it’s purposeful. They don’t understand the 

danger of reading it off the wall. And to that end, sometimes if we 

prepare a prompting sheet for them we might put on it don’t read 


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it off the wall, look at the slip. The numbers are going to be the 

same. If there is a slip extant, then the numbers on the wall are 

frozen. And a lot of Members use the wall as a teleprompter of 

sorts so that they don’t look like they’re reading. But they have a 

slip in their hand and the numbers are the same invariably. 

So from time to time, a Member will think that he can just close 

it and he doesn’t realize what we’re waiting for. Sometimes—you 

know, all voting is obviously stopped, nobody is in the well, nobody 

is handing in any cards. But the Tally Clerks still have 11 red and 

green cards that they’re working on. And the Chair doesn’t really 

take note of it and he thinks the vote is over, so we have to arrest 

that. 

Q. Do you know if the Chair—you know, Mr. Lauer talked to 

us—are you aware if the Chair had this prompting slip or this 

piece of paper that has instructions that night, because we’ve seen 

it in one of the things and it says don’t call the score? 

A. I don’t know if we had one of those in front of Mr. McNulty. 

I bet we didn’t, because he’s a fairly experienced Member at that. 

But the form that we would have had would say wait for a slip or 

rely on slip or ignore scoreboard. It’s had different forms over time. 

Q. Again, the reason why that’s there is because it is a natural 

tendency of the Chair to look at the scoreboard? 

A. Yes. And very few Members understand what’s going on at the 

Tally Clerk station. Not that it’s too complex for anybody, I understand, it’s beneath their radar. 

Q. Would you say that Mr. McNulty knows what’s going on? 

A. I don’t know. He’s spent a lot of time in the chair. He was a 

frequent presiding officer in the previous Democratic majority. 

Q. Which was 13 years ago? 

A. Yes. But I don’t know that a presiding officer necessarily 

takes cognizance of the clerical activity that’s going on at his feet. 

They just—presiding officers are very good about just taking the 

raw material we give them. And the only reason I began to put 

that, ignore the scoreboard, rely on the slip thing is because we recently, both in 1995 and 2007, had a brand new, a set of brand new 

presiding officers who were utterly unfamiliar with the physical 

plant of the rostrum. And rather than teach them everything about 

a tally clerk’s job, we just said ignore the scoreboard. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. Let’s walk through the tape a little bit more and get 

back to some of these other issues. Can you stop it there for a second. John, do you remember—you’re off the screen—do you know 

who you’re talking to at that point? 

A. No. It might have been another conversation with Mr. Hoyer, 

but I’m not sure. I think there might have been three relatively 

discrete—— 

Q. Well, Mr. Hoyer is going to come back in at 50:40, so you’ll 

see him come up again. 

A. There were other Members down there, and I forget who they 

were. 

Q. Okay. Roll it. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Can you stop it? John you had just approached the Chair for 

a moment and then you sort of backed away. What were you trying 

to do? 

A. I was going to say don’t read it off the wall, don’t do it again. 

And that was the decent interval that I had to get the job done and 

failed. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Right there. Keep running. Okay. Stop right there. Do you remember what Mr. Hoyer is saying to you then? 

A. Not exactly. I do recall that slightly before that when Tom 

Wickham and I were down a step or two, we were discussing how 

the second 214–214 announcement could not be sustained, that it 

just, it could not be accorded legitimacy and we had to let the Tally 

Clerks keep processing. Then I was going over to speak with 

De’Andre about where they were, you know, how many cards they 

had. And then Mr. Hoyer approached me. And I don’t recall what 

that conversation was about. 

Q. Somebody that we interviewed said that they heard Mr. Hoyer 

say something to the effect, don’t ever do this to me again, John, 

I won’t stand for it. Do you recall him saying that? 

A. No. But I was very focused on something else at the time. I 

think whatever he said to me my response was to say, ‘‘this is what 

these guys are doing here.’’ You know, I took the opportunity to 

show him close up. 

Q. And what was your sense of what Mr. Hoyer wanted you to 

do? 

A. I don’t know. I think he knew at that point we were in uncharted territory. I don’t think he was proposing solutions, or he 

may have been recriminating in the way that you’ve expressed. 

Q. Do you think he was discouraging you to close the vote? 

A. No. I think he knew at that point that we were at a stage 

where the only thing to do would be to allow the Tally Clerks to 

complete their work. 

Q. So why would he need to talk to you again, I guess, if that’s 

going on? 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I don’t want to impose too much of the 

formal rules here, but by definition if we can limit the questions 

to what John knows as opposed to interpreting what Mr. Hoyer 

may know. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Simply because John, you wouldn’t have 

any way of knowing obviously unless Mr. Hoyer stated to you what 

he was thinking. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I apologize for interrupting. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. That’s all right. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. At this point, when you were talking to De’Andre, what’s your 

recollection with that? Is that when he’s having trouble with what 

he’s still entering? 


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A. He still has cards. I don’t recall the exact conversation. I was 

trying to assess where they were. My conclusion was that the only 

course we could follow is to let the Tally Clerks keep doing what 

they were doing, figure out what the real result was and have the 

Chair make an announcement saying that I messed up with my 

premature announcement and here’s the real deal. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Is that something, John, that, in a parliamentary sense, you 

felt comfortable with, even though it was uncharted? Did you feel 

as though the vote had not been closed and that it was open and 

should remain open to additional voting? 

A. Well, what was uncharted about it to me was that it was an 

unequivocal statement of a result by the presiding officer, but it 

was one that just by the surrounding circumstances could not be 

accorded legitimacy. I believe, now I’m not sure about this, but I 

believe the minute he uttered that there was an uptick on the 

board, a change in the numbers on the board. Which it was a manifestation to me that, you know, there were still electrons flying 

around. And then I looked at the Tally Clerks and saw that they 

had still other cards to input. It wasn’t just that the last card had 

hit the board. There were several more cards to be done. 

Q. So if, in fact, the vote had closed at that moment, let’s assume 

you or someone had said, no, we need to close it at this point, although the board might be reflecting 215–213 there were still votes 

that had to be entered that Members had cast and had passed up 

to the Tally Clerk to be entered, and so to have closed it at that 

point in time would have been to disenfranchise those cards, is that 

correct? 

A. Yeah. That, and the board was not the result. The result was 

what the Chair announced. And those two differed at that point. 

And the precedents that I’m aware of in this area that basically say 

if there is a mistake by human intervention, then you can, by 

unanimous consent, correct the mistake, they’re limited to cases in 

which the result would not change. I’m not sure what the rationale 

for that was, but the basic rule is that if Members are recorded incorrectly because of somebody else’s human error, and it would not 

change the result on the pending question, then even after the fact, 

those Members may be recorded correctly. 

The House can order that they be recorded as they—and those 

precedents largely arose with—well, they all arose with calls of the 

roll before the electronic voting system. The precedents of the electronic voting system are based on the idea that the machine is infallible and so there is no human intervention. And if a Member 

pushes the wrong button, that’s the way the ball bounces. Here the 

human intervention that put us in uncharted territory was the presiding officer’s premature announcement of the result. So it was a 

case not previously solved. 

Q. We’ve heard testimony that at this point in time when 215– 

213 appeared also on the electronic tally board, the word ‘‘final’’ appeared. What significance do you attach to the fact that the word 

final appeared at that time? 

A. I don’t attach any legal or parliamentary significance to it at 

all. To me, it’s a clock setting. The difference between final and 


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zero is where the Tally Clerk is in his sequencing out of the electronic voting system. I think final is the step before turning off the 

display, you know it’s a stored vote. 

Q. So the fact that it said final didn’t add any parliamentary credence of the fact that the vote was closed at this point? 

A. No. The thing that we key on in the finality of a vote is an 

unequivocal statement of the result by the Chair. So ostensibly, 

Mr. McNulty’s completed 214–214 announcement was a result. But 

my judgment was that under the circumstances, it was impeached 

by the surrounding circumstances, immediately contradicted by an 

uptick on the scoreboard. And when I gathered myself, I saw red 

and green cards sitting in front of the Tally Clerk. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. John, actually I think at 22:51:31 can you—actually, I think 

Gillibrand and Space have not given their cards in, so actually 

when he calls it, and she is actually just walking towards the well, 

so I don’t know if it makes a difference to you, but you know the 

Members may be in the well, they may be close to the well, but I 

don’t think they’ve given up their tally cards, okay, they actually 

do it right after. So there aren’t, when there’s the uptick there 

aren’t cards in Mr. De’Andre’s or Mr. Hanrahan’s hands. 

A. I think there were cards displayed in front of De’Andre. 

Q. Those could have been the three from the three Floridians? 

A. I think all of the things that were going on late here were 

within the number 428. I don’t think there were any additional 

votes. Although a 429th vote could have come in. I don’t think that 

whoever the last guys to hit the well were, I don’t think that those 

were the only cards extant as they were being handed in. I think 

there were still others being processed by the clerk. 

Q. Go to 51:31:17. She walks up right there. Do you see 

Gillibrand right there? So I don’t think Mr. Anderson, if you’re 

looking at him, I don’t think he has any cards that he’s processing. 

So the question is, okay, and we can sort of, I don’t want to take 

all the Members’ time, but if under your understanding, John, if 

Mr. McNulty called it for the unequivocal statement as you said, 

right, at 214–214, okay, but the vote, the electron was flying and 

it changes up, right, right after that or even simultaneous, okay, 

whatever it is, I don’t think somebody is looking and we don’t have 

it on the tape, but it goes up to 215–213, and he makes an unequivocal statement of the result, which turns out to be wrong, 

okay, but he’s now just closed the vote, right, wouldn’t the correction be that the 215–213 result is instead, you know, switched as 

the final? 

A. No, it was never the subject of an announcement. 

Q. What? 

A. It was never the subject of an announcement. The only announcement from the Chair extant was fatally undermined by that 

215–213 uptick. And that uptick can’t replace the announcement. 

Q. But it was still the result. Does it mean that you then sort 

of reopen it if he’s made that definitive declarative statement in 

order to then accept more cards? He makes the statement the motion is not agreed to. And at that moment it ticks up, right? So he’s 

incorrect in his announcement, but has he closed the vote? 


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A. You can’t impute the new numbers on the board to that announcement and pretend that the Chair announced those numbers, 

you don’t have a valid announcement at that point. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. John, I think the question is at the moment 

that the Chair made the definitive statement 214–214, the true 

vote was 215–213? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Correct. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And I don’t think that the question is suggesting that it was 215–213, because he never announced that. I 

think the question is at the moment he made the definitive statement which closed the vote, that wasn’t the accurate vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I don’t have a perfect recollection, but I 

think the uptick occurred immediately after he finished the sentence. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. At any rate, the only thing that can constitute the 

result is an announcement of the Chair. The only announcement of 

the Chair that we had couldn’t be accorded legitimacy. And I believe that De’Andre had cards on the plexiglass. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Let me ask this. Let me, as another way of asking the same 

question. At the time that this occurred, the Chair made the 214– 

214 statement, but immediately thereafter it switched to 215–213, 

was there any option of replacing the 214–214, let’s assume the 

vote is closed because of the statement, was there an option of replacing the 214–214 with 215–213 as the final number just if 

things were to have stopped right then? 

A. Probably an announcement by the Chair. We couldn’t just impute those. 

Q. I’m just saying based on what happened. I think that there’s 

a sense, and forgive me if I’m wrong, that although the Chair 

called it 214–214 and closed it, the closure, if you will, should have 

remained extant, but the outcome should have been replaced with 

215–213. I believe you said that that could not be the result? 

A. No. 

Q. So at that point, I assume your decision was, and your suggestion was, well, we can’t let this stand because there are still votes 

here. So we will just continue to vote because obviously things are 

different than 214–214, is that correct? 

A. Yeah. To me, the first facet of illegitimacy is not that there 

are more cards. I didn’t even notice that at the time. My first notion was that this announcement was immediately contradicted by 

parol, and it can’t be accorded legitimacy. Nobody in the Chamber 

could stand for that. 

Q. And so if it did stay at 214–214, Members would have been 

disenfranchised? 

A. Yeah. Again, one of the reasons why I believe that the Tally 

Clerks were still processing cards is I think that when Mr. Hoyer 

came up there, I was pointing to something for him to see. You 

know there’s still work to be done here, cardboard has to be 

changed to digits here. So we had both the immediate contradiction 

of the announcement and the appearance of other Members’ votes 


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still to be changed. I think these were all changes at that point. 

I don’t think any of these were newly cast votes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Can you stop it for a second. Back it up, Hugh. 

And I’ll give you the voting station outline that indicates it was 50 

seconds from the time that De’Andre entered the last Diaz-Balart 

card to the time that he got the Space, Gillibrand and McNerney 

cards. Well, I think the first one is Space. And if you see at the 

moment that it’s called and you have the uptick, roll it, Space and 

Gillibrand are now turning in their cards. And I assume McNerney 

is going to come up here pretty quickly and he’s going to give him 

a card. 

So I mean what do you think? So at the moment that it’s called, 

before De’Andre doesn’t have a Space card, he doesn’t have a 

Gillibrand card and he doesn’t have a McNerney card, and there’s 

a full 50 seconds, there’s nobody in the well trying to turn in a 

card. Maybe it’s critical, maybe it’s not, but there could not be a 

conversation at that moment in time that De’Andre still has those 

three cards which are going to take him to—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. That’s exactly right, John, because it’s a little bit 

later when at 52—— 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Let me make one suggestion. First of all, 

if we can, I’m not trying to impose too much in the way of rules 

here, but obviously we have a witness who is here to give us his 

impressions of what happened. We’ll have the opportunity to have 

a discussion and a vigorous discussion between Members about 

how to interpret those events. But rather than having Members 

offer interpretations or having staff offer interpretations, if we 

could at least frame questions for Mr. Sullivan. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Not to be ruled out either, but I’m going to tell 

you, John, who I have a great deal of respect for, said he’s watched 

it 1.2 times, he has a recollection. And I would suggest this tape 

by watching it could refresh that recollection of what occurred. And 

when matched up with when people voted there is no way based 

upon what just happened that De’Andre Anderson had the 

Gillibrand, Space or McNerney card when this was going on. I’m 

just asking whether he agrees with it. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That would appear to be true to me. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. That’s all I wanted. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And John, you’re certainly free to comment on the interpretation from a Member. But again, if I can just 

simply make the request that we pose questions to him rather than 

arguments to him. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Listen, I want to get along and everything 

else, but are you saying that I’m misinterpreting the tape; that 

what we just saw with Space—— 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. No, I’m not arguing with you at all, sir. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. What I’m saying is do you think that Space 

and Gillibrand just weren’t turning in the cards which were 

passed? I mean, is that my interpretation or does somebody disagree with me? 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I assume that’s a question to you, John. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, he answered the question. I’m asking you 

because you’re saying I’m putting a spin on what we just saw? 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I don’t mean to be argumentative. I’m 

just asking that questions be posed. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. Can we just go back to see. We can actually see 

the clicker. I think what you see on the vote log is when the votes 

are actually processed in the machine as opposed to when he is in 

possession of them. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. That’s correct, I agree with that. 

Mr. CRAWFORD. So I think there’s probably a 40-second lag from 

when he gets possession to when they’re registered on the log. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay, sure. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. 51:37:17 is when McNulty calls it, okay. Can you stop right 

there. John, you obviously are turning and writing. What’s your 

recollection of what’s going through your mind or what you’re doing 

here? 

A. I’m preparing what in that uncharted territory would be the 

tally slip. But you know, I thought it needed more than just an announcement at that point, it needed an admission of sorts. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And John, just so the record is reasonably 

clear, if you could identify the time frame you’re referring to right 

now so that the reporter at least has a record of that. What’s the 

minute time frame? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. We’re looking at 22:52:39. That’s when I turned 

my back to the Chamber and began to write something on the podium before Mr. McNulty. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Mark, can I make one other suggestion 

again? I know it’s difficult because we’re watching the tape in realtime, and we’re trying to have a reporter take things down. It 

might be if we could attempt as we ask questions, if we’re asking 

about a particular sequence, we could reference the time frame so 

that the record is clear. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. Thank you. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. John, I want to go back for one second on the fact that you 

saw cards in front of Mr. Anderson. It’s possible those cards were 

the three Floridian cards, isn’t that right as well, the fact that you 

saw cards? You didn’t know who they were? 

A. I wasn’t really focused on who was in the well and where 

these cards were coming from. In watching the tape with you this 

morning, one of the things I’m impressed with is how long I spent 

talking with Tom Wickham at the bottom step of the rostrum 

there. My spin on it would be that I was knocked back on my heels 

by these events a little more than I remembered and that I took 

a longer time to make the judgment that it couldn’t be accorded legitimacy, first, and then what are we going to do, second. 

Q. Would you have made a different decision today? 

A. Well, if I could redo this I would have redoubled by efforts to 

get to Mr. McNulty before he announced again from the wall. I 

think that was my biggest failure. 

Q. I’m saying in terms of allowing the vote to remain open. 

A. I think I would do the same. I think when faced with an illegitimately announced result we had to then let things settle and 


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get a product of a closed system. The uncharted territory here was 

the announcement of a result before the Tally Clerks had done 

their shutdown from the periphery. I mean, the voting stations 

may well have still been open. A 429th vote could have come in 

from the back rail. There are 47 input devices in the Chamber, 46 

boxes that Members use their smart cards at and the Tally Clerk’s 

terminal. And the Tally Clerks shut those down. 

You know, they go from 47 to one to zero in a methodical way 

to produce that tally slip. And at the very end the seated Tally 

Clerk says okay we’re down to zero input devices. I don’t know 

what words they use exactly, but something that says, ‘‘I’ve shut 

down even mine. I’m not inputting anymore and the boxes are all 

shut down. So if you wait for a second or two the scoreboard will 

give you a static number.’’ And then the standing Tally Clerk says 

‘‘okay,’’ goes up to the board, waits a beat and writes down the 

numbers. So the uncharted territory that we’re in was having an 

announcement extant that didn’t rely on that or, you know, follow 

our best practices. 

Q. Would you have expected to hear a parliamentary inquiry 

from a Member asking, ‘‘Where are we right now, what’s the status?’’ because I don’t believe that ever happens? 

A. There may well have been some Member trying to do that. 

The Chamber was about as raucous as it gets. This week of proceedings in the House were, I don’t mean to be judgmental, but it 

was the ugliest week I can remember in the House. There was no 

reticence on the part of at least half the membership as these 

events were going on. 

Q. Do you think there was some benefit to the confusion that was 

going on? 

A. I’m hard-pressed to find a benefit. 

Q. If you wanted to claim that you thought that one thought that 

the vote was final and that it should have been final at 215–213 

would there have been some benefit in not having propounded a 

question where are we right now? 

A. I don’t know. I don’t engage in those kinds of calculations. I’m 

not trying to pose as Pollyanna, but that kind of thinking is a little 

bit foreign to me. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Let me again, just for administrative purposes, why don’t we try to get Mr. Sullivan through the relevant 

point of the tape that we want to cover. Let’s lay the foundation 

by doing that and then we’ll turn to the Member questions to get 

into more content. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Stop it there for a second. Do you remember that 

conversation with Mr. Hoyer? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. This is at 22:56. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Thank you. 22:56:07? 

A. I had just completed writing the statement that was going to 

be the modified tally slip and left that with the presiding officer, 

and Tom and Ethan, and told them I was going to go talk to people 

about options for throwing oil on the water. My conversation with 

Mr. Hoyer was my advice to him that if he wanted to try to do 


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something here, it would be a unanimous consent to vacate the 

conduct of that vote. And I believe that I was trying to contrast the 

utility of that move with the motion to reconsider. That it was superior, both in terms of its tendency to smooth things down and in 

terms of its legislative economy. 

Q. Do you remember Mr. Hoyer’s response? 

A. He was in listen mode at that point, I believe. I don’t think 

he responded. 

Mr. SPULAK. If I can stop here at 23:57:08. You’re now speaking 

with—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Jay Pierson. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You’re speaking with the minority floor staff? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. And there are others present from the minority staff side I believe is that correct? 

A. Yeah. I think we were joined at some point by Mr. Hobson. 

Right now on the screen I see myself, Jay Pierson and Lynn Westmoreland. And standing off to the side is Jo-Marie St. Martin, who 

is Mr. Boehner’s counsel. I can’t recognize the person to her right. 

Q. And what’s the nature of this conversation? 

A. Objection had been heard. I don’t know if it was—I guess it 

was obvious on the tape. But Mr. Hoyer asked to vacate, objection 

was heard, and I was just consulting with Jay about whether they 

had a better solution in mind. That in terms of finishing the business and letting Members go, and in terms of trying to achieve justice on the motion to recommit, I could see no more immediate or 

suitable solution than a do-over, as it were. And so I was just making sure that such an option wasn’t going to be foreclosed just by 

a visceral objection, then maybe, maybe people could see the benefit. So I was talking with Jay on those bases, I believe. Again, I’m 

surprised not to see Mr. Hobson because in my memory, that conversation at some point or other included Mr. Hobson. 

Q. Was it just you speaking with them, and only you asking if 

they had any other ideas? Did they offer any? 

A. Not any particular procedural gambits. Jay may have apprised me of the level of outrage, how unthinkable it might be that 

they could achieve unanimous consent to vacate the proceedings. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Can you stop for a second. John, is it your recollection that 

what Mr. McNulty just said was what you had written for him? 

A. More or less. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. At 22:50. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think I may have written more than that. And 

it may not have been the exact words, but it certainly was the gravamen, something in the nature of an admission that the Chair 

had not properly announced the result before. And then—I wrote 

blanks in for the final count. And I’m not sure whether I filled in 

the final numbers before I left it with Tom and Ethan or whether 

they filled it in. I think I did. I think I wrote the 212–216 in there 

before I went to try to cajole people into being friends. I think when 


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Mr. Boehner was making his parliamentary inquiry there it must 

have been when I was talking with Mr. Hobson off to the—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. Mr. Davis, do you want to get through 

this? I have a couple of questions about—it’s a little bit off. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Okay. Why don’t we treat this then as a 

natural starting point. I’ll jump in and ask questions working us 

back after this point. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. John, let me try to lay a little bit of foundation for the night if we can before we get back into the tape. This 

was a vote on a motion to recommit or regarding the ag approps 

bill, is that right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And Mr. McNulty was in the chair as the 

presiding officer. Do you remember or have any estimate of how 

many times Mr. McNulty presided over the floor during the course 

of 2007 prior to that night? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Had it been—my understanding is that 

the Speaker’s office has a group of Members who regularly agree 

to preside, some are frequent presiders, is that also your understanding how the process works. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Would you characterize Mr. McNulty as 

someone who frequently presided over the Chair, and if so, what 

is it that makes one a frequent choice? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. He was certainly intended to become a frequent 

presider. I don’t know if he had yet gotten in that group. He had 

been a frequent presider prior to 1995. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Focusing on 2007, is there any number 

you would offer us as to a guess as to how many times Mr. McNulty presided during actual regular business on the Floor. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, I don’t know. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any sense of it? Was it 15 

times, could it have been as few as five or six, do you have any 

sense at all? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I would guess closer to five than 15. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And you mentioned that Mr. McNulty 

had been a frequent presider during the last time the Democrats 

controlled the House. There was a 13-year gap, correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any understanding of any 

formal training procedure that occurs for Members who are presiding officers during this particular session. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Not formal. If a Member wants to sit down with 

me and find out what resources will be available from our office to 

them while they’re in the chair, I do that. I’ve done it with maybe 

50 Members. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any recollection of Mr. 

McNulty prior to this night, it was August 2nd, prior to the night 

of August 2, 2007, do you have any recollection of sitting down with 

Mr. McNulty to discuss the duties or the rules relating to presiding 

over the Chamber. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, I have no recollection of doing that. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And there’s nothing unusual about that 

I take it? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any recollection prior to the 

night of August 2nd of ever discussing with Mr. McNulty any kind 

of a scenario around closing out a vote or what would be the propriety around closing out a vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any memory prior to the 

night of August 2nd of anything unusual occurring when Mr. 

McNulty was in the Chair? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And in terms of how the process normally 

works, do you have any recollection of—let me back up. What happened that night was unusual you said several times. The most unusual aspect of it was the calling of a vote without a tally sheet. 

Does that still strike you as the most unusual aspect of that night? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Had there been any occasion during 2007 

when a Member had attempted to call a vote without a tally sheet. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t recall, but I think that I had never, before 

very recently, I’m not sure if it was 2007, but it was in the 2000s 

that we began to say ‘‘ignore scoreboard,’’ because of the tendency 

of Members to look at the scoreboard. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. How long have you been in your position? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I’ve been the Parliamentarian for 4 years. I’ve 

been in the office for 21. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. During those 4 years in which you’ve 

been Parliamentarian, do you have any recollection of any controversy around the existence of a tally sheet prior to August 2nd? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And is there a written rule that you know 

of in the House rules and manual describing the significance of the 

tally sheet and the vote process? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Is there any written rule that you know 

of in the House rules and manual stating in effect the circumstances in which a vote should be called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Not in, you know, operational detail. There’s a 

precedent that mentions the tally slip. That was a case in the 19th 

century, and there was a motion to adjourn and the vote was by 

the yeas and nays. And the Chair had the tally slip in hand to call 

the vote on the motion to adjourn, but paused to transact a leave 

of absence request. And people took umbrage at that; ‘‘you can’t do 

that, you already had a tally slip in your hand, for God’s sake.’’ 

That’s the earliest mention of a tally slip I could find. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And I kind of asked you not to speculate 

a lot on what Members know and don’t know, but it is pretty fair 

to say that that incident is not well known by Members. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Certainly. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. The older ones may remember. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I may pose a question to my colleague, Mr. 

LaTourette, if he does remember. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Let me ask you, John, with respect to the 

night of August 2nd, the vote closed. Obviously the vote went to 

zero at some point. The number on the board was showing zero. Do 

you have any recollection of how long this vote stayed open between zero and the first attempt to call the vote by Mr. McNulty 

at real-time? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, I don’t. I would guess that the total duration 

of the vote was in the neighborhood of 20 or 25 minutes, but—— 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. But you’re not. Again, I’m focusing on the 

first time he attempted to call the vote at 214. Do you have any 

specific recollection? Does watching the tape in any way shape your 

recollection how much actual time passed between zero zero and 

the first attempt to call the vote at 214. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. Even as we watched it this morning, I wasn’t 

focusing on that. 

Q. Again, we’re not here to testify. But looking at some time line, 

and we have been looking at the tape this morning, it appears that 

at 22:49:01, Mr. McNulty bangs the gavel and asks the typical 

question, are there any Members who wish to vote, ‘‘are there any 

Members who wish to change their vote?’’ And at 22:50:06 there is 

a gaveling and an attempt of announcement at 214 that’s about a 

minute or so. Does that shape your recollection or change your 

recollection at all? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. That rings true to me. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. When Mr. McNulty, and again let me 

make sure my phrasing is matching your description of these 

events, as I’ve heard you describe today, and as I’ve read your 

statement there were two premature efforts by Mr. McNulty to call 

the vote, is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That’s right. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. The first premature effort appears to 

occur around 22:50:06, 22:50:07. Does that seem about right from 

what you see on the tape? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. What was premature about Mr. McNulty’s effort at that point? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. The process by which the Tally Clerks go from 47 

input-devices to one to zero and produce a tally slip. In this case, 

the process to signify that the system had been closed to input and 

that the numbers were produced by that closed system had not yet 

been transacted. That made it premature to me. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. When did you get a sense that Mr. 

McNulty was about to call the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. The first—when he made the first abortive attempt to announce 214–214. And that was when I wanted to and 

when I should have made sure it didn’t recur. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So it sounds as if you’re saying that literally when Mr. McNulty verbally stated on this vote the yeas are 

214 the nays are 214 that that statement on his part was what 

triggered you to think he was going to call the vote. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. That took me by surprise. And I believe I 

was detained at the hopper a little bit before I could do anything. 

And then again, I think at some point, I had enough time to do 

what needed to be done. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Let me slow down and stop you on that 

point and make sure I understand. Again, focusing on the first premature calling of the vote around 22:50:07, prior to Mr. McNulty 

making his statement from the rostrum did you have any sense 

that Mr. McNulty was about to call the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Had Mr. McNulty sought any advice from 

you or any consultation from you as to when the vote should be 

called prior to 22:50:07? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t believe so. I don’t know if I had been all 

the way up to the top of the rostrum at that point. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did any Member, to your recollection, 

have a conversation with you about the appropriateness of calling 

the vote prior to 22:50:07 when McNulty made the first premature 

call? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It’s possible. Because I was down near the hopper 

and I remember several times explaining to several people that a 

vote couldn’t be closed when cards were being processed. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. This was late at night. This was—do you 

remember the exact actual hour of the day this event occurred? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think the numbers that we’re looking at are 

clock settings: 2200 hours. I think it was after 10 p.m. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And my recollection, again, tell me if you 

agree with my recollection, my recollection was that there had been 

a number of votes that day, there had been a lot of vote sequences 

that day? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I believe so. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And that Members regularly come back 

and forth to the floor, that’s your recollection? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Uh-huh. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Is it fairly commonplace at night when 

we move into the evening, 10:00, 11:00, 12:00, that Members standing on the floor were regularly ask you or ask others why can’t the 

vote be called, is that a fairly typical conversation in a late night 

setting? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Would there have been anything unusual 

at that time of night about Members engaged in a conversation 

about why the vote couldn’t be called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. When Mr. McNulty makes his first premature calling of the vote, when were you able to physically get to 

him to tell him that you thought there was an untoward action on 

his part? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t think I succeeded in having that conversation with him until I was up there writing that admission-plustally slip statement. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Okay. Well, again, backing up to the first 

premature announcement. It’s clear from the tape that McNulty literally stops and he says on this vote the ayes are 214 and the nays 

are 214 and then he stops at that point, is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Can we go back to the tape, if we can do 

it in a fairly quick fashion, back to the first premature calling 

around 22:50:08? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. 22:49:54. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I thought it was 22:50:06. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. 50? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I’ve got 50:06 too. But the tape controls, 

so we’ll see in a moment who is right. 

Let’s stop it there and let’s work up, stopping at 22:50:06. Let’s 

start. Let’s stop at that moment. I think it’s about 22:50:11 apparently when he literally makes the statement. My recollection from 

the times I’ve been on the floor is that there’s a sequence that happens when a Member calls a vote. Can you describe what that sequence is; verbally what a Member typically says when a vote is 

actually called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Ordinarily they will sound the gavel to apprise 

the person who controls the PA system that they want to be amplified. And they’ll say words to the effect of, ‘‘have all Members 

voted’’ or, ‘‘does any other Member desire to vote?’’ The next utterance, usually after an interval, is ‘‘does any Member wish to 

change a vote?’’ In ordinary operations, barring any other consideration, the Tally Clerks usually would take that as a cue to shut 

down the 46 voting stations when the Chair asks for changes and 

when the Reading Clerk begins to announce from the podium the 

changes. 

Then if nothing else happens or nothing goes awry, the next utterance would be the Chair’s announcement of the result from the 

tally slip. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. When does the normal nomenclature the 

Chair uses announce the final vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. On this question. Sometimes they’ll say, ‘‘On this 

motion,’’ ‘‘on this amendment,’’ the yeas are more numerous than 

the nays, the proposition is carried. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Is it commonplace for the presiding officer 

to state the motion is defeated, the motion is carried, something to 

that effect? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did that happen with respect to the first 

premature calling of the vote by Mr. McNulty? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. For that matter, did it happen with respect to the second premature calling of the vote by Mr. McNulty? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think he did. I think he did complete a statement of the result, not just numbers but also result. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. With respect to the first premature calling, he does not complete the description of the result? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. And that frequently happens where a Member 

gets through the numbers but not the result, and then that slip is 

dispensed with in favor of an update from the Tally Clerk. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. After Mr. McNulty makes the first premature calling of the vote, votes actually still continue? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I think the notes indicate that Mr. 

Lampson, and perhaps Mr. Mitchell voted. Is that your recollection? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t recall who was transacting cards. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. The first premature calling of the vote by 

Mr. McNulty, in your opinion, did it have the effect in any way of 

thwarting Members from changing their votes? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Not to my knowledge. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And it certainly appears not because 

other Members went to the well. Do you have any recollection of 

Members being in the well, attempting to fill out vote cards after 

Mr. McNulty’s first premature calling of the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Not specifically, no. I know that there were further well votes transacted, but I have no visual. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So you don’t remember the identity of the 

Members, but you do recall other Members attempting to transact 

vote changes after the first premature calling of the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And do you remember anything happening after the first premature calling of the vote that would have 

deterred members from attempting to change their card. Was there 

anything about what Mr. McNulty said that would have prevented 

Members from continuing to change their votes if they wished to 

do so? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, I don’t believe so. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now, give me some indication just so I 

can understand. Mr. McNulty begins to make a statement. He says 

that the vote, the yeas are 214, the nays are 214, and he stops at 

that point. Tell me why there was no consequence if you will to Mr. 

McNulty’s statement, tell me why that did not prevent Members 

from transacting in the well? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. The vote is not complete until the Chair announces the result. And just stating what the numbers are doesn’t 

complete that job. The Chair then says the disposition of the proposition. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Okay. So the fact that Mr. McNulty does 

not state a disposition of the proposition, that’s important, is it not? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And it’s important because votes continue, Members continue unimpeded to be able to change their 

votes at that point? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now, when did you have your first interaction with the leader Mr. Hoyer with respect to the premature 

calling of the vote? Do you remember when you had your first 

interaction with him regarding the propriety of calling the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think my first interaction may have preceded 

the premature abortive attempt at 214–214. There was interest in 

completing the vote as soon as possible. And I believe that I had 

a conversation with Mr. Hoyer down near the hopper. A conversation that I’ve had with a lot of Members frequently in 2007. About 

the fact that just because they don’t see anybody in the well doesn’t 

mean that the well votes are in the system. There are events that 

follow the submission of a ballot card in the well that may take a 


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little bit longer than an anxious Member might like. And that, for 

that reason, that’s why the Chair was not closing the vote yet, because the Tally Clerks were still working. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Was there anything about that first conversation of Mr. Hoyer that struck you as unusual? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. It’s a—— 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Typical conversation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yeah, a perennial conversation. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did you hear—again, we’re focusing right 

now on the first premature calling of the vote by Mr. McNulty, 

prior to the premature, the first premature calling, did you hear 

any conversation between Mr. Hoyer and Mr. McNulty? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I can’t be sure. I know that Mr. Hoyer spoke in 

a loud voice a couple of times during this sequence. I would imagine that Ethan Lauer and Mr. McNulty were within earshot, but 

I don’t know exactly when in the sequence that occurred? 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. But speaking from your personal recollection, can you tell us what Mr. Hoyer said to Mr. McNulty if anything before the first premature calling of the vote, what did you 

actually hear? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I can’t say in specific words, but he was anxious 

to have the vote closed. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Anything unusual about a Member asking a presiding officer to call a vote after a zero has lapsed? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, for a majority leader to do it was not ordinary. There is always, you know, somebody who wants to catch an 

airplane or wants to go to dinner. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. When you say it was not ordinary for a 

majority leader to do, was there anything that was violative of the 

rules of the House for a majority leader to orally request that a 

vote be called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Does it violate the custom or procedures 

of the House as you know it for a majority leader to request that 

a vote be called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And when you heard Mr. Hoyer’s request 

that the vote be called, was that troublesome to you or bothersome 

to you in any way? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. Whenever leadership says we’re ready to have 

this vote closed, we take that as a legitimate communication that 

they’re ready for the Chair to close it down by the numbers. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And certainly in the 4 years in which you 

were parliamentarian, do you recall any other instances in which 

either the Democratic or Republican leader has requested that a 

vote be called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It is routine for the whip systems and the leaders’ 

tables to communicate to the rostrum that this vote is ready for a 

closing. They don’t purport to tell the Chair how to execute that sequence. They just tell him we’re ready for you to begin the execution of that sequence. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now, after the first premature calling of 

the vote, did you have any occasion to have a conversation with Mr. 

McNulty about why his actions were premature? 


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Mr. SULLIVAN. After? Well, when I had that conversation with 

him during and after the composition of that sheet of paper, I believe I explained why we needed more than just a mere tally slip, 

we needed to admit error. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Let me slow you down at that point. Did 

that exchange happen before or after the second premature calling 

of the vote, because you said there were two premature callings? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. This was after. This was after the second completed 214 announcement? 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So let’s work with each of them separately. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Okay. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Between the first premature calling by 

Mr. McNulty and the second premature calling, do you remember 

any conversation with Mr. McNulty? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. I did not apprise him that that should not 

recur. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. You did not apprise him? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. That was the mission I was trying to complete, and I didn’t get it done. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. In retrospect would that have been your 

opportunity; to have apprised Mr. McNulty that he had made a 

mistake and why he had made a mistake? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yeah. Yes. I’m sorry for the—yeah. I think that 

what I should have been able to do is the minute I heard the first 

abortive attempt to engage in bad practice, I should have immediately gotten to Mr. McNulty and made sure that he understood 

that’s not the way it goes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you know if Mr. McNulty understood 

what he had done wrong after the first premature calling? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, I don’t have any way of knowing. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did Mr. McNulty, in between the first 

premature calling and the second premature calling, seek your 

counsel on what he should do? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did you hear Mr. McNulty seek the counsel of any Member of the parliamentary office or any staff Member 

on the dais as to what he should do between the first premature 

calling and the second premature calling? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. Ethan Lauer was with him, but I don’t know 

what went on between them. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Has Mr. Lauer indicated to you that Mr. 

McNulty sought his counsel between the first premature calling 

and the second premature calling? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. We haven’t discussed it. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And did you hear Mr. McNulty, and 

again, this is probably apparent to all of us in this room, that Mr. 

McNulty has to remain at the rostrum the whole time while he’s 

the presiding officer, is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Uh-huh. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So there would be no occasion for him to 

leave the rostrum? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Not unless replaced. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Okay. Do you remember hearing any 

Member of the Congressional staff, Speaker staff, leader staff, whip 

staff, have any conversation with Mr. McNulty between the first 

premature calling of the vote and the second premature calling of 

the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you remember any Member having 

any conversation with Mr. McNulty between the first premature 

calling of the vote and the second premature calling of the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Only from afar, I mean, people shouting at him. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Sure. But you don’t remember a more directed, more personalized conversation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you remember the typical ‘‘close the 

vote, close the vote’’ for people who were trying to get home? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. I think Ellen Tauscher may have, I know I 

saw her this morning go up one time, but I think another time she 

ascended the rostrum and got all the way to him. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Was that important to you when it happened? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. It’s not unusual? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think she was just showing moral support or 

something to that effect. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And it’s not unusual for Members to come 

up and have some exchange with presiding officers? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Again, let’s see if we can focus our time 

frame. Based on the notes we have based on the time line that our 

staff has prepared there is a gap, again we’re around 22:50:06–07 

when the first premature calling happens. The second premature 

calling is several pages, but only one minute later I believe. We can 

go on the tape to around 22:51:20. Now, if you will just watch this. 

Let’s stop. 22:51:29 it appears that Mr. McNulty is making the second premature calling, is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. You were just watching the tape, you 

heard in the interval between 22:50:08 and 22:51:28, the clerk calling out various Members changing their votes, is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. [Nonverbal response.] 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, you heard her make a 

vote change? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. [Nonverbal response.] 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. You heard Diaz-Balart, one of the DiazBalarts make a vote change? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. [Nonverbal response.] 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. You have to answer audibly so she 

can—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Oh, yes. I’ve been answering in the affirmative to 

each of the questions. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. All right. You were looking at the tape. 

Tell me if you agree with my observation that Mr. McNulty is 

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versation with no one between the first vote, first premature vote 

calling and the second premature vote calling? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. During that time frame, no Member, 

staff, no Member approaches him, do you agree with that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. The second premature calling of the vote, 

tell me again what is premature this time about Mr. McNulty’s actions? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. We still have not completed the ordinary sequence 

of surety from the Tally Clerk. We have not—after the Reading 

Clerk reads those changes, and she’s doing that virtually simultaneously with De’Andre’s entry into the system, and then De’Andre 

affirms that he’s done, tells the standing Tally Clerk, ‘‘I’m closing 

the system now,’’ and the standing Tally Clerk then takes the 

snapshot that has become static rather than dynamic and puts it 

on a tally slip. And the second announcement was just as premature as the first for not letting that entire process unfold. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. There was no tally sheet with respect to 

the finality of the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That’s right. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you remember telling Mr. McNulty 

that night that he needed to have a tally sheet before he called the 

vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, I don’t. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And again, I’m referring to the whole 

night, not just simply the gap between the first premature calling 

and the second premature calling. Do you recall at any point that 

night you verbally stating to Mr. McNulty there had to be a tally 

sheet before the vote was called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I might have after the fact. I don’t know if we 

spoke after the fact that day or the next day. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. But—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. But not, not when it could do some good. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you remember saying to Mr. Hoyer, 

the leader, that there had to be a tally sheet before the vote was 

called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you remember saying to any Member 

of the leader staff or any Member of the congressional staff that 

there had to be a tally sheet before the vote was called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you remember Mr. Hoyer asking you 

if there needed to be a tally sheet before the vote was called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you remember any discussion with 

anyone that night about the significance of a tally sheet before the 

vote was called? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. After Mr. McNulty makes the second premature calling of the vote, did you have any occasion to explain to 

him that he had erred again? 


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Mr. SULLIVAN. When I was composing that statement for him 

and then describing the situation and what I was about to do in 

the well with Mr. Hoyer and so forth. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now let’s focus on that for a moment, because you said that you didn’t tell him that there had to be a tally 

sheet. What did you tell him he had done wrong after the second 

premature calling? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I probably phrased it in terms of just reading 

numbers off the scoreboard, like you can’t announce a result off the 

scoreboard. But I don’t remember saying anything about the tally 

slip in particular. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So I understand this happened a while 

back, but your best recollection is that what you told Mr. McNulty 

he had done wrong was that he was reading the result off the 

board instead of receiving confirmation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I believe so. I might have gotten into the detail 

of a tally slip with him. But usually we wouldn’t get that deep in 

the weeds. We try and keep it simple. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did Mr. McNulty appear to understand 

what you were saying to him when you were telling him that he 

should read the result off the board, did he appear to be following 

you? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I believe so. I think that the object lesson of the 

uptick to 215–213 was not lost on anyone. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now, let’s focus on that for a moment. 

What you describe the uptick of 215–213 happens after the second 

premature calling of the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. You stated that the result that was on 

the board, 215–213 final, had no parliamentary consequence, is 

that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did any Member that night ask you if a 

board saying final had any parliamentary consequence? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think probably. I was asked dozens of questions. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Would it be your best recollection that 

you would have explained to any Member who asked you that it 

meant nothing from a parliamentary standpoint that the word 

‘‘final’’ was on the board? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. I thought you meant about the 215–213. 

About final, I believe I did answer several questions about that. 

And I told them that that’s basically a clock setting that the software engineers use to mark a certain step in the exit sequence by 

the Tally Clerk. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So if any Member or staff or anyone that 

night had asked you about the consequence of the board stating 

final you would have explained to them that there was no parliamentary consequence whatsoever? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Davis, can you yield? 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Yes. 


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Mr. DELAHUNT. Can you identify if you have a recollection, can 

you identify those Members who inquired of you relative to the 

word ‘‘final’’ appearing on the board, hence, and its significance? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. The only Member whose conversation I know 

I spoke with, but I don’t know if it included the final thing, was 

Louie Gohmert. He had a number of questions after the events. 

But I don’t know if his set of questions included the final thing. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. What about Mr. Boehner, the minority 

leader? Do you remember any conversation with Mr. Boehner that 

night about the significance of the word ‘‘final’’ being on the board? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t believe so. I don’t remember talking with 

Mr. Boehner himself. I think I may have talked with his counsel. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. What about any of Mr. Boehner’s staff, 

do you recall a conversation with them about the significance of the 

word ‘‘final’’ being on the board? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t recall particularly. But I believe I had one 

or more conversations with Jo-Marie St. Martin, who is his floor 

counsel and could have. I think I would have consistently said the 

word ‘‘final’’ is not a legal or parliamentary condition. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So again, I understand you don’t have a 

pinpoint recollection of who you talked to or what they may have 

asked you about this, but you’re very confident that if any Member 

or staffer asked you about the significance of final, that you would 

have been consistent on your answer there was no parliamentary 

significance? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. There was a great deal of misinformation in 

the Chamber at this point. I remember a parliamentary inquiry. I 

don’t know if it was transcribed. But a Member alleging in the parliamentary inquiry that the Chair did have a slip in his hand and 

it said 215–213 on it. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. That would have been wrong? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. And that was utterly apocryphal. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now, after the second premature calling 

of the vote the notes reflect that other Members, Ms. Gillibrand 

and Mr. Space, went to the well to change their vote. Do you recall 

that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. I know there was activity in the well, but I 

don’t recall, except from my viewing of the tape this morning, that 

it was they. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. From your viewing of the tape this morning and that Mr. LaTourette asked you about earlier, do you agree 

that it appears after the second premature calling there was still 

voting changing activity that went on? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did Mr. McNulty’s second premature calling in any way thwart Members from continuing to change their 

votes? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Not unless somebody thought that’s all she wrote 

and walked out of the Chamber. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. But barring that misunderstanding, the 

fact that he made the premature calling, did that itself thwart any 

Members from continuing to change their votes? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Not to my knowledge. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now, our notes indicate and the time line 

indicates that after the second premature calling of the vote, there 

is a gap of several pages, but in real-time, approximately about 6 

or 7 minutes. I think our notes indicate that at 2:58 that Mr. 

McNulty bangs his gavel and he reads the explanation, if you will, 

that I think you helped him craft. Let’s see if we can go to 2:58— 

I’m sorry, 22:58. By the way, as we’re making our way to that 

point, as you discussed with Mr. McNulty what he needs to do to 

fix it, what did you tell him were his options? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Part of the time I spent explaining what I was 

writing down for him, explaining that we had an unsustainable ostensible announcement of a result and we needed to apprise the 

House that it could not be accorded legitimacy and that the system, 

when allowed to settle, produced different numbers, albeit no 

change in the result, and that would be the result, but it had to 

be preceded by at least some acknowledgement of error. I then had 

a—— 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Let me stop you. Let’s go back to again 

the point where he reads correction. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That conversation also included my—I told him I 

now intend to go down to the well and see what could be worked 

out in the way of throwing oil on the water. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So your role at this point, if I can characterize it, your role is to create some water, your role is to correct 

Mr. McNulty’s erroneous actions that night, and your role was to 

see if the two sides could come to some agreement as to how to lift 

ourselves out of this morass, does that sound about right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. All right. Let’s see if we can hear Mr. 

McNulty’s reading at 22:58. Let’s stop at this point. Did Mr. 

McNulty do what you asked him to do? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And did Mr. McNulty, in any way, show 

any resistance to doing what you instructed him to do to remedy 

the situation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did Mr. Hoyer interfere in any way with 

your efforts to give instructions to Mr. McNulty? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did Mr. Hoyer make any suggestions or 

instructions to Mr. McNulty that contradicted what you told Mr. 

McNulty to do? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did you hear any Member of the Congressional staff make any suggestions to Mr. McNulty that countered 

what you told him to do? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And did Mr. McNulty’s statement, in your 

opinion, clarify the vote that night for the final result of the vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. What did you consider the final result of 

the vote to be at that point? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Ayes 212, nays 216. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any reason to believe that 

that was an inaccurate reflection of the will of the House that 

night? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any reason to believe that 

that 212–216 final did not include the vote of any Member who 

wished to cast a vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any reason to believe that 

that 212–216 final was erroneous in any way? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did Mr. Boehner, or for that matter, any 

Member of the minority ask you if you believed that the 212–216 

final was an accurate reflection of the will of the House that night? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Nobody asked me that. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And if they had asked, you would have 

told them that the 212–216 final directly reflected the will of the 

House that night? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I would have said it was the number produced by 

the system. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Now, we’ve covered the heart that I wanted to cover with you. But just to make sure that we’re clear about 

what happens next, we saw that Mr. Hoyer twice goes to the floor 

and at one point makes a motion to vacate, at one point a motion 

to reconsider. I assume that you had some colloquy with Mr. Hoyer 

as to the best way to fix this situation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Was Mr. Hoyer interested in your opinion 

from what you could tell? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did Mr. Hoyer resist your suggestion to 

him as to the best way to remedy the situation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. What was your advice to Mr. Hoyer, because he does two things; he does a motion to vacate, then a motion to reconsider? I assume that was based on your colloquy with 

him? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Why did he change from one to the other? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t know that he changed. But I didn’t—I 

wanted to make sure that he saw the unanimous consent to vacate 

as being a superior solution to a motion to reconsider. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Superior from a procedural standpoint? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. And from a bedside manner standpoint, if you 

will. Unanimous consent showing some kind of consensus. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Was Mr. Hoyer deferential to your suggestion as to the best way to proceed? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. He listened to me and he used the first tool I suggested, I don’t want to call it deferential. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Going back, you’ve mentioned that you 

had several exchanges with Mr. Hoyer and then you’ve characterized those exchanges. Let me focus on one of them, the statement 

that you recall him making, something to the effect of we control 


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the House, not the Parliamentarians. Have I got it right what you 

recall him saying? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Words to that effect. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Is there something incorrect about that 

statement, in your opinion? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Is it your opinion based on your time as 

the Parliamentarian that the Parliamentarian is subordinate to the 

elected leadership? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Is it your opinion that it would be appropriate for a presiding officer to follow the instruction of a leader to 

call a vote assuming that that reflected the will of the House? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I think it’s appropriate for the presiding officer to 

begin the sequence of calling the vote. But I think it’s his independent duty to do it by best practice and not by some tempo suggested ad hoc by a leader or other person. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Was there any point that night when you 

recall Mr. Hoyer doing anything that you considered to be a violation of the House rules? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Was there any point that night when you 

recall Mr. Hoyer doing anything that you considered to be a violation of the customs and traditions of the House? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. At this point I’m going to yield to Mr. 

LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. George and I have had an opportunity to visit the restroom and we’ve been at this awhile. Would 

it be all right if we took a five-minute break for John and the court 

reporter? 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Yes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. John, if I can, there were two questions 

I neglected to ask you, and I want to do that before I yield to Mr. 

LaTourette. The first one I think I ended by asking you a line of 

questions about Mr. Hoyer. I want to ask you the same line about 

Mr. McNulty. During this exchange that we’ve been watching, the 

events surrounding the premature calling of the vote and the efforts to fix the premature calling of the vote, did Mr. McNulty, in 

your opinion, ever commit any violation of the rules of the House 

as they’re written? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did Mr. McNulty, to your knowledge, ignore or refuse to follow any instructions that you gave him as the 

parliamentarian? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And did Mr. McNulty violate the customs 

or procedures of the House in any way that you know? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, he departed from best practice on that announcement, but other than that, no. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any reason to think that Mr. 

McNulty knowingly departed from best practices. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No, I don’t. 


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Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Thank you. Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. John, first of all, I made the observation when we had a public hearing and Charlie Johnson. And 

when the Republicans became the majority party in 1995, there 

was a lot of grumbling that Charlie Johnson was being kept. When 

we huddle up they say, hey, do you know what, why are we keeping the Democrat’s Parliamentarian? And I made the comment 

then that Charlie Johnson wasn’t the Democrat’s Parliamentarian, 

he was the Parliamentarian of the House. And I grew, over time 

and still today, have the highest respect for him. And I don’t know 

whether the same happened in 2007 while you were being kept as 

the Republican Parliamentarian. 

But I do want to lay upon the record that I have the highest regard for you. And in the time that I had the pleasure of being in 

the Chair, I got nothing but good advice and solid advice. And I 

have enjoyed our conversations about the institution. I think you’re 

institutional. So if I ask you a tough question, it’s not because I 

think you’re—I think you’re great. And let me also say having been 

in the Chair a number of times, I know it’s not easy, and so I don’t 

want to cast aspersions of Mr. McNulty either. 

As a matter of fact, my staff—I’m very much looking forward to 

moving forward. Our staff indicated, and I don’t think you were on 

the floor, Ms. McCartin was on the floor during the material appropriations bill in 2000 when there was a quorum call, in which I had 

a tally slip. And more than 100 Members showed up and I moved 

forward so that we could get to the series of amendments. I’m excited to see how the equivalency is going to be brought out if it’s 

brought out as we move forward. And I apologize. 

I had to say I’m sorry I screwed up. Not because I didn’t have 

a tally slip, not because I didn’t follow the rules. I felt that Members were goofing around and not coming back from dinner. And 

so again, it’s tough, a lot of pressures. So it’s not unusual for the 

occupant of the Chair to get some advice, either from the leadership or other Members. Congressman Young of Alaska is pretty 

well known for yelling regular order moving forward. But I think 

what’s unusual, and I would ask you if you agree with me, what’s 

unusual in this case, because one of our other witnesses has indicated, what’s unusual in this case is that the occupant in the chair 

bought into it and actually did something, followed the urging from 

the audience if you will. Is that a pretty fair assessment? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I can’t diagnose Mr. McNulty’s state of mind or 

motive. I know that he had all kinds of people wanting him to 

move faster for sundry reasons. Not just the political anxiety over 

the result, but also ‘‘I want to go home.’’ 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. And I want to focus on your conversations with the majority leader. And I want to read to you some observations made by a witness that’s already appeared. Kevin 

Hanrahan on that evening was the standing Tally Clerk. He was 

being questioned about whether or not you were engaged in any 

conversations and whether they were unpleasant. His answer 

was—I’m trying to dance not using the profanity that was laced in 

there, but some of that was there. And I think you know I’ve sat 

and I’ve—I’ve seen and heard a few things. I’ve been here longer 


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than some people, not as long as some others and seen some 

strange things, heard some strange things. 

I think those words, those kind of things, if they’re said to somebody on the street, you should probably be thankful you’ve got a 

full set of teeth. I just don’t think you should talk to anybody that 

way, and I think he was wrong, referring to Mr. Hoyer. So do you 

remember the words that the majority leader spoke to you that 

evening aside from words to the effect? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, I know he said—again, I have to say words 

to the effect because I can’t say it’s a direct quote, but he did say 

words to the effect of, ‘‘the Parliamentarian doesn’t run this place, 

we run this place.’’ And he may have said that in several different 

ways. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. But was he profane? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Not to my recollection. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. You don’t recall him swearing? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I’ve spent a lifetime being yelled at, and you know 

I don’t register that kind of thing. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Do you think that this was—— 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did you ask him if he was an Irishman? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. No, but I think he was a former marine. But 

you don’t recall the majority leader being profane? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. He may have said the word ‘‘damn’’ or something like that. Distinguishing between profane and vulgar, certainly not vulgar. Maybe he said, you know, this damn place, we 

run this damn or something like that, I don’t know. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. You indicated that in your written statement and again today that one of the things that caught your attention and why you thought maybe you better get to the rostrum 

was you noticed that the Speaker was preparing to vote, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That just clued me in to look at the scoreboard 

and notice at that point I think it was a very tight margin. I don’t 

remember the numbers, but it was—because I was totally off in a 

different world talking to Bill Sali and Lynn Westmoreland and 

paid no attention to the political anxiety that was afoot. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And when you see the Speaker, no matter who 

the Speaker is, but when you see the Speaker, Speakers, typically 

by tradition, don’t vote every vote, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That’s been changing over the years. In the late 

1980s if I saw the Speaker voting by a well card, I would think, 

oh, the MX missile is about to go down by one vote. Because it was 

exceedingly rare for Mr. O’Neill or Mr. Wright or Mr. Foley to vote 

on any question, unless needed to break a tie. But since then, since 

the ’90s, it’s been less arresting to see the Speaker recorded. And 

even to introduce bills through the hopper occasionally, which was 

unheard of before. 

But nevertheless you do notice the Speaker late in a vote, handing in a card, and it makes me look at the scoreboard and ask 

what’s going on. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Let me ask you, even though you’ve noticed 

that there has been a change in the House, typically the Speaker, 

whether it’s Mr. Hastert or Ms. Pelosi or Newt Gingrich, the votes 

are typically on signature pieces of legislation, regular votes as 

they come in. The 6 for 06, for instance, which heralded at this new 


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majority, I would be surprised if the Speaker of the House didn’t 

vote at all on those because she considers them to be accomplishments for herself and her party. But on a motion to recommit, I 

think that we can believe that it’s the second, and that is that it’s 

going to be close, is that fair? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yeah, I think so. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. So—I mean, I’ll just throw in the record that 

we had over 1,000 votes in 2007. I believe the Speaker voted 100 

times. So it’s in the 10 percent figure. So that’s what cued you in 

that something was afoot? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That made me look at the scoreboard. And the 

scoreboard, you know, that late in the vote having that close a margin is unusual. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And do you remember what the issue was in 

the motion to recommit? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I remember that the form of the motion was 

promptly, which means that it was inimical to passage. It would 

not occasion a forthwith report operating as though an amendment 

in real-time. It may have had some sort of immigration content to 

it, I don’t recall. I believe it was in the form of a limitation on 

funds. And as a consequence, if it had not been a promptly motion, 

it would have been liable to a point of order. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. If it was, in fact, having to do with immigration, are you just based upon your observation of the ebb and flow 

of the House what occurred in 2007, would you agree with the observation that the issue of illegal immigration and motions to recommit has been troublesome for the new majority, particularly the 

new Members? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I’m an amateur observer of these things, but, 

yeah, it seems like that’s a hot button. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And in particular, on this particular vote there 

were always 200—well, on this vote there were always 230 Democrats voting and always 198 Republicans voting. But it becomes 

close when some people on the majority side leave the reservation 

and join the minority. Did you have the conversation that evening 

with Catlin O’Neill concerning this vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Probably. I mean, I—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, do you recall? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. How about Jerry Hartz? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. How about George Kundanis. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t recall having a conversation. After the fact, 

I remember securing assurances from Catlin and Jerry that the 

Chamber would not be needed, that the electronic voting system 

could be worked on overnight. Because we were in recess and there 

was a theoretical possibility that the House would reconvene. So I 

wanted to establish that between 1:00 a.m. and 7:00 a.m. the engineers could be working with the electronic voting system. But that, 

I believe, was an e-mail contact. And other than that, I don’t remember any transactions with them. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I want to talk to you about the well cards that 

evening. There came a time when there were two well cards that 

weren’t processed by De’Andre Anderson. One was Mr. Hoyer’s 


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which was a duplicate, so I guess there would be no reason to process it. And the same with Mr. Boehner. And I’ll make the assumption that Mr. Boehner submitted a well card to change his vote so 

he could be on the prevailing side to make a motion to do something procedural. Why was Mr. Boehner’s well card not processed? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t know. My surmise would be that it was 

perceived as provisional. That he put it there in case he needed to 

qualify to move to reconsider. And when the majority leader, 

evinced his intention to enter that motion, Mr. Boehner didn’t need 

to qualify, and so he might as well be recorded the way he felt 

about the motion and not the way he needed to be to qualify. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I get that answer, but who made that—I mean, 

he turned in a well card? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, that’s my surmise. I don’t know why it went 

unprocessed. There were two unprocessed cards. I guess Mr. Hoyer’s was a dupe. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. That’s what we’ve been told. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I would surmise that Mr. Boehner’s was understood to be provisional. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I guess I’m having trouble getting my head 

around that. So if I as a Member go down and say I want to go 

off IMA and I give the standing Tally Clerk a card, he passes it 

over to the seated Tally Clerk, who makes the decision not to process my vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I agree. You would think that no discretion would 

be exercised, no one would try to read Mr. Boehner’s mind on it. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, and so again to the integrity of this vote, 

I mean is it appropriate that Mr. Boehner’s card wasn’t processed? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I guess not. Unless Mr. Boehner said something 

to the Tally Clerk when he handed in the card saying in case I 

need to qualify for a motion to reconsider. I don’t know whether he 

did or not. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, I mean I guess we’ll ask him. But saving 

that he had that conversation, and again, I don’t even know how 

that would work. It’s like being a little bit pregnant. When I’ve 

turned in my card, I’ve either voted or—I mean, let me ask you this 

from a rules standpoint and a procedure standpoint in the way the 

House runs. I mean, can I like wander down to the well and give 

the standing Tally Clerk a card and say, you know, don’t count it 

unless we’re losing or don’t count—is that the way it works? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. But I could see one of the leaders saying, I 

mean to change my vote if necessary to qualify for a motion to reconsider, but I’ll give you a high sign or I’ll give you a nod if I really mean it or something like that. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. But failing Mr. Boehner doing that, is there 

any explanation that you can think of that’s reasonable as to why 

his card wasn’t processed? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And would the non-processing of Mr. Boehner’s 

card violate a rule, practice, custom? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It would be wrong. I can’t point to a black letter 

that says so, but the duty of the Tally Clerk is to record a Member’s vote as he casts it. May I make one aside? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. You can say whatever you want. 


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Mr. SULLIVAN. Of everybody at the rostrum that evening, the two 

who did their jobs best were the two Tally Clerks, and in the face 

of people trying to make it hard for them. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I know. 

Listen—and I don’t know that any Member or any member of the 

staff would quibble with that, to tell you the truth. I think that 

they were put in a bad spot by events that were occurring. And 

your description that it was the most raucous—I mean, as a Member I kind of had fun that night, but I imagine if you’re on the receiving end of it, you’re Mr. McNulty or you’re a member of the 

professional staff, it probably wasn’t fun. 

But, again, back to Mr. Boehner’s card. If Mr. Hoyer’s card was 

a duplicate, then that’s where the Reading Clerk would say Mr. 

Hoyer already voted yes or no or whatever he voted. But the nonprocessing of a Member’s card who has voted is wrong, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Technically, the duplicate should have been processed as well, in which case the Reading Clerk, rather than saying 

‘‘off aye and no, Mr. Hoyer,’’ would say ‘‘Mr. Hoyer voted no,’’ 

meaning this is a duplicate, we already have that in the system. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And, in this instance, unless Mr. Boehner— 

and we’ll talk to Mr. Boehner—was given some instruction he 

didn’t want us to have, Mr. Boehner was disenfran—he didn’t have 

the opportunity to have his vote recorded as he intended to have 

it recorded. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That’s correct. If he wanted to be a ‘‘no’’, he didn’t 

get what he wanted. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. When you were kind enough to be with us during the walk-through that we did on the House floor, your observation—may I say something about producing the slip—we’re talking 

about the tally slip. This is probably the most important quality assurance process step in the process. Because when I get that slip 

I know that the numbers that are written on that slip come from 

the voting system that was closed to further input at that time and 

that those numbers were written down. You haven’t changed that 

view since that time? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And when Charlie Johnson came and testified, 

he said 40 years he was in the Parliamentarian’s Office and never 

recalled a vote being called without a tally slip. 

And there were some questions about Mr. McNulty when Catlin 

O’Neill was interviewed by the staff of the committee. She said one 

of the reasons they put Mr. McNulty in the chair is he’s one of the 

best on their side. Would you agree with that? He’s one of the best? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And so for him to call the vote without a tally 

slip it’s more than unusual. I mean, he—— 

And as a matter of fact, at the time Charlie Johnson retired, he 

sent a letter to the Speaker saying it’s been my pleasure to have 

been in the chair a lot when the Democrats were the previous majority. And I assume we can ask them—well, actually, we don’t 

have to ask them. Catlin O’Neill indicated the reason that they put 

him in the chair is he’s good. And there are some people that are 

good and some people maybe we don’t put them in the chair or we 

don’t put them in the chair during a contentious subject. 


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So Mr. McNulty was one of the better presiding officers of the old 

Democratic majority and also the new Democratic majority. Is that 

a fair observation from you? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And do you still—I know when we were in 

charge you used to prepare—I don’t know whether it was you or 

Charlie, but the Parliamentarians used to draw up a list of gentle 

suggestions that maybe this person would be good for when there’s 

trouble on the floor, this person would be good for Special Orders 

and this person—maybe you don’t put this person in the chair. Do 

you do that for the Democrats? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And where on your list is Mr. McNulty? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. If there were five tiers, he would be in the top of 

them. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And so, according to how I understood things 

ran when we were in the majority, if you got word when you arrived in the morning that the Republicans were going to cause 

trouble through a series of procedural motions, whatever the case 

may be, we were mad and it seems we’re getting madder as we go 

along, if you knew that we were going to be mad, would you recommend that a guy—well, not a guy, but Mr. McNulty be in the 

chair? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Sure. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. This taped business about ‘‘don’t read the 

thing before the slip,’’ do you remember when the Parliamentarian 

started that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Very recently, it wasn’t until very recently that 

we had anything like that for the presiding officer. Before, it was 

just oral prompting. We would just hand him the slip and say the 

words, ‘‘on this question . . .’’ and they knew what to do from that 

point. 

More recently—before 2007 but very recently—we’ve had occasion to provide greater comfort to Members in the sequence by 

which they close the vote and the words by which they announce 

the result and then, hence, the creation of that sheet. 

I remember I used to write it out for Mr. Hastert, because he 

didn’t spend a lot of time in the chair, and I didn’t expect him to 

know the rote recitation. 

But the typed form probably is even more recent than—well, it 

was after Charlie’s retirement, I know that. It was during my stint 

as the head of the office. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Let me ask you this. When you say it was 

‘‘after Charlie’s retirement’’, were the Republicans still the majority 

party? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And it was placed on the rostrum? Taped on 

the rostrum? Given to the person? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It would be handed. And it was an opportunistic, 

episodic. I mean, if you were in the chair, I would not have used 

it. If someone who was less familiar or evincing discomfort, then 

I would use it. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Do you have any knowledge as to whether or 

not Mr. McNulty was in possession of the document that day? 


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Mr. SULLIVAN. I don’t. But he wouldn’t be the kind of guy that 

I would think it necessary for. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Because he knew about it? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yeah. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. He knew not to close a vote without a tally 

slip? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. He knew the incantations of it well enough so he 

didn’t need that prompting. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. The statement that the majority leader made 

to you that ‘‘we run the place; the Parliamentarians don’t’’ you indicated is correct. And in that regard the majority calls the tune. 

They schedule the floor. A Member of their party is the occupant 

of the chair who is invested with a great deal of discretion. 

But you don’t mean by saying that Mr. Hoyer was correct in that 

observation that they can just do whatever they want to do, do 

you? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And so, relative to a vote, Rule 20 indicates 

that when the Speaker announces a vote the Speaker can determine whether it’s electronic device or that the vote was taken in 

some other manner, but they still have to follow the rules as to 

how the vote is taken and the rule says that the clerk shall conduct 

the vote, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. So would it be appropriate for the majority 

party, as the folks are running forward, just to come up with their 

own system of conducting a vote in the middle of a vote? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. So when you assented to Mr. Davis’ observation that Mr. Hoyer was right that they run the place, they do because they schedule the floor, but they’re still constrained by the 

rules. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. They can tell the Chair to begin the process of 

closing. They can’t tell him how to conduct the process of closing. 

He follows the school solution for that. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. So they run the floor. And it’s not uncommon—I mean, having been in the chair I remember Mr. DeLay 

taking his finger across his throat many times, and that was to 

mean not that he wanted to execute me, but it was that he wanted 

me to close the vote, begin the process. So that’s when the occupant 

of the chair says, ‘‘Have all Members voted? Does any Member 

wish to change their vote?’’ And the changes come in, but then you 

wait for the slip? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And the failure of this evening was that Mr. 

McNulty didn’t wait for the slip? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. On the second call that you’ve had the opportunity to witness today, again during our walk-through and also I 

think again today, that what threw us into uncharted territory is 

when Mr. McNulty issued not only the numbers but said the motion is not agreed to, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Right. 


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Mr. LATOURETTE. Based upon rule, practice, custom, tradition, in 

your mind that closed the vote at that moment in time in terms 

of not properly but that those are fatal words, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yeah. That’s the unequivocal statement of a result 

that ordinarily would mark the end of a vote. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. So when you then—and I gave you a lot of 

credit. Because I’ve watched the tape, not 1.2 times, but I have 

probably watched it 20 or 30 times. And the way that you kept 

your cool—not only the folks from the Clerk’s Office, but the way 

you kept your cool I think is more than commendable. But you’ve 

used the word ‘‘uncharted’’ territory. There was no book for you to 

determine what to do at this moment in time, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. So it was what we call in Ohio ‘‘seat of the 

pants’’ time, right? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. You had it figured out. So when you wrote the 

statement for Mr. McNulty I think that either today or at previous 

times you called it the provisional equivalent of a tally slip. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It was a tally slip and then some, yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. But you’ve prepared it, though? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. The Clerk’s Office didn’t prepare it? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. In the normal course of closing a vote and the 

production of the tally slip, the tally slip is produced by the seated 

Tally Clerk, handed to the Parliamentarian, who then hands it to 

the occupant in the chair. That didn’t happen with the final observation that Mr. McNulty made. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. When De’Andre was before the Committee, are 

you also aware that the machine froze at one point, the EVS? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. At the end, yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And I think that, when you watch, I think 

De’Andre is desperately trying to get out and move to the next 

level, and I think he’s indicating to you that the EVS is frozen, and 

your words, which are audible, are we got bigger problems than 

that at the moment. Do you recall that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. At some moment in time you conversed with 

Mr. Sorenson about the malfunction of the EVS. And Mr. Sorenson, 

did you ask him what your options were or did he tell you what 

your options were? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. He told me. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And basically one of the options was that the 

vote could be aborted? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. There was only one option. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And that was it? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yeah. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. We’ve had some testimony from some of the 

Tally Clerks that there was another option. Are you aware? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, after the fact, it was revealed to me that 

there was another option. It was more painstaking. But Kevin 

Hanrahan or Mark Sullivan, one of them, both Tally Clerks told 


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me that there was some way they could have gone around the problem and fixed it. But the briefing I received on the spot was that 

there was but one option. You can go without the electronic voting 

system from this point forward this evening or you can free it for 

continued use. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And I think they called that work around, the 

second option, the work around. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. But at that moment in time on August 2nd you 

weren’t aware that there was a work around. You were advised by 

Mr. Sorenson that the only way to get out and continue to use the 

EVS was by aborting roll call 814. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Well, he didn’t say aborting roll call 814. He said 

abort. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Abort. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I understood him to be telling me—first of all, he 

told me there was but one option. Other than using a call of the 

roll for the succeeding votes, the only option was to abort. And I 

asked him what that meant. And his response made me think in 

terms of active memory, storage memory, that we would have to 

lose active memory, albeit retaining storage memory. And so I 

equated it with just freeing the screens, aborting the displays in 

favor of the next set of displays. And I failed to ask him, well, why 

don’t we have a second option? I just made him affirm, yes, that 

is the only option. And I said, well, in that case, then abort. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And when you made that decision—and let me 

ask you, is that your decision to make as the Parliamentarian or 

should that have been made by the occupant in the chair? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It may have been presumptuous on my part to do 

it, but it was only me that evening. I guess the next time I would 

probably go to the Chair and say we should brief him—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

Mr. SULLIVAN [continuing]. And see if he had some guidance on 

it, on whether we should forget about the electronic voting system 

and do calls of the roll for the balance of the evening. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Because under Rule 20 the Speaker determines how the votes are conducted. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That’s right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. The Speaker or the Speaker’s representative in 

the chair could have made the decision that, as you indicated, okay, 

the machine is broken so we’re going to call the roll, count heads, 

do well cards, whatever you want to do, figure it out. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Based upon your conversation with Mr. 

Sorenson you were of the opinion that active memory would be lost 

but not—so you always believed that roll call 814 would be preserved someplace. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And Mr. Sorenson assured you of that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Had you ever seen the system aborted in your 

time here? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. When we quit in favor of a call of the roll or to 

restart, yes. I don’t know if we used the word ‘‘abort’’ or terminate. 


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But I remember an attempted use of the electronic voting system 

being aborted. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And I think—I don’t know whether you told 

me some other day—that you called the Government Printing Office or suggested that they leave the space open in the Congressional Record so things could be—— 

Mr. SULLIVAN. There was going to be a volume break in the 

Record, and it’s just a question of where they would put the break. 

And I asked the Clerk to the Official Reporters, the people in the 

front row of the rostrum, to call the GPO and tell them that the 

volume break should occur before the fracas. Because I was concerned that the engineer’s reconstruction of the roll call—and I was 

mostly concerned about the Journal the next morning—that it 

might take all night, and I didn’t want the—well, they wouldn’t 

have the data to give to GPO after 10:00 p.m. if it did take all 

night. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. You were asked a series of questions about 

whether or not Members approached Mr. McNulty as he was in the 

chair. I think I agree with your assessment that Mrs. Tauscher was 

just coming up to offer moral support because he was having a 

tough night because people were yelling and screaming. The conversation—the audible conversation that you were having with the 

majority leader occurred just to the left of the Speaker, Mr. McNulty, right? It was on the upper step. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. To the Chair’s right, that’s right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And we’re able to hear it on the tape above 435 

people yelling. Was Mr. Hoyer’s demeanor calm? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Was his voice loud? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I suppose so, yeah. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. John, I’m going to tell you what I think happened and then invite your observation. 

During this roll call—and Mr. Davis is right. We had a whole series of amendment votes preceding this, 2-minute votes, as a matter of fact, a number of amendments to the Agricultural Appropriations bill before we got to this moment in time. 

But on this vote there were always—it didn’t matter whether it 

was 214–214, 215–213, 212–216. And then the majority leader 

made this point: There are always 428 people voting on this roll 

call. We never had the situation where somebody came running in 

the back and tried to make it 429. And of those 428, 230 of them 

were always Democrats, and 198 of them were always Republicans. 

And during 2007 I think that the Congress has been roiled by 

the issue of how to deal with illegal immigration, in particular conservative Democrats, newly elected conservative Democrats. If you 

look at the 19 Democrats who left the reservation, I think you’re 

going find that that’s who they were. If you look at the switches 

at the end, you have three Democrats—you have Mr. Space, Mrs. 

Gillibrand and Mr. McNerney coming in and creating the 212–216. 

What I think happened—and you can tell me that you don’t 

know, you don’t agree or you do agree—is that, without having 

these vulnerable freshman Democrats who don’t want to go home 

and explain a tough vote on immigration—this wasn’t an attempt 

to win. They always could have won. It was to win without having 


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these 19 Democrats do the walk of shame and change their card 

and have to go home and explain why they voted this way on illegal immigration. 

That’s why the Speaker voted, that’s why the majority leader 

was exercised, and that’s why Mr. McNulty banged the gavel, despite being one of their most experienced presiding officers, twice 

to try and make it 214–214. What do you think? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. That’s outside my universe. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. I don’t think I have anything else. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I have some very brief redirect, just following up with some things that Mr. LaTourette raised. 

One of the questions is about Mr. Boehner and the well card that 

was not processed. Do you have any recollection, John, that Mr. 

Boehner registered any complaint that night that his card was not 

processed? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any recollection of him making a parliamentary inquiry as to why his card was not processed? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you have any recollection of any Member of the minority registering any complaint that Mr. Boehner’s 

card was not processed? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And do you know of anything that would 

have prevented Mr. Boehner from registering a complaint if he felt 

wrong in any way that night? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you remember any member of Mr. 

Boehner’s staff explaining to you that his well card was not processed that night? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Do you know anything that would have 

prevented any member of Mr. Boehner’s staff of registering a complaint that he felt he was disenfranchised in some way? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Who would Mr. Boehner have given his 

well card to? Which particular individual by name would he have 

likely given his well card to? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I would expect it to be Kevin Hanrahan, the 

standing Tally Clerk. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And Mr. Hanrahan is obviously an experienced individual. Do you believe that Mr. Hanrahan would be 

aware of the context in which a minority leader might be coming 

forward to change his well card in this circumstance? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Probably. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And the context Mr. LaTourette correctly 

described, it would be one of him attempting to change his vote so 

that he could then be on the winning side to make a motion for reconsider, is that correct? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And would Mr. Hanrahan have understood that, to your knowledge? 


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Mr. SULLIVAN. I think he probably would. He’s a very cool customer and situationally aware. He doesn’t hold himself out as a 

parliamentary expert, but I think he—— 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. He’s been around long enough to understand that context? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And did Mr. Boehner, to your memory, 

ever go to the floor to make a motion to reconsider? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. I think he tried to offer a motion to adjourn 

at one point, which was not in order at that stage of the proceedings. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. But would that have anything to do with 

the well card? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. I think he might have intended at one point 

to offer a motion to reconsider. But then he saw that that was 

going to be the majority leader’s fallback position, and I think he 

stood down. I don’t know that he handed the card to Kevin. 

Occasionally, a Member will just leave a card on that ledge, and 

the Tally Clerks will find it after the fact, and they’ll come to me 

and say we have an unprocessed card here. And I say, well—I will 

say, well, let me go to the Member. 

I’ll take the card to the Member and say, this was found on the 

rostrum after the last vote. It was unprocessed. Did you mean it? 

The Tally Clerks are going to have to keep it as an unprocessed 

card unless you want to take it and tear it up. And usually the 

Member will take it and tear it up. 

I don’t know whether Mr. Boehner’s was such a card and they 

just never brought it to my attention that night. It could be that 

it was just found on the ledge. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Okay. Now, even after—let me go, if we 

can, back to the tape to 22:51, if we can. I don’t want to spend a 

lot of time on this, but I want to clarify one thing Mr. LaTourette 

asked you about. 

All the way back to 22:51:26 what you will see at that time 

frame is this second erroneous calling of the vote, if you will, the 

second premature calling of the vote; and I want to focus on what 

happens right after that. So let’s actually get back to that point. 

Just to lay the foundation, as Mr. LaTourette correctly pointed 

out, what distinguished the second premature calling from the first 

premature calling is that in the second instance Mr. McNulty does 

say, the motion is not agreed to. He does make an announcement 

of the result. Do you recall that Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And Mr. LaTourette I believe made the 

point with you that his announcement of that result in ordinary 

course would have terminated the vote. Do you recall that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Okay. Let’s stop. Let’s just listen if we 

can. Let’s stop at this point. 

My notes reflect, Mr. Sullivan, that after Mr. McNulty erroneously says the vote is not—or the motion is not agreed to, the 

three Members—Mr. Space, Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. McNerney— 

went to the well, entered well cards and were announced as off no, 

on aye, or off aye. Do you agree with that recollection? 


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Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Just for purposes of everyone understanding what happened here, can you explain why Space, 

Gillibrand and McNerney were able to continue vote changes even 

after the erroneous statement that the motion is not agreed to? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. It is my judgment that the result could not stand. 

It didn’t have legitimacy because it was prematurely announced 

without the benefit of a closed system. The system being open, it 

remained open. And there were other votes trickling in or changes 

trickling in. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. So you made what I think we all agree 

was the correct judgment to allow Members to continue to change 

their votes even after the dispositive statement was made the motion is not agreed to. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. I’m shocked watching the tape at how long 

I lingered with Tom Wickham expressing to him my diagnosis of 

the situation. But that was my diagnosis, that legitimacy could not 

be accorded to that announcement. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. That was your judgment. I think we 

agree it was the correct judgment. 

Did any Member attempt to impede you from exercising your 

judgment with respect to keeping the vote open. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Did any Member attempt to impede you 

from exercising your judgment to keep the vote open? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. And as a consequence of that there was 

no prejudicial effect to any Member who wished to change his or 

her vote based on Mr. McNulty erroneously stating the result. Do 

you agree with that? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I assume that that’s true. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Well, we know that it was true because 

Members continued to change their votes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. A Member might have been moved to leave the 

Chamber. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. But we have no idea. And we do know 

that three Members continued to change their votes. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. I have no other questions. I will yield to 

the chairman if he has any questions. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I have no questions. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Actually, can I consult with Mr. LaTourette? 

Mr. SPULAK. I have two or three quick questions. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. John, Mr. LaTourette asked you who prepared this modified 

tally slip, if you will, and you indicated it was yourself. He asked, 

was it the Clerk; and you said, that’s correct. 

A. Sure. 

Q. And by that perhaps I infer that he was indicating should 

that have come from the Clerk. You could have asked the Clerk for 

a slip, but you had more to add than just the numbers. You wanted 

to add sort of a statement of where things were and the apology 


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to the House, having prematurely called it. So is that the reason 

why you did it rather than just asking the Clerk to do it? 

A. Yeah. That and it was—I hate to use lipstick on a pig—but 

asking the Tally Clerk to produce a slip at that point seemed to 

me like trying put a band-aid on an artery. I guess we’re saying 

the same thing. We needed an admission and a tally slip at that 

point. 

Q. You could have asked the Clerk to produce one and they 

would have done it. 

A. It would have been putting trappings on it. 

Q. Is there any evidence that Mr. Hoyer was asking the Chair 

to do something inconsistent with the rules or inconsistent with the 

normal protocol for closing a vote? 

A. No. I mean he had a sense of urgency about getting the vote 

closed. 

Q. But that happens at times? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Again, no suggestion that he was saying call it without a slip? 

A. No. 

Q. Let me ask one thing that has not been touched on, and that 

is regarding the decision to abort. In your prepared statement that 

you were kind enough to submit, you indicated that Mr. Dreier was 

with you or standing next to you when you were having this consultation with Mr. Sorenson about aborting. 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Q. So is it your belief that Mr. Dreier was aware? 

A. I don’t know how attentive he was. I wouldn’t be surprised if 

he was interested in the conversation. I just have a clear recollection that he was standing there. At a number of points there were 

people like Mr. Dreier or Jo-Marie or Mr. Blunt at the foot of the 

rostrum listening to some of the conversations that were taking 

place. I don’t know whether Mr. Dreier particularly would have 

paid attention to the abort conversation. 

Q. But, in any event, he didn’t say anything about it? 

A. No. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. John, I don’t know if this has been asked directly, but did Mr. 

McNulty ever explain to you why he called the vote in the manner 

he did? 

A. No. 

Q. There’s that brief exchange when you were writing it out 

there and he leans in and he starts talking to you. Do you recall 

that exchange? 

A. I recall having an exchange with him. He wasn’t entirely a listener, and I think he spoke, but I don’t remember what he said. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Mr. Sullivan, Mr. Davis asked you a series of questions about 

whether during the interval—this is between the first premature 

announcement of the vote and the second—whether you observed 

any Members approaching the Chair to give them instructions, and 

I think your answer was no, is that right? 

A. Uh-huh. 


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Q. Do you recall the conversation that you had with Mr. Hoyer 

or Mr. Hoyer said—and I believe this was referenced by Mr. 

LaTourette—we control this House and not you. Do you recall 

when that conversation took place? 

A. That took place more than once, but the one that I think 

you’re familiar with is sort of midway between the hopper and the 

Chair. 

Q. Would it have been—if you look at the screen now, do you recall whether—and we can rewind it if necessary—but do you recall 

whether that conversation took place roughly where you are on the 

screen? 

A. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Which is 22:53:20. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. No it did not. I think. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Why don’t we go ahead and rewind it, if we could, 

to 22:50:45, roughly. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. While we’re rewinding it, I would like—based 

upon Mr. Davis’ observation, I hope we can agree Mr. Boehner attempted to make a parliamentary inquiry after this happened, and 

he was denied recognition by the Chair. So we can ask Mr. 

Boehner what his parliamentary inquiry was going to be, but to 

suggest that he didn’t have something that he wanted to ask the 

Chair is not appropriate. 

Mr. DAVIS OF Alabama. Well, we can agree that he wanted to 

make an inquiry, and we can ask him what he wanted to inquire 

about. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Stop there. And was that the conversation where Mr. Hoyer 

told you that we control the House and not you? 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. At 22:50:46. 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I’m not sure. But, obviously, he got as far as the 

mace in terms of proximity to the Chair. I agree with you on that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Can you rewind that again to where Mr. Hoyer 

is talking to John? 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. You may need to raise the volume. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Okay. Freeze it as he’s coming up. The time then 

is 50:42. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Do you recall now — 

Mr. DELAHUNT. That conversation? 

Mr. SULLIVAN. I didn’t hear the audio just now, but if somebody 

else heard control the House, then now is the time — 

Mr. DELAHUNT. So that lasted less than a second. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Well, for the record, I think we established earlier that the 

initial attempt to close the vote was at 22:50:08 and that the second premature calling is 22:51:29. So this conversation that you 

had or Mr. Hoyer had with you would have been during the interval between the first and second premature calling of the vote, is 

that accurate? 

A. I believe so. 

Q. And would that have been within earshot of the Chair? 

A. Probably so. 


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Q. And do you know as you sit here today whether or not the 

Chair overheard that conversation? 

A. No. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. Any further questions? 

John, thank you for taking your time and for coming here this 

morning. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I hope it was pleasant. 

Mr. DAVIS of Alabama. The proceedings stand adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 10:48 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

TUESDAY, APRIL 8, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF ROY BLUNT, MINORITY WHIP 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1628, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 1:05 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

REPRESENTATIVES WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, ARTUR DAVIS, STEPHANIE HERSETH SANDLIN, MIKE PENCE, AND KENNY C. HULSHOF 

The committee met, pursuant to call, at 1:08 p.m., in Room 1628, 

Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Artur Davis [Vice Chairman of the Committee] presiding. 

Present: Representatives Davis, Herseth Sandlin, Pence, and 

Hulshof. 

Mr. PENCE. We will go on the record. 

I am Mike Pence, the Ranking Member of the Select Committee 

established under H. Res. 611. I want to welcome our witness, Representative Roy Blunt from Missouri, the minority whip of the 

House of Representatives. Thank you for coming. 

Mr. BLUNT. Thank you. Thank all of you for looking into this, 

and the time you have taken on it. 

Mr. PENCE. I think the record should reflect the members that 

are present: Mr. Pence, Mr. Hulshof on the Minority side; Mr. 

Davis, and Ms. Herseth Sandlin on the Majority side. It’s my understanding that Mr. LaTourette will be joining us. 

Mr. DAVIS. I am Artur Davis, Mr. Blunt, Vice Chair of the committee. 

Mr. Ranking Member, if I can just make a few other protocol-related points. 

Mr. Blunt, what we have agreed to do—and we know that your 

time is very precious, 45 minutes, and we are going to work very 

hard to keep that because you have important things to do—what 

we have decided is the best procedure is for the Ranking Member, 

Mr. Pence, to open with a round of questions for you of 15 minutes. 

After that, I will ask you 15 minutes’ worth of questions. We will 

probably take a break of about 5 to 7 minutes at that point. Should 

you wish a break at any point before that, obviously you’re free to 

ask for it. Then we will end with a Democrat round of 71⁄2 minutes 

and a Republican round of 71⁄2 minutes. 

Mr. PENCE. Thanks, Artur. 


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BY MR. PENCE

Q. Mr. Blunt, as you know, we are operating under a House resolution adopted August, 3, 2007. This select committee was instituted to investigate the circumstances surrounding the record vote 

requested by the gentleman from California on the motion to recommit H.R. 3161. 

The record should reflect we are joined by the Chairman of the 

committee, Mr. Delahunt. 

Mr. Blunt, were you in the House Chamber on the evening of August 2, 2007? 

A. I was. 

Q. Could you describe for the committee the mood in the Chamber that evening? 

A. Well, the mood in the Chamber was relatively routine until 

we got to this vote. I’d say it’s fair to describe the mood of the 

Chamber at the end of this vote as heated. The circumstances 

turned out to be outside of the normal procedures, and, in fact, significantly more outside of the normal procedures than I realized at 

the time. 

But this was about the second or third instance where the Majority’s new rule on not holding votes open for the purpose of changing 

the vote appeared to have changed. But complicated even more by 

the Chairman’s actions are the Speaker pro temp’s actions that 

ended the vote—I thought the way all votes had been ended—until 

later I had a chance to review what happened and found out that 

the normal procedures that are followed to complete a vote in every 

other instance that I am aware of was just simply ignored during 

this process. 

Q. Let me ask you specifically about that. The morning after— 

and I’d ask unanimous consent to submit a copy of your speech on 

the floor of the House on August 3rd. 

Mr. DAVIS. Without objection. 

[The information may be found in the Appendix.] 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Quoting from that speech, Mr. Blunt, you said, ‘‘I have left the 

House encouraged, I have left the House proud, I have left the 

House not so proud. I have never left the House ashamed before.’’ 

I wanted you to elaborate on that point. Why would you have left 

the House ashamed? 

A. I was ashamed not of any actions that I was part of, but just 

the conduct of the House, the way that this vote was completed. 

The determination on the part of the Majority to win at any cost 

seemed so at odds with the position that the Majority had staked 

out for itself earlier in the year. Even though this wasn’t the first 

time that we crossed the line, it was clearly the most egregious 

time we crossed the line. 

Q. Let me ask you specifically—and you alluded to this in your 

earlier statement. Also referring to your remarks on the floor on 

August 3, you said, ‘‘I decided for 4 years when the vote would quit, 

as a whip. That was my job,’’ you said. ‘‘We never stopped the vote 

until the clerk handed the person a piece of paper that said what 

the vote was, and the vote of that piece of paper was 215–213.’’ 


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That was your statement on the floor that morning. 

A. It was. It was. 

Q. You said you since learned that your understanding of what 

had occurred that evening was different. In what way? 

A. Part of the process and procedure on the House floor is that 

the person that is below the Speaker’s rostrum—I am not sure 

what the official title for that particular employee of the House is— 

but the designee of the clerk fills out a piece of paper, hands that 

piece of paper to the Speaker; and on every vote I am aware of, the 

Speaker reads the vote and then concludes the vote as they announce what the tally was. 

I assumed that had happened. I wasn’t watching the Speaker pro 

temp carefully at the time, what he had in his hand. I just knew 

that he had announced the vote. I also knew that when he announced the vote—even though the vote on the screen was at one 

point, just watching, as I have for a long time, the well of the 

House—that the vote would have been 215–213. I was assuming 

that that was what he was given. 

I don’t know where the Speaker was receiving direction, or if he 

was receiving direction. I do know that in the years of our Majority, when I was the majority whip, whoever was serving as Speaker 

would always look at the whip’s area to see if it was time to conclude the vote, if all of our Members had voted and, to the best of 

our knowledge, every Member on the floor, Republican or Democrat, had voted, and then we would indicate that we were done. 

I am confident that there was never a time during the previous 

Congresses that I have been involved in when an actual employee 

of the House was pressured to hand a piece of paper to the Speaker 

that didn’t have an accurate count on it, or when a Member was 

in any way encouraged to ignore the employees of the House who 

were doing their job. 

Q. For the record, state when you became the chief deputy whip. 

A. I became the chief deputy whip in I think January. Early 

1999. I think January of 1999. Then I became the whip in January 

of 2003. 

Q. So your statement today would be that at no time during your 

work as chief deputy whip or as majority whip that you had witnessed an incident where a vote had been closed without a tally 

sheet. 

A. Without a tally slip being completed, that’s correct. 

Q. Going back to your testimony the next day on the House floor, 

you made those remarks with the assumption that that procedure 

had been conformed with. 

A. I did. 

Q. So let’s see if I can amplify that a little bit. In your career 

of Congress over the past—I think you were elected in 1996, is that 

correct? 

A. That is right. 

Q. During your career in Congress, did you ever see a vote closed 

by a presiding officer without that presiding officer first receiving 

a written tally slip or tally sheet? 

A. With the exception of this one, no. A vote that had an actual 

roll call. Obviously, a presiding officer on a suspension vote or a 

vote where no roll call is reflected wouldn’t get a tally sheet. But 


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in any circumstance where a vote was actually taken, I know of no 

other situation where the employees of the House were not allowed 

to do their job. 

Mr. PENCE. I want to alert the staff for a moment. I want to take 

a look at the video before I yield here in a few minutes. If we can 

activate the video and go to on the clock what would be 22:54:06. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Mr. Blunt, you’re going to see a video recording of a very short 

portion of the events that night. Your statement is you were on the 

floor. There is a moment here that we are interested in getting 

your recollection of. 22:54:06. If we can fast forward it here. 

There’s a point on the tape you approach the rostrum and you 

appear to be having a conversation. 

A. Was that with Tom? 

Q. Let’s let you take a look at it. 

A. All right. 

Q. 22:54:06. 

A. This would be some punishment if we had to watch our whole 

career, even 16 times. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. This has been a very punishing task, I can assure you. It’s better today without LaTourette being present. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. 22:54:06. My questions to you, Mr. Blunt, will be what were 

the two of you discussing, to your recollection on the conversation, 

and what were you being told about what was going on at the 

time? I want you to have a chance to look at it and reflect on it. 

22:54:06. I think that is where it begins. When we get there, the 

record should reflect that we begin the tape at 22:54:06. 

I will just ask the witness to describe what was going on at that 

time when the tape begins. 

A. Okay. There I am, talking to Tom. 

Q. You’re up to the left of the rostrum as you face forward. 

A. Uh-huh. Right. 

Q. Can you stop the tape there for a moment here? What were 

the two of you discussing? 

A. Mr. Pence, I am not absolutely sure what we were discussing 

at that time. I was under the impression that the procedures had 

been followed and the Speaker had called the vote. Now, the 

Speaker had called the vote. What I didn’t know is the procedures 

hadn’t been followed. My belief is that I was asking Tom Wickham 

how this process could be continuing, because I thought it was 

over. And I don’t recall what his comments were. 

Jay came up at about that same time, and knows about as much 

about the House rules as anybody on our side does, who’s been 

here a long time. 

Q. Jay. Who are you referring to? 

A. Jay Pierson, who I have only known for 111⁄2 years. 

Q. But Jay approached. There appears to be a Member. 

A. Darrell Issa is right there by me on what would be my right. 

I think I am just challenging—or not challenging; I am just asking 

how we even had any options once the vote had been decided and 


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the tally clearly, at the moment the Speaker decided the vote, 

would have been 215–213. 

Q. In the favor of the Minority. 

A. In favor of the Minority’s motion, even though the electronic 

total may have reflected something different than that. That was 

not reflective of what the clerks would have tallied by that time. 

I have watched this for a long time. There’s not that much activity 

on the floor, that once you have got a starting point near the end 

of a vote, you can’t watch the cards that are going in, the red and 

green cards are going in, and know what’s happened. You have 

changed one, you have changed two, you have changed three. 

Again, I was assuming that that tally that I think is essential was 

part of the process. 

Q. And in assuming that, you assumed the vote was closed. 

A. I assumed the tally had been handed up. And I knew if it 

would have been handed up, it would have said 215–213. And the 

Speaker then, even though he was reading the wrong thing, I just 

assumed the process had completed itself and he had not responded to what the clerks had handed him. 

Q. Final question, in the interest of your time, and I’ll yield to 

the Majority member. What explanation were you given? You said 

you asked why was this still being permitted to go on. What explanation do you recall that you were given? 

A. I think it was something like, We are trying to work this out. 

At that point I think I maybe listened to whatever Jay said and 

walked away a little disgusted that the procedures could be in that 

kind of chaos on something that should have been as simple as voting on a motion to recommit. 

Mr. PENCE. Okay. That is all the questions I have in the first 

session. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thank you, Mr. Pence. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Mr. Blunt, let me pick up with one observation that you made 

in your statement on August 3rd on the floor and that you repeated 

several times here today. You state that you believe that the correct vote on the motion to recommit was 215–213 in favor of the 

motion. What is your basis for your belief that the vote was 215– 

213? 

A. Well, Mr. Davis, it would have been 215–213 at the moment 

the Speaker called the total. You have got all the records here and 

you should be able to establish that. But my basis was watching 

the number of votes that changed, and which way they changed, 

in that however long it was when there was not much activity except less than a handful of votes changing, it wasn’t that hard to 

keep track of what the vote would have been. 

Q. Was there ever—and I think we have established that there 

was never a tally sheet that reflected 215–213. In fact, there was 

never a tally sheet, period. 

A. Exactly. 

Q. So your conclusion was not based on your seeing a tally sheet. 

A. It was not. 


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Q. Was it based on your looking at the board at one point—and 

it’s my recollection, I think, that the board was 215–213. Do you 

remember seeing that on the board? 

A. I don’t remember that. I think that may be the case. But I 

don’t remember that. 

Q. Could that have informed your recollection, the 215–213? 

A. No. No. The 215–213 vote was a response of I think three of 

our Members changing their vote. All you had to do is subtract 3 

and add 3. Frankly, you get pretty good at that if you’re the whip 

on the House floor, knowing how this process has gone on. I am 

sure you all have records that can be used to verify that, or that 

are easily verified whether my observations on the floor were correct or not. 

Q. Now you mentioned in response to the Ranking Member’s 

questions that when you were talking to Mr. Wickham, that you 

were asking about why the process was continuing. 

A. Right. 

Q. What do you mean when you said ‘‘process was continuing’’? 

A. Once the tally is completed, which should happen before the 

Speaker calls the vote, the process is—in my view, is over at that 

time. That is the moment when you should be ready to move on 

to other business. And not knowing that the procedures had not 

been followed in the most basic way, I was assuming they had been 

followed in the correct way. 

Q. When you say ‘‘the process was continuing,’’ were Members 

continuing to change their votes in the well? 

A. I don’t know if at that time Members were changing their 

votes or not. 

Q. We watched the tape several times. 

A. I am sure you know a lot more about this tape than I do. 

Q. I will represent to you that there were various Members, various Democratic Members—Mr. Space, for example, Mrs. 

Gillibrand; may have been some Republican Members as well—who 

were in the well, picking up vote cards, presumably to change their 

votes. Do you have a memory that contradicts that, or do you contradict that representation? This is at the time you were talking to 

Mr. Wickham. 

A. My memory would be that whatever happened, happened after 

the Speaker had ended the vote. I think he later said he prematurely ended the vote, whatever that means. I don’t think our 

rules actually provide for a premature ending of the vote. 

Q. Is it your position that the presiding officer, Mr. McNulty’s actions in any way prevented Members from changing their votes? 

A. My position is that it should have prevented Members from 

changing their votes. 

Q. Did it have that effect? 

A. I am not sure what effect it had because I don’t think there 

was ever even a tally on this vote, even after other Members 

changed their votes. I am not sure that this vote was ever properly 

concluded. 

Q. But is it your position that Mr. McNulty’s actions thwarted 

any Member from changing his or her vote? 

A. I think what I just said was my position is that his actions 

should have ended the vote when he took it. 


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Q. But it did not. 

A. Since there was no tally, I don’t know if any voter—any Member ever actually officially changed their vote or not. 

Q. But, again, it’s not your position or contention that it happened. You simply don’t know. 

A. Don’t know what? 

Q. Don’t know whether or not the presiding officer’s actions had 

the effect of preventing any Member from changing his votes. I understand you may not know, and you can say that. 

A. I think the presiding officer’s actions could have easily confused Members enough that they might not have voted the way 

they intended to. 

Q. Did any Member report to you he or she was confused in a 

way that would have prevented them from changing a vote? 

A. I don’t recall Members reporting that. 

Q. You said in your statement that you made on the floor on August 3rd, I want to quote from it, ‘‘I decided for 4 years when that 

vote would quit, as the whip. That was my job.’’ 

Are you saying in effect that, as the whip, it was more or less 

your decision when to close a vote when you were in the Majority? 

A. When we were in the Majority, whoever was in the chair 

would rely on the whip to know if all Members had voted and it 

was time to close the vote. 

Q. Was that role of the whip ever codified in terms of the rules? 

A. No. And I have no idea if the whip on the other side gave 

similar direction or not, or whether the Speaker, just based on 

their knowledge—which is not very full if you’re in the chair—decides on their own that all the Members are in, they voted. Surely 

that is not the case, but it might be. 

Q. But you don’t know. 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. Let me refer you, if I can, to a document. I refer to it in shorthand as the Republican amendment that was offered to the rules 

resolution at the beginning of 2007. This is a section of proposed 

rules that the Minority submitted. 

I am going to refer you to the part, section 305, that says: Regular Order for Legislation. I will hand that to you. Why don’t you 

take a look at that? 

Second page, section 305. I will let you look at that, Mr. Blunt. 

Just let me know. 

This is something you have seen before. This is from the proposed Republican rules that were submitted at the beginning of 

this session. If you look on Regular Order for Legislation, you will 

see on number 4, ‘‘Floor votes shall be completed within 15 minutes, with the customary 2-minute extension to accommodate Members’ ability to get to the House Chamber to cast their votes. No 

vote shall be held open in order to manipulate the outcome.’’ 

You testified today several times about the importance of a tally 

sheet and your recollection that in your experience a vote had not 

been closed without a tally sheet. Is there a reference in the proposed Republican rules to the necessity of a tally sheet to close the 

vote? 

A. I don’t think there’s any reference here to how we vote at all. 


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Q. Let me just ask you, do you know if the current House rules 

that were adopted contain a reference to a tally sheet? 

A. I don’t know that. 

Q. Do you know if the proposed Republican rules that were submitted last year contain a reference to the necessity of a tally 

sheet? 

A. I believe these rules make several—I don’t know that. I think 

they make several assumptions about voting, from the electronic 

voting system itself, to the fact that someone officially keeps track 

of what that vote was and enters that into the record. None of 

those things I believe are specified in the rules the Majority submitted or the rules the Minority proposed as changes. 

Q. Just so we are clear, when the Majority was held by the Republicans, did the rules at that time contain any reference to a 

tally sheet being a necessity for calling a vote? 

A. No. I don’t know that they did. I also don’t know where the 

procedures of the Clerk of the House are referenced or how those 

procedures are followed through with the daily work of the House. 

But I do know that many of those procedures are assigned to the 

Clerk. 

Q. Now, when you approached the rostrum to speak to Mr. 

Wickham, were you able to overhear any conversation between Mr. 

McNulty and any member of the Democratic leadership? 

A. No. 

Q. Were you able to hear any conversation between Mr. McNulty 

and any staff member of the Democratic leadership? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you have anything to offer, any light to shed, on any conversations that may have happened between Mr. McNulty and any 

member of the Democratic leadership or any member of the staff? 

A. I don’t have. 

Q. You mentioned that you were in the chair as the presiding officer, that your ability to see and perceive what goes on in the 

Chamber is limited. You would agree that the presiding officer, the 

vote board, if you will, that reflects, that electronically reflects how 

the Members have voted, that is behind the back of the presiding 

officer? 

A. Yes. 

Q. There is normally a vote sheet as opposed to a tally sheet that 

is generated while a vote count is going on that lists how Members 

have voted. I am sure you have seen that kind of document as the 

whip. It gives you a sense of who hasn’t voted, how current Members have voted. 

A. I guess I have seen the sheet, though normally both of the 

whips’ tables have a computer, and you can generate that. But normally you look at the computer to see who’s here, who’s not here, 

who’s still out that we know is in the building somewhere. 

Q. Now to your knowledge, that particular computer printout, 

that is not available to the person that is the presiding officer, is 

it? 

A. To my knowledge, it’s not. 

Q. So if Mr. McNulty was in the chair, he would not have been 

in a position to see the board, he would not have been in position 

to see the vote sheet that I just referenced. Do you agree with that? 


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A. I believe that is right. 

Q. And do you have any recollection—just, again, we have seen 

this tape more times than you have, I suspect, but you’ll remember 

that there’s a point when Mr. McNulty makes what clearly appears 

to be an erroneous premature calling of the vote. That happens before you go up there. You remember that. 

A. I don’t remember that I thought at the time it was either erroneous or premature. 

Q. But you thought there had been a calling of the vote. Do you 

remember at the moment Mr. McNulty made that call if there were 

Members who were actually in the well? 

A. I don’t remember. 

Q. So you certainly couldn’t shed light on—— 

A. There might have been at the time. I haven’t reviewed the 

tape, and I don’t remember. 

Q. Do you remember any Member—every now and then we’ll 

hear someone yelling, ‘‘One more,’’ or something like that. Do you 

remember any Member orally manifesting an intent to change their 

vote in the moments before Mr. McNulty made his first call? 

A. I don’t remember. 

Q. When you went up to talk to Mr. Wickham, do you remember 

what you did after you left the conversation with Mr. Wickham? 

A. No. 

Q. Did you attempt to be recognized at that time as a Member? 

A. I don’t recall that I did. 

Q. Did you attempt to make a parliamentary inquiry? Because 

you indicated that you had expressed concern to Mr. Wickham 

about what had happened, why the process was continuing. 

A. I think we had other Members who were making inquiries at 

the time. 

Q. But you don’t remember making an inquiry? 

A. No. I might have. But I don’t remember making one. 

Q. Do you remember discussing with your leader, Mr. Boehner, 

at that time what the appropriate course of action should be for the 

Minority? 

A. Again, we had a brief discussion. But it was I think after the 

second—after the revote. 

Q. One of the remedies that would have been available to the Minority that night, Mr. Blunt, would have been to call for the vote 

to be set aside, or to call for another vote. Do you agree that that 

would have been a remedy that was available to the Minority on 

the night of August 2nd? 

A. I actually don’t agree, based on what I know now, that the 

vote had ever concluded. So I am not sure there was any remedy 

available at the time to rectify the situation that had occurred. 

Q. But would that have been a possible subject for parliamentary 

inquiry to determine? 

A. We’d have had to watch the tape again. I suppose we would 

have had more ability to have a parliamentary inquiry and say, 

Why weren’t the things that are normally done here, done? I was 

assuming, and I believe everybody was assuming, that the Speaker 

was not working either without direction from somebody else on 

the floor or without following procedures that are always followed. 


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Q. You said in your statement, as I wrap up my questions, you 

said in your statement the day after the vote, you refer to a week 

of violations, the principles of the House, you refer to being 

ashamed of the House. 

What rules violations do you contend happened on the night of 

August 2nd? 

A. Clearly, there was a violation of the rule where the vote was 

held open, if it was held open, or reopened, or whatever was done 

to change the outcome of the vote. It’s not the last time it happened, not the first time it happened, but probably the most egregious time it happened. 

Q. Just to have some perspective, Mr. Blunt, do you remember 

November 22, 2003, in the Medicare Modernization Act vote? 

A. I do. 

Q. Do you recall, just in context, do you recall that vote was held 

open for a number of hours? I believe it was approximately 3 hours; 

is that correct? 

A. I think that is right. 

Q. Do you believe that the decision of the leadership was a violation of the rules that were in place at that time in 2003? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you believe that the decision of the leadership would be 

a violation of the rules today if we retrospectively applied them? 

A. It would. 

Q. Tell me why, sir. 

A. Actually, the night of this is an interesting course of discussion here. On the night of the 2003 vote, not all the Members on 

the floor had voted until that 3-hour period was over. There was 

one Member that was there the entire time, never left the floor, 

and only when that Member voted was the will of all the Members 

on the floor registered. That Member didn’t change his vote, that 

Member hadn’t voted. That Member was on the floor. 

But the key here is that the Majority decided they were going to 

change the rules so that no effort would be made to change a vote 

in order to manipulate the outcome. That rule was violated on August 2nd; it was violated again on the rule on the outside ethics 

committee that we had just a few weeks ago. And, in fact, right 

after that May vote you’ve referenced, the Democrat whip was 

asked if he would pledge never to work to change a vote after the 

time had run out. And he said no, he wouldn’t make that pledge, 

because the purpose of the House is to get the work of the House 

done. 

Q. All right. 

Mr. Davis. Keeping with the time limits that we agreed on, why 

don’t we stop and take a 5-minute break and we will come back 

for our last 10 minutes? 

Mr. BLUNT. I am actually fine, if you all are. But we can take 

a break if you want to. 

Mr. DAVIS. Take a break for 2 or 3 minutes then. 

[Recess.] 


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BY MR. HULSHOF

Q. Mr. Blunt, Mr. Davis asked you some questions about the 

2003 Medicare vote. And I think you referenced one Member who 

had not voted. That was a Democratic Member, was it not? 

A. It was. 

Q. In fact, did the Democratic Member vote for or against the 

measure? Do you recall? 

A. I think at the end of the process when he finally voted, he 

voted for the measure. 

Q. The aftermath of that—again, I simply explore this as it was 

raised from Mr. Davis’ questions of you—there were actually Members of the Majority party who were sanctioned by the ethics committee, correct, after that Medicare vote? 

A. That is right. 

Q. Regarding the proposed alternatives that Mr. Davis inquired 

of you, and I think the relevant portion, ‘‘No vote shall be held 

open in order to manipulate the outcome.’’ You are familiar, aren’t 

you, that the House actually has custom and practice that may not 

be designated specifically in a rule, but in fact is something that 

is determined over a course of many years? 

A. I am. 

Q. Who primarily determines whether the precedence of the 

House had been followed or violated? 

A. The Parliamentarian. 

Q. Do you know the name John Sullivan? 

A. I do. 

Q. Who is John Sullivan? 

A. He is the Chief Parliamentarian of the House. 

Q. John Sullivan has given information to the subcommittee. Let 

me ask you to agree or disagree with the following statement he 

made to us regarding the tally slip. Mr. Sullivan said, ‘‘It’s probably the most important quality control device in the announcement of a vote.’’ On page 12, by the way. Again, ‘‘probably the most 

important quality control device in the announcement of a vote.’’ 

Do you agree or disagree with that statement? 

A. I agree with that statement. 

Q. There’s been some discussion, and Mr. Davis asked you about 

the actual vote tally, and you referenced the computer logs or the 

computer tallies that we can do. 

A. Right. 

Q. But as far as the tally sheet itself, make sure we are understanding the same piece of paper or document, the only one of 435 

Members who’s actually privy to the tally sheet would be the 

Speaker Pro Tem, correct? 

A. That is right. 

Q. And what is your understanding of how the tally sheet is actually generated? 

A. I am not sure I understand the exact procedure. But the clerk 

and the designees of the clerk fill out a tally sheet. They are directly in front of the Speaker. They turn around and hand that 

tally sheet to the Speaker, who then reads the final total from that 

tally sheet. 


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Q. Regarding the substitute, the rules package, the substitute 

rules package, whether or not you participated in helping generate 

that substitute, when drafting this alternative, did you, personally—did you believe that it would be necessary to actually codify 

or require in writing a tally sheet to these rules? 

A. No. I don’t think these rules talk about a lot of detailed procedures like pushing the green button instead of the red button or 

where those are located on the House floor. Those are the procedures that the House traditionally follows, and an important part 

of the process. 

Q. As someone who watches the weekly colloquy between yourself and Mr. Hoyer, let me express my opinion. It appears as I 

watch the colloquy between you and Mr. Hoyer, that you have, the 

two of you have a good relationship—or I don’t know if affection is 

the right term. Would you consider Mr. Hoyer a friend? 

A. I do. 

Q. On the evening Mr. Pence just showed you some of this footage, a few seconds, do you recall if you had a discussion with Mr. 

Hoyer that evening about this vote? 

A. I don’t recall any discussion with him that evening about the 

vote or about any of the votes that could have or did follow. 

Q. What, if any, discussion have you ever had with Steny Hoyer 

about roll call vote 814? 

A. I don’t know that we have had detailed discussion about this, 

except a discussion about—really, our discussion was actually 

about Mr. McNulty. Mr. Hoyer was sharing with me Mr. McNulty’s 

concerns about how his position could be perceived here. And I 

reached out and talked to him after that and told him that I didn’t 

know anybody on either side of the House that thought that he had 

intentionally done anything that was unethical or that he should 

spend undue time worrying about this. It’s just something we needed to work out and not see repeated in the future. That was, I 

think, the only discussion Mr. Hoyer and I had about this. 

There are some things that, if you’re Members of Congress, as we 

all are, that you can sustain both your friendship and your working 

relationship better if you just decide there’s some topics that it 

doesn’t do a lot of good to continually revisit. And this would be one 

of them. 

Q. Did you have a conversation with Mr. McNulty? 

A. Not that night. But I did later. It was just more of a reassuring conversation that sometimes you get caught in a situation 

that things happen that you don’t intend to happen, and that he 

should feel confident in the respect that the Members have for him 

personally. 

Q. Your answer suggests—and I don’t want to put words in your 

mouth, so let me ask—so what then was expressed to you by Mr. 

McNulty as far as concerns that he had? 

A. I don’t recall. My impression was that he just didn’t want the 

Members to think that his motivations had been in any way unethical. 

Q. I presume that this time you were talking to Mr. Wickham, 

was that the only time you recall going into the clerks’ area on that 

evening? 


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A. I may have gone down there one other time when I thought— 

it could have been another day. I think I went down another time 

when one of our Members I thought was getting pretty exercised 

about this. I just walked down to try to calm that situation down. 

Q. To make sure that I am clear from Mr. Davis’s questions, during the time that you were up on the rostrum do you recall overhearing any conversation or part of a conversation by Mr. Hoyer, 

by leadership staff, other than your conversation with Mr. Hoyer? 

A. I don’t recall any. 

Mr. HULSHOF. I think that is all I have. 

Mr. PENCE. I have one further question. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. I want to follow up, referring to your conversation with Mr. 

McNulty. You indicated to him—and I think all of us as Members 

understand the spirit of your remarks to him—you specifically said 

there was a sense that what he had done was unethical. 

Let me ask you a question. Is it your statement today that the 

Speaker pro tem that night, and Democratic leadership, circumvented the standard operating procedures to effect the outcome 

of the vote and change what you believe was the proper outcome 

of the vote of 215–213? 

A. That is my view. 

Q. Back to our earlier line of questioning, did you or your staff 

during your tenure as Majority whip, or chief deputy whip, did you 

or your staff ever direct, suggest, or encourage a presiding officer 

to circumvent standard operating procedures while closing down a 

vote in order to achieve a desired result? 

A. No. 

Mr. PENCE. No further questions. 

Mr. DAVIS. I have just a few questions before I yield to my colleagues to see if they have any, Mr. Blunt. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Let me pick up directly on Mr. Pence’s line of questions. I had 

an occasion to depose Mr. Sullivan, the Parliamentarian, and I 

asked him this question: ‘‘Did Mr. McNulty, in your opinion, ever 

commit any violations of the rules of the House, as they are written?’’ Mr. Sullivan’s answer is ‘‘No.’’ 

Do you disagree with Mr. Sullivan’s answer? 

A. I don’t know that I agree or disagree. I’d have to think 

through all the background of that discussion to probably be able 

to answer it the way he did. I think that it’s clear that Mr. McNulty violated the traditional procedures of the House. 

Q. One of the things that the select committee has been charged 

with doing is making an assessment, obviously, of what Mr. 

McNulty did and why he did it. I asked Mr. Sullivan the question: 

‘‘Did Mr. McNulty, to your knowledge, ignore, refuse to follow any 

instructions that you gave him as the Parliamentarian?’’ Mr. Sullivan answers ‘‘No.’’ 

Do you challenge that or disagree with that? 

A. I don’t disagree with it. But I don’t think it would be all inclusive of the actions that Mr. McNulty took. I am sure that the ParVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00417 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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liamentarian didn’t tell him, Don’t wait for the tally sheet, for instance. 

Q. I asked Mr. Sullivan actually about what you’ve referred to 

as customs and protocols, is the way I phrased the question. ‘‘And 

did Mr. McNulty violate the customs or procedures of the House in 

any way that you know?’’ Mr. Sullivan’s answer, ‘‘Well, he departed 

from best practice on that announcement. But other than that, no.’’ 

Mr. Sullivan refers to best practice instead of customs and protocol. Do you challenge Mr. Sullivan’s answer? 

A. I don’t agree with his answer. 

Q. I asked the question of Mr. Sullivan, ‘‘Do you have any reason 

to think that Mr. McNulty knowingly departed from best practices?’’ Mr. Sullivan’s answer is, ‘‘No, I don’t. Do you challenge Mr. 

Sullivan’s answers? 

A. I don’t know if Mr. Sullivan had ever presided before or—— 

Q. McNulty. 

A. Mr. McNulty had ever presided before. But if he had, I don’t 

know how he could not have been more aware of the procedures of 

how you complete a vote. 

Q. Do you have any evidence, or is it your contention, Mr. Blunt, 

that Mr. McNulty called a vote that he knew to be contrary to the 

actual result on the floor? 

A. I don’t believe, as it turns out, there was an actual result on 

the floor. So I don’t know that I can evaluate that. 

Q. The answer would be ‘‘no.’’ 

A. No, I don’t know that there was an actual result on the floor. 

Any calling of a vote would have been contrary to a result that 

hadn’t occurred yet. 

Q. The final question on that point. Do you believe or is it your 

contention here today that Mr. McNulty acted in a manner to deliberately prevent other Members from casting or changing their 

votes? 

A. I guess my conclusion would be that Mr. McNulty did not enforce this rule that you referred me to, section 305, subsection 4. 

Q. I am actually about to go right there, just to take one last 

crack at that question. Do you believe that Mr. McNulty acted in 

a manner to prevent other Members from changing or casting their 

votes? 

A. I think he didn’t follow the rule I already cited, 305.4. And 

if the Speaker doesn’t enforce it, I don’t know what purpose it has. 

Q. Let me end by referring you to the rules. I am looking at page 

806 of the rules that have been adopted for this session. Do you 

remember I asked you a number of questions about the Republican 

proposed rules, if you will. Of course those were not adopted. 

A. Imagine that. 

Q. Imagine that. 

I want to refer you to page 806. If you will look toward the middle of the page you will see the relevant portion that deals with circumstances in which a vote may or may not be called. It says, ‘‘A 

record vote by electronic device shall not be held open for the sole 

purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote.’’ 

A. Yes. 

Q. That is different language from what the Republicans proposed, is it not? 


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A. I don’t know. 

Q. Just so our record is clear, if you will look at the proposed Republican rules, it says, ‘‘No vote shall be held open in order to manipulate the outcome.’’ 

A. This is different language. 

Q. Is it your position, Mr. Blunt, that Mr. McNulty violated the 

rules, as adopted? 

A. My position is he didn’t enforce the rules, as adopted. 

Q. In what manner? 

A. And as a Speaker, that is his job. 

Q. In what manner? 

A. He allowed the vote to be held open—assuming the vote was 

ever properly concluded, which I am not sure at all—he allowed it 

to be held open for the purpose of reversing the outcome of such 

vote. 

Q. What would be your factual basis for that conclusion? 

A. No additional Members voted. And the only things that happened after the vote was held open, if it was held open—since it 

was never completed, it is a little hard to argue this—but the only 

votes that changed, were changes of votes that been cast that 

changed the outcome. 

Q. Finally, let me refer you—we also took testimony, or more accurately, the staff took testimony from Jay Pierson, who we discussed earlier. Mr. Pierson was asked if there were violations of 

rules that night. His answer—actually, let me just read the question and the answer: 

‘‘Do you think that justifies the Majority bypassing established 

protocols in order to win votes? 

Mr. Pierson’s answer, ‘‘Established protocols? No. I mean, if you 

mean—I mean as we talk, the idea that you have a slip and that 

the board says final, that is not the rules of the House. So if you 

mean by that kind of established protocol, no, you shouldn’t do 

that. But there are no rules. Rules of the House weren’t broken. 

Just like we held the vote open for 3 hours, you can hold the vote 

open for 3 if you want. There’s a fuzzy area there. No, they are not 

rules. But protocol, no?’’ 

Do you agree with Mr. Pierson’s answer? 

A. No. I think under the rules that this Congress passed, you 

can’t hold the vote open for the purpose of changing the vote. You 

might hold the vote open for the purpose of letting the Members 

vote, which I think is a different purpose than the purpose of 

changing the vote. 

Q. So it would be permissible for a presiding officer to hold a vote 

open for the purpose of allowing Members to vote, or change their 

vote? 

A. No. I don’t believe that is what I said. What I said was you 

can hold the vote open for the purpose of allowing Members to vote. 

Members on the floor who just choose not to vote is one kind of inexplicable example of that. A more easily accepted example might 

be 10 Members who are stuck in an elevator. 

Q. Let me give you this example. Would it be permissible for a 

presiding officer to hold a vote open in order to allow Members in 

the well to change their vote? 


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A. Under this rule, if the sole purpose you’re holding the vote 

open is to change the outcome, no. This is the Majority’s rule, it’s 

not my rule. 

Q. But sole purpose, this is an important point, that is why I 

want to pursue it. If another purpose of the presiding officer was 

to allow Members in the well to change their vote, would that be 

permissible under the rules? 

A. I don’t know that it would. It’s arguable. But it might be. 

Q. Arguable? 

A. It might be arguable. In the ethics vote the other night, more 

freshly in my mind, we had a substantial period of time where 

Members were obviously being persuaded to change their vote. 

There weren’t Members in the well changing their vote. There were 

Members of the Majority surrounding people and encouraging them 

to change their vote. And the sole purpose of that was to change 

the outcome. 

Mr. DAVIS. I yield to my colleagues. 

Mr. PENCE. I don’t think we have any further questions. 

BY MS. HERSETH SANDLIN

Q. Mr. Blunt, when you said when you were on the rostrum in 

that video we watched, and you were trying to find out what was 

going on, one of the responses was, ‘‘We are trying to work this 

out.’’ 

A. I thought the response was something like that. It wasn’t a 

particularly satisfying response. 

Q. Did you take the response to mean that they were trying to 

work things out from a Parliamentarian perspective only? 

A. That is what I thought the response did. But my review of 

these tapes immediately after that led me to believe maybe they 

were trying to decide who was in charge of the parliamentary procedures, the Parliamentarians or the Majority. 

Q. Were you aware at that time that there were technical problems with the electronic voting system? 

A. No. I was aware that the vote disappeared overnight, which 

I thought was interesting. 

Q. But at the time, you didn’t overhear any conversations by 

leadership, you weren’t hearing any conversation among officers of 

the Clerk as it related to the electronic voting system? 

A. No. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. That is all I have. 

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Blunt, thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I just have one final question. 

BY MR. DELAHUNT

Q. When you looked up and you saw the 215–213, did you see 

the word ‘‘final’’? 

A. I don’t recall getting that information off the—— 

Q. Off the display? 

A. Off the display. 

Q. You had no memory of it? 

A. And I thought I said I didn’t remember. I was not watching 

the display, I was watching the changes that were being made and 


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just calculating to myself what the vote would be as those changes 

were made. 

Q. Because the reason I ask the question is that I was wondering 

whether you might have, when you saw the term ‘‘final,’’ did that 

provoke in you any kind of—— 

A. I don’t even know that—— 

Q. I mean, I didn’t even see it. 

A. Did the term ‘‘final’’ ever occur up there, and when did it 

occur? At what point? 

Mr. DAVIS. It’s actually not disputed, Mr. Blunt. 

Mr. BLUNT. I’m only asking for information here. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I wonder if it might have influenced some of your 

conclusions. 

Mr. BLUNT. I don’t recall seeing it at all. 

Mr. DAVIS. That was the point of what I asked you earlier. There 

was a point where it was 215–213, the motion carries, and it said 

‘‘final.’’ 

Mr. BLUNT. I would have been more than happy to accept that. 

Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 2:15 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 

MOTION TO RECOMMIT AGREED TO—(HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES—AUGUST 03, 

2007) 

(Mr. BLUNT asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute 

and to revise and extend his remarks.) 

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, let me say when we left here last night, I have left 

the House frustrated, I have left the House encouraged, I have left the House proud, 

I have left the House not so proud. I have never left the House ashamed before. 

Now what I just heard here this morning, I don’t agree with it, the idea that 

somehow we have massively violated the traditions of the House and the only penalty is we will be more careful in the future. 

I decided for 4 years when that vote would quit as the whip. That was my job. 

We never stopped the vote until the Clerk handed the person the piece of paper that 

said what the vote was, and the vote on the piece of paper was 215–213. 

The remedy for the House that would solve this problem is to let the vote stand. 

A majority of this House voted that illegal immigrants would not receive these benefits. That is what the vote was about. All you’ve got to do is go back to committee, 

amend the bill and come back to the floor. 

You lost the vote. I didn’t hit the gavel. I didn’t speak over the clerk who was 

trying to read the vote. The chair did. The Chair decided the vote was over. It 

doesn’t matter what that board says. What matters is what the tally was. 

A week of violations of the principles of the House culminated last night in such 

an excessive way that Republicans walked off the floor, and it was a deserved walkout. And I am ashamed of the House. 


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(417) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF JOHN A. BOEHNER, MINORITY LEADER 

The interview in the above matter was held at H–204, Conference Room, the Capitol, commencing at 1:15 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

Representatives William D. Delahunt, Artur Davis, Stephanie 

Herseth Sandlin, Mike Pence, and Steven C. LaTourette. 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING, LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., SUITE 200, 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO, LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Nathanial Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Ed Cassidy, Minority Subcommittee Staff 

Director, Committee on Rules, Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the House; Davida Walsh, Legislative Assistant, Representative Delahunt; Chanelle Hardy, Counsel, Representative 

Davis; Russ Levsen, Communications Director/Deputy Chief of 

Staff, Representative Herseth Sandlin; Josh Pitcock, Legislative 

Counsel, Representative Pence; Joe Guzzo, Chief of Staff, Representative LaTourette; and Jo-Marie St. Martin, General Counsel/ 

Floor Operations Director, Office of the Republican Leader. 

Mr. DAVIS. We welcome the Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, John Boehner. 

Mr. Boehner, our practice today is Mr. LaTourette, I think, is 

going to ask you an opening set of questions. Then I will ask you 

a set of questions after that. I don’t envision that the two of us together will, frankly, take more than 20 minutes. And then we’ll 

yield to other Members who are present, Ms. Sandlin is here, see 

if she has any questions. 

Would you like to make any statement before we get started? 

You obviously know we’re here to talk about the August 2nd select 

committee. 

Mr. BOEHNER. I don’t think I have any need to make a statement. 


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Mr. DAVIS. Okay. All right. 

Steve. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Mr. Boehner, first of all, during the course of Roll Call 814 

on August 2nd, we had a deposition earlier today where Mike 

McNulty was the Speaker pro tem. And at one point on the videotape of the activities that night, you are seen going down to the 

well of the House and putting in a well card. So let me ask you 

first, before you did that, had you voted in a voting station on the 

motion to recommit? 

A. I did vote for the motion to recommit. 

Q. At a voting station with your card? 

A. At a voting station. 

Q. And then subsequently to that, did you go down to the well 

for the purpose of entering a well card? 

A. I did. I went down and pulled a red card and changed my vote 

from aye to no. 

Q. Through testimony that has been received from other witnesses, the committee is aware that your changed vote was never 

processed, you were never recorded as a no. Was it your intention 

when you submitted the well card to be recorded as a no? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And for what purpose did you change from a yes on the motion to recommit to a no? 

A. To be on the prevailing side of the vote in case there was a 

need to move to reconsider the vote. 

Q. There was—when we had John Sullivan, his deposition, he 

suggested that that’s not an uncommon practice for leaders on either side of the aisle to—in anticipation of being on the presiding 

side of the votes, to make a motion for reconsideration, to submit 

a card for that purpose. But he also indicated there are times when 

leadership on both sides will indicate to the staff of the Clerk’s Office that only use the card if I signal you or don’t use the card. 

Did you issue any instructions, observations to anybody in the 

Chamber that night whether you wanted your card to be entered 

onto the electronic voting display? 

A. I made no comment to anyone other than moving my vote 

from yes to no. 

Q. Through the course of that time when sort of there was a little ruckus caused in the House floor, were you aware at all that 

evening on August 2nd that your vote had not been changed from 

an aye to a nay? 

A. No. 

Q. Are you aware of it today? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And when approximately did you become aware of it? 

A. I don’t know whether it was days or months afterwards. 

Q. And it would have been a conversation with staff or somebody 

else that that came to your attention? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Was it your intention as you left the floor or as you entered 

that well card on August 2nd to have been recorded as a no; you 

wanted to change from an aye to a no? 


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A. I assume that when I left the floor, I was a no vote. 

Q. A couple of times after there is some activity, you rise to the 

microphone on the Republican side of the aisle and attempted to 

make a motion to adjourn, which is ruled out of order. You’re also 

heard on the tape attempting to make a parliamentary inquiry. Do 

you recall that? 

A. I do. 

Q. Do you recall what was the nature of the parliamentary inquiry you were going to propound on August 2nd? 

A. I was going to try to get to the bottom of the mistake that I 

believe that had been made, because when McNulty was calling the 

vote at 214 to 214, on the board it said 215–213—215 yea, 213 nay, 

final. And I was trying to—my inquiry, if I had been recognized, 

was trying to get to the bottom of what happened right then and 

there before it was too late. 

Q. And you being in the Chamber that evening actually looked 

up at either the scoreboard at either end and saw 215–213 final? 

A. Yeah. I was looking at the board above the Democrat side on 

the east end of the Chamber. 

Q. I don’t think I have anything further at this moment. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Let me just pick up, Mr. Boehner, on the questions about your 

attempt to change your vote. 

A. No, no, there was no attempt. I did change my vote. 

Q. Okay. All right. Well, that is what I was referring to; when 

you picked up the card, and you went to the well and you changed 

it. 

A. Yes. 

Q. You said that you were not aware that night that the vote was 

not recorded as changed? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Can you tell us how you feel or how you felt the Minority was 

prejudiced that night by the failure to process that vote? 

A. If need be at some point thereafter to move to reconsider that, 

my vote would have had a—since it had not been recorded, I, as 

a Member of the House, was being disenfranchised by the fact that 

it was never recorded. 

Q. Well, did you make an attempt to make a motion to reconsider 

that night? 

A. Would I? 

Q. No, did you? Did you make an attempt to make a motion to 

reconsider? 

A. I did not. 

Q. Can you tell us why you did not do that? 

A. In the confusion that was going on in the Chair and in the 

well of the House, I’m not sure that moving to reconsider was the 

right course of action for the Minority, because, frankly, I thought 

that we had won the vote. 

Q. Now, just so we have a sense of exactly what the Minority’s 

position is in this particular matter, are you contending that Mr. 

McNulty had anything to do with your vote change not being properly processed that night? 


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A. I have no idea who is responsible for the fact that my vote 

wasn’t changed. 

Q. Now, let me just ask a little bit to make sure I fully understand the point about the reconsideration. Did the Majority Leader 

Mr. Hoyer in effect make a motion to set aside the vote at some 

point or to vacate the vote? 

A. He moved to vacate the vote, but I don’t believe the Chair ever 

ruled on his motion in reviewing the tape over the weekend. Subsequent to that he moved to reconsider the vote. 

Q. And do you know what the result was of that effort by Mr. 

Hoyer to move to reconsider? 

A. I think the vote was reconsidered. 

Q. And what was the result of the vote to reconsider? 

A. I believe that the Majority won their vote to reconsider. 

Q. Just so we’re crystal clear, there was a motion to reconsider 

that was advanced on the floor that night, and there was a vote 

that occurred on the motion to reconsider; is that correct? 

A. There was, but in my opinion too little too late. 

Q. Now, was there a point when Mr. Hoyer had a conversation 

with you about finding some procedural device to set aside the 

vote, in effect just to have another vote on the motion to recommit? 

Was that discussed with you? 

A. No. 

Q. And do you know of any conversations that happened within 

the Democratic leadership? 

A. No. 

Q. Now, let me try to move forward a little bit, Mr. Boehner. It 

will be extremely brief today. But one of the things which this committee is charged to do is not simply to investigate, if you will, 

what happened on August 2nd, but to make recommendations to 

the House as to what might be better practice going forward. 

One of the points of contention, as you know, is that there was 

no tally sheet apparently when Mr. McNulty called the vote. To 

your knowledge, do the rules require that a tally sheet be given to 

the presiding officer when he or she calls a vote? 

A. I’m not sure that there’s a rule that would provide that, but 

having presided in the Chair during our years in the Majority, I 

think it’s a common practice that the Chair does not announce the 

vote until that tally sheet is handed to the presiding officer. 

Q. You say it’s common practice during the times that you presided when your side was in the Majority. Did any Parliamentarian 

ever tell you that it was a requirement that a tally sheet be on 

hand to announce a vote? 

A. I don’t want to say that it was a requirement. It was strongly 

suggested that the official vote is the vote on the tally sheet that’s 

given to the presiding officer by the Clerk. 

Q. Do you believe that the presiding officer of the House has the 

ultimate discretion as to when to call a vote? 

A. If they have sufficient information that the vote had been 

closed and that there are no Members seeking to change their vote. 

Q. Whose determination would that be? 

A. It has to be the Clerk’s, because the presiding officer doesn’t 

have all the information necessary in order to make that call on 

the vote until they get the tally sheet from the Clerk. 


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Q. Let me quote you clause 2(a) of rule 20, which, as you know, 

is the relevant rule that’s being discussed here. It says, quote, a recorded vote by electronic device shall not be held open for the sole 

purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote. 

Do you recall that’s language that the new Majority adopted last 

year? 

A. Well aware. 

Q. I’m sorry? 

A. Well aware of it. 

Q. Who had the responsibility, in your opinion, of enforcing 

clause 2(a) in any given context on the floor? 

A. The Majority Leader. 

Q. And what would be your basis for that? 

A. I think it’s common practice that the Majority Leader has the 

ultimate responsibility for the floor. It was that case during the Republican Majority here in the House, and it’s pretty clear that’s 

been the practice of the Democrat Majority in the House. 

Q. Actually, this may be a side point, but Mr. Blunt, we had a 

chance to talk to him yesterday, and we looked at the statement 

that he made on August 3rd, a 1-minute statement that he made 

on the record, and he stated that it was his recollection that he, 

as the whip, had had the responsibility of making that decision. 

Did you have a—— 

A. The decision to? 

Q. Close a vote. 

A. No. For a lot of the Republican Majority, the whip’s area on 

the floor is where it would actually occur, but typically in consultation with the Majority Leader. 

Q. Do you think it would be a helpful thing for the House to incorporate the requirement of the tally sheet in the rules? 

A. I do. 

Q. And your reason would be? 

A. There is always a lapse between the vote that the Clerk may 

have and what’s actually on the board, as what happened that 

night. It has happened before where what was up on the board was 

not reflective of the actual vote because changes had not been processed. 

Q. And have you seen other presiding officers make that mistake 

of not realizing or not appreciating that all of the votes had been 

processed? 

A. I don’t recall an instance where that has occurred. 

Q. How long have you served with Mike McNulty? 

A. Eighteen years or seventeen-and-a-half years. 

Q. Is he a Member that you have got to know; is he a Member 

of whom you have an opinion? 

A. He’s a good Member and a nice guy. 

Q. Do you believe him to be an honest individual? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you believe him to be an ethical individual? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you believe that he knowingly violated any rules on the 

night of August 2nd, any rules of the House? 

A. No, I don’t believe that he knowingly violated any rules. 


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Q. Do you believe that he knowingly attempted to prevent any 

Member from voting that night? 

A. Do I think he knowingly prevented? 

Q. Right. Or attempted to? 

A. No. I do believe that he made a mistake. And frankly, at one 

point in the proceeding, he admitted that he had made a mistake. 

Q. And we should certainly let you know that we had a chance 

to talk to him, and I think we would all agree he was very candid 

today about saying that he made a mistake, that it was—whatever 

he did was inadvertent in the sense of not wanting to disenfranchise the Members. 

In fact, just one final point on that. Mr. McNulty told us this 

morning that all of his efforts were—all of his efforts and actions 

that night were with an eye toward making sure that all Members 

who were in the well had an opportunity to vote or to change their 

vote if they were in the well. 

Do you have any reason to dispute what Mr. McNulty said? 

A. No. But whether he knowingly disenfranchised Members or 

not, the fact is if he made a mistake, Members were 

disenfranchised, and if there had been a pause of 10 seconds, they 

could have rectified the correct vote. 

Q. Has any Republican Member or any Member of the Minority 

suggested to you either on August 2nd or since August 2nd that he 

or she attempted to vote that day and could not vote? 

A. No. 

Q. The final questions relate to clause 2(a). It specifically says 

that votes shall not be opened for the sole purpose of reversing the 

outcome of such vote. As I recall, when the Minority submitted its 

own proposed rules last year, the proposed language that you submitted was a little bit different. Do you recall that? 

A. I do not. 

Q. I’m sorry? 

A. I do not. 

Q. Okay. Well, let’s just focus for a second on the sole purpose. 

To me that implies that the test is exclusivity; that a violation of 

a rule lies on whether a presiding officer is solely motivated by reversing the outcome of such vote. Is that a reasonable interpretation? 

A. I don’t believe so. 

Q. Tell me what’s unreasonable about it. 

A. There is a new rule that makes it very clear that keeping a 

vote open for the sole purpose of changing the outcome—— 

Q. Let me ask my question perhaps a little bit more clearly. 

A. And clearly that vote was held open to change the outcome. 

But there’s no remedy for this rule, and so we could debate it until 

the cows come home. 

Q. Well, I don’t want to do that. I just want to ask you one question. If a Member or presiding officer had multiple motivations for 

keeping a vote open, by definition that would mean the presiding 

officer had not violated the rule; do you agree? 

A. I agree. 

Q. I have no further questions, but I yield to Ms. Herseth 

Sandlin. 


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EXAMINATION BY MS. HERSETH SANDLIN

Q. Mr. Boehner, you had mentioned when you saw 215–213 and 

‘‘final’’ on the board, in your mind that was the correct vote, that 

was the final determination? 

A. Because it would not show up on the board as final unless the 

Clerk at the front desk had, in fact, called it final. 

Q. How familiar are you with the electronic voting system that 

has been in place and that the Clerks operate? 

A. I’m no expert on it. 

Q. And so you’re not familiar with the steps that the person, the 

seated Clerk, goes through? 

A. No, but I’ve watched the board for 17 plus years, and when 

it’s final, a tally sheet goes up there. Typically you’ll see it up on 

the board, the final outcome, with ‘‘final’’ behind it. 

Q. Were you aware at the time of any technical complications 

with the electronic voting system that evening in the midst of that 

vote? 

A. No, not up to that point. Apparently there were problems 

later, having reviewed the proceedings of that night. 

Q. Do you recall that you requested a recorded vote on the motion to reconsider offered by Mr. Hoyer? 

A. I do. 

Q. Do you recall seeing any Democratic Members in or near the 

well following the changed votes of three Republican Members; Ms. 

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, and Mr. Diaz-Balart, both Mario and Lincoln? 

A. I remember some Democrat Members coming to the well of 

the House, but I can’t recall whether they were before our three 

Florida Members changed their votes or after. 

Q. Would you agree that if there were Democratic Members in 

or near the well contemplating a change to their vote, that they 

should have been allowed to exercise their vote? 

A. If, if there were Members seeking to change their votes or contemplating changing their votes, they should be allowed to change 

their votes. But if I recall, looking through after reviewing the proceedings from that night over the weekend, there was a 6–minute 

period where there was no movement. And it appeared that—it appeared to me, as I think it appeared to the presiding officer Mr. 

McNulty, that the vote was finished. 

Q. So your recollection of leaving was that it was a significant 

span of time, 5 minutes or more, between when Mr. McNulty called 

the vote and when any Democratic Member submitted a card in the 

well? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. I don’t think I have any further questions. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Just to follow up on that point, Mr. Boehner, you referred to 

what is about a 6–minute window—we have listened to the tape 

several times—about a 5- or 6-minute window between the time 

when Mr. McNulty erroneously calls the vote, if you will, and the 

time that Mr. McNulty reads a statement clarifying what the final 

result was. I’m agreeing with you now basically. 


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A. No, no. I’m talking about the time frame up until McNulty 

called the vote at 214 to 214. 

Q. Okay, okay. Well, let me focus just for a moment, though, on 

that period, the period between when McNulty erroneously calls 

the vote and then when he reads the statement from the Clerk— 

from the Parliamentarian. Looking at the tape several times, what 

happens during that time frame is that Mr. Sullivan spends part 

of it writing out a statement for Mr. McNulty to read; part of that 

time frame, it appears, is spent in consultation between Mr. Sullivan and other Members of the parliamentary staff; and during 

part of that time frame, Members do change their vote, and it’s 

called out: Off aye, on no, Ms. Gillibrand; off aye, on no, Mr. Space. 

Is all that consistent with your recollection of what happened 

that night? 

A. Yes. All of that occurred after the erroneous call of the Chair. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. Mr. LaTourette. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Just because those of us that aren’t in leadership, but we aspire to be in leadership someday, is there—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Are you announcing your candidacy today? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. As soon as John—I’m running for my life. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Is there a procedure where—you know, everybody thinks that 

there’s no comity in the House floor. But isn’t it a common practice 

that you all, you being the Majority and the Minority, clear things 

with each other before they’re brought to the floor from time to 

time? 

A. During the time I was the Majority Leader, even to today, 

there’s a lot of conversation between the floor staff, sometimes between the Majority Leader or the Majority and the Minority, about 

the floor schedule or issues that are coming to the floor. 

Q. After Mr. McNulty calls the vote at 214–214, which isn’t right 

because it’s really 215–213, and Mr. Hoyer then goes to the well 

to make his—to first ask unanimous consent to vacate the vote, 

which is objected to, he then makes a motion to reconsider the vote. 

Was there any discussion—I think you said you didn’t have any 

conversations with Mr. Hoyer, but are you aware of any conversations between the Majority staff and the Minority staff to clear a 

request for a motion for reconsideration? 

A. I do not. 

Q. And given your experience both in the Majority and in the Minority, would that have been an appropriate and ordinary course 

of the way that the business of the House floor would be transacted? 

A. I think on an ordinary day there would have been some conversation. 

Q. That’s all I have. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. I just have one concluding question, Mr. Boehner. What is it 

that you would suggest is the course of action for this committee? 


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I’m trying to get a sense of what remedy the Minority would like 

to see this committee impose. 

A. Well, I think there are two issues. Is there a remedy for what 

happened the night that this vote was called erroneously? At this 

point probably not. Frankly, one of our votes was disenfranchised. 

What happened? We’re out of that legislative year, and the issue 

no longer is relevant. But an acknowledgement that it was mishandled and that we were, in fact, disenfranchised, I think, is important for the committee to state. 

Secondly, the other charge to the committee was to figure out 

how do we avoid this in the future. 

Q. Can I just ask you one question following up to that, Mr. 

Boehner? You mentioned the disenfranchisement, and in response 

to my earlier question, you said that no Member had indicated that 

she was disenfranchised. You know that at some point Mr. McNulty reads a statement from Mr. Sullivan stating that the vote was 

216 to 212 in the negative. Do you recall that? 

A. I do recall that. That was a substantial time after both the 

presiding officer and the Clerk thought the final vote had occurred. 

Q. Do you have any reason to believe or any evidence to offer the 

committee that 216 to 212 was not an accurate reflection of the 428 

Members of the House? 

A. That is not an accurate reflection of when the vote was called, 

because Mr. McNulty called it at 214–214, when actually, according 

to the board, it was 215–213 final. 

Q. What makes you—— 

A. Now, whatever happened thereafter, frankly, is irrelevant to 

me and irrelevant to our Members who were disenfranchised. 

Q. Let me ask you this: What is your basis for concluding that 

215 to 213 final in favor of the motion was an accurate result? Is 

it just the fact that it appeared on the board? 

A. On the board, and it said final. 

Q. Is that your basis for the—— 

A. That’s my basis for it. That’s what I saw on the board. 

Q. Okay. All right. No further questions? 

A. And so as a result, calling the vote at 214–214 disenfranchised 

one or more votes on our side of the aisle in favor of the proposition 

that was on the floor. 

Q. If the 215–to–213 statement on the board was accurate? 

A. Correct. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. No further questions. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. All right. Thanks, John. 

Mr. DAVIS. Thanks, John. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PENCE

Q. I have a quick question, if you could. Let me apologize for our 

tardiness with the committee here. 

A. I understand. 

Q. Thank you for coming in. 

I just had one clarification and then one question, a clarification 

following the line of reasoning Mr. Davis just described. Since your 

vote was not recorded, we assume your vote was not recorded as 

changed. And we would dispute even what was the final account 


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of 212 to 216. In fact, you would have been on the prevailing side 

had your changed vote been recorded? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Okay. That was an important clarification. So you do have 

reason to dispute even the number that appeared in the final? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Let me ask you, having been on the floor that night, but not 

especially cognizant of what was happening, I observed you at the 

time, and we’ve been looking at time clocks, and I don’t know precisely which time the gavel came down that you responded spontaneously and with a great deal of emotion. But do you recall the moment that I’m referring to? You were to the right of the Chamber 

about in the second row. The gavel came down, and I think you 

pumped your fist in the air, and you seemed to be upset with the 

outcome? 

A. This was after the second call of the Chair on the vote on the 

216. 

Q. 215–213? 

A. No, no, no, no. This was at the—I don’t recall exactly—— 

Q. 216–212. 

A. [continuing]. When I got a little excited. 

Q. What I wanted you to tell the committee was essentially what 

I saw as a visceral reaction from you that was very spontaneous. 

What did that derive from? What were you immediately concluding 

about events in that moment that generated the strong reaction 

that sent you to the leadership table? 

A. I don’t recall at this point at what point in the proceedings. 

It seems to me, as best I can recall, is when it was announced we 

had this 216, whatever the number was, on the—212 number, 

which, you know, was some 5, 6, 7, 8, 10 minutes later, what I 

would describe as the second call of the Chair. 

Q. Okay. But your objection was—and I’m sure Mr. LaTourette 

and Mr. Davis got to this. I’ll look at the transcript. Your objection 

was to the administration of the vote; your conclusion was that the 

rules and traditions and practices—— 

A. My conclusion was that we had won when the vote was closed, 

and that Mr. McNulty made a mistake in calling it at 214–214, 

when, in fact, while he was calling it, 215 yea, 213 nay, ‘‘final’’ was 

posted on the board. 

Mr. PENCE. Okay. I think that’s all I have. Thank you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I have no questions. 

[Whereupon, at 2 p.m., the interview concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 9, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF CONGRESSMAN MICHAEL R. McNULTY 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1628, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 9:20 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

Representatives William D. Delahunt, Artur Davis, Stephanie 

Herseth Sandlin, Mike Pence, and Steven C. LaTourette. 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING, LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., SUITE 200, 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., DICKSTEIN 

SHAPIRO, LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Hugh Nathaniel Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules. 

Mr. DAVIS. Good morning, Mr. McNulty. Welcome. Again, my 

apologies to you and to my colleagues. I got stuck in traffic at a 

meeting with Frank Pallone about some health care issues over on 

the Senate side. 

You know the purpose of this interview today is to talk with you 

about the vote on August 2, 2007. As you know, the Congress for 

the House appointed a Select Committee to investigate various 

issues. But I think if we had our heads on straight, we probably 

wouldn’t have any investigation surrounding that vote. 

Let me begin. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. DAVIS

Q. We, obviously, want to spend some amount of time today taking you through the videotape of the proceedings that night. And 

let me just ask you at the outset: Have you had an opportunity to 

review the videotape before today? 

A. I have. I did it once during the August break last year. And 

then the committee sent over a copy of the tape, and I reviewed 

it again last night. 

Q. Let me just ask you, before we go into the tapes, some general 

background questions that might ground us a little bit today. 

A. May I make a request before you do that? 

Q. Certainly. Certainly. 


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A. I know this is an informal discussion, but I drafted a statement during the August break last year after I reviewed the tape, 

and I’ve been waiting for 8 months to say something about it. And 

I would like to give you copies of that draft that I made last August. 

Could I just briefly go through that? It will only take a couple 

of minutes. 

Q. Certainly. If you would pass that around, give all of us a 

chance to look at it. Appreciate that. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Just as a procedural matter too, can I ask a question? What are we doing in terms of the timeline today? 

Mr. DAVIS. I would anticipate taking about half an hour with 

you, Mr. McNulty. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I’ll be here as long as you want me here. 

Mr. DAVIS. Then Mr. LaTourette will have about half an hour, 

Steve, if that works for you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Are you guys going to go 15, 15, 15? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. We’ll go half-hour, half-hour and then maybe 15 

on each side? 

Mr. DAVIS. I think that’s right, yes. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Mr. McNulty, when did you say you prepared this document 

again? 

A. I prepared it during the August break last year, because I was 

of the impression that I would be speaking to the committee as 

early as September. 

Q. Were you requesting to read this into the record? 

A. I’d like to. 

Q. Okay. Would you please do that? 

A. ‘‘I thank the members of the committee for allowing me the 

opportunity to comment on the vote in question while I was serving 

as Speaker Pro Tem on August the 2nd, 2007. 

‘‘And I also want to ask that my floor statement of August the 

3rd be included in the record, Mr. Chairman. 

‘‘The vote in question was on a motion to recommit the Agriculture appropriations bill. To summarize, I called this vote prematurely, and that action caused a measure of chaos, confusion and 

anger on the House floor. 

‘‘The morning after the event, I publicly apologized on the House 

floor to all of the Members of the House of Representatives. I repeat that apology today. 

‘‘Beyond my August 3rd remarks, let me make these clarifications. When I announced the vote, all time for voting had expired. 

After I called the vote at 214–214, no additional votes were cast; 

only changes of votes were made. 

‘‘In my opinion, the Parliamentarian’s staff, the Clerk’s staff and 

everyone at the front desk did their usual outstanding jobs that 

evening. The problems which ensued were the result of my actions. 

‘‘When I announced the vote at 214–214, I did not do so at the 

direction of any other person or persons. I did so on my own in an 

attempt to enforce clause 2(a) of Rule XX, which states that ‘a recorded vote by electronic device shall not be held open for the sole 

purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote.’ I believe that it was 


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obvious that Members on both sides of the aisle were changing 

their votes after time had expired for the sole purpose of changing 

the outcome. 

‘‘My attempt to enforce clause 2(a) of Rule XX was the reason for 

not following the usual, but not required, procedure of waiting for 

the written tally slip from the Tally Clerk. That was clearly a mistake on my part. 

‘‘I deem it a mistake because it now seems apparent that the 

vote change which was announced by the Clerk just prior to my 

calling the vote at 214–214 had not yet been recorded by the computer, thus the discrepancy which ensued almost immediately after 

my announcement. 

‘‘Following my August 3rd floor statement, Minority Leader John 

Boehner said, ‘I accept the regrets offered by my friend from New 

York. Having been in the Chair myself, I can understand how it 

can happen. He and I are friends. He is, in fact, one of the fairest 

Members who could ever be in the Chair.’ 

‘‘I am grateful to my friend, Leader Boehner, for his statement. 

I believe his comments indicate that he understands that, while I 

erred, there was no ill intent on my part. I hope that when all the 

facts are examined, all the Members of the House will reach the 

same conclusion. 

‘‘Thank you.’’ 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mike, let me just say something. I think it’s important that we put out, at least on behalf of the Democrats on the 

committee—and I think I speak for the entire caucus—we were all 

present there during your remarks. We heard your remarks. It is 

universal—and I’m sure I speak for most of the Republicans, if not 

all of the Republicans; I can let Mike and Steve address that—you 

command respect. We know that you are a person of integrity. 

There is absolutely no reason for you to feel in any way diminished or in any way awkward about the occurrences that night. 

You are not on trial here. 

What we are trying to do is to determine, as we look forward, 

A, what happened, okay, and how we can improve the process 

itself. 

But I mean that. I know I speak for the entire Democratic Caucus. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I understand that, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. You are very well-liked, you are very well-respected. You’re admired. We want you back in that chair. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I really appreciate that very much. But I do want 

to make it clear, because there has been so much wild speculation 

about what happened, what the motivations were, what the Majority Leader did or didn’t do, what the Parliamentarian did or didn’t 

do. 

And the fact is that none of these problems would have occurred 

had I not called that vote prematurely. I was wrong to do so, and 

I admitted it the day after. That fact remains. I am the reason we 

are all sitting here. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mike, if I had to sit here for every mistake I’ve 

made, I’d be here 24 hours a day. 

Mr. MCNULTY. No, I understand. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. If I had a nickel, I’d be rich. 


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Mr. DELAHUNT. So please understand, you know, that this is not 

about Mike McNulty. It is about the process. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I understand. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. You have demonstrated, time and time again, 

skills and talent as a presiding officer. As a member of our caucus 

and a Member of the House, you command respect. You happened 

to be there at a time when a mistake was made, and that’s it. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I appreciate that. 

And on the other things you mentioned, I have voluntarily refrained from being in the chair since that time. I have not been in 

the chair since. And I hope that some time before my term expires 

I will be able to do that. But the reason I did that was because I 

felt, especially in the months immediately following my error, that 

if I went into the chair that some Members might object to that. 

And so I will not do anything to disrupt the proceedings of the 

House. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, again—and I’ve made this statement to 

you, and, again, I know I’m speaking for the Democrats—we, I 

want to see you back in that chair, because you do preside with 

fairness, with integrity and with skill. And please end this voluntary absence and get back there, because we need people like 

yourself in the chair. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I’m going to consider doing that, but I’m going to 

talk to Leader Boehner before I do that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Okay. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Let me, Mr. McNulty, actually pick up on, if I can, Minority 

Leader Boehner. Let me point you to the second page of your statement. You quote a statement from Minority Leader Boehner. Was 

that a statement that he made to you, personally, or was that a 

statement that was made on the House floor? 

A. No. That was a statement on the House floor. 

Q. Okay. Okay. Now, let me go back, if I can—— 

A. He made that statement after I made my statement of apology. 

Q. Okay. And just so we have a fairly clear record of all of this, 

understand that a significant part of the focus of these questions 

for the next hour or so is obviously to establish a record, to give 

you a full opportunity to explain what your thinking was tonight. 

It is not done with an accusatory air, at least speaking for myself. It is done simply with a desire to give you your first opportunity, frankly, to really walk through with your colleagues what 

happened, your first opportunity to review some portion of the 

video with your colleagues. And that is the full spirit of my questions—— 

A. Great. 

Q. [continuing]. And I’m sure it will be the full spirit of Mr. 

LaTourette’s, as well. 

Let me lay just a little bit of background before we begin to look 

at the tape and try to isolate the events that night. 

Prior to August 2nd, it is our understanding, from talking to various witnesses, that you were one of a group of Members who was 

designated as regular presiding officers of the House. Is that right? 


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A. Not in any formal way, but I presided frequently because I 

was asked to do so by the Speaker’s staff. 

During the time when the Democratic Party was previously in 

the Majority, I probably presided over the House more than any 

other Member of the House. There were three regular Speakers Pro 

Tem at the time—Sonny Montgomery, Ron Mazolli and me—and, 

to a lesser extent, Kweisi Mfume and a couple of others. But I 

probably presided as much as, if not more than, any other Member 

of the House during my first 6 years here. 

Q. When the Democrats resumed the Majority in January 2007, 

you came back into your role of being a regular presiding? 

A. I presided on the floor. I was given the honor of being one of 

the presiders on the first day of the new session, our first day back 

in Majority. 

Q. Do you remember that, at the beginning of this session of 

Congress, there was a passage of a new rules package by the 

Democratic Majority? 

A. Yes, I’m very much aware of that. One of the new rules was 

one of the ones that I cited, which has been cited by Members on 

the floor a number of times since its initial enactment. 

Q. Are you referring to clause 2(a) of Rule XX, which states that 

‘‘a recorded vote by electronic device shall not be held open for the 

sole purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote’’? 

A. I am. 

Q. When the new Majority went about assembling and preparing 

itself to lead the chamber, were there any kind of training sessions 

that were set up for people who were going to be presiding officers? 

A. Not that I’m aware of. 

Q. Do you remember receiving any kind of a briefing of any nature from the leadership office, from the Speaker’s office, regarding 

the interpretation of the new House rules? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you remember receiving any kind of a briefing from, say, 

the Parliamentarian or any member of the Parliamentarian’s office 

regarding the new House rules that were passed? 

A. No. 

Q. Obviously, we are going to be focusing almost exclusively, as 

far as the rules go, on clause 2(a). 

Do you remember receiving any kind of a briefing or having any 

kind of an extended discussion with the Parliamentarian’s staff 

about exactly what it means to enforce clause 2(a)? 

A. No. 

Q. Is it fair to say that the enforcement of clause 2(a) is in the 

hands of the presiding officer at any given time? 

A. I would say so. 

Q. And say just a little bit more about that, kind of how you as 

a presiding officer understood your role with respect to 2(a). 

A. Well, any time I’m in the chair, I take it very seriously. And 

I try to study the trends that are going on in the Congress at the 

time, as well. 

I have been particularly sensitive to rights of the minority. I 

have been complimented by the Members of the minority many 

times for my service in the chair, particularly the first 6 years, on 

the number of votes that I called for the minority. When Majority 


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Members didn’t show up and the vote was obviously for the minority, I called it for the minority. And I was criticized for that roundly for a long time, especially by senior Members of the House, but 

I did it because it was the right thing to do. 

I noticed this year that, a number of times, Members of the minority cited that particular new rule. At the time that they cited 

it, I really didn’t think it was applicable, either because not much 

time had elapsed after the vote or the vote was not that close to 

begin with. 

But it did occur to me that, at some point in time, there was 

going to be a vote that was very, very close, and after time had expired, the Chair would have to consider the enforcement of that 

new rule. I did not expect it to be that night. 

Q. Let me stop you at that point. 

Did you believe that the enforcement and the interpretation of 

that rule was in the hands of the presiding officer? 

A. Certainly. 

Q. I didn’t mean to cut you off. I just wanted to—— 

A. Yes. On that particular night, it occurred to me, as we were 

winding down on that vote, this is the time. I mean—and I fully 

expect—and, again, I emphasize that I was wrong when I called 

the vote when I did, but I fully expect that, if I did not call that 

vote at some point and I had just let things play out, I believe that 

objection would have been made later that night after that vote. 

Q. So, if I understand what you’re saying, you mentioned that 

you tried to follow what you described as trends in the chamber. 

Had there been a pattern of close motions to recommit during 

2007? Do you happen to remember that? 

A. I couldn’t say that off the top of my head, how many close 

ones there were. I know there have been some. 

Q. Let’s just focus on—— 

A. There was one in the last couple of weeks that was close. 

Q. Let’s just focus on August 2nd then. 

As I recall, this vote happened at night. It happened in the late 

evening hours, around 10 o’clock or so. 

A. Really late. 

Q. The motion to recommit would have occurred at the end of a 

sequence of votes. Is that your recollection also? 

A. Right. 

Q. There was a series of amendments before that? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. There would have been argument on the motion? 

A. Right. And I wasn’t in the chair for those. I came to the chair 

for the motion to recommit and final passage. 

Q. Had you received any particular instructions regarding that 

particular motion to recommit from the leadership? 

A. No. And I must admit to you, I didn’t know what the motion 

to recommit was going to be when I ascended the chair. 

Q. So no one had approached you and had said, ‘‘This is an important motion; it may be close,’’ nothing of that nature? 

A. No. 

Q. Let’s go ahead and let’s begin the tape. Let’s just see if we 

can go to 22:49. 


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Mr. McNulty, you will notice that right now it’s queued at 22:38, 

so it will take us a little bit of time. What is on the screen is a 

summary of the votes as they are coming in. It will take us a few 

minutes to work our way up to the first critical point that we want 

to talk about. 

But as we’re doing that, obviously what you are seeing—let’s 

stop. We’ve stopped at—let’s see if we can go back to 22:49:01. 

Okay. Let’s stop right here. Okay. 

Mr. McNulty, we have stopped at 22:48:59. Can you tell from 

looking at the board—you see that the vote count is 205 for the motion, 210 against it. Can we adjust the screen to see how much 

time is left at this point? 

Mr. HALPERN. The time code obscures it. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. Okay. Let’s just turn it on ‘‘play’’ and watch for 

a moment. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Mr. McNulty, if you would just watch the tape for a moment. 

A. Sure. 

[Video shown.] 

Q. Let’s stop the tape. All right. 

Mr. McNulty, you will see, at 22:49:59, it is 214 for the motion, 

213 against. You are at the rostrum, and you appear to be turning 

to your right. 

Tell us what you’re doing when you turn to your right. Are you 

able to see yourself? 

A. I see myself, yes, but I can’t even make out who was next to 

me there. 

Q. Okay. Let me just capture this moment for you. It is a little 

bit hard to do because the seconds move so quickly. 

The time sheet that we have reflects that, at 22:49:01, that you 

banged the gavel and you said, ‘‘Are there any Members who wish 

to vote? Are there any Members who wish to change their vote?’’ 

What is the significance of that nomenclature when the presiding 

officer says that? 

A. Well, that begins the process of wrapping up the vote. 

Q. Tell me what you mean when you say, that begins the process 

of wrapping up the vote. When does the presiding officer typically 

make that announcement, ‘‘Are there any Members who wish to 

vote?’’ 

A. When it appears that all Members—when there are no Members in the well attempting to turn in cards, or when—and this 

happens quite frequently—when a Member of the Majority staff— 

typically since the new year, the beginning of 2007, Catlin O’Neill 

sometimes will come and say, ‘‘Time to wrap it up.’’ 

Q. Did Ms. O’Neill approach you on this occasion and tell you 

that it was time to wrap the vote up? 

A. No. 

Q. Now, we are literally frozen at 22:49:59. And the time sheet 

that we have prepared by the staff indicates that Speaker of the 

House Nancy Pelosi casts a vote at this point. 

Let’s see if we can actually run it to the point where it goes to 

214. 

[Video shown.] 


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Let’s stop. 

All right, you will see at this point, Mr. McNulty, that 214 to 214 

goes up, which reflects that the Speaker had cast a vote. 

It is unusual, is it not, for the Speaker to vote in the normal 

course of things? 

A. It is. 

Q. As an experienced Member of the House, what did it say to 

you when the Speaker cast a vote? 

A. I would just assume from that that it was because the vote 

was close and she thought her vote might be critical. 

Q. When the Speaker cast her vote, the total tally was 214 to 

214, which is a numerical score of 428. Was that number, 428, 

meaningful to you that night? 

A. It wasn’t meaningful to me at all, at that particular moment. 

Q. Let me ask that another way. 

A. Upon reflecting later on, it was meaningful because there 

were talks about people being denied votes and so on. That number 

adds up to 428, and that is the number of people who voted after 

all of the votes were counted so that, so that, after that particular 

time, since I know of no way to take a vote off the board, nobody 

else voted. There were just changes in votes. 

Q. Let me make sure I understand your point. You had been in 

the chair—you had been on the floor during the previous votes that 

night. 

Do you remember whether the number 428 was consistent with 

the number of Members who had voted and the iterations running 

up to this motion to recommit? 

A. I do not remember that, no. 

Q. Okay. Do you remember whether, at the point you were in the 

chair, that you had any sense that 214 to 214—because, obviously, 

it is not 435. It’s less than 435. Members are frequently absent. 

A. Right. Right. 

Q. Do you remember having any recollection that 428 reflected 

an accurate count of the number of Members who were at the 

chamber voting that night? 

A. I don’t remember that, no. 

Q. All right. 

A. It’s easy to look up that record and see how many people 

voted, but I don’t know the—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Just for the record, that’s not accurate. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, that’s why I’m asking him. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. All right, 214 to 214. 

Now, let’s see if we can run up to the point that Mr. McNulty 

makes his first call, which should be momentarily. 

[Video shown.] 

Let’s stop. 

All right, Mr. McNulty, you are speaking at this point. Can you 

tell us what you are doing? 

A. I was calling the vote at 214–214. 

Q. And, at this point, the clock has reached zero; is that correct? 

A. Well, it’s past zero. 


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Q. Do you happen to have any general sense—I understand you 

may not have the answer down to the seconds and minutes, but do 

you have a general sense of how long had lapsed since the clock 

passed zero? 

A. I don’t, but after reviewing the tape again last night, I think, 

in my mind, I thought it was longer than it actually was. 

Q. Just tell us what was your reason at this point—but let’s literally listen to what you say. Let’s play the sound. 

[Video shown.] 

Let’s stop again. 

According to the transcript we have, you state on this vote, ‘‘The 

yeas are 214; the nays are 214.’’ And it seems from the tape that 

you stopped at that point; is that accurate? 

A. I did, yes. 

Q. All right. Tell us why you stopped. 

A. Because someone either said ‘‘one more vote’’ or ‘‘additional 

vote’’ or something like that. And then, shortly after that, some additional Members appeared at the well to vote. 

Another thing that I have consistently done in the chair is to try 

to protect the right of every single Member to vote even if they are 

late. And that goes to even on a vote that’s not close at all. A lot 

of times, Members get frustrated with the pace of events, and on 

a vote that’s not close at all, some of them will come in late and 

be back in the chamber and yell ‘‘one more vote’’ and come down 

the aisle. I’ve seen some people bang the gavel and close the vote. 

I would not do that, because, in my view, it is not just protecting 

their vote as an individual Member. As far as I’m concerned, that 

individual represents about 650,000 American people, and they 

have the right to have their vote cast. 

Q. Now, when the result is called or when the result is announced on the floor, is there a particular catchphrase or particular 

terminology that the presiding officer would actually use to close 

a vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. What is that? 

A. In this particular case, this was a motion to recommit. In 

order to close the vote, you would have to say, ‘‘The motion is not 

carried,’’ or, ‘‘The motion is defeated’’—— 

Q. And you stopped before you did that? 

A. [continuing]. Or that it is carried. 

Q. And you stopped before you did that? 

A. I did stop before I did that. 

Q. Is it your experience, Mr. McNulty, that it may not be an everyday occurrence, but it is not uncommon for a presiding officer 

to begin to call a vote and then to be interrupted by someone saying ‘‘one more’’ or something of that nature? 

A. It is quite common. 

Q. Is that essentially what happens at this moment? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Now, let’s play the tape again for a moment. 

[Video shown.] 

What is happening next, Mr. McNulty? If you watch the tape, describe for us what is happening. 


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A. Additional Members are coming to the floor to change their 

votes. And, well, I had made my decision to call the vote as soon 

as all Members had voted. And in this particular sequence, the last 

person I saw filling out a change card was Mario Diaz-Balart. And 

I had decided in my own mind to call the vote after that vote was 

recorded—— 

Q. Let’s stop at this point. Now, let’s backtrack through that. 

A. [continuing]. Assuming nobody else showed up in the chamber 

with a card. 

Q. Okay. Now, with respect to the moment that we’ve discussed 

previously, when you began to call the vote and then stopped, did 

any Member of Congress instruct you or direct you to call the vote 

at that point? 

A. No one instructed me to call that vote at any time that night 

that I recognized. And I’ll be perfectly honest with you; earlier on, 

I was hoping to get some direction. But it never came, so I used 

my own judgment at the time. 

Q. So, when you began to call the vote and you stop yourself because you see activity going on in the chamber, was it your decision 

and your decision alone? 

A. It was. 

Q. Now, moving forward, you were describing—and I think we 

can hear the tape—you hear Mr. Lampson coming and his vote 

being announced. You see Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, two other Florida 

Members, the Diaz-Balart brothers. That is consistent with your 

recollection from watching the tape? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Now, when did you anticipate that—now, you just told us this, 

but I want to make sure we are absolutely clear about it. 

When did you anticipate that you were going to call the vote? 

What were you waiting for? 

A. After the last vote change was announced. 

Q. Do you remember what was on the board at this point, the 

board that reflects the vote total? And was that important to you? 

A. All I remember is it was close. 

Q. Was that important to you, as the presiding officer? 

A. No. I had made up my mind that I was going to call the vote 

after the last vote change had occurred. 

Q. And who did you believe was the last vote change? 

A. Mario Diaz-Balart. 

Q. And you were basing that on looking in the well and observing 

Members and their activities; is that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Now, if we go through and look at the time sheet that we 

have—let’s actually just watch it on tape. Let’s go into the next 

time. 

[Video shown.] 

Let’s stop. 

All right. We have stopped at 22:51:30. And, Mr. McNulty, at 

22:51:30, you called the vote. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Now, let’s back up from that. What the tape reflects is that 

you were standing alone at the rostrum as this 1 minute or so 


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passes between when you first began to call the vote and stop and 

when you actually call the vote. 

Do you agree that the tape reflects that you are standing alone? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And there is no member of the staff who is standing close to 

you or engaging in any conversation with you; is that correct? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And there is no Member of the House who is standing close 

to you or engaged in conversation with you? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And you have explained why you called the vote at 22:51. The 

distinction between the language you use at 22:51:30 and the language you used earlier is that, at 22:51:30, you say on this vote, 

‘‘The ayes are 214; the nays are 214. The motion is not agreed to.’’ 

The extra words, ‘‘The motion is not agreed to,’’ would be tantamount to a calling of the vote here; is that correct? 

A. That is correct. 

Q. Did you believe, when you made that decision, that every 

Member of the House who wished to vote had voted? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did you believe that your calling the vote prevented or 

thwarted any Member of the House from casting a vote? 

A. No. Can I make one comment about this? 

Q. Sure. 

A. Because I think it is really critical—— 

Q. Certainly. 

A [continuing]. Because this is my error. 

I called the vote right after Mario Diaz-Balart’s vote was announced. I looked at the board. It said 214–214. I called the vote 

at that point. 

I believe technically what happened—and I think this is important—is that Mario Diaz-Balart’s vote, although it had been entered into the system and announced by the Clerk, had not yet 

shown up on the board, because there’s this little time lapse in between in getting that up there. 

Q. Did you know that at the time you were in the chair? 

A. I didn’t think of that at the time. I thought it was included. 

I intended for it to be included. 

Q. Did you believe it had been included? 

A. I believed it had been included, yes, absolutely. 

Q. Would you have called the vote if you did not believe that it 

had been included? 

A. Absolutely not. I told you how strongly I feel about reporting 

every single Member’s vote. And it was my intention to call it after 

Mario’s vote had been recorded. 

And it said 214–214 on the board. I banged the gavel, called the 

vote at that point. And almost immediately thereafter, the vote 

tally changed on the board—in other words, the vote was recorded—and that ended up in the 215–213—— 

Q. Now, let me stop you again at this point. 

A. [continuing]. On the board. 

Q. One of the points of contention that has arisen as we have 

looked into this matter is the question of a tally sheet. Were you 

presented with a tally sheet before you called the vote? 


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A. I was not. 

Q. How significant, in your mind, was the absence of a tally 

sheet? 

A. Well, I think it was pretty darn significant. I didn’t wait for 

it because I felt that if I allowed additional time in between the 

time after Mario had voted, that other Members of the House 

might be persuaded, on both sides of the aisle, to change their 

votes and we could get into one of these situations where a couple 

change on one side, a couple change on the other side, time keeps 

going on, and I could be subject to criticism for violating that—— 

Q. Clause 2(a). 

A. [continuing]. Clause 2(a). 

So I decided, after Mario’s vote, when I saw no one else in front 

of me with a card, attempting to get a card, ready to vote, that I 

would call the vote. 

Q. Going back to the tally sheet, you have had occasion to review 

the rules in your career, and I suspect you reviewed the rules in 

preparation for coming here today—is that right?—the relevant 

rules as they relate to calling a vote. 

A. Well, I’ll be very honest with you. I don’t put myself up as an 

expert on the rules. Whatever proficiency that I have in the chair 

basically has been the result of repetition and listening to the Parliamentarian, starting with Bill Brown, who was my original mentor in the chair, and Charlie Johnson and now John Sullivan, both 

of whom I think are just absolutely terrific. 

I don’t hold myself up as an expert of the rules. I did not pore 

over the rules in preparation for this discussion. 

Q. Let me tell you why I asked that. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did any of the three individuals you mentioned, all of whom 

were Parliamentarians, did any of them ever mention to you prior 

to the night of August 2nd that a tally sheet had to be given a presiding officer before he could call a vote? 

A. No. And, as a matter of fact—and I’ve had very few discussions with anybody about this since then, because I didn’t know 

what was proper, so I’ve kind of just kept to myself on the thing. 

But the one thing that I did do the day after is I asked Charlie 

Johnson—or John Sullivan, excuse me—I asked John Sullivan one 

question the next morning, because it was my understanding that 

a tally sheet, although it was the normal order of things, was not 

required by the rules. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t violate 

any rules, and I asked him point-blank that question. I said, ‘‘Is a 

tally sheet required by the rules?’’ He said, ‘‘No.’’ 

He then explained to me why it’s a good thing to wait for the 

tally sheet. 

Q. But he didn’t tell you that it was a requirement or a rule? 

A. Right. Right. 

Q. And, by comparison, when the presiding officer is in the chair, 

there are certain phrases that are typically used, is that correct, at 

various points? There are certain phrases that are considered to be 

best form in terms of how Members are recognized. There are certain phrases that are considered to be best form in terms of what 

should be said when a vote is called, but none of those have the 

binding effect of rules typically. 


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A. Right. 

Q. Okay. 

Now, at this point, you call the vote at 22:51:30. And, again, I 

want to save us the time of just walking through every moment of 

this tape. But I think we all agree that there is consternation in 

the chamber. There is noise that comes from the floor after you call 

the vote, and it’s clear that the minority is displeased. 

Do you agree with that? 

A. I think that’s putting it mildly. 

Q. All right. Now, give me a sense—because I don’t want to 

waste your time, given your time constraints, walking you through 

every moment of the tape—give me a sense of what happens next 

after this consternation from the floor. 

Would it help you to watch the tape? 

A. No. I think I recall what happened immediately thereafter, because I was just kind of stunned when I looked up at the board and 

I saw the 215–213 and the word ‘‘final’’ after it. I’ll be very honest 

with you; I did not know what to do next. 

So I turned to John Sullivan, and John said to me, ‘‘I am going 

to write a statement for you to read,’’ at which point I remember 

the words of Bill Brown, who once said to me, ‘‘When you are in 

the chair, when in doubt, do what the Parliamentarian says.’’ And 

that’s exactly—I mean, I was just so disappointed in myself for 

causing what I caused that night that I just decided to do whatever 

John told me to do at that point in time. 

Q. What did he tell you to do? 

A. He said, ‘‘Wait for me to write out a statement, and then read 

it.’’ 

Q. Let’s see if we can go on in the tape a little bit further ahead, 

to—let me get the exact page here—22:58. About 7 minutes lapses 

here, Mr. McNulty, from 22:51 to 22:58. Let’s run the tape to that 

point. 

During this 7 minutes, you are conferring with Mr. Sullivan 

about what to do. Are you conferring with any member of leadership about what to do? 

A. No. 

Q. Are you conferring with any member of the staff of leadership 

about what to do? 

A. No, I don’t believe so. 

Q. Okay. Let’s run it down to the point where Mr. McNulty 

speaks, which I believe is at 22—— 

A. Now I’m reading a statement. 

Q. Let’s just listen to it. 

[Video shown.] 

A. I’m referring to Mario at this point. 

Q. Let’s stop. Can you just explain what you said, Mr. McNulty? 

A. Yes. Well, that’s probably an inartful way of saying it, but I 

was trying to express the thought that I called the vote at 214–214, 

and there was a vote in the system that didn’t show up on the 

board yet. 

Q. Okay. You referred to 212–216. What is the basis for the 212– 

216 number? 

A. That is what was the conclusion of that statement that John 

wrote out for me, said that after all the votes were—those other 


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changes that came in afterward. So there were other changes that 

came in. 

Q. There were Democratic and Republican changes, were there 

not? 

A. I’m not sure. I think they were mostly Democratic changes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Changes after the Mario Diaz-Balart vote? 

Mr. MCNULTY. That’s correct. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. 

Mr. MCNULTY. And that was part of the statement that John 

wrote for me, saying that I called the vote prematurely, I think I 

said, while votes were in the system, or whatever I said there. I 

was just referring to that there was a vote announced that didn’t 

show up on the board. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. But you were following Mr. Sullivan’s instructions at this 

point? 

A. That’s correct. I basically read the statement that he gave to 

me. 

Q. Now, was there also a point that you learned there was a 

problem with the machines malfunctioning that night? Do you remember learning of that? 

A. Yes, well, the system broke down. When we went to the motion to reconsider the vote on the motion to recommit, the system 

failed. 

Q. Now, again, to save time, obviously, if you look at the time 

sheet of what happens, some gap passes. There is a motion to reconsider that is offered. There is apparently some decision or some 

evaluation as to what the next step should be. 

Can you briefly, in your own words, tell us what is happening on 

the floor after you called the vote, in terms of the whole motion to 

reconsider? 

A. I’m not sure exactly when this occurred but I think before we 

got to the motion to reconsider, that Steny Hoyer went to the 

microphone and asked that the vote be vacated. I believe that 

that’s what happened. 

Q. What was the result? 

A. There was just a massive objection to that. 

Q. A massive objection from whom? 

A. On the floor, there were just shouts of ‘‘no.’’ 

Q. What was the result of Mr. Hoyer’s motion? 

A. Then he made a motion to reconsider the motion to recommit, 

the vote on the motion to recommit. And I called for that vote to 

be held, but the system didn’t go up. 

And then, I think, if you would play—I think Leader Boehner 

called for a motion to adjourn or something, which I was instructed 

by the Parliamentarian could not be entertained during a vote. But 

that further, I think, fueled the anger on the floor, because Members were probably saying, ‘‘Well, what vote? There’s nothing up on 

the board.’’ 

Q. So you say—— 

A. They tell me the system, the electronic system, didn’t go up 

right away. It eventually did go up. 

Q. Okay. 


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Now, I’m going to turn to Mr. LaTourette, but let me just ask 

a few final, concluding questions of you. 

As you deal with the motion to adjourn, as you deal with the motion to reconsider, you were in close consultation with the Parliamentarian as to how to resolve all of these motions; is that correct? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And were you receiving close guidance from Mr. Sullivan as 

to what to do with respect to Mr. Hoyer’s motion and, ultimately, 

Mr. Boehner’s motion? 

A. Yes. I’m not sure if John instructed me on all of those. I mean, 

there were others there. Ethan might have been there. 

Q. Other members of the Parliamentarian’s staff. 

A. I think it was mainly John though. 

Q. All right. And as you made decisions and as you made rulings 

regarding the motions by the two leaders, Mr. Boehner and Mr. 

Hoyer, you made those rulings consistent with instructions given to 

you by members of the parliamentary staff, principally Mr. Sullivan; is that correct? 

A. That is correct, because, at that point in time, I was still concerned about the error that I had made. So I just decided to follow 

the instructions of the Parliamentarian. 

Q. You said several times—and we appreciate your candor then 

and now—that you made an error that night. Was there ever a moment that night when you intended to violate the rules of the 

House? 

A. No. And, in fact, I did not violate the rules of the House. 

Q. Was there ever a moment that night—you understand we ask 

you these questions because it’s important to have your answer 

documented. 

Was there ever a moment that night when you intended to act 

in a manner that would have disfranchised any member of the 

House? 

A. That’s the last thing I would do. 

Q. In fact, to the contrary, was it your goal that night to act in 

a manner that permitted every Member of the House who wished 

to vote to do so? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Were your actions that night at all times consistent with your 

desire to reflect the actual intent of the Members of the House with 

respect to the final vote? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. I’ll yield to Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you very much. 

Mike, thank you for your answers. As someone who has presided 

from time to time, I know that being in the chair is sometimes it’s 

autopilot and sometimes you get an August the 2nd. I feel for you. 

And I appreciated your comments the following morning. 

And I have watched the tape a lot of times. And having to be in 

that situation, having to apologize to the House is a tough thing, 

and I appreciated you doing it then, and I appreciate your answers 

today. 


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EXAMINATION BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. I want to go back to your pedigree for just a second. You came 

here in 1983? 

A. No. I came here in 19—I was elected in 1988 and started in 

January of 1989. 

Q. Okay. During that time, you were tapped by the then-Democratic leadership to be the Speaker Pro Tem from time to time? 

A. Starting with Speaker Wright, yes. 

Q. And you indicated that, aside from yourself, there were maybe 

two other Members who did it a lot and maybe some others. 

A. Those are the ones I remember that seemed to do it most frequently. There were a number of others in the group, but I was 

clearly in the chair a lot during those 6 years. 

Q. By ‘‘a lot,’’ are you able to quantify it in terms of hours? For 

instance, well, let me ask you this: Did you do the appropriations 

bills? 

A. I did a lot of appropriations bill. 

Q. So would it be fair to say hundreds of hours? 

A. I don’t know. You know, you can probably just Google that 

and find out. But, I mean, I acknowledge I was in the chair a lot. 

Q. Okay. As a matter of fact—— 

A. Even people who are in the chair a lot make mistakes. 

Q. Well, I’m not saying that they don’t. 

At the time of Charlie Johnson’s retirement, you put a statement 

into the record that, basically, as a lot of us did who admired Charlie Johnson, commended him for his service to the House. You 

talked about people like Muftia and John Sullivan and Tom giving 

you guidance and assistance. In fact, you speak to how they taught 

you, trained you and how much you appreciated their guidance, 

and it caused you to be one of the outstanding presiding officers in 

the House, right? 

A. Well, I never characterized myself that way—— 

Q. Well, I would. 

A. [continuing]. But I’m honored that others have said that. 

Q. Well, I would. And, quite frankly, you should know when John 

Sullivan was here, when the Republicans were in the Majority for 

12 years, we had Karen Haas, and she would work with the Parliamentarians, and the Parliamentarians—quite frankly, as you 

know, some people are well-suited to be in the chair, and some people don’t have the temperament to be in the chair, especially during tough times. 

The Parliamentarian’s office, according to John Sullivan and 

when the Republicans had the Majority, would develop a list that, 

when there was going to be a ruckus on the floor, you would tap 

this person. I asked Mr. Sullivan where he would put you. He said, 

if he had a ranking system of one through five, you’d be in the top 

group in terms of experience. So you should know, not only by your 

colleagues but also by the Parliamentarian staff, that you are recognized as an exceptional presiding officer. 

In light of that, when the new Majority came in during 2007, we 

talked about the fact that you presided on opening day. I recall seeing you in the chair a lot from the beginning of January through 

August. Is that a fair observation? 


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A. It is. 

The only thing that changed in that regard was, after a while, 

I was being put in the chair not just frequently but for very long 

periods of time. I now have a physical condition that impacts me, 

and there was a point in time—I forget what month it was—that 

I said to Catlin, for the longer bills I would prefer not being in the 

chair, because it’s difficult for me to stand for a long period of time. 

So they kind of adjusted that, to putting me in the chair more for 

recommit and passage, which are relatively brief periods of time. 

Q. Most times. So you are now a closer. You became a closer? 

A. I guess that would be a pretty accurate description. 

Q. In response to Artur’s question, I believe that there were 10 

amendment votes in the Committee of the Whole prior to recommit 

and passage. You were not the Chairman of the Whole House. You 

came in as the Speaker Pro Tem. 

You mentioned Catlin. Is that Catlin O’Neill? 

A. That is correct. 

Q. Is Catlin O’Neill the designee in the Speaker’s office who 

schedules presiding officers? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Is she the one who asked you to preside and to close on this 

particular occasion? 

A. She is. 

Q. From the time when you were in the chair as Speaker Pro 

Tem in the old Majority and now when you had begun to preside 

or did begin to preside in the new Majority, aside from clause 2(a) 

that we’ve been talking about, did you notice any other difference, 

in terms of were the rules different? Was presiding different? Was 

it handled any differently than you recall? 

A. Not that I can recall, Steve. 

Q. Pretty much, the votes were the same, they were called the 

same? 

A. The language was the same on calling the votes and so on. 

Of course, I’ve done it so many times through the years that, you 

know those little cards that they give you? I mean, most of the 

time, I don’t even need them. 

Q. Right. Do you recall any instance, either in the old Majority 

or since you have presided beginning in 2007, when you called the 

vote without the benefit of a tally slip? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. Would you—— 

A. Prior to 2007, there was no clause 2(a) of Rule XX. 

Q. Right. We’ll get to 2(a) in just a second. 

Charlie Johnson testified in a public hearing that—his experience with the House was 40 years. He said that it’s never happened. John Sullivan said the same thing. 

So I think it wouldn’t surprise you that the evidence before this 

committee, at this moment in time at least, is that this is the first 

time in at least 40 years that a vote has been called without the 

benefit of a tally slip. 

A. Well, I couldn’t say that of my own personal knowledge, but 

that may very well be, based on the testimony that you have received. That’s why I’ve acknowledged that it was a mistake. And 


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I don’t know how many different ways I can say that, but it was 

a mistake. 

Q. Well, I got that. 

There are nine vignettes that I’d like to run through quickly on 

the tape. The first one is going to occur at 22:38:59. 

If you could, just run it for, like, 30 seconds. 

[Video shown.] 

Now, do you see yourself? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Well, I don’t see what I was looking for. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Mr. LaTourette, I think it’s before that. I think 

it’s at 22:38:45, which is when the person comes down from the—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I’m looking for the first time when he bangs 

the gavel. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yes. At 22:38:45, you’ll see, I believe, Catlin 

O’Neill coming down to the rostrum. You are sitting there, okay? 

Do you see her running down toward you? 

Mr. MCNULTY. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Stop it there. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. She’s saying something. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Okay. You’re seated. The person that has just come running 

down the aisle to address you is Catlin O’Neill. 

Do you recall what Ms. O’Neill has indicated to you at that moment in time? 

A. I don’t exactly remember what she said to me, but it may have 

been that they expected it to be a close vote or something like that. 

Q. Okay. When we roll it forward, I think when she leaves, it’s 

the time when you first bang the gavel. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Keep rolling. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Go ahead and roll it. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. So she’s leaving the rostrum. You stand. 

A. Yes. 

[Video shown.] 

Q. To your understanding, is that when you were asking for 

changes, do you recall? 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Q. You don’t know. Okay. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. It’s around the 5-minute mark. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Let’s go to 22:46, if we could. 

[Video shown.] 

Okay. Run it again. 

Mr. DAVIS. Steve, what are you looking for? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. It’s 38:38. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I’m looking for Catlin to go up and talk to him 

again. 


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BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. At that moment in time—freeze it there at 22:46:43—again, 

Catlin O’Neill has risen to the rostrum, and you are having a conversation with her, it appears. 

Do you recall what—— 

A. That’s Catlin O’Neill? 

Q. Yes, I think so. I thought it was. 

A. I don’t remember that conversation. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, obviously, the purpose—hold on one second, Mr. 

McNulty. Obviously, the only person testifying here today is you. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. So the appropriate question is, does that refresh your 

memory as to who it was? If it doesn’t, you can say it doesn’t, but 

the only person here testifying is you. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I can’t even tell who that is. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. 

Could you go to 48:50? 

[Video shown.] 

Mr. MCNULTY. Yes, that looks like Catlin. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Okay. Then, as the witness—it looks like Catlin—do you recall 

having a conversation at that moment in time with Catlin O’Neill? 

If you do, what was the substance of the conversation? 

A. I believe at one point—and I don’t know whether it was then 

or before—I think she said to me that it was going to be a close 

vote. I believe she did say that to me, but she didn’t say anything 

about calling the vote or the timing of the vote or anything like 

that. 

Q. Gotcha. 

A. Now, I’m guessing that—I don’t know. I shouldn’t guess. I 

don’t even know if time has expired on the vote at that point. 

Q. Right. 

A. Maybe it has. 

Q. Let me ask you this: Do you recall her ever advising you to 

watch for the Speaker to vote—— 

A. No. 

Q. [continuing]. Or that the Speaker would be voting? 

A. No. 

Q. How did you become aware that Speaker Pelosi voted? 

A. I don’t even remember that. 

Q. Okay. If we could go to 22:49—— 

A. I mean, I know she did, because you showed it to me earlier. 

Q. Right. Right. If you could, just watch the interplay at 22:49. 

I have it at 32, so maybe back it up to about 22:49:10. 

Mr. DAVIS. That’s our 15–second margin of error. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Yes. I’m not as good as you are, Artur. Let’s 

see. Could you freeze it there? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Do you see the Speaker of the House under the word 

‘‘present’’? 

Mr. SPULAK. She has a green suit on. 


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Mr. LATOURETTE. We’ll roll it, but I think—— 

Mr. MCNULTY. Where is she? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. She’s under the ‘‘P-R-E-S.’’ 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, again, the appropriate question is: Can you see 

that, Mike? If you can’t, the answer is ‘‘no.’’ 

Mr. MCNULTY. I can’t. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Well, then, we’re going to roll it. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. I would ask you to watch that person I believe to be the 

Speaker of the House, Mrs. Pelosi, okay? 

A. I’ve got it now. 

Q. Okay. All right. 

[Video shown.] 

So the Speaker is now wandering to the rostrum, okay? 

A. Okay. Are you sure that was the Speaker? That looks like 

Betty McCollum to me. 

Q. Again, freeze it there now. The Speaker appears to be entering a well card. Would you agree with that? 

A. I just saw the person who you said was the Speaker sit down 

over here. 

Q. Well, never mind. We’ll extrapolate this all by ourselves. Just 

roll it. 

Mr. DAVIS. The only appropriate questions to Mike are ‘‘What 

can you see?’’ 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

[Video shown.] 

Stop it there, please. 

The vote is 214 to 213. 

Then roll it, please. 

[Video shown.] 

Mr. MCNULTY. I think that’s the Speaker there, not the person 

in the green suit who sat down. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Okay. I’ll ask you this question. Maybe you can’t answer it 

based upon your observation of the tape, but it appears to me that 

the vote is 214 to 213. The Speaker casts her vote. When that vote 

is announced by the reading clerk, it becomes 214–214. 

Do you agree with that, or you can’t tell? 

A. I can’t tell, but that may very well be true. I mean, if she were 

the last one to vote and then the vote was 214–214, then her vote 

made it that way. 

Q. Right. 

Could you go to 22:49:40? 

[Video shown.] 

Now, stop it there for just a second. 

Do you see Catlin O’Neill in that picture? 

A. Can you give me an idea of where she is? Maybe I can—— 

Q. I think she’s above the letter ‘‘M’’ in ‘‘Democrat.’’ 

Mr. PAOLETTA. That’s her right there. Do you recognize her? 

Mr. MCNULTY. No. 


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BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Okay. So that Artur doesn’t jump all over me, do you think 

that’s Catlin O’Neill? 

A. I think it is. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Black suit, white shirt. Do you see? She has the 

red hair. 

Mr. MCNULTY. I think it is. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Let’s just roll it for a little bit. 

[Video shown.] 

Now, stop it there, please. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. It appears that you are again having a conversation with 

Catlin O’Neill. 

A. I don’t know that I was having a conversation. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. She’s going to walk towards you again, by the 

way. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Okay. I looked in the direction of the leadership 

a number of times that night to get direction. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Well, as Artur has correctly pointed out, it is your testimony, 

not mine. Do you recall what we just saw, that you and she appeared to be exchanging words? 

A. Well, I’m looking at it. I think we did at that point, or at least 

I was listening, whatever. 

Q. Do you have any recollection of what she said? 

A. I don’t at that point, except the reason I remember this is that 

no member of the staff or Member of the Majority told me when 

to call that vote. I wished they had. 

Q. Right. 

A. I was looking for direction—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. And I didn’t get it. 

Q. Okay. 

A. So I did what I thought was right. 

Q. Okay. 

The tally is now 214–214. If we could roll it just for a minute to 

22:50:06. 

[Video shown.] 

That is when you called the vote the first time, but you don’t 

complete the sentence. 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. Keep rolling. 

[Video shown.] 

Lampson just changed, fair? 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I stopped because somebody was in the House with a card, attempting to change the vote, and then others followed. 

Q. Okay. Could you stop it here, please? 

At 22:50:31, you see the Ros-Lehtinen and Diaz-Balart brothers 

in the well, filling out well cards; is that fair? 


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A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Now, going to your testimony, I had understood you to 

say that, based upon your observations and on your understanding 

of the new rule 2(a), that, in your mind, you were going to announce the vote as final after the Mario Diaz-Balart card was announced and added to the tally. 

A. Right. 

Q. Now, does that mean—— 

A. If there were no other persons—— 

Q. Changing. 

A. [continuing]. Coming up to change their vote. 

Q. Okay. Well, you did, in fact, then call the vote again at 214– 

214, added the words ‘‘and the motion is not agreed to’’ because it 

was a tie. 

A. Correct. 

Q. So does that evidence the fact that you didn’t believe there 

were any other changes occurring at that moment in time and it 

was appropriate to close the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. And does that interpretation, then, indicate to you as 

the presiding officer that any additional changes or attempts to 

change votes after 214–214, when the Mario Diaz-Balart card was 

entered, that the vote would have been held open for the sole purpose of effecting the outcome? 

A. At that point in time, Steve, what I did because I was upset 

with myself for whatever had occurred, because I knew something 

went wrong, the words of Bill Brown rang in my ears, ‘‘When in 

doubt, follow the directions of the Parliamentarian.’’ All I did after 

that point was to just do what John and the Parliamentarian suggested. 

Q. But I want to go to the moment in time—— 

A. So I was kind of upset at the time with myself. 

Q. Sure. Right. 

A. And I wasn’t having philosophical thoughts about what might 

occur next. 

Q. Right. 

A. I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong. 

Q. Right. 

A. And I just turned to John, and I just decided to do whatever 

he instructed me to do. 

Q. I got that. But one of the problems that the minority has with 

this new rule is we think it’s sort of a soup-sandwich, in that it 

doesn’t mean anything. The rule says that you can’t keep the vote 

open for the sole purpose of effecting the outcome. The only way 

that we can ever determine that is to crawl into the head of the 

presiding officer—— 

A. Right, yes. 

Q. [continuing]. Because the presiding officer could say, ‘‘Yes, I 

did it to affect the outcome of the vote, but I also did it on Tuesday 

and I like 20-minute votes on Tuesday’’ or ‘‘I know that somebody 

was coming back from lunch.’’ 

So I had understood you to say, though, as the presiding officer, 

as the person who was in charge of enforcing the new rule 2(a), I 

thought you had said that you had reached the conclusion after the 


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Diaz-Balart card was entered that for you to keep the vote open beyond that would have been in violation of your interpretation of 

rule 2(a) and would have been—and I think you said Members of 

both sides—would have been for the sole purpose of effecting the 

outcome of that vote. 

A. I was concerned about that. 

Q. Did you believe that to be the case? 

A. What I believed to be the case was that if I had held the vote 

open further that that would be brought up as point of order. 

Q. Okay. But after you called the vote—and, quite frankly, when 

you spoke the magic words, and that is ‘‘214–214,’’ and you made 

the additional declarative sentence, that the motion is not agreed 

to—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. Are you aware, knowing that practices and precedence is pretty unbroken by the House, that that was the vote, 

that that called the vote? 

A. I believe so. 

Q. Right. I mean, Mr. Sullivan has indicated that that is right. 

A. It would mean the vote is called at 214–214 unless the Chair 

changes or makes some other ruling—— 

Q. As you sit here today—— 

A. [continuing]. Or until I got the instruction on the written 

sheet from John. 

Q. But you know sitting here today, and maybe you knew that 

night, that when you called the 214–214 and you said that the motion is not agreed to, that the vote was really 215 to 213 when the 

Diaz-Balart card was entered? 

A. I can’t say that legally and parliamentarily because that was 

not the interpretation of the Parliamentarian. Now, I put myself in 

the hands of the Parliamentarian after that vote. I called it at 214– 

214. I assume that if the correct, legal and parliamentary vote was 

215–213, John would have told me to make that announcement. 

And if he had, I would have. 

Q. And I accept that. After you called it again—— 

A. But he didn’t. 

Q. I understand. But after you called it again at 214–214, there 

were additional changes. 

A. That is correct. 

Q. Additional well cards were added. 

A. The big additional change was that Mario’s vote ended up 

being recorded, and that resulted in the 215–213. 

Q. Right. 

A. And then, while John was writing out this statement for me 

to read, other Members—I think mostly, if not exclusively, Democrats—came and changed their votes. 

Q. Okay. 

A. And those were included. And as he was writing it out, he 

looked up at the board, when he was getting to the end of it, and 

put down the 212–216. 

Q. Could we just roll that? Because I don’t want to—you could 

stop it for just a second. I don’t want to get you hung up, but the 

sequence that you indicated to Artur, I think that you got some 

things out of order. 


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A. Okay. 

Q. I’d just like you to watch—— 

A. Sure. 

Q. [continuing]. And specifically John writing that slip out, you 

reading it before Hoyer asks to vacate the vote and Hoyer asks to 

reconsider. I don’t think that you read John Sullivan’s statement 

until after Steny first moved to vacate the vote and then moved to 

reconsider. 

A. Yes, you may be correct on that. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Yes. 

Q. All right. Roll it from when the—— 

A. Yes, I think that probably is the correct—— 

Q. Roll it from when the three—— 

A. Did I say that wasn’t the case? 

Q. I thought you had it backwards. 

A. Oh. 

Q. I thought you said that you read the statement and then that 

there was other activity. 

A. Oh. 

Q. Okay. Roll it from the Diaz-Balart brothers. 

[Video shown.] 

Could you stop there? 

At that moment in time, did you observe any Members who were 

attempting to turn in well cards? 

A. No. The reason I was calling it quickly at that point was I 

wanted to call it before more Members started to change their 

votes. 

Q. Again, back to my previous question, because you believed, at 

that moment in time, that to hold the vote open any longer would 

have been for the sole purpose of either side attempting to affect 

the outcome? 

A. I think the votes before that were also for that purpose. 

Q. Okay. 

Mr. DAVIS. Let me add one thing, Steve, just so the record is 

clear on this. We are referring to ‘‘that moment in time,’’ and obviously, we are having the benefit of hearing the tape. This young 

lady can’t always capture what we’re referring to. 

You are referring to 22:51 when you make the calling of the vote 

that contains the phrase, ‘‘The motion is not carried,’’ just so the 

record is clear on that. 

Mr. MCNULTY. That’s correct. That’s correct. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Let’s roll it for a little while. 

[Video shown.] 

Could you stop it there? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. At 22:51:45, it looks like Ms. Gillibrand, I believe, has just 

submitted a well card. Did you see that? 

A. No. 

Q. Before I get in trouble with Artur over here, roll it back for, 

like, 20 seconds. 

There. Okay. 


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A. Okay. 

[Video shown.] 

Q. Could you stop it again, please? 

John Sullivan is not at 22:51:43. John Sullivan is not attending 

you. You were still being attended by Ethan. 

A. Okay. 

Q. That’s ‘‘okay.’’ Is that right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Would you continue on? 

[Video shown.] 

Could you stop it there, please? 

It appears that Mr. Space is entering a well card and has 

changed, that Ms. Gillibrand has entered a well card, and that now 

Mr. McNerney of California appears to be entering a well card. 

Would you agree with that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. We are now at 22:52:06. 

Okay, go ahead. 

[Video shown.] 

Okay, could you stop there? 

At 22:52:11, the Majority Leader climbs the rostrum. Mr. Sullivan is still not next to you. It is still Mr. Ethan Lauer; is that 

correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. 

[Video shown.] 

Stop it there, please. 

At 22:52:34, it now appears that John Sullivan is beginning to 

write something. Is that what you were referring to before? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Before Mr. Sullivan begins to write the statement that 

you are eventually going to read that evening, you permitted three 

Democratic change cards to be read, after you called the vote at 

214–214, from Ms. Gillibrand, Mr. Space and Mr. McNerney. 

I have heard what you said about following the Parliamentarians, but I did not see any Parliamentarian giving you any advice 

at that moment in time. 

A. No, but I think John had previously said to me he was going 

to write out a statement. 

Q. Okay. 

A. So I wasn’t going to do anything until I got that statement. 

Q. Okay. Roll it again, please. 

[Video shown.] 

I think 56:37 is where we want to get to. 

Mr. DAVIS. Again, just to capture what is on there, Mr. McNulty, 

we see that Mr. Sullivan is visibly writing something for a period 

of time. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right there. It’s whenever you see the Leader 

get to the microphone. 

[Video shown.] 

Could you stop it right there? 


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BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. The Leader has moved to vacate the vote. At this moment in 

time, you have not read Mr. Sullivan’s statement; is that correct? 

A. I don’t believe so. 

Q. Okay. Could we go to 57:36? 

[Video shown.] 

Stop it there. 

The Leader, you’ll agree with me, has just moved to reconsider? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Could we go to 57:58? 

[Video shown.] 

Stop it there. 

A. Yes. I remember, after Steny made that request, one of the 

Parliamentarians said to me, you can’t entertain that motion until 

you announce what the vote was. 

Q. That’s when you read the—— 

A. That’s when I read the statement. 

Q. [continuing]. Statement that Mr. Sullivan had prepared for 

you? 

A. Right. 

Q. After you called it the second time at 214–214 and said that 

the motion is not agreed to, you saw three Democratic vote 

changes: Gillibrand, McNerney and Space. That turned it from 

215–213 to 212–216. 

Can you, as the presiding officer, indicate for what purpose you 

kept that vote open beyond your declaration of 214–214 other than 

for the sole purpose of having the outcome of the vote affected? 

A. I did it for the sole purpose of following the directions of the 

Parliamentarian after I had committed an error. 

Q. Since Mr. Sullivan was not in contact with you until the end 

of that sequence, did you receive that communication from Mr. 

Lauer? 

A. What communication? 

Q. Whatever he told you to do. Are you saying that a Parliamentarian told you to keep it open and to take more changes? 

A. No, nobody used any words like that. After I called the vote 

at 214–214, shortly thereafter, John said to me, ‘‘I’m going to write 

out a statement for you to read.’’ I was looking for direction. 

Q. Okay. 

A. He said that, and I did not do anything—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. Until he had finished writing that statement. 

Q. Okay. 

A. It was during that period of time that those votes occurred, 

so I wasn’t doing anything affirmatively about keeping the vote 

open. I just wasn’t going to do anything to further complicate the 

problem I had caused. 

Q. Just so I am absolutely clear, is it your recollection that John 

Sullivan said to you that he was going to write out a statement to 

you before those three Democratic Members went in to change 

their votes? 

A. I think so, but I’m not exactly sure on that, Steve. 

Q. Okay. Last question. I appreciate the Majority’s patience. 


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At one point on the tape—and we can play it, if you want—that 

is sort of well-known to the members of the committee, the Majority Leader goes up to the rostrum and approaches Mr. Sullivan, 

and his words are, ‘‘We run this place, not you.’’ Did you hear those 

words? 

A. I was looking in that direction because I was looking for direction all that night. But Steny came up and said something in kind 

of an agitated manner to John, which I believe were those words, 

because I’ve read those since then and I’ve heard people say that 

and I don’t have any reason to dispute it. If you ask me to say 

what Steny said to John, I could not tell you. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I believe those were the words, but there was so much going 

on in the chamber and there was so much noise and I was kind 

of fixated on that board, that I was not involved in that conversation. I believe that’s what he said, because other people did hear 

him. 

Q. Again, I don’t want Artur yelling at me anymore. As you sit 

here today, you don’t have any independent recollection that those 

were the words spoken by the Majority Leader? 

A. I do not. 

Q. But you saw him not happy? 

A. He was not happy. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. DAVIS. I’m just going to ask you some very brief redirect on 

one last area that Mr. LaTourette touched on, and then I’ll yield 

to Ms. Herseth Sandlin. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Mr. LaTourette was asking about the fact that three Democratic Members were changing their votes after you made the calling of the vote. When the three Democratic Members—McNerney, 

Space and, I think, Gillibrand—were in the well, changing their 

votes, is it true that the Clerk was calling out their vote changes? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did Mr. Sullivan at any point suggest to you that you should 

tell the Members that they could no longer vote? 

A. No. 

Q. Did Mr. Sullivan, to your knowledge, in any way do anything 

to prevent the Clerk from reading out the vote changes those Members were making? 

A. No. 

Q. Did anything happen to in any way impede those Members 

from changing their votes? 

A. I do not believe so. 

Q. Did Mr. Sullivan suggest to you that there was anything inappropriate about those Members changing their votes? 

A. No. 

Q. In fact, you believe that you had incorrectly called the vote, 

correct? 

A. I did. 

Q. The consequence of that would be that the vote had not been 

properly called, so the vote would be ongoing; am I right? 


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A. At that point in time, Artur, I was just at a point where I was 

so upset with myself that I just was going to follow the direction 

of the Parliamentarian. And that’s just what I did after that. 

Q. So, with respect to what Mr. LaTourette focused on at the 

end, the vote changes by Democratic Members, your actions would 

not have been for the purpose of influencing the vote. As I understand your testimony, your actions would have been for the purpose of allowing the Parliamentarian to clarify the situation? 

A. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS. I yield to Ms. Herseth Sandlin. 

EXAMINATION BY MS. HERSETH SANDLIN

Q. So, just to be clear, Mr. McNulty—and I think you have answered this, but just to be clear on the record, as we have asked 

you what the Parliamentarians may have been communicating to 

you during this time when you had recognized the premature call 

of the vote and you were waiting for the Parliamentarians, Mr. Sullivan in particular, for guidance when he was writing out a statement, you weren’t telling the Parliamentarians or the Clerks anything at this time? 

A. No. I was clearly in a listening mode at that point. 

Q. So you didn’t tell them to enter those changes. You didn’t tell 

them not to do so. You weren’t instructing the Clerks or the Parliamentarians as to anything related to the three Democratic Members—— 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. [continuing]. Who were in the well. 

A. I was waiting for the statement that John was preparing for 

me. 

Q. Did anyone from leadership or did any other Member ask you 

to either allow or to deny any vote changes? 

A. No. 

Q. Could we go to 22:50? Let’s let it roll until about 22:50:20 or 

25. 

Watch, if you could, and pay particular attention, Mr. McNulty, 

to the well and to the counter at the well. 

[Video shown.] 

Right now. Could you stop it right there? 

Mr. McNulty, could you identify the three Members who appear 

to have just picked up a card and who are submitting vote 

changes? 

A. I believe that’s Ileana, Lincoln and Mario. 

Q. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario DiazBalart? 

A. I believe so. 

Q. At that point, did you notice the three of them approaching 

the well simultaneously? 

A. I did. 

Q. Was it at that point in your mind that you determined that 

you were going to call the vote after Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart’s vote 

was entered? 

A. Yes, if no other Member showed up in the well to vote. 


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Q. Can you explain why it was again that—did the fact that the 

three of them approached simultaneously have anything to do with 

that determination? 

A. No. I was just waiting for the last person to change his vote. 

Q. Okay. With regard to the earlier questions with regard to 

Catlin O’Neill, when at various times it is obvious that it is her 

and at other times when it is not immediately obvious, but when 

we slow the tape down it appears that there was some back-andforth, is that common practice in terms of someone who is a designee of leadership, since you can’t see the board while you are presiding, just being a conduit of informing you of the count that we 

think that we have of Members present and voting? Again, I think 

you had mentioned this. Just signals or information exchanged, indicating the need to wrap up the vote, is that common practice? 

A. It’s common to have communication with the Speaker’s representative. 

And there are a lot of reasons sometimes of why a vote is held 

open a little bit longer. A lot of times during appropriations season, 

the appropriators are marking up a bill, and the vote is on, and the 

Speaker Pro Tem will be advised to wait a little bit longer because 

they’re just finishing up the meeting, and they’re just finishing up 

that bill, and it will take a little while to get to the floor to vote. 

Sometimes there is a bill signing down at the White House, and 

a couple Members are late getting back, something like that, and 

you hold open the vote as a courtesy to those Members sometimes. 

Q. To the best of your recollection, again, as to any communication you had with Ms. O’Neill or with any other designee or representative of leadership, none of those conversations were out of 

the ordinary course of that exchange of information? 

A. No. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Thank you. 

That’s all I have, Artur. 

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Chairman? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. No questions. 

Mr. DAVIS. As a courtesy, we let the Republicans ask any questions. 

Mr. Pence, do you have any questions? 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you, Mr. Davis. I do have a series of questions. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PENCE

Q. Mike, thank you for coming in. Thank you for your apology. 

It is consistent with your character and reputation that you have 

been as candid as you were on the floor the next day and today. 

I think, as I have told you privately on the floor, I hold you in high 

regard. 

A. Thank you. 

Q. I admire you for your sense of professionalism and for your 

fairness. 

Let me say I think that that is why I and the other members of 

this committee on the minority side are struggling so much with 

this, with the facts of this incident. This was not a Mike McNulty 

moment. It was not. I want to say that while I am complimenting 

you. 


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Let me just ask you a couple of questions. Mr. LaTourette did an 

exceptional job walking through, getting what many of our inquiries were, but I want to make sure I understand what your statement was. This is a courtesy question just by way of clarification. 

Very early on in Mr. Davis’s questioning, I think he actually 

asked you—although I’m happy to check the record—if Ms. O’Neill 

approached you. Your response this morning was ‘‘no.’’ I think—— 

A. I interpreted that as meaning did she approach me about instructing me to call the vote. 

Q. Thank you. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Good. 

A. Because she did not. Steny Hoyer did not. No Member or 

member of leadership instructed me to call that vote when I called 

it. 

I do recall now, when I see the tape, when Catlin approached me. 

At one point, she said to me—and I think it was actually before the 

time had expired—‘‘This is likely to be a close vote.’’ She communicated that to me at one point, but that was the sum and substance of the comment. 

Q. I accept that clarification entirely about how you understood 

Mr. Davis’s question. 

So you recall before viewing the tape this morning that you had 

spoken to Catlin O’Neill a number of times during the course of 

this vote? 

A. It would be common practice to talk to the Speaker’s representative when you’re in the chair. 

Q. Okay. With regard to your presence in the chair, you said, and 

I think I have the quote, ‘‘I came to the chair for the motion to recommit and passage.’’ Again, my notes indicate this morning that 

you said that no one from leadership had approached you. 

Again, am I to understand—they certainly approached you about 

going to the chair, but they did not approach you about an outcome? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Catlin, I think, asked me at least earlier in the day, if not the 

day before, to handle that vote and a succeeding vote on an appropriations bill, which, of course, I didn’t do. 

Q. Why do you think that was? 

A. It’s just a matter of normal scheduling. They usually give you 

advance notice of when you’re going to be in the chair—— 

Q. Okay. 

A. [continuing]. Just for scheduling purposes, so it doesn’t conflict 

with a committee meeting or something like that. 

Now, I think they anticipated that that vote was going to occur 

a lot earlier in the day than it did. Obviously, it wasn’t conflicting 

with any schedule at that point in time. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Usually, Catlin calls David in our office and gives me a headsup as to when they want me to be in the chair. 

Q. I didn’t spend like LaTourette and McNulty time in the chair 

when we were in the Majority, but I spent a fair amount of less 

exciting hours there. 


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Was it your practice—and I am inferring this from the comment 

you just made—that when your office is called about presiding in 

the chair, it has to do with specific legislative moments or bills and 

not time frames? You weren’t called to be in the chair from 6 

o’clock on that evening? 

A. Right. It happened a couple times earlier in the year, with regard to time frames. A couple of times, I was asked to open the session, so you’re there from the very beginning. So that’s a time 

frame. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Then there were a couple of time frames—they had kind of a 

schedule thing in the early part of the year that they thought 

would work, saying, you know, ‘‘Can you be in the chair from 2:00 

to 4:00 or from 4:00 to 6:00?’’ or things like that, so that you could 

better manage your schedule with regard to your committee work 

and so on. 

Now, what changed for me after a period—and I think they 

changed that procedure after a period of time. What changed for 

me after a period of time was they were putting me in the chair 

for some very long periods of time, and I have this post-polio condition that makes it difficult for me to stand for extended periods. 

Then I made the formal request of Catlin if she could use me 

more, as Steve mentioned, as a closer, you know, to go in for recommit and passage rather than being there for hours during the 

Committee of the Whole or something like that. 

Q. So, on this specific one, you were asked to essentially preside 

over the motion to recommit and passage? 

A. That is specifically what I was asked to do, to do recommit 

and passage. 

Q. That didn’t strike you as particularly odd or unusual? That 

was common? 

A. That was becoming the practice for me, as far as my service 

in the chair was concerned. 

Q. Okay. All of the members of the committee have copies of this 

e-mail. I want to show you an e-mail that is from the evening of 

August 2nd at about 10 minutes before midnight. It is from Catlin 

O’Neill to an M. Mike. 

A. Yes. 

Q. I want to have you take a peek at that and tell us if that is 

an e-mail directed to you. Then there also is an accompanying response. 

Talk to us about that e-mail. Is that your response? Is that an 

e-mail from her to you? 

A. Those are both accurate. 

Q. Okay. 

A. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. Let’s make this an exhibit to the deposition. 

Mr. PENCE. Please. 

[McNulty Exhibit No. 1 was marked for identification.] 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Let me refer to it here, Tom, so I can get the language right. 

The e-mail which you now identify was sent to you at 23:50:49 

from Catlin O’Neill says, quote, ‘‘I have to apologize on putting you 


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in that position, but you did a remarkable job under a tremendous 

amount of pressure that I will never fully comprehend. Catlin.’’ 

A. Yes. 

Q. Then on top of this, which I’ll submit for the record, your response was, ‘‘Thanks, Catlin. I think we did the best we could 

under the circumstances. Thanks for all your good work. See you 

in the a.m. Mike.’’ 

A. That’s accurate. 

Q. Right. 

A. Yes. 

Q. Can you tell us for the record how you would interpret her 

apology? What did she mean, that she put you in that position? 

A. I think she was just reacting to the chaos, confusion and 

anger that was caused by my error. I don’t know what she was 

apologizing for, because it was my fault. I did it, and I just responded the way that I did. 

I probably should have said I did the best I could under the circumstances after it had occurred, but the occurrence, itself, was not 

the best I could have done. 

Q. Thank you. 

I’ve got just a couple more questions based on your testimony 

today. Our chairman has a low threshold for redundancy, so I’m 

not going to test him on it. 

The first call at 214–214 in your testimony today and on the 

video—I don’t have a time clock. Although, some staff may help me 

with that. As Mr. LaTourette walked you through the video, the 

video suggests, and you dispute, that immediately after the Speaker voted, you attempted to close the vote, right? Is that a fair characterization? 

A. Yes. I didn’t remember that the Speaker was the last one to 

vote, but that’s obvious from the tape, that that was the one that 

made it 214–214. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Or Corrine Brown, right? 

Mr. PENCE. That was 22:50:06, for the record. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. So your testimony today was that you did not even observe 

the Speaker voting. Was that a coincidence, that moments after the 

Speaker voted you called the vote 214 to 214? 

A. Yes. I mean, it’s hard to remember exactly what my thought 

was at the time back at the second, but I was fixated on that 

board, and I was fixated on the number of objections that had been 

made over the course of the past year or so to possible violations 

of that new clause. 

Q. Right. 

A. I thought I—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. If the gentleman would yield, have there been a 

lot of complaints about violations? 

Mr. MCNULTY. Well, there have been a number of them. I’ve observed a number of them. I can’t quantify how many. I mean, there 

was one in the last 2 weeks. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Serial offenders. 


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BY MR. PENCE

Q. Let me get to the second 214–214 call. And, Mike, really, I’m 

just trying to understand your mindset. 

As I watched the video, as Mr. LaTourette walked you through 

it, and in your statement today, you indicate that you called the 

first vote prematurely, because you then observed—— 

A. I think the second one was premature, too. The reason I 

stopped after the first one was that there was some indication that 

somebody else wanted to vote. 

Q. Precisely. My question is with regard to that. After then—and 

I think your statement today was not only on the tape, but you recall observing the Diaz-Balart brothers and Ms. Ros-Lehtinen voting. 

A. I thought that was going to be the end of the line—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. Right there. 

Q. Now, this is a total gut check. If the vote was 214 to 214 and 

you saw three people changing their votes—— 

A. No, no, no. 

Q. [continuing.] Why did you call it—— 

A. No, it wasn’t 214–214 at that time. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

Mr. MCNULTY. It had changed. I mean, it was 214–214 when I 

first prematurely called the vote. It wasn’t 214–214 when those 

three came to the board; it had changed. A couple of other people 

had changed, I think. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Okay. So your statement this morning was not that you had 

only seen the Diaz-Balarts. Your sense was that more people than 

them were changing votes? 

A. I think, indeed, some other people did change their vote. 

Q. Okay. That is your impression or your recollection? 

A. What I thought—I thought Mario Diaz-Balart was the end of 

the line, though. 

Q. The end of the line? 

A. Right. 

Q. Right. I just want to understand, your recollection is that—— 

A. Yes. I just made the decision, absent any direction—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing.] From anybody—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing.] Because I wasn’t getting any direction, that, at 

the end of the line, I was going to call that vote. 

Mr. DAVIS. Would you yield for one second? This is an important 

point I want to clarify. 

In response to those questions, Mr. McNulty, you are saying that 

you thought that all vote changes were being reflected on the 

board? 

Mr. MCNULTY. I did. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. 

Mr. MCNULTY. And obviously I was wrong in that regard, because, when I called it the second time at 214–214, the last vote, 


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which I believe was Mario’s vote, had not yet gone through the 

computer system and hit that board. I called it at 214–214, and 

boom, all of a sudden it’s 215–213. And that showed up on the 

board almost immediately after I called the vote at 214–214, and 

I believe that that was Mario’s vote being recorded. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Mr. LaTourette asked you if Catlin O’Neill asked you to preside and close. You responded ‘‘yes’’ to that. You didn’t mean that 

she asked you to close the vote? 

A. No, no, no. 

Q. I want it to be clear. 

A. She asked me prior to me ascending the chair. As a matter 

of fact, not just then but earlier in the day, it was on my schedule 

to do the recommit and passage of the Agriculture appropriations 

bill. 

Q. Right. 

A. No, she never during the time of the vote asked me to close 

the vote. 

Q. And you said this repeatedly. It is your testimony today that 

at no time did anyone in leadership indicate to you when to close 

the vote? 

A. That is correct. 

Q. Not from the leadership table? Not Catlin O’Neill speaking to 

you? 

A. I wish they had, but they didn’t. 

Q. Has it been your experience over the many years you served 

in the chair that the leadership table or the leadership staff will 

indicate to you, from time to time, you can close the vote or that 

you should close the vote? 

A. Absolutely. 

Q. And that did not occur at all? 

A. That did not occur. 

Q. I wanted to ask you about when the Majority Leader came up, 

but I’m fairly certain Mr. LaTourette explored that more thoroughly. 

You saw that incident; you did not hear? 

A. I heard something, but I could not repeat on my own now as 

to what the words were. Steny came up, had a conversation with 

John. I know some people speculate he had a conversation with me. 

He did not. He came up and had that conversation with John and 

then left. 

Q. You said he was not happy. 

A. He didn’t look happy to me. 

Q. Why do you think he was not happy? 

A. I’m not going to try to get inside of Steny’s head on that. He 

came up, and he said something to John, and then he left. And I 

later believe it was those words that you have mentioned, because 

other people heard him and it has been published since then. 

Q. Well, if you did not hear, then I don’t want to ask what was 

said. 

A. I didn’t. 

Q. Let me ask you one or two other quick questions. 

A. Sure. 


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Q. At 22:54:35 on the tape, which we could go to, 22:54:35, you 

see the Minority Leader, John Boehner, casting a vote. 

Do you recall John Boehner voting—submitting a change card, 

rather? 

A. I see him doing it right now. 

Q. Do you recall it at the time? 

A. No. I think I was looking in another direction. 

Q. Okay. So you don’t recall the Minority Leader submitting a 

well card to change—— 

A. I don’t off the top of my head, no. 

Q. Okay. Are you aware that Mr. Boehner’s change was never recorded? 

A. I have heard that that was the case, yes. 

Q. But you don’t have any contemporaneous memory of it? 

A. I don’t. 

Q. With regard to clause 2(a) of Rule XX, I want to understand 

your interpretation of that. One more question, although Steve 

asked an awful lot on this. 

Do you believe that clause 2(a) of Rule XX means that anyone 

in the well who desires to change a vote after time has expired 

should be precluded from doing so? 

A. Oh, my God, no, no. I think that anybody who is in that well 

obviously seeking to vote or to change their vote ought to be allowed to do so, no matter how much time has expired. That’s my 

opinion. Even if they’re not in the well and if I observe them or if 

they’re coming down the aisle, holding their cards up in the air, I’ll 

wait. I’ve done it many times, much to the consternation of the entire body sometimes when it hasn’t been a close vote and it’s a getaway day or something like that. 

Q. Well, I have one other fact question, and then I’m done. 

At the time of the first call—and Artur probably has a good time 

check here, a time clock of the 214 to 214? If we could go back to 

that on the video—— 

Mr. HALPERN. The first one, sir? 

Mr. PENCE. Yes, the first 214 to 214. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. It’s at 22:51:25. 

[Video shown.] 

Mr. PENCE. Is that the first one? 

Mr. MCNULTY. That’s the first one. 

Mr. PENCE. Stop there. Maybe rewind it. Just run it, so that we 

can all around the table get a sense of the real-time here. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Mike, you called the vote after the Speaker cast her vote. You 

called the vote for whatever reason in your mind. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Would the gentleman yield on that, just 

for a point of clarification? 

Mr. PENCE. I’d be happy to. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. My understanding is that, either shortly 

after or almost simultaneously with the Speaker having voted, 

there was only one bang of the gavel. 

Are we interpreting that as the first time he attempted to close— 

the question to you, Mike, is, I mean, were you attempting to close 


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the vote with the one bang of the gavel? Or why would you bang 

the gavel? 

Mr. MCNULTY. You can’t close the vote with a bang of the gavel. 

That’s meaningless. You don’t close the vote by declaring what the 

outcome is. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. So just the one bang of the 

gavel—— 

Mr. MCNULTY. I stopped short of doing that because I either 

heard or saw someone else who wanted to vote. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I think what you’re referring to is the 5-minute 

or the 10-minute mark of the vote when he first stood up and 

banged it once. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. No. When Mr. LaTourette took him 

through, trying to identify the Speaker and when she voted, there 

was a moment where the gavel came down one time. Time had 

elapsed at that point, I understand. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Oh, yes, yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Okay. So we’re not going to refer to that 

as trying to attempt to close the vote. 

So the first time you attempt to close the vote, in your mind, was 

when you actually spoke—— 

Mr. DAVIS. When the motion had failed. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. [continuing.] 214–214? 

Mr. MCNULTY. No. The only time I closed the vote was then. No. 

I was attempting to close the vote earlier at 214–214. I stopped 

short of doing it because I recognized that other people wanted to 

vote. 

Mr. PENCE. Excuse me. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I think we’re all on the same page. 

Mr. PENCE. Yes. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. But about a minute or so before that, as 

Mr. LaTourette took you through, trying to identify the Speaker 

and her vote, there was a moment almost simultaneously or shortly 

thereafter when you brought the gavel down one time but didn’t 

say anything. 

In your mind, that was not an attempt to close the vote? 

Mr. MCNULTY. It was probably just to get the attention of the 

House. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Let’s take a look at it. There are going to be facts, ultimately, 

that are in dispute on this committee. I know that will come as a 

shock to you, Mike, so I don’t want to inadvertently characterize 

what you were doing. 

I think your testimony just a few moments ago was you were attempting to close, but you suspended your attempt to close the 

vote? 

A. Maybe it would be better to say I was intending to close the 

vote, but I stopped short of doing it because it was obvious to me 

that other Members were going to vote, and I would not do that. 

Mr. DAVIS. Let me jump in and make one point. 

Both Mr. McNulty and I, actually, are in a markup that started 

15 minutes ago. I don’t want to interfere with any of your questions, but it seems to me at some point right here we’ve been arguVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00468 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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ing about the conclusions, and we’ve been asking him if he agrees 

with us, and he’s not on the committee. So, if we’re covering new 

factual ground, that’s one thing, but if we’re just simply—— 

Mr. PENCE. You bet. You bet. You actually just took more time 

than I was going to. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. If we could play the tape just one more time, I want to ask 

you about that very moment and whether or not you saw Ileana 

Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balarts coming down and your recollection of when you—— 

A. I don’t know if it was that or whether it was somebody on the 

other side. 

Q. Take a look at it here. 

A. I may have just heard something. 

Mr. PENCE. Did we go past it, Hugh? 

Mr. HALPERN. No. It hasn’t happened yet. 

Mr. PENCE. Okay, because I think—— 

Mr. DAVIS. This either clarifies your recollection or it doesn’t. I 

mean, the only relevant witness here is you. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Yes. 

[Video shown.] 

See, I’m looking toward our side. 

Mr. PENCE. It’s, maybe, 3 seconds before we see those three Republican Members enter the screen. 

Mr. MCNULTY. Right. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. But it’s your testimony today that you don’t recall having seen 

them coming down to vote? 

A. No. I was obviously looking the other way there. But I stopped 

the vote because either I heard somebody say ‘‘one more vote’’ or 

I saw somebody on our side move toward the well, but I had it in 

my mind that I wasn’t going to prevent someone from changing 

their vote. 

Mr. PENCE. I have no further questions. 

Let me close by thanking you for your cooperation from the very 

beginning with this select committee. I can’t speak for every Republican in the conference, but let me personally say that it would 

be my hope to see you be able to return to the chair and to participate in whatever role as a Member of the body that you desire to 

participate in. Your cooperation with this committee is commendable, and we very much appreciate your time and service. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. While you’re being gracious, could you yield to 

me for just two very quick things? I know you have to go to a 

markup, but new ground, Mike, has occurred, and I want to echo 

those remarks. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Somebody asked you about the Boehner card. Were you privy 

to any conversations, as you were up on the rostrum that evening, 

between anyone concerning Boehner’s well change card? 

A. No. 


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Q. Did you even know it had occurred until much later? 

A. I don’t even recall it happening. I recall hearing about it later 

on, but no. 

Q. Okay. Then the last question is—we have asked a lot about 

Catlin O’Neill. On page 6 of her testimony before the committee, 

she indicates that, ‘‘I told Mr. McNulty because I think there was 

3 minutes actually left on the clock, and said this is going to be 

tight, just bear with me.’’ 

Do you recall her speaking those words? 

A. Well, that clarifies my recollection of her saying—I said 

‘‘close.’’ She said ‘‘tight.’’ 

Q. Right. But I guess I want to focus on ‘‘just bear with me.’’ Do 

you recall her saying ‘‘bear with me’’? 

A. I don’t recall that. 

Q. Okay. Thanks. 

A. I believe she said it if she said she said it. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Just on that note, one quick point. On the e-mail that was 

presented to you where Ms. O’Neill says, ‘‘I have to apologize on 

putting you in that position,’’ Mr. Pence asked you a number of 

questions about that. What did you understand ‘‘that position’’ to 

mean? 

A. I think she felt bad for me because I felt terrible about myself. 

I think that’s what—she was just trying to commiserate with me 

a little bit, as a number of other Members did. 

Q. But you did not—again, you said a number of times today 

that there was never a point when she instructed you to call the 

vote, so—— 

A. I wish she had. 

Q. Right, but that position certainly does not refer to closing the 

vote. 

A. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. We’re done. Thank you, Mr. McNulty. 

Thank you. 

We should probably put in his statement, too. 

[McNulty Exhibit No. 2 was marked for identification.] 

[Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(469) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF CATLIN O’NEILL 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 10:54 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

Representatives William D. Delahunt, Artur Davis, Stephanie 

Herseth Sandlin, Mike Pence, and Steven C. LaTourette. 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO, LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt; Chanelle Hardy, Counsel, Representative Davis; 

Russ Levsen, Communications Director/Deputy Chief of Staff, Representative Herseth Sandlin; Joshua M. Pitcock, Legislative Counsel, Representative Pence; and Joe Guzzo, Chief of Staff, Representative LaTourette. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. Miss O’Neill, thank you for being here 

today. You have been previously questioned, I believe, by counsel 

for the select committee. I’m trying to find the exact date. 

Mr. SPULAK. February 25th. 

Mr. DAVIS. February 25th, 2008. The Republican side of the committee, as you know, has requested the right to re-interview you, 

and we have not objected to that. We agreed when we started this 

process that we would certainly permit any side that wished to do 

a re-interview to do so. However, you have been previously—we all 

have a copy of the deposition, so we’re hoping to be expeditious 

today. 

What we are going to do is I’m going to yield the opening bloc 

of time to the Republican side since they’re the ones who requested 

your interview. They’re going to go for approximately 15 to 20 minutes, then I will ask you a round of questions. We will have a second round, and Mrs. Herseth Sandlin will conduct for the Democrats. The Republicans will decide who they wish to conduct it. 


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Do you have any questions before we get started. 

Ms. O’NEILL. No. 

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Paoletta. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Catlin, thanks for coming back today. 

A. Couple of things we wanted to cover for two reasons. One is 

we went ahead with the interview. It has taken some time to 

produce the documents, and I think it was agreed upon by the committee that we would go ahead with interviews, and once we got 

the documents, if we had any additional follow-up, we would have 

the right to call you back. I think, based on your production, we 

wanted to ask you a couple of questions. We are going to leave that 

to later in the interview. 

A. Okay. 

Q. Obviously, Mr. LaTourette and Mr. Pence are going to handle 

that. 

The other thing is, you know, this happened back in August. We 

spoke to you in February. I think you said you had watched the 

tape once shortly after the incident, the vote. And we didn’t have 

the tape running when we were going over it with you, and I 

thought it would be better, given your role in the vote, to sort of 

walk through the tape with you and get your sense and see if it 

jogs your recollection. I’ve gone over your testimony. I think we 

sent a copy to you yesterday. 

A. I watched it last night. 

Q. Did you read your testimony? 

A. Yes, and I watched the video last night. 

Q. I thought the best thing to do was to ask you to walk through 

the tape. It is primarily do you recollect XYZ, seeing from a visual, 

and perhaps you have a better recollection today upon watching it 

last night. 

A. I do. 

Q. Okay, good. 

So I think what I want to do is just walk through the tape, and 

you can maybe pull your chair back. And then we may actually 

stop midway through to turn it over to Mr. Davis, and then we will 

pick it back up on the back end of his questioning. 

A. Okay. 

Q. So, in our first interview, you had mentioned that the only 

conversation that you had with Mr. McNulty was that this was 

going to be a tight vote and to bear with him? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you remember that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Is that accurate as you sit here today? 

A. Yes. 

Q. We are going to pick up at 22:38. Actually, at 22:35. You are 

going to see yourself leaving the rostrum and walking up towards 

the Democratic leadership table. Okay? 

A. All right. 

Q. Do you see yourself? 

A. I suspect that’s me. 

Q. I think you are in a black suit with a white shirt? 


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A. Yeah. 

Q. Okay. Okay. You are walking up now. Do you see that? 

A. Right. 

Q. Okay. Question: Do you remember doing that? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. You walked up to the table, to the leadership table. Do 

you recall anything that was said during your time up there? 

Mr. DAVIS. Mark, can you reference the time? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sure. It’s 22:35:12.38. Thank you. 

Ms. O’NEILL. Do you have an idea of where the time is on the 

vote at this point? 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I think it’s 5 minutes that you have walked up there. Yeah, 

it’s a little bit—he calls the vote at 22:34. So it’s actually a little 

bit—about a minute, a minute and a half. You come back down at 

the 5-minute mark, as you will see in a second. You walk up to the 

leadership table. Do you remember anything about that conversation? 

A. No. I suspect I was just trying to figure out how many people 

had gotten in. 

Q. Okay. At 22:38:30, you are going to see yourself—do you see 

yourself running down? 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Q. Can you stop it there? 

Catlin, do you remember that? 

A. This is what actually jogged my memory last night. It is based 

on his response. During last summer, I was trying to have the 

Chairs gavel down at 5 minutes or 2 minutes, or 1 minute, in an 

effort to get people in, because oftentimes when Members hear the 

gavel, they don’t know how much time is left in the vote. So I assume, not being a Member myself, they go and put their cards in 

and they vote. 

Q. This is a 15-minute vote, right? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. This is after 5 minutes? 

A. I assume—I see—my assumption of what I did at that moment is that I looked at the board, saw that we were getting close 

to 5 minutes or around 5 minutes, and I ran to him and said: Gavel 

5 minutes left in the vote. 

Q. I think it’s at 10 minutes that you do that. 

A. It may well be at 10 minutes. 

Q. That’s the question. So it is a 15-minute vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. And after 5 minutes you had gone up to the leadership table, 

you come running down to speak to Mr. McNulty. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. And I’m not a floor person, so I wanted to get a sense of why, 

do you recall why, you ran down and spoke to him at the 10-minute 

mark of the 15-minute vote? 

A. The only thing that I would assume I would have said was, 

can you gavel it, say there is X amount of time left, so we can get 

more people to enter their votes in. 


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Q. Okay. And with 10 minutes left, you are running down the 

aisle. Do you normally run down the aisle? 

A. Yeah, often running. 

Q. Okay. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. If I can interrupt for a minute. Excuse me, I 

don’t mean to distract you, but—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I didn’t see you. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I snuck up. 

These are assumptions that you are making. We don’t know that 

there is 10 minutes left. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yes, sir. It is 22:33 where he starts the vote. That 

is 22:38. That is 5 minutes—I’m pretty certain that it is a 5-minute 

lapse in the vote. And the question is on a 15-minute vote, why is 

Catlin—does she recall why she comes running down from the 

table to speak to Mr. McNulty. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. But she is making the assumption that it was— 

as you say, was to inform the Chair to utilize the gavel. You don’t 

know that. 

Ms. O’NEILL. Well, I’m basing this after watching it last night 

following what he did. It sounded like he gaveled down not long 

after I walked up to him to say there’s X amount of time left in 

the vote. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. That is correct. And it is 10 minutes, though. And the question, is that normal on 15-minute votes to have the gavel at 10 and 

have the Chair announce that there are 10 minutes left in a 15- 

minute vote? 

A. There is no rhyme or reason really. I mean, it was late at 

night. My personal theory was people were hanging out. Fifteen 

minutes they are all there. If we gavel it, more people will get in. 

Five minutes perhaps, gavel again, more people will get in. Two 

minutes left, more people will get in. I don’t do that on every single 

vote. I do it on some, not others. 

Q. How often on a 15-minute vote do you think when you are 

working the floor does the Chair gavel it at 10 minutes? 

A. I cannot say. Sometimes I remember to tell them, sometimes 

I don’t. 

Q. Okay. But is it your practice that at 10 minutes—that’s what 

I’m trying to establish. Is it your practice? 

A. There is no practice. 

Q. Okay. 

Mr. SPULAK. If I may interject, if we were to let the tape run, 

at 22:58:54, Mr. McNulty announced, Members have 10 minutes 

left to vote. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Run it. 

Okay. At 22:46:26. 

[Playing videotape.] 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. And then can you identify Catlin? Can you see yourself, 

Catlin? 

A. Not right now. 

Q. Back it up. 


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A. Right there. Yes, I think that’s me, coming down. 

Q. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. And you are pointing at 22:46:32:33, roughly? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yes. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. Can you see yourself talking to Mr. McNulty? 

A. Yes, I can. 

Mr. DAVIS. At 22:46:44. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you recall that conversation? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. So there’s about 5 minutes left. Okay. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. And you walked up from the leadership table it looks like. Do 

you agree with that? 

A. I saw myself below. I don’t know if I was coming down the 

aisle or coming from the leadership. 

Q. If you are up there, where would you normally be? 

A. Everywhere. 

Q. Okay. So do you recall whether you were up at the leadership 

table that night? 

A. Yes, I was at the leadership table that night. 

Q. Okay. And do you think you were at the leadership table, do 

you recall being at the leadership table around that time? 

A. I can’t—I can’t say for certain. 

Q. Okay. And in this interaction with Mr. McNulty, do you recall 

anything of your conversation with him? 

A. No, not that specific time. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I mean, I had said earlier, at some point I said, this will be 

a tight vote. That may have been the time. I don’t know when it 

was that I actually said that. 

Q. Right. I think what you said in your interview is this was 

going to be a tight vote, bear with me, wait for the signal. When 

do you recall saying that to him? 

A. I don’t remember. 

Q. You don’t remember? 

A. Huh-uh. 

Q. When would you typically say that to him, at the beginning 

of the vote, or once you get a sense that it is going to be tight? 

A. Once I get a sense that it is going to be tight. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Can I interrupt once more? Can you refer to the 

point in the transcript for my benefit where she said, wait for the 

signal? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Page 5. On page 5, in response to a question from 

Mr. Spulak, Catlin says: I remember getting the list of Members 

who hadn’t voted yet, seeing them on the floor, looking at the numbers and saying, oh, this is going to be tight, and then telling the 

Chair, I think we have—you know, we are going to have a tight 

situation here, and just wait for me to let you know. 

Further on down on page 5: So I said, let’s just—you know, bear 

with me until I get a signal from them. 


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And back up, Mr. Chairman, it says in the previous paragraph: 

I sort of looked to the desk, the manager’s table, to see if we were 

ready or not, ready to go. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So, Catlin, just to be clear, when you say, when I get a signal 

from them, you are talking about the leadership table? 

A. I’m talking about the leadership table. 

Mr. SPULAK. I think the record should reflect that Catlin never 

said that she would give the Chair a signal. She was looking for 

a signal from one of her colleagues on the staff; is that correct? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Well, it says: I’m waiting for a signal, sort of an 

idea then I can say to the Parliamentarians or the Chair at that 

point we’re ready to go. So it does seem like—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Why don’t we do this. The objection I think that 

you’re getting, Mark, is that we have only got one witness today. 

So, by definition, you are saying ‘‘it seems like’’ the only person 

who can really speak to what her mind-set is, I believe, Ms. 

O’Neill. So if you want to ask her about her previous testimony, 

that’s perfectly fine. If you want to ask her if she stands by that, 

that’s fine. But if you could try to limit yourself to letting her interpret what she did, because that is what—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sure. I think the Chairman asked me to read the 

segments of her testimony, which is what I am doing. Tom interrupted me, and so we are here. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. So let’s just return to the tape. 

22:47:15. You are going to see the Speaker walk into the Chamber, and you’re following her, I believe—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, why don’t we ask her if she sees that, rather 

than testifying that is what she sees. 

Do you see that, Miss O’Neill? 

Ms. O’NEILL. No. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. Let’s just have it play instead of freezing it. 

Miss O’Neill, tell us when you see yourself. 

Ms. O’NEILL. I think I’m Democratic Republican at the 19. 

Mr. DAVIS. At 22:47:29. 

Ms. O’NEILL. Wait a second, I’m sorry. I thought I was over here. 

That’s me right there. 

Mr. DAVIS. So you recognize yourself at 22:47:37; thereabouts? 

Ms. O’NEILL. Right. I don’t see the Speaker. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. There is the Speaker right there, right? 

A. Right, I got it. 

Mr. DAVIS. At 22:47:13. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Can you pause it for a second? 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. The Speaker is right about here, but she had just walked in. 

She is right about here in a light blue suit. 


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Mr. DAVIS. And, Mark, the point at which you just signaled with 

your hands is 22:47:17. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yes. 

Mr. DAVIS. Is there a question? 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you remember speaking to the Speaker at any point? She 

is right in your vicinity. She’s walking in. 

A. No. 

Q. This is at 22:47:41 we paused it on. Do you remember the 

Speaker coming in at that point? If you recall, the Speaker is the 

one who cast the vote. It is 214–213, as we will see later on; 214– 

213, when she cast the vote, it becomes 214–214. She is entering 

the well at this point. Do you remember speaking to her at all? 

A. I don’t remember her being in the vicinity of me. 

Q. Okay. Okay. 

Mr. DAVIS. Mark, how much do you have? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. We will probably have at least 40 minutes or so 

as we walk her through this. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, why don’t you go for another 5, and then I will 

ask you to yield to me, and I will have a few questions for her. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Okay. If you look on 48:15, okay? You are going to see—I believe you are going to see yourself walking from the leadership 

table back to the rostrum and speaking to Ethan Lauer. Do you remember doing that? 

A. No. 

Q. Let’s just go to 49:30. Okay. Stop right there. 

Catlin, this is what I see. Tell me if you disagree with it when 

we start to play this. I believe Mr. Hartz has given the signal to 

the Speaker to vote. The Speaker is going to vote. You are going 

to see her hand on the well card. Then you are going to see a conversation between Mr. Hoyer and yourself. He is standing at desk 

in the well, and he says something to you. You lean into him, and 

then you’re going to turn around and speak to Mr. McNulty. 

Okay. At that point you’re going to see that the Speaker has 

voted. It hasn’t upticked on the screen. And then once you speak 

to him, you are going to see Mr. McNulty bang the gavel to close 

it at 214—or his first attempt to close it at 214–214. Watch the 

tape and tell me if you agree with that, and then we will ask you 

if you recall. Okay? 

A. If I see the Speaker correctly, she is right here. 

Mr. DAVIS. At 22:49:39. 

Ms. O’NEILL. I don’t see Jerry. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Can you see yourself? 

Ms. O’NEILL. Yes, I see myself. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Can you see Mr. Hoyer? 

Ms. O’NEILL. No. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, she’s missed Mr. Hartz making—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Why don’t you back it up. Okay. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I think it would be helpful, Miss O’Neill, if, with 

the assistance of Mark, if you could point to the individuals that 

were—— 


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Mr. PAOLETTA. Mr. Hartz is going to be over here. You will see 

his left hand go up. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Can you point to where Mr. Hartz is? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I have to watch it happen, but it is right around 

here. The Speaker is right there. She is talking to somebody. I believe she is going to see the signal, and she is going to turn quickly 

around and go vote. When she is about to do that, you will see the 

screen be 214 to 213, and her well card is going to make it 214– 

214. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Where is Mr. Hoyer? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Mr. Hoyer, I believe, is going to be right down— 

he is not there yet. 

Mr. DAVIS. Why don’t we actually watch this. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. This is where Mr. Hoyer is going to be standing. 

Mr. DAVIS. Why don’t we actually watch this? I think it helps. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Right there. You see that? 

Ms. O’NEILL. Yes, I saw that. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. She has seen it. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. The Speaker is going to vote. It is 214–213, okay? 

Mr. SNOWDON. The conversation between her and Mr. Hoyer is 

about to happen. 

Ms. O’NEILL. All right. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. That is Mr. Hoyer right there. He has been talking to you. Do 

you see yourself turn and talk to Mr. McNulty? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Back it up. It leads to a significant point. I just 

want to make sure that the Members see it. 

Mr. DAVIS. Why don’t you finish out on your line of questioning 

which you are trying to elicit at this point. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. You are talking to Mr. Hoyer. It is 214–213, Catlin, when you 

spoke with us, and you didn’t have the benefit of the tape. I think 

what you testified to—and, Andrew, what page is it on? I think 

what you testified to was the only time you spoke to Mr. Hoyer, 

there were 13 Members left to vote, you had a slip in your hand, 

you don’t think you showed it to him, but went to go find Members. 

Ms. O’NEILL. Uh-huh. 

Mr. DAVIS. Hold on, hold on. Why don’t we actually point to the 

pages. I’m not trying to hold you, Mark, to the rules of a deposition 

in courtrooms all over the country, but if you can point to the page 

and point to her previous testimony. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. On page 8 at the bottom. Catlin, do you want to read it? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Why don’t you read it out loud. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you recall Mr. Hoyer coming down the aisle? 

A. Not the aisle, but I remember him being in the well. 


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Q. All right. Do you remember what he was saying and what he 

was doing? 

On page 9: He and I had a conversation that I said, there’s 13 

people who still haven’t voted. Okay? 

A. And then that was all we said, that’s the only words we exchanged. 

Q. Okay. So at this point in the tape, Catlin—and, again, you did 

not have the benefit—this was in August. We interviewed you in 

February. We didn’t have the tape running. But at this point, right, 

there is not 13 Members left to vote? 

A. On that point, I can’t tell from where I am who is in and who 

is out. So in my view of the world—and that’s not to say that this 

is a conversation where we had—I told them there were still 13 

people out. That’s the only conversation I recall having with him, 

so I have to assume that is the one. But I don’t have a computer 

down there that tells me who is in and who is out. 

Q. Okay. Further down on page 9, okay, we said: Do you remember him coming down? You know, you can hear it on the tape, and 

we have heard it from others, something like close the vote. 

A. Yes, I was in the well standing by the doorway by the Parliamentarian’s desk, and that was after I—he and I talked about 

there being 13 Members. And at that point I believe I went to talk 

to the floor staff to go find the 13 Members and then come back. 

Q. Now, on this tape, at this point, at 22:49:53, with the vote 

being 214–213, and Speaker Pelosi just having voted, it looks like— 

and tell me if you agree with me—that you speak to Mr. Hoyer, 

you turn around, and you speak to Mr. McNulty? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. So it doesn’t look like, at least from my perspective, that you 

were going off and looking for 13 Members. 

A. No. 

Q. It looks like you are having a conversation with Mr. McNulty. 

So upon looking at this tape, do you recall a conversation you 

had with Mr. Hoyer at that point? 

A. The only conversation I recall having with Mr. Hoyer is that 

there are still 13 Members out. 

Q. Okay. 

Mr. DAVIS. Why don’t we do this, Mark. Why don’t we kind of 

treat this as a natural stopping point for the first round of questions and let me question her. Then, because I have to leave, I will 

yield to Ms. Herseth Sandlin. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sure. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Let me begin by going back to your previous deposition on 

February 25th. Had you reviewed the tape prior to that? 

A. Right after the August 2nd situation. So maybe a couple days 

later. 

Q. So prior to February 25th this year when you were previously 

questioned, you had reviewed the tape, to your recollection, once? 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Q. You have to answer verbally. 

A. Yes. 


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Q. And that one time would have been shortly after August 2nd, 

2007; is that right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And if I understand correctly, during your first round of questions, for some reason no one walked you through the tape, no one 

asked you questions about the tape; is that correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. And how many days a week—well, let me back up. Every day 

that we are in session, you are assigned to work the floor and carry 

out your responsibilities; is that correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. And is it fair to say that in the course of those days when a 

vote is on, you have a number of conversations with the leadership 

about the process? 

A. That is correct. 

Q. And, for example, you were here yesterday? 

A. Yes. 

Q. How many votes did we have yesterday? 

A. I have no idea. 

Q. Give me a ballpark count. 

A. One or two series, four or five votes. 

Q. Did you have repeated conversations with members of the 

leadership yesterday about the process here on the floor? 

A. About the process—I mean, yes, I had repeated conversations 

with Members on the floor. 

Q. And the night of August 2nd, that would have been essentially 

like any other night that you would have had repeated conversations with a variety of people. You would have had repeated conversations with the various presiding officers that day; is that correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. You would have had repeated conversations with the Majority 

Leader that day, August 2nd? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. You would have had perhaps repeated conversations with 

other Members; is that correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. From what—again the only person here to testify is you, but 

a number of us have conversations with you during a vote? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. And sometimes you’re being asked, is this the last vote? How 

much time is left on the vote? What do you expect the Republicans 

are going to do next? Is that the kind of repeated conversation that 

goes on when you are performing your day-in, day-out task? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. Is there any possible way that you could recollect any of those 

conversations with precision—let me do my lawyer’s math—7 

months later? 

A. No. 

Q. In fact, could you even recollect conversations you had yesterday with any precision? 

A. I can’t remember how many votes we had. 

Q. You were asked a number of questions, or you were just asked 

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tions you had with Mr. Hoyer. Is there any way that you can say 

with certainty sitting here today how many conversations you had 

with Mr. Hoyer on the night of August 2nd? 

A. No. 

Q. When you have testified to us, your attempt is to give us your 

best recollection of the conversations you had; is that right? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Is it your testimony today and on February 25th that you recall a particular conversation with Mr. Hoyer that night? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. And is it your testimony that that particular conversation you 

recall, for some reason you believe at that point there were 13 

Members who had not voted? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. Is it possible that there were other conversations you had 

with Mr. Hoyer that night? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Let me back up and ask you a more global question. What is 

Mr. Hoyer’s role as Majority Leader with respect to votes that 

occur on the floor? 

A. Well, he controls the schedule with regard to votes, trying to 

get the schedule to move forward and deeming it appropriate to 

close them at a certain time in order to have the schedule move 

forward. 

Q. And how long have you been in your current position? 

A. A year and a half. 

Q. All right. During the course of that year and a half, has Mr. 

Hoyer since then been the floor leader for the Democratic Caucus? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Consistent with his role as floor leader, does he exercise discretion as to when votes should be closed? 

A. Yes. 

Q. We received testimony from Mr. Boehner last week in this 

kind of deposition setting that when he was the Republican Leader—he is still Republican Leader—when he was the Majority Leader for the Republicans, that he played a similar role of controlling 

or exercising control over the floor for the Republicans. Do you recall that as being consistent with the role that you understood Mr. 

Boehner to play when he was Republican Leader—Majority Leader? 

A. I would assume that would be the case, yes. 

Q. All right. Who, to your understanding, makes the decision as 

to when a vote should be called? Is it the Majority Leader, or presiding officer or some other individual? 

A. It tends to come from leadership staff in consultation with 

leadership members to close a vote. And I am supposed to receive 

that information and then give it to the Parliamentarians and presiding officer. 

Q. Is there anything—you were asked a number of questions 

today and a number of questions on February 25th about what you 

said to Mr. McNulty, whether you gave instructions to Mr. McNulty. On a typical scenario, what are the instructions that you convey 

to a presiding officer in the course of a vote? What kinds of instructions do you convey? 


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A. Not many. It generally comes down to letting them know, 

through the Parliamentarians mostly, that we’re ready to close the 

vote. 

Q. And on the night of August 2nd, do you recall having any conversations with the Parliamentarians that night relevant to this inquiry? 

A. I don’t recall any specific instances. I assume that over the 

course of that vote, I said something to them saying along the lines 

of: This is going to be close. I’m told in my first testimony that I 

told Ethan Lauer that. I try to keep the Parliamentarians as informed as possible and hope they share that information with the 

Chair, and if they don’t, I tell the Chair. 

Q. And do you consider it permissible for you to communicate directly with the presiding officer? Anything unusual about you doing 

that? 

A. I—no. I mean, not unusual. I try to keep a healthy distance 

though. 

Q. Is Mr. McNulty a very experienced presiding officer? 

A. Indeed he is. 

Q. And you are one of the people who sets the schedule for presiding officers; is that right? 

A. That’s right. 

Q. Did you view McNulty as one of the more experienced presiding officers? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did you view him as one who required a lot of input from the 

Parliamentarians? 

A. No. 

Q. Did you view Mr. McNulty as one who required a lot of input 

from the leadership staff as to how to do his job? 

A. No. 

Q. And this particular night with respect to the August 2nd vote, 

do you recall there being any point when you actually gave Mr. 

McNulty an instruction to close the vote? 

A. No. 

Q. And, in fact, last week we took Mr. McNulty’s deposition, and 

we questioned him about whether or not he received any instruction from you, and he stated that he did not receive any instruction. I think he stated that he may have looked to it at one point 

and not received it. 

Last set of questions I will ask you before I have to go due to 

a scheduling conflict that I have. You have heard a lot of conversation in the course of this inquiry about rule 2(a) of clause XX. Are 

you familiar with rule 2(a) of clause XX? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Can you tell me what that is? 

A. To not hold a vote open for the express purposes of changing 

the outcome. 

Q. That is a new rule that was enacted by our new Majority; is 

that correct? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. And who has the responsibility, as you understand it, for enforcing that rule on the floor? Do you have any understanding of 

that? 


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A. I—no, I don’t. 

Q. You don’t have any role, though, with respect to that? 

A. No. 

Q. And was there any point on the night of August 2nd when the 

Parliamentarians attempted to do something, and you instructed 

them to stop? 

A. No. 

Q. Was there any point when the Parliamentarians attempted to 

give input to Mr. McNulty, and you advised Mr. McNulty not to follow the Parliamentarians? 

A. No, never. 

Q. Was there any point when you heard Mr. Hoyer instruct Mr. 

McNulty not to follow the input of the Parliamentarians? 

A. No. 

Q. Was there any point when you heard any of the Parliamentarians or any member of the rostrum staff complain that they were 

being impeded by you in any way? 

A. No. 

Q. Was there any point when you heard any member of the parliamentary staff indicate any concern or fear that he were being 

impeded by Mr. Hoyer? 

A. No. 

Q. When the Speaker cast her vote, that would have tied the 

score, if you will, at 214–214? 

A. I’m aware of this now. 

Q. So you don’t have any independent recollection of that? 

All right. Last set of questions before I have to literally sneak 

out, or I’m going to be very late for something. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. That is the second time you said that. 

Mr. DAVIS. That’s right. I keep trying to buy time here. She is 

so sure of her answers. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Mr. Paoletta, I think, asked you several questions about your 

interactions with Mr. Hoyer, several questions about your interactions with Mr. McNulty. Is there anything based on your questions that refreshes your memory or adds any clarification to you 

as to any conversations you’ve had with Mr. Hoyer? 

A. With Mr. Hoyer? 

Q. Yes. 

A. No. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. All right. I’m going to stop at this point, Mr. 

Paoletta. We will let you pick up your round of questions, and then 

Mrs. Herseth Sandlin will pick up any follow-up, and Mr. 

Delahunt, if he chooses, after that. 

The only cautionary note that I would add, we are not in any 

way trying to curb or constrain the questions here today, and I 

don’t want to be one of those folks who spends more time objecting 

than letting you ask questions and just getting there. But Miss 

O’Neill has been questioned once before. I can’t speak to why she 

wasn’t shown the tape before, but obviously the tape has been 

available. 

I understand that there will be questions that will be posed regarding e-mails that didn’t exist and were not shown to her preVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00487 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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viously. But I would suggest and ask you to constrain the questions 

as we go forward to material that could not have been covered during her first deposition or to material that, frankly, may be a contradiction or impeachment. You are certainly entitled to ask about 

that. 

But it does occur to me that a significant chunk of your first 

questions were, frankly, a rehash of the questions that were put to 

her February 25th. So out of deference to her schedule, because we 

do have the House in session right now, and there are responsibilities that she does need to conduct on the floor, I would simply ask 

that you try to restrain questions to new ground or to questioning 

her about previous statements. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I agree that it should be new, but I think I 

have a different view. I thought he was walking her in a pretty 

good way through the tape that she didn’t have the benefit of February 25th—— 

Mr. DAVIS. I don’t want to be one of those lawyers that spends 

more time arguing—— 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I don’t either, but we would ask you to pinpoint the tape and whether she recalls something or doesn’t recall 

something. But I thought you were doing a great job. 

Mr. DAVIS. And, Mr. Chairman, I have to leave to make it to 

something, and I will come back after that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mark, I think I would make one request here. I 

think you would agree that if you are going to set out a series of 

facts that exist in the transcript, if you would read into the record 

her responses at that time as opposed to summarizing them, so 

that she understands that. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And I would just—from my perspective, I don’t 

want any of this to be a gotcha for her. I think she didn’t watch 

the tape on February 25th, and I would hope the questions are, 

now you see the tape, does it cause you to have a different answer? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I don’t disagree. I think it is important—have 

you had a chance, Catlin, to review your transcript? 

Ms. O’NEILL. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Okay. When you’re posed a question, don’t feel 

the need necessarily for an immediate answer, but reflect on it to 

see if it does refresh your memory, your recollection. And I think 

Mark will adopt my request, hopefully, and read to you the basis 

for the question if he’s going to refer to the transcript. 

Ms. O’NEILL. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Catlin, I wanted to pick up back on this sequence here which 

is at 22:49:50, which—I guess right around there where you are 

speaking to Mr. Hoyer, and you turn and speak to Mr. McNulty. 

Okay. So do you see Mr. McNulty? 

A. Yes, I see Mr. McNulty. 

Q. Do you see Mr. Hoyer? 

A. Yes, I do. 

Q. He is right about the ‘‘R’’ of ‘‘Democratic.’’ 

A. Yes. 

Q. Stop right there, Andrew. 


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What I saw on that tape, and tell me if you agree with it, is that 

you have spoken to Mr. Hoyer at 214–213. The Speaker had just 

voted, and as you’re looking at the screen now at 22:50:07, Catlin, 

it says 214–214. You have turned in the sequence we watched and 

spoke to Mr. McNulty for about 10 seconds or so. He seems to lean 

in and listen a little bit more to what you are saying, from what 

I can tell. And tell me if you agree with that. 

A. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I’m having problems identifying Catlin. Can you 

just for a second, just to the point to where she is? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Sure. That’s Catlin right there. Pull it back, Andrew. Here, where she is talking to Mr. Hoyer. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. So she is on the floor. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. She is on the floor. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Who are the individuals between her and Mr. 

McNulty on the rostrum? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Do you see this right here, Mr. Delahunt? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Hold on. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. This is Mr. Hoyer right here. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you agree with that, Catlin? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. And this is Catlin, and we are at 22:49:44. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And who is the Parliamentarian next to Mr. 

McNulty? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. It’s Ethan Lauer. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Okay. And is that the standing or sitting tally 

clerk? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. It’s the recording clerk and the seated tally 

clerk. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. No. Who is that gentleman right there right 

under ‘‘H.’’ 

Mr. PAOLETTA. De’Andre Anderson. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. So we have De’Andre, we have Ethan Lauer, and 

then Mr. McNulty, and then if you can point out for me Mr. Hoyer. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. That’s Mr. Hoyer right there. He’s come from over 

here, and he has been standing here for about 10 seconds. At that 

point—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Catlin is where? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Over here. And, Mr. Delahunt, you see it is 214– 

213, and the Speaker has just actually turned her vote card in. 

Now, as you will see—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. We need slow motion on this. 

Mr. SNOWDON. We can do that. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Do a slow-mo. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Right there. Okay. Right here at 22:49:49, she’s 

just spoken to Mr. Hoyer. She’s turning a little bit more. Now he 

leans in. I’m watching him lean in to Catlin. They are obviously, 

I believe, communicating. Okay? Now it is 214–214 at 22:50:05, 

and Mr. McNulty has just gaveled the vote. Stop it right there. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. So my question, Catlin, is do you recall that conversation? 


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A. No. 

Q. Okay. When you say you didn’t give an instruction to close the 

vote—and I believe, returning to my seat—on page 28 of your testimony, George Crawford asked: Did you get that signal from the 

table that night? 

Answer: Yes. There was—I mean, no. No, I mean no. Actually 

that’s not true. I didn’t get any definitive signal. 

A. May I—if I may. Having read this last night, I was answering 

what I thought Crawford’s question was going to be, which is you 

said that you get a signal sometimes by shuttling it from the table 

that everybody is in. My ‘‘yes’’ was to that, just to clarify. 

Q. Okay. So moving down this page, it says—this is George 

Crawford: So in your mind when you—when you spoke to Mr. 

McNulty, were you giving him a signal to close the vote at that moment? 

A. Absolutely not. 

Q. So you didn’t get a signal—this is the question—so you didn’t 

get a signal or communication from the table to close the vote, and 

you didn’t pass on any message to Mr. McNulty to close the vote? 

A. No. 

Q. Now, we talked about—that is pages 28 and ending on page 

29 of her testimony. 

So, Catlin, it seems from the tape that you speak to Mr. Hoyer, 

who I think we’ve previously discussed with you had been signaling 

and stating to close the vote, right, when he was down in the well? 

We’ve heard it on the tape. 

Mr. SPULAK. Did Catlin ever say that she heard Mr. Hoyer signaling to close the vote? You have said that, but is that reflected 

in the record? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I think Catlin said that she watched the tape the 

first time and heard that on the tape. 

Ms. O’NEILL. No, I didn’t say that. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. I think you say—well, we can move on. Did you hear Mr. 

Hoyer say that? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. Did you turn—what I want to focus on is you said you 

never gave an instruction to close the vote? 

A. I never gave an instruction. 

Q. I want to explore the word ‘‘instruction,’’ because it certainly 

looks like from the tape that you speak to Mr. Hoyer, and you turn 

to Mr. McNulty, who immediately attempts to close the vote. So do 

you recall any conversation with Mr. McNulty where you suggested 

in any way a signal to close the vote? 

A. There was no signal to close the vote. 

Q. Okay. 

Mr. PENCE. If I could interject a question. Do you recall being 

surprised when he closed the vote moments after you spoke to him? 

Ms. O’NEILL. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Could I interrupt, too? 

The way that Mark posed the question to you, he stated that it 

appeared that you had a conversation, albeit, from what I could 

see, extremely brief. And he bases that on Mr. McNulty leaning toVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00490 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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wards you. Do you have any memory of a conversation at that particular moment? 

Ms. O’NEILL. No, I don’t. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Even after viewing the tape? 

Ms. O’NEILL. Even after viewing the tape. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Is it possible that you had a conversation with him? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, I think the same thing Artur—anything 

is possible. Everybody looked at the tape. I think she is talking to 

him; she doesn’t remember. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. Okay. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Stop it right there. Okay. 

Catlin, we asked you this back in February, but do you see Mr. 

Hoyer on the dais now? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And it looks like he is talking to Mr. Sullivan. Do you agree 

with that? 

A. I do. 

Q. And where are you at this point? I believe you are right off 

the screen on the left-hand side of the screen. We’re at 22:50:42. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Do you see yourself on the screen? 

Ms. O’NEILL. No, I don’t see myself on the screen. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Back it up for a second. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. At this point, at 22:50:57, you’re saying— 

do you see yourself? 

Ms. O’NEILL. No, I don’t see myself on the screen. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Are you backing it up? 

Ms. O’NEILL. I see it. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. At 22:51:10. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Pause for a minute. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I apologize, but my eyesight isn’t quite as good. 

You are right on—there you are, thank you. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Back it up, Andrew. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Who are you facing towards there? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I think it’s Tom Wickham. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Tom Wickham is the tall guy leaning on the elbow, I guess, 

there. I just want to see if there is a different angle to show. There 

you are. 

A. Yes, I saw that. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Pause it when you get to that screen shot, Andrew. Right there. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Do you see yourself, Catlin? 

A. Yes. 

Q. It’s at 22:50:13, right? And you are right off the elbow, right 

behind Tom Wickham, correct? 

A. Correct. 


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Q. And I’ll ask, do you recall you being there at that moment? 

A. Yeah, yeah. 

Q. Okay. You do? 

A. Not at that moment. I recall being there the entire night. 

Q. Do you recall at that point leaving that area at any time? 

A. Yeah, a little off, but in that same general area on the floor. 

And when I say ‘‘a little off,’’ closer to the doors, which is what I 

was alluding to in my last—— 

Q. Now we’re at 22:50:13, and, Catlin, you are on the left-hand 

side of the screen, half off and half on. Okay? Do you recall whether there was a conversation at that point with Mr. Hoyer or anyone 

else, Mr. Sullivan, occurring off the screen? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. You can see your shoulder, correct? 

A. Uh-huh. Yes. 

Q. And that looks like you are left at 22:50:25. Okay. 

So I just wanted to run that tape for you, Catlin. And again, 

we’re not—there is nothing that I’ve intended to do that is a gotcha 

during all of these questions. It is really to try to get the benefit 

of your recollection upon looking at the tape. 

So upon looking at that, do you recall that conversation with Mr. 

Hoyer and Mr. Sullivan? 

A. I recall seeing that, yes. 

Q. You recall seeing it; do you recall hearing it? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. And when Mr. Hoyer leaves the rostrum—go forward— 

do you recall him saying anything to you at that point when he 

walked off? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you recall what he did when he walked by? 

A. No idea. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. I don’t have any further questions right 

now. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. May I ask, you said you recall seeing it. Do you recall seeing 

it as it occurred? 

A. Yes. I was very much at that moment trying to figure out in 

my head what was going on. And I usually defer to the Parliamentarians to work things out. So—and I don’t want to get in their 

way, and I certainly don’t want to ever seem like the leadership is 

doing anything to put the Parliamentarians into a position. So I 

sort of defer to them always. 

Q. Can you describe the sound level in the Chamber at that 

time? 

A. Yes. It was late at night, very late. Off of a long week, but 

the previously long week before that. Loud; oftentimes how it is 

when everybody returns back to the first day of school. It was loud, 

rambunctious. People were talking. And then whatever happened 

elevated that noise level. People were coming to me, probably, I assume, what is going on, what is going on, what is going on? Everybody is trying to figure out what is going on. Mass confusion. 

Mr. SPULAK. We have the benefit of hearing that conversation on 

the tape because it was occurring very close to a microphone, but 


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is it possible that you didn’t hear what was going on because there 

was noise in the Chamber? 

A. Highly. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Again, not possibly. You didn’t hear. 

Ms. O’NEILL. I didn’t hear. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. She didn’t hear. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. A couple more questions. Do you have any idea as to why Mr. 

Hoyer was upset that night? 

A. No. 

Q. Mr. Davis asked you a series of questions about—— 

Mr. PENCE. May I interject? Is it your recollection that he was 

upset that at moment? 

Ms. O’NEILL. Yes, yes. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. In the typical course of the day, there is a lot of votes for you. 

Your responsibility is to be on the floor. You have a lot of conversations with Parliamentarian staff, with the leader’s staff, in terms 

of the Majority Leader with respect to votes, correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. And this happened on August 2nd. I think we interviewed you—— 

A. 25th of February. 

Q. 25th of February. And that is several months after the incident, and yet you remember at least one conversation with Mr. 

Hoyer. Is that an unusual type of conversation to have with Mr. 

Hoyer, that there are 13 Members outstanding, or is that sort of 

a run-of-the-mill type of conversation on any number of votes as to 

how many Members are still outstanding? 

A. Run-of-the-mill. I mean, we want everybody to have the most 

up-to-date information. I didn’t know where he was coming from. 

There were still 13 Members out. 

Q. Okay. My question is—my point is that you recalled that conversation several months later. So was this an unusual role for you 

the night of August 2nd? 

A. Yeah, I mean, it had come to be unusual. Had there been close 

votes before that? Yeah. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Okay. I turn it over to the Members. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. I just have three questions, sort of three strains of questions. 

Are you aware today, or were you aware that night, what the 

issue was in the motion to recommit, that it was this immigration 

business? 

A. No. I knew it was immigration, but the actual—— 

Q. But did you know, I think, there were 19 Democrats that 

voted for the motion to recommit? Did you recognize those as sort 

of the usual Blue Dogs that have some angst with this immigration 

thing? 

A. [Nonverbal response.] 


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Q. Could you say yes or no? 

A. Yes. Sorry. 

Q. And is that one of the things that led you to believe that this 

was going to be a close vote, because you were losing the Blue 

Dogs, or you were losing somebody, 19 somebodies? 

A. What led me to believe that was looking at the number of people who hadn’t voted—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. And thinking that they’ll likely be part of these 

Blue Dogs and go the other way, so. 

Q. Are you aware before the motion to recommit of a meeting 

that took place in the Democratic cloakroom with some of those 

Blue Dogs and the Chair of the Democratic Caucus and Mr. Emanuel? 

A. No. 

Q. Today you indicated typically, in response to Mr. Davis, you 

are supposed to receive instructions and communicate those instructions to the Parliamentarian and/or the presiding officer. But 

you are saying none of that happened on August 2nd? 

A. None of it happened. 

Q. Okay. My last line is after—and thank you for complying with 

the document request. I have an e-mail that is sent from you to 

Brendan Daly. Brendan Daly is the Speaker’s spokesperson? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. At 11:49 a.m. And let me show it to you. It’s the top one. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. What is the date on this? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. August the 3rd, the next morning. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Is that the day after? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Yes, it is the next morning. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. And just to read it into the record, it says: FYI, they continue 

to bring up this slip issue . . . no slip was ever issued. 

Do you recall writing that e-mail? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Is that your e-mail to Brendan Daly? 

A. Yes, it is. 

Q. And the slip that is being referred to is the tally slip? 

A. Correct. 

Q. That is typically handed up from the Clerk’s Office to the Parliamentarian to the Chair? 

A. Yes, correct. 

Q. And you are aware as you sit here today that there was no 

tally slip for this roll call vote, 814? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And I read your testimony—and, again, not to get you—but 

I think when you gave your observations on February 25th, you 

said that you may recall that have happening before maybe on a 

suspension. The Parliamentarian, Charlie Johnson, said it has 

never happened in 40 years. Did you think that it ever happened 

before, or you don’t know if it ever happened before? 

A. What I was trying to say in my earlier testimony was I have 

seen Members read it off the board prior to getting the slip as it 

was being prepared. 


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Q. But that slip is always prepared. And we know that no slip 

was prepared in this instance. The question I have, who are ‘‘they’’ 

in your e-mail? 

A. C-SPAN. 

Q. C-SPAN was saying that there was no slip prepared? 

A. Right. I don’t know if you recall, the following day we were 

in recess trying to fix the computer, and they were playing the August 2nd vote over and over again on C-SPAN, and they had someone commenting over the video footage. I believe that’s my recollection of what it was. 

Q. So the ‘‘they’’—because—let me give you the longer e-mail. 

Mr. Daly writes back to you—and I didn’t want to bring this into 

the record because we all say stuff like this—but something about, 

they are all crazy right-wingers. Don’t let them get you down. 

Who are the crazy right-wingers that he is referring to? The people on C-SPAN? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. He’s referring to Republicans, isn’t he? So the question 

I have—— 

Mr. PENCE. Particular Republicans. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I know they weren’t talking about me, Pence. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. So the question is when those two e-mails are put side by 

side, I have to tell you when I read your e-mail, what I thought, 

there was some conversation going on with floor staff, maybe Minority floor staff, maybe somebody in the Parliamentarian’s Office, 

maybe somebody in the Clerk’s Office, that was bringing up this 

‘‘no slip’’ issue. So as you see these two e-mails side by side, you 

don’t think that is the case? You think you were talking about 

somebody on C-SPAN? 

A. I was talking about C-SPAN. 

Q. Okay. And just so I’m clear, because now I’m going to have 

to go back and get whatever C-SPAN was doing, that e-mail by you 

to Mr. Daly was 11:43 on the next morning after we discover that 

the machine is broken and all of that stuff was going on. Is that 

when you recall seeing the C-SPAN playing it because we had 

some down time? 

A. Yes. They were playing it over and over and over again, and 

I wanted to kill myself. 

Q. And the person, the ‘‘they’’ that you are referring to in that 

e-mail to Mr. Daly that ‘‘they keep talking about the slip issue,’’ are 

you—it is your recollection that somebody on C-SPAN—— 

A. Or Fox it says here, I’m sorry. I’m referring to Fox and CSPAN, but, yes, C-SPAN was running the loop. 

Q. But you recall somebody on either Fox or C-SPAN bringing up 

the slip issue on television? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And is it your recollection that it was a host of like Washington Journal, or did they have a guest? 

A. I can’t remember. 

Q. Okay. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Were you on Washington Journal, Mr. 

LaTourette? 


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Mr. LATOURETTE. I will call you the next time I’m on Washington 

Journal. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. The reason I asked you is the fact that there wasn’t a slip 

wasn’t known to me and I think the members of the committee 

until the Clerk’s Office gave us their documents. 

And so let me back up. When is the first time you were aware 

that there wasn’t a slip? 

A. I became aware of it that night. 

Q. And how? 

A. I don’t know how I became aware of it. 

Q. Did you recall engaging in any conversations with anybody 

about the fact that there hadn’t be been a slip when Mr. McNulty 

called the vote? 

A. No. 

Q. But, again—and it’s your recollection that controls—but you 

think if we go back and watch—and I just want to make sure it 

is not the night, it’s the morning? 

A. It’s the morning, the next morning. 

Q. Either Fox or C-SPAN. Are they the crazy right-wingers? 

Never mind. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Or was it Fox? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Either Fox or C-SPAN has somebody on there replaying this 

again and again and again, and Mr. Daly says when he gets the 

press release out, he is going to put it all to rest, and it is all going 

to be good again. But until then, they have somebody that is bringing up the slip issue, is your recollection, as early as 11:45 on August 3rd? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. May I follow up on that line of questions? 

EXAMINATION BY MS. HERSETH SANDLIN

Q. You stated that you became aware there was no tally slip 

sometime that evening. Was that after Congress had adjourned for 

the evening? 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. But all of these details you didn’t become aware of until after 

the vote in question had come to a completion? 

A. It could have happened while all of that confusion was going 

on. It was bits and pieces of information. What happened? What’s 

going on? I don’t know who I picked it up from. I don’t know when 

I picked it up. It was certainly that night. Whether it was after we 

had gone into recess, I don’t know. 

Q. You said you reviewed the tape again. Were you—as you 

watched the tape, were you specifically looking for whether or not 

Mr. McNulty was ever handed a tally slip? 

A. No. 


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Q. Can we go back to that area on the tape? It would be 22:50. 

Maybe we can go to 22:49:50. If we can stop it there and play it 

all the way through to 22:50:15. 

And, Miss O’Neill, if you could specifically watch the interaction 

between Mr. McNulty and the standing reading clerk. 

Can you just describe generally the nature of the interaction that 

you just witnessed? 

A. Am I watching Kevie? 

Q. Kevie, the standing read clerk. 

A. I didn’t see any interaction. 

Q. No exchange of a slip? 

A. No exchange of a slip. 

Q. That’s all I have in terms of responses to Steve’s questions. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PENCE

Q. We have a vote that was just initiated a couple of minutes 

ago, so I will be very quick. 

Number one, Catlin, thank you for your cooperation with this 

committee. Thank you for coming back. Thank you for your document production. I have a lot of respect for your family. 

A. Thank you. 

Q. A very proud name. 

You said—Mr. Davis, he asked something to the effect does Mr. 

Hoyer use discretion as to when to close a vote? Your response to 

that was yes. But I understand your testimony today—correct me 

if I am wrong—he did not exercise any discretion, to your recollection, in this vote? 

A. No. I—there is no rhyme or reason. I mean, right. 

Q. I just want to be clear on that and not repetitive. 

I want to ask you about the e-mail that we spoke to Mr. McNulty 

about in your document production. It was—I think everybody has 

got a copy. Mr. McNulty identified himself as M. Mike, who received an e-mail from you shortly before midnight on August 2nd, 

2007, your e-mail to M. Mike. Let me ask you first, is that your 

e-mail? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. And your recollection is also consistent with Mr. 

McNulty that this was directed to Congressman McNulty? 

A. Right. 

Q. You wrote: I have to apologize for putting you in that in position, but you did a remarkable job under a tremendous amount of 

pressure that I will never fully comprehend. 

When I asked Mr. McNulty in his testimony to the select committee last week, can you tell us for the record—and it is on page 

73 of Mr. McNulty’s deposition—I asked, can you tell us for the 

record how you would interpret her apology; what did she mean 

that she put you in that position? He said, I think she was just reacting to the chaos, confusion and anger that was caused by my 

error. I don’t know what she was apologizing for because it was my 

fault. 

Let me ask you for the record what were you apologizing for? 

A. Well, in hindsight, my choice of words weren’t probably terrific. But he—I felt terrible for him. I mean, he was so despondent. 


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And I didn’t think anybody was reaching out to him, and so I felt 

that someone should. And it was just merely a consolation e-mail. 

Q. When you use the phrase ‘‘putting you in that position,’’ in 

what way do you recall meaning when you said—how do you put 

him in that position? 

A. Well, he was in the Chair. It was—— 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. May I interject? 

Catlin, you were responsible for scheduling presiding officers? 

Ms. O’NEILL. Correct. That’s correct. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. I asked you earlier, I interjected, did Mr. Hoyer seem upset 

at that moment in the tape? I don’t know the time, but the moment 

we all just spoke about. Do you have any recollection of why you 

thought he was upset at the time? 

A. I don’t—I can’t speculate why he was upset. 

Q. Does he frequently become upset on the floor? 

A. He gets agitated at times, yes. 

Q. Do you recall any other incident where he became agitated 

with the Parliamentarian in that nature since the August 2nd 

vote? 

A. Since? No. 

Mr. PENCE. I don’t think I have any further questions. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. I have a couple of follow-up. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. Cat, I just wanted to go back to the e-mail Mr. LaTourette 

was reviewing with you, and I just want to make sure I understand. When you say this is the e-mail of August 3rd, the 11:49 email from you to Brendan Daly: They continue to bring up the slip 

issue, and then dot-dot-dot, no slip was every given to the Chair. 

The first part of the sentence, ‘‘they continue to bring up the slip 

issue,’’ what were ‘‘they’’ saying about the slip? 

A. I believe—let me think. I believe the thought was that the 

slip—the slip was given—I don’t actually—I don’t remember. But 

maybe that a slip was given to the Chair. I can’t remember, 

though. 

Q. Okay. Okay. 

A. I have to assume that that was what it was. As I said, no slip 

was ever given to the Chair. So to counter what—— 

Q. Just a couple more brief questions. Did you ever talk to Mr. 

Hoyer about this vote after—you know, after the sequence on this 

tape? 

A. No. 

Q. Was there any time during that night or after or the following 

days when you had occasion to speak with him about what happened that night? 

Mr. SPULAK. Answer orally, please. 

Ms. O’NEILL. No, no. 


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BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. What about Mrs. Pelosi? Did you have any conversation with 

Mrs. Pelosi? 

A. No. 

Q. Or anyone on her staff about what happened that night in 

terms of the way the vote was closed, or anything relating to the 

vote that night? 

A. No. 

Q. Did you ever have any conversations with Mr. Clyburn? 

A. No. 

Q. Or his staff—— 

A. No. 

Q. [continuing]. About the vote? 

And again, on the e-mail that’s with Mr. McNulty, you said, you 

did a remarkable job under a tremendous amount of pressure. 

What’s the—can you describe to me what you mean by pressure? 

Mr. PENCE. What you meant by pressure. 

BY MR. PAOLETTA

Q. What you meant by pressure. 

A. I can’t understand—being in the Chair and being up there and 

trying to manage the floor when people are yelling ‘‘shame’’ on one 

side and ‘‘liars,’’ and the other side is yelling, it’s just unbearable, 

in my mind, and that is what I mean by pressure. 

Q. And the last part, I will never fully comprehend; what did you 

mean by that? 

A. Being in the Chair. 

Q. Being in the Chair. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Let me, one final question. Mr. Davis said to you—there was 

a line of questioning about how many communications you have on 

the floor, and I was the deputy whip when we had the Majority, 

and I understand the interactions. 

I think he asked you if there was any possible way that you 

could remember conversations in that context, and I think your testimony today was no, or something in the negative. 

In your year and a half in your capacity, do you ever recall an 

incident where a vote became this disruptive, resulted in a walkout, and generated the level of controversy that this vote generated? 

A. In the year and a half, no. 

Mr. PENCE. Thank you. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I have just a couple of question followups since we have a pending vote. 

BY MS. HERSETH SANDLIN

Q. Is it unusual to see Members of either party upset or agitated 

on the House floor? 

A. No. 

Q. In fact, that night did you see Members from both parties who 

were upset? 

A. Yes. 


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Q. And in response to an earlier question, conversations with the 

Speaker’s Office, you don’t recall having any conversations with the 

Speaker or anyone on her staff other than the e-mail exchange 

with Brendan Daly? 

A. That’s right. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. That’s all I have. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Do you have any? 

Mr. SPULAK. No. 

We are off the record. 

[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., the interview concluded.] 


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SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF STENY HOYER, MAJORITY LEADER 

The interview in the above matter was held at Room H–107, the 

Capitol, commencing at 5:30 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

Representatives William D. Delahunt, Artur Davis, Stephanie 

Herseth Sandlin, Mike Pence and Steven C. LaTourette. 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., GEORGE 

CRAWFORD, ESQ., KING & SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: MARK R. PAOLETTA, ESQ., ANDREW L. 

SNOWDON, ESQ., DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., 

WASHINGTON, DC 20006 

Also Present: Muftiah McCartin, Deputy Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Hugh Nathanial Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Ed Cassidy, Minority Subcommittee Staff 

Director, Committee on Rules, Subcommittee on Rules and Organization of the House; Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt; Chanelle Hardy, Counsel, Representative Davis; 

Russ Levsen, Communications Director/Deputy Chief of Staff, Representative Herseth Sandlin; Joshua M. Pitcock, Legislative Counsel, Representative Pence; and Terry Lierman, Chief of Staff, Office 

of the Majority Leader. 

Mr. DAVIS. Let’s go on the record. 

Mr. Leader, thank you for allowing us to use your office for this 

questioning today. 

As you know, the House voted last year to impanel a select committee to investigate allegations of irregularities around a vote that 

occurred on a motion to recommit on the night of August 2, 2007. 

Six of us were selected to participate in this process, and this is 

the time for us to ask you some questions about the events that 

night. 

The way we’re going to structure today’s proceedings, because we 

want to be enormously respectful of your time, I’m going to ask you 

an opening round of questions. I will then yield to Mr. LaTourette, 

who will ask you a round of questions. And then we will have some 

informal redirect, if you will, after that. I may yield to Ms. Herseth 


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Sandlin or Mr. Delahunt, and Mr. LaTourette may yield to his Republican colleagues on the committee. 

At some point there are counsel, Mr. Paoletta and Mr. Spulak, 

and they may intersperse while the questions are formally being 

done by the Members. And we’ve agreed that that is the best way 

to do this. Sometimes we ask something that’s extremely unclear, 

as we Members are prone to do. They may jump in to clarify it, or 

as we struggle with the videotape. 

Mr. HOYER. I hope I don’t give extremely unclear answers. 

Mr. DAVIS. But we are wanting to be enormously respectful of 

your time, Mr. Leader. So even though they aren’t formal stipulations, Mr. LaTourette and I have come to some general conceptions 

about time constraints. We envision that we should be able to finish our business in under 1 hour. 

Are there any questions you have before we get started? 

Mr. HOYER. No. The only thing I would like to say at the beginning, I know that all of you have spent a lot of time on this effort, 

and the report I have is that everybody has been very conscientious 

and forward. And I know the institution appreciates that. 

Mr. DAVIS. And, Mr. Leader, we appreciate your cooperation. I 

know that once we’re finished with these questions, I believe Mr. 

Delahunt might like to make some comments, and Mr. Pence, as 

the Ranking Member, might like to, and that’s irrespective of any 

questions they might have. 

Let us begin. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. DAVIS

Q. As you know, the events in controversy happened on the night 

of August 2nd. They involve a motion to recommit. Mr. McNulty of 

New York was in the chair. 

I want to direct you in the very beginning to the rule that has 

been at issue, frankly, as we’ve had our conversations and had our 

testimony over the last several months. It is Rule 2(a) or clause 

2(a) of Rule XX, the new Rules adopted by the Democratic Majority 

after we took control in November 2006. The relevant provision I 

will quote: A record vote by electronic device shall not be held open 

for the sole purpose of reversing the outcome of such vote. 

That has become the critical provision that we’ve spent time talking about. Would you just briefly tell the select committee how that 

provision came to be in the new rules? 

A. That, as I’m sure probably most of you realize, was an outcome of the 3-hour vote, or somewhat short of 3 hours, about 2 

hours and 15 minutes, at which there became a great controversy, 

as you recall, and I can’t recall the Member’s name, but who alleged that he had been—his son was running to replace him. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Nick Smith. 

Mr. HOYER. Nick Smith. His son was running to replace him. 

And the next morning, of course, he said on a radio show that he 

had been threatened; he thought that if he did not change his vote, 

they wouldn’t be supporting his son. And as you know, further proceedings, I think, in the Ethics Committee, came out of that as 

well. 

So there was a great deal of concern, particularly for those of us 

who went through that vote—it went for about 2 hours and a 


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half—the proposition being offered was losing votes. It was not 

until, I think, that—I hadn’t watched the tape recently—but the 

last 10 minutes that votes were changed. And once one or two or 

three votes were changed, then a series of votes on both sides of 

the aisle were changed. This Rule—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Mr. Hoyer. 

Mr. HOYER. I was hoping we might get through before you came. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I’m sorry? I came because I read this; Hoyer 

Earns Trust with House GOP. I don’t know why we’re even bothering now. 

Mr. HOYER. You have to admire our press people for their timing 

of important stories. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. And I was going to put that in evidence, Mr. Hoyer. 

A. I certainly will not object. 

In any event, this Rule obviously is an outgrowth of that. So I 

think that’s how it came about. 

Q. And once this new rule has been adopted, what is your belief, 

Mr. Hoyer, as to who has the authority or the responsibility for enforcing this rule, if you will, on the floor? 

A. Well, the Speaker obviously has the responsibility for enforcing all the rules. 

Q. By Speaker you mean the person who was the presiding officer at the time? 

A. The presiding officer, the Speaker or Speaker pro tem. This 

is, if we focus on the specific rule, extraordinarily difficult to enforce, in my opinion. The Rule itself, I think, is a difficult rule, a 

difficult rule because what it was really designed to do is respond 

to a situation where there is what clearly on our side was perceived 

as an abuse of power by keeping a vote open as long as it was kept 

open. The Rule, however, of course, did not refer to time. It says 

simply that you can’t hold it open for that purpose. 

It is somewhat, I will tell you honestly, unrealistic in that both 

sides—it’s hard to enforce because you don’t know who is talking 

to whom—but it is my presumption that on both sides people do 

talk to one another about how they think people ought to vote. 

That is obviously what we do for business, all 435 of us. So it is 

not unusual that we would do the same thing on the floor with our 

colleagues, and I think that goes on. 

Then the question becomes a very difficult one: At what point in 

time is a vote being held open solely for that purpose, or is it being 

held open for other purposes? And it’s a very difficult thing, I 

would think, to enforce. 

Q. You said that the presiding officer has that discretion. There’s 

been some argument as we’ve conducted these proceedings about 

the role of the Parliamentarian, and the role of the Parliamentarian in enforcing clause 2(a), or for that matter any other provisions of the rules. Can you talk for a moment briefly about what 

you understand the Parliamentarian’s proper role to be in interpreting that clause 2(a)? 

A. First of all, a little background. Obviously, as some of you 

probably know, I was president of the Maryland Senate and was 

the sole presiding officer, because as those of you who have served 


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in State legislatures, it’s not as sporadic as the Federal, and the 

presiding officer usually presides, and I did that. My perception of 

the parliamentarian at the State level, my parliamentarian, and 

my perception of the Parliamentarian today is that the Parliamentarian is an advisor and counselor to the Speaker in particular and 

to the House in general for the purposes of advising the Speaker 

and the House on the rules and on precedent and how the Parliamentarian perceives them as properly being applied. It’s an advisory role to the Speaker and the House. 

Q. And once the Parliamentarian plays the advisory role, would 

you agree that it’s then in the hands of the presiding officer to decide how to interpret that advice? 

A. Not only would I agree with that, but I feel that very strongly. 

And I believe in comments that have been made by Parliamentarians through the years that I’ve heard, that it is ultimately clearly 

the Speaker and the presiding officer that makes the decision on 

the application of the rules. The Parliamentarian is an advisor, obviously, in our case, very professional, very experienced and excellent, whether we’re talking about Mr. Sullivan or Mr. Johnson or 

Mr. Brown or their predecessors. 

Q. And obviously we are an elected body. And there is a Majority 

that has enormous discretion in deciding when to schedule bills, 

when to bring things to the floor. 

A. The discretion is sometimes overstated. 

Q. For the Majority to operate effectively, would you agree that 

that requires the presiding officer as opposed to the Parliamentarian to have ultimate discretion as to what the rules are and 

what they mean? 

A. Well, let me go back. The answer is yes. And I may have a 

bias, having been a presiding officer for 4 years. And the Maryland 

Senate president is elected. I didn’t serve as a—because I was 

Lieutenant Governor. I was selected like the Speaker of the House. 

The presiding officer ultimately is the authority to initially rule. 

The House or Senate can obviously overrule a presiding officer. We 

just had a vote on doing that today. But it is the presiding officer 

that ultimately has the responsibility of determining what rulings 

to make from the chair. 

Q. And as you’ve pointed out—— 

A. Let me make a point on that. On the 3–hour vote, it was either the presiding officer or the Speaker himself or Mr. DeLay who 

made a determination that for the 2 hours that the vote was relatively static, that the vote should not be called. There’s no rule on 

that. As a matter of fact, as some of you may remember, when I 

was asked 1 or 2 or 3 days later about the press when there was 

this uproar about would I pledge if we were elected not to keep the 

vote open, I responded, no, I would not pledge that, and that I 

didn’t think that—that while I thought it was an abuse of power 

to keep the vote open 3 hours, I did not believe it was against the 

rules. So I have a record of having said that, and it was because 

I believe the presiding officer had that authority. It is his decision 

or her decision alone, in my opinion, when to close the vote. 

Q. And let me touch on that specific one. We’ve been talking 

about the general question of interpreting clause 2(a), and now let 

me turn to the very specific point of when the vote is called, if you 


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will. I assume from your comments you would believe it’s the presiding officer who has the discretion as to when to call a vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And with respect to the presiding officer having discretion as 

to when to call a vote, what are the factors that presiding officers 

should keep into mind or keep into account as they make that decision? 

A. To call the vote? 

Q. Yes. 

A. Well, sometimes it’s pretty simple. All time is expired under 

a structured rule. Under an open rule, as we are now considering 

the beach bill, obviously the presiding officer should respect those 

who want to be recognized. And as long as somebody wants to be 

recognized, and debate has not been limited by the Committee of 

the Whole or the House, then the presiding officer clearly should 

continue to recognize people. The presiding officer, I think, has the 

authority not to do that, but I think that would be inappropriate. 

Q. Let’s just focus on the narrow context of the calling of a vote. 

Looking at clause 2(a), looking at your own experience as a presiding officer and your experience as Majority Leader, give me an 

example of appropriate considerations that a presiding officer may 

use after the clock has passed zero as to when a vote should be 

called. 

A. Well, I think clearly if the presiding officer, A, thought that 

all debates had ended—and in this case, of course, there is a time 

limit on motions to recommit, so there was a time limit frame— 

called the vote, the vote proceeds 15 minutes, which is under the 

rules the time frame that it shall be at least 15 minutes—again, 

that’s why I thought the presiding officer in the 3–hour had not 

violated the rules, because it doesn’t say how long it could be. So 

I thought it could have been 3 hours. However, the presiding officer 

needs to make a judgment as to whether or not, during the course 

of the vote, after the 15 minutes, the rules are being complied with. 

And if the presiding officer believed he was keeping the vote open 

solely for the purposes of changing the votes on either side, I think 

he or she could make a judgment that he or she ought to bring the 

vote to a close to preclude that from happening. But I think it is 

in the discretion of the Speaker of when to bring that vote to a 

close after the 15 minutes. 

Q. Would it be permissible for the presiding officer to keep a vote 

open for the purposes of giving Members an opportunity to change 

their mind, for example? 

A. Certainly. 

Q. Would it be permissible for a presiding officer to keep a vote 

open for the purposes of giving Members an opportunity to change 

their mind, for example? 

A. Certainly. 

Q. Would it be permissible for a presiding officer to keep a vote 

open for the purpose of allowing both sides to continue lobbying 

Members? 

A. If the presiding officer made a judgment that the sole purpose 

under the rule was to change the result, I think if he was acting 

pursuant to the rule, I think he would have the discretion or she 

would have the discretion to shut down the vote. My own view is 


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that after 15 minutes, the Speaker has almost unbridled discretion 

to bring the vote to a close. And under the rules, we give Members 

15 minutes. As you know, we’ve had discussions about this, and 

I’ve articulated on the floor after a series of votes that we really 

wanted to try to keep these to 15, no more than 17, because Members were delaying, and what it was doing is delaying every other 

Member waiting on it. 

But if the Speaker knows, for instance, that there’s a meeting 

going on in the House Armed Services Committee and people are 

coming, I think the Speaker certainly has discretion to keep the 

vote open. And, in fact, as I’ve said before, I think the Speaker has 

discretion to keep the vote open essentially without limit, which is 

why I didn’t think a rule was violated by the Speaker presiding at 

the—I thought it was not proper to do so, but I didn’t think a rule 

had been violated. 

Q. Let me leave this topic, but ask you this one final question 

based on a question I asked Mr. Boehner. Last week we were in 

Mr. Boehner’s office, and I posed the following question to him: If 

a Member or presiding officer had multiple motivations for keeping 

a vote open, multiple motivations for keeping a vote open, by definition that would mean the presiding officer had not violated the 

rule, referencing clause 2(a); do you agree? 

A. I agree with that. 

Q. Mr. Boehner also for the record stated that he agreed, he 

would agree with the same statements. 

Let’s talk generally about how presiding officers are selected and 

how they’re put in the chair. You play a role, do you not, in putting 

together the list of presiding officers for the Majority? 

A. No. The Speaker does that. The Speaker—obviously, this is 

the Speaker pro tem. And that’s within the province of the Speaker 

to appoint a Speaker pro tem. 

Q. Based on your knowledge of how the process works, does the 

Speaker in effect and the Speaker’s Office compile the list of Members who are regularly asked to be presiding officers? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And is there a preference for putting more experienced presiding officers in the chair during more contested votes such as a 

motion to recommit? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Mr. McNulty, you would agree, up to the time of this controversy, August 2nd, was a frequent presiding officer over the 

House? 

A. Not only is, I think, Mr. McNulty a competent, accomplished 

presiding officer, but I think perceived by all Members as a very 

fair individual of high integrity, and I think he is that. And as a 

result he both has talent and respect, and he was because of that, 

I think, very qualified and therefore sought after by the Speaker’s 

Office to preside. 

Q. And, in fact, Mr. McNulty’s reputation as a presiding officer 

was strong enough, as you recall, that he was one of a small group 

of Members asked to preside in the opening days of the session in 

the end of 2007; is that correct? 

A. Yes. 


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Q. All right. Let’s turn specifically now to the night of August 

2nd. We’ve spent an enormous amount of time going into all kinds 

of details around that night, and we want to try to home in today 

on the very specific things that are relevant to you. Let me just set 

a little bit of context. 

This was a close vote. It was on a contentious issue, the question 

of illegal immigrants, if I’m not mistaken—the question of illegal 

immigrants, if I’m not mistaken, and whether or not they can receive particular benefits. And you recall there were a series of motions to recommit on that topic during 2007; is that correct? 

A. Yes. What really made it controversial, though, it was a 

promptly motion. And the reason that promptly motions are so controversial is because essentially they, while technically not killing 

the bill, in this instance it would have effectively killed the bill visa`-vis considering it because we were going to adjourn the next day. 

So it would have had to go back to committee. 

Q. And as we’ve said—— 

A. So that made it pretty controversial. 

Q. We’ve spent a lot of time looking at the tape. In the interest 

of time, I’m not going to—Mr. LaTourette may choose to, but I’m 

not going to spend time on this round of questions taking you 

through it, but I’ll set the stage. 

The Speaker cast a vote that night, which is unusual. And once 

the Speaker cast her vote, the motion appears to go to 214 to 214. 

There’s a back and forth on the floor. At some point Mr. McNulty 

calls the vote. And as you, I suspect, are aware, Mr. McNulty has 

acknowledged that his first calling of the vote was premature. 

Are you aware that Mr. McNulty has made that acknowledgement? 

A. I think he made that from the rostrum. 

Q. Was it your perception—well, let me ask a different way. Do 

you agree, first of all, that Mr. McNulty was correct in acknowledging her that night? 

A. I think when he called the vote, I think all Members had 

voted, and it was within his authority to call the vote at that point 

in time. 

Q. And you were obviously on the floor that night? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Was it fair to say there was a lot of motion and a lot of movement around the rostrum that night from Members and staffers, a 

number of people? 

A. I think it is self-evident. The answer is yes. 

Q. And again, we’ve seen the tape a number of times, and it’s obvious to us listening to the tape there was a lot of noise. There 

were Members on the Democratic side who were audibly saying, 

call the vote; is that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. That’s not uncommon at all on a late night for Members to 

urge the presiding officer to call the vote? 

A. As I recall, over the last 27 years it’s not uncommon on either 

side. 

Q. That’s right, that’s right. And when Mr. McNulty is about the 

business of calling the vote, do you remember where you were in 

the Chamber at this point? I’m talking about the premature calling 


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of the vote, or what he describes as the premature calling of the 

vote. Do you remember where you were? 

A. I think I was in the well. And I’ve looked at the tape, obviously, and I’m not sure exactly where I was. I see myself walking 

at some point in time, I think around 22:50. But I think I—I was 

somewhere in proximity to the well. I may have been immediately 

in front of the desk, I may have been back from the desk. 

Q. If you had been the presiding officer that night—after the 

clock left zero, a period of time goes by. If you had been the presiding officer, when would you have felt it was appropriate to call 

the vote? 

A. When Mr. McNulty called it prematurely. 

Q. Tell me why, sir? 

A. Because I believe the Speaker—first of all, the Speaker was 

the last one to vote of those who had not voted. I didn’t see her 

vote. I don’t recall her voting. I’ve seen the tape, obviously, so I see 

her vote. When 16 minutes had transpired and, I think, a second, 

the Speaker voted. It was 214–214. 

Q. And let me stop you there, Mr. Hoyer. 214 to 214. When votes 

happen in the Chamber after a series of votes, in effect both sides 

are aware of how many Members have been present and voted for 

the night; is that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And what was the meaningful thing about the iteration 214 

to 214? 

A. We knew that there were 428 people voting. 

Q. Counting the Speaker? 

A. Actually, the Speaker was the last one to vote. All the Members that I think had been voting—I don’t know this precisely, so 

I don’t want to say precisely—but it was certainly—let me be very 

candid. Certainly every Member had had the opportunity to vote. 

My recollection was when the Speaker voted, there was nobody else 

in the well. Her vote made it 214–214. Mr. McNulty called the vote. 

Q. What’s the effect of a 214–214 tie on a motion to recommit? 

A. The proposition fails on a tie. 

Q. Because the motion has to carry at all ties? 

A. A motion has to have a majority of those voting. 

Q. So once all Members appear to have voted, based on the numerical count, including the Speaker, it’s 214 to 214, if you had 

been the presiding officer, would you have felt you had the discretion at that point to call the vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Based on the fact that all Members have voted? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And a result had been reached? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And do you remember engaging in conversation yourself at 

this point? And when I say ‘‘this point,’’ I’m talking about the time 

frame in which Mr. McNulty makes his first calling of the vote, do 

you remember engaging in conversations yourself with anyone in 

the Parliamentarian’s shop about the propriety of calling the vote? 

A. We all recall that. 

Q. All right. Tell us what you recall of those conversations. 


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A. Let me explain the circumstance, because if there’s anything 

I regret that night, John Sullivan, whom I not only respect, but 

like—I was relatively animated at that point in time, as you’ve 

seen. It was 214–214, and Mr. McNulty called the vote, which I 

thought was appropriate at that point. I thought he was acting 

within his discretion as the Speaker. And then what occurred, from 

my perception, was the—not Mr. Sullivan, but the other Parliamentarian whose name I don’t know—— 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Ethan Lauer? 

Mr. HOYER. Yeah, I guess it was Ethan Lauer—appeared to me 

to be saying to Mr. McNulty—again, I could not hear anything, so 

I’m telling you what appeared to me to be the case—appeared to 

be saying to Mr. McNulty he could not do that. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Referring to Mr. McNulty? 

A. Yeah. He was talking to Mr. McNulty. I had no conversation 

with Mr. McNulty that night. Now, when I say that, I don’t mean 

I wasn’t looking and Mr. McNulty didn’t want the vote closed at 

some point in time. However, it was very close, it was late, we had 

been through a lot. And I went up and told Mr. Sullivan, as you’ve 

heard in no uncertain terms, that I thought it was not the job of 

the Parliamentarian to tell the presiding officer when he could or 

could not shut down the vote. 

Q. Stop at that point, Mr. Hoyer. In your previous tenure as a 

long-term Member—— 

A. He could advise him, but he couldn’t tell him. 

Q. In your previous tenure as a long-term Member of the House, 

do you recall any other instance when you heard a Member of the 

parliamentary staff tell a presiding officer that he or she could not 

call a vote? 

A. Well, I think all of us recall Linder in the ’95 action—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. Where you had two people, and the Parliamentarian saying you had two people coming down, and Mr. Linder 

made a determination not to accept their vote. 

Q. And just to stop there, the context of that was Members in 

the well manifesting an intent to change their vote, Mr. Linder ignoring that, and the Parliamentarian telling him that the better 

practice would be to recognize those Members; is that right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Other than the Linder incident, which we’ve heard of greatly—— 

A. Can I say something about Linder? 

Q. Yes, please. 

A. I think Linder was within his authority to close down the 

vote. 

Q. Yes. 

A. The reason he was within his authority, from my perception, 

15 minutes had run. These Members were late on voting. If I wanted to delay the vote for an hour, I could send in one Member every 

30 seconds walking down the aisle and say, one more vote, and it 

would be a way to delay the vote forever. I believe the Speaker at 

any time after 15 minutes has the discretion to close the vote. 


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Q. In fact, a good—— 

A. And I think Mr. Linder had that discretion. Whether he acted 

appropriately, as I said, I think if you see people in the well, you 

ought to extend to them the ability to vote; however, having said 

that, I think it’s within the Speaker’s discretion not to do so after 

the 15 minutes, otherwise the Speaker would not have the authority to stop the vote if a large number of people decided they were 

simply going to vote every 10 seconds. 

Q. Other than the Linder incidence you’ve been very specific 

about, do you recall any other incidence? 

A. There was an incident, I understand, I read somewhere in 

2000. I cannot remember, Mr. LaTourette; was that the incident in 

which you were involved? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. It might have been. I had a quorum call. 

Mr. HOYER. It was a quorum call. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I don’t think it was tied. 

Mr. HOYER. And as I reiterate, I think Mr. LaTourette was within the ambit of his authority as presiding officer. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Okay. Let’s go back again to the exchange you heard between 

the individuals who work for the Parliamentarian’s Office. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Mr. Davis, you’re at 25 minutes now. 

Mr. DAVIS. Okay. I’m closing it out. But the more I get rid of 

that, the less I do on redirect. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Go ahead. We’re going to take the same 

amount of time. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Let’s go back again briefly to the conversation that’s occurring 

between Mr. Hoyer and between Mr. Sullivan. Had you finished describing your role in that conversation? 

A. Well, I went up and told John in no uncertain terms, as we’ve 

all heard on the tape, John, we run this House; that’s not the business of the Parliamentarians to run the House. 

Q. And let me stop you at that point. 

A. Well, that wasn’t the exact phrase, but it was very close. 

Q. I questioned Mr. Sullivan several weeks ago, and this was the 

question that I put to him: Going back you’ve mentioned that you 

had several exchanges with Mr. Hoyer, and then you characterized 

those exchanges. Let me focus on one of them; the statement that 

you recall him making, something to the effect of, we control the 

House, not the Parliamentarians. Have I got it right that you recall 

him saying that? Mr. Sullivan says, words to that effect. Then I 

ask Mr. Sullivan, is there something incorrect about that statement, in your opinion? And Mr. Sullivan says, no. 

A. I think I was right. It was the animation with which I said 

it. 

Q. And Mr. Sullivan agrees with you. And then the next question—— 

A. I was rude. 

Q. [continuing]. That I asked Mr. Sullivan, is it your opinion, 

based on your time as the Parliamentarian, that the ParliamenVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00510 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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tarian is subordinate to the elected leadership? Mr. Sullivan says 

yes to that as well, and you would agree with that? 

A. I would certainly agree, and I would say I think Mr. Sullivan 

agrees with my characterization of what the role is of the Parliamentarian. The Parliamentarian is an advisor. The Parliamentarian is not a line officer. The Parliamentarian is for the purposes 

of advising particularly Speakers who do not preside on a regular 

basis. And none of us who—know the rulebook the way the Parliamentarians do and need to repair to the Parliamentarian for good 

advice and counsel, because I think all of us want to make sure 

that the rules are applied fairly because we want to maintain comity in the House to the extent we can, I think. I try to do that, and 

I hope others would try to do it. 

Q. Now, we know that Mr. McNulty attempts to call the vote, 

calls the vote, in effect aborts his calling of the vote—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. And then Members do actually at that point 

come forward and change their votes in the well. You do recall 

that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And you remember there’s an intense conversation that goes 

on between the Parliamentarian and between Mr. McNulty as to 

what to do in effect? 

A. Yes. I saw that. I was not there, but I saw that. 

Q. And at some point, Mr. Hoyer, even though Mr. McNulty had 

called 214–214, the motion fails. Some said Members continue to 

change their votes. There comes a point Mr. McNulty read a statement into the record in effect stating that he prematurely calls the 

vote. Do you recall that? 

A. Yeah. 

Q. And what is your state of mind at this point? 

A. I thought that clearly that was the perception of the House, 

or if not the House, the Republicans in the House. Now, I’m not 

sure, because I don’t have the time frame in front of me as you do, 

he called the vote 214–214 twice. 

Q. Right. 

A. The first time I think he could have—my own view is he could 

have stopped the vote at that point in time. I think it would have 

been within his rights. The problem with the second vote—and as 

you recall, and the tape will show, I went up and talked to Mr. Sullivan twice. The second time he called the 214–214, contemporaneously with him calling it the board showed 215–213. 

Q. Yes. 

A. Within seconds after that, I’m not sure how many seconds, I 

went up and told Mr. Sullivan, I may have even asked Mr. Sullivan, I said, John, we cannot let this stand, we’re going to have 

to vacate this vote, how is the best way to do that? And the reason 

I did that was while I certainly think at 214–214 we were fully 

within our rights to call the vote, 16 minutes had passed, and 

Members had voted, in order to maintain comity, you have to be 

fair. And when people are hearing 214 and seeing 215–213—and 

let me make a comment on that, because I know this slip thing has 

been an issue. When you see the person write the slip, you will see 

them look up at the same place we look, not the machine on the 


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desk. They’ll look up, and they’ll write it down, and they’ll give it 

to the Speaker. The Speaker is looking at the same machine. That 

machine historically has been perceived as the definitive record of 

how we voted. But when the Speaker articulated the 214–214, and 

the machine reflected a different vote, I immediately believed that 

that could not stand. And if I had been in the Minority at that 

point in time, I would have been outraged. And the Republicans 

were outraged. I could understand that. So I went up to Mr. Sullivan and I said, you know, we’ve got to vacate this vote. Now, I 

went down, and then, as you recall, a lot went on before we ultimately got to a point where I then did that. 

Q. So in effect, Mr. Hoyer, you had two choices; you could have 

sought to preserve Mr. McNulty’s call, if you will, or alternatively 

you could have sought to set aside that call, and the choice that 

you made was to set aside Mr. McNulty’s call; is that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And the risk of that choice could have been another vote; is 

that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And you didn’t even know for a fact how many Democratic 

Members even remained in the Chamber at that point? 

A. You know, I was not talking about any other Members at that 

point in time. And I frankly didn’t, until I saw the tape, know exactly what was going on in the well at that point in time. So my— 

I had no idea of who had left or who was there, but I just thought 

that vote couldn’t stand. 

Q. And there was obviously uncertainty over that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. The point I’m making is that by seeking a new vote in effect, 

it’s possible some Democratic Members who had voted against the 

motion might have even gone home; is that correct? 

A. It’s possible. 

Q. There would have been a risk the Democrats might have lost 

another vote; is that correct? 

A. Certainly possible. 

Q. And you incurred that risk because you were concerned about 

the comity of the House that night? 

A. Yes. 

Q. You made a motion at some point to set aside the vote? 

A. Can I add to that? 

Q. Yes. 

A. Not only was I concerned with the comity of the House, but 

I was concerned about the perception of our own fairness. And 

when you call 214–214, and it reflects 215–213, I think if I were 

on the other side, I would say something is wrong here, and I 

thought we couldn’t let that stand. 

Q. You made a motion to set aside the vote? 

A. Actually I first asked for unanimous consent that it be vacated. There was objection. 

Q. Who was the objection from? 

A. It was at my back. It seemed to be from your side, the Republican side of the aisle. 

Q. It seemed to be from the Minority side, too. 


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A. I can’t say who made it, because I think there were more than 

one. It seemed to me multiple voices that I heard. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. A chorus. 

Mr. HOYER. Yeah, there was a chorus, so I couldn’t identify anybody. So I then immediately made a motion to reconsider the vote 

by which the motion to recommit had failed. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. What was the result of the motion that you made? 

A. Well, it was passed. 

Q. Do you remember how the Minority reacted to that motion? 

Was there a particular reaction? 

A. They walked out. Not all of them. I think some 40 voted. I did 

know the exact number, but I don’t have it in front of me. About 

40 stayed in the Chamber, and the rest of the Republicans left. 

Q. And was there any procedural effect as to the large number 

of Republicans who left the Chamber at that point, any procedural 

effect on the motion that you made? 

A. No. 

Q. The motion carried that you made to reconsider? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Procedurally what happened? 

A. And the reason it passed is because all my Members, I think, 

knew I wanted it to pass, and I think they felt—I ultimately think 

they thought that was the right thing to do. 

Q. Was there a revote that occurred? 

A. There was. 

Q. And what was the result of that revote? 

A. Similar. I don’t know the exact numbers, but again, the Republicans are not en masse returned, so there were 40, 50 votes 

voting on the ag bill. There were a lot of people for the ag bill. It 

wasn’t particularly controversial, as you recall. The only thing that 

was controversial was the funding mechanism. No, that’s a different bill. It was the motion itself to recommit. 

Q. In your opinion, Mr. Hoyer, did Mr. McNulty at any point 

commit any violation of the rules of the House that night? 

A. No. 

Q. In your opinion, Mr. Hoyer, did Mr. McNulty act in any matter that suggested the willful intent to disenfranchise Members of 

the House? 

A. No. 

Q. And did you at that point instruct him or direct him to act 

in any manner that would have intentionally thwarted or 

disenfranchised an intent to vote by any Member of the House? 

A. No. 

Mr. DAVIS. I yield to Mr. LaTourette. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Thank you. Does somebody have the time? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Yes. Thirty-five minutes. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Mr. Hoyer, I want to echo Mr. Davis’ observation. Thank you 

for making yourself available. And we’re going to watch the tape 

in a minute, not quite yet. And you should know just from the Minority side, I think this committee has been a huge success in that 


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your side could have appointed pretty obnoxious Members. You 

didn’t. We could have appointed pretty obnoxious Members, and although Delahunt thinks I’m an obnoxious Member, I think we work 

pretty well together, and I think we’ll produce a product that the 

House can be proud of. 

A. I will tell you, I was very pleased when I saw the Republican 

appointees, and I believed on our side the Speaker had appointed 

people who were matched by the other side. As I said at the beginning, I thank you for your time. 

Q. I agree with you, and I think our product will reflect that. 

I don’t want to be a nitpicker on the last line of questioning before I get into where I was going to start, but—— 

A. But you’re a lawyer like me. 

Q. But I’m a lawyer, and I’m going to. But the sequence of events 

is a little off in that Mr. McNulty, you’re correct, he attempts to 

call the vote after the Speaker votes 214–214. He stops and doesn’t 

add the magic words that the motion is not agreed to, which the 

Parliamentarian indicates to us is the parliamentary way to conclude a vote. When he calls it the second time, which now—go 

ahead. 

A. The Parliamentarian says that’s the normal way. 

Q. Yes, that’s right. 

A. I understand that. 

Q. Okay. 

A. My view is that’s not the only way, it is the normal way. And 

if you will watch the tape, as I know we’re going to do, when he 

called it 214–214—— 

Q. The second time or the first time? 

A. The first time. 

Q. Yes. 

A. The numbers go off the screen. I don’t know who runs that 

screen, but at that point in time, obviously whoever runs the screen 

thought the vote was over, too. 

Q. Right. 

A. Because when you watch the tape, that’s what struck me. 

First I’m trying to find out where is the vote because we’re all interested in what the vote is doing. It goes off the screen. 

Q. But again, and we’ll leave this, if you don’t agree with me, you 

don’t agree with me, Charlie Johnson indicates for 40 years Sullivan, his time here, that the magic words—they call it the magic 

words—and so you say whatever the vote is, and then you move 

on to say, and the motion is not agreed to, or the bill is passed? 

A. He did not. I agree with that. 

Q. But the second time he did, is what I’m getting at. 

A. Yes, I agree. 

Q. And it’s that one that creates this anomaly of he has called 

the 214–214, and the board and the machine says 215–213. It’s the 

second one. 

A. Can I? 

Q. Sure. 

A. The reason I made the observation, if you will note on the 

tape, it was after the first one that I went up—— 

Q. Yes, I know. 


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A. [continuing]. Not after the second one, because after the second one I thought there was a problem. 

Q. That’s right. And that’s my nitpick, because what you’ve indicated to us is that because you recognized—you said that couldn’t 

stand, because clearly when he called it the second time at 214– 

214, it wasn’t 214–214, it was 215–213. 

A. Correct. 

Q. But for some reason the vote was held open further, and you 

didn’t move to vacate at that moment in time. You then let other— 

somebody let other Democratic Members go to the floor, and you 

announced that the vote was actually 212 to 216. I mean, we eventually got the 212–216. So your decision to decide that the vote 

couldn’t stand apparently was not reached until after you prevailed 

212 to 216? 

A. No, I don’t think that’s accurate. I’ll have to look at the tape 

to remind myself, but I think as soon as he said 214–214, and it 

reflected 215–213, very—I want to look at the tape, and we’re going 

to look at the tape, but very, very shortly thereafter, I went up to 

John and told him that I thought that was not something that we 

could maintain. 

Q. And I don’t disagree with you. And I appreciate as a Republican the fact that you first moved to vacate and then moved to reconsider. But before that happened, somebody made the decision to 

continue on. After McNulty has called it incorrectly and said the 

motion is not agreed to—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. People come in the well after not being in the 

well for 3 minutes and change the vote to give you the margin 212– 

216. 

A. We have this dispute about the magic words. He said the 

magic words. But I have seen often presiding officers handed the 

slip of paper, read the slip of paper on this vote, and then see 

somebody come down the aisle—— 

Q. Right. I have, too. 

A. [continuing]. And stop the vote even after they’ve said the 

magic words—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. And allow the person to vote, have it changed 

and recalled. 

Q. Right. 

A. So it was not an unusual circumstance. 

Q. I don’t know if I agree with that, but I will say, though, that 

Mr. McNulty, in the opinion of the Parliamentarian, spoke the 

magic words. And we’ve talked a lot about the fact that the power 

to call the vote is invested in the Speaker and then her designee, 

the Speaker pro tem? 

A. Right. 

Q. Mr. McNulty testified to us that it was his judgment that to 

keep the vote open after the Mario Diaz-Balart well card was entered would have been violative of Rule 2(a), and he intended to 

close the vote after the Mario Diaz-Balart vote was entered. If that 

is Mr. McNulty’s position, that as the presiding officer that you say 

is invested with the authority to close the vote, if that were to be 

his testimony, that the vote in his mind was closed when he said 


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214–214, the motion is not agreed to, would you dispute his authority to do that? 

A. No. 

Q. Going back to where Mr. Davis started, the issue on the motion to recommit, we would say it had to do with illegal immigration, you would say it’s political posture and sort of trying to catch 

vulnerable Democrats on a procedural vote. But the issue was—— 

A. I probably would say that. 

Q. I know. I’ve heard you say that. 

A. I believe it. 

Q. The issue was, whether it was in your mind a legitimate issue 

or not, is illegal immigration? 

A. Right. 

Q. There were press accounts prior to that evening that that 

issue was causing some angst within your caucus, particularly 

among your freshmen and your Blue Dogs. Were those press accounts accurate? 

A. Well, enough were, which is why you offered them. 

Q. That’s right. 

A. But you know you call things—— 

Q. That’s correct. 

Are you aware that prior—when did you become aware what the 

issue was on the motion to recommit? 

A. I can’t recall exactly. It was shortly before—I’m not sure how 

soon it was given by Mr. Lewis to Ms. DeLauro. Whenever he gave 

it to her, I learned about it shortly thereafter. 

Q. Are you aware of a meeting that took place in your cloakroom 

with this group of vulnerable freshmen and the Chairman of your 

caucus Mr. Emanuel prior or during this vote? 

A. No. 

Q. During this entire sequence did you ever have a conversation 

with Mr. McNulty while he was in the chair? 

A. No. 

Q. Did you ever issue any instructions to Mr. McNulty? 

A. I want to—I was saying, you know, we need to shut down the 

vote. 

Q. Right. 

A. Now, it was not a conversation, because I was never proximate to him. The only time I got close to him was when I was talking to Sullivan, John Sullivan. But I never had a conversation with 

McNulty, Mr. McNulty. 

Q. About with Catlin O’Neill, did you ever have a discussion with 

Catlin O’Neill about the way the vote was going or what should be 

done? 

A. I may well have had a conversation. I don’t remember specifics of a conversation. Clearly I wanted the vote to terminate at 

the time that the votes were in. 

Q. Right. And if we can go then to the first clip. I want to show 

you—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. LaTourette, could I interrupt you for 1 second. I 

have to duck out for about 60 seconds for the purpose of recording 

my votes on a markup in Ways and Means. I don’t want that to 

interrupt the proceedings. 


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Mr. LATOURETTE. Okay. Are you competent to take over, you 

two? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. I would like to go to the first clip. And let me just, while 

they’re finding the marker—the first clip, I think—and I would ask 

you to watch for—is going to be the time when the Speaker of the 

House votes. When you’re about there, could you just stop so I can 

describe it to the Leader? And what I think happens—and then I 

would like you to watch it and tell me whether you think I’ve seen 

correctly and you agree with it or not—is that Jerry Hartz—you’re 

familiar with who Mr. Hartz is? 

A. Huh-uh. 

Q. He’s at the Democratic leadership table. He’s got a dot on his 

head. 

A. No, that’s Rob. That’s Rob Cogorno, my guy, and Jerry Hartz. 

Q. Well, you got to go back here because I want to describe it, 

and then we’re going to have the Leader watch it. I believe you’ll 

see Mr. Hartz make a motion with his arm. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. With his left hand. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. You’ll then see the Speaker of the House, who is in the well 

in the light blue suit under the word ‘‘present’’ at the moment, I 

think, go and take out a well card. 

A. Now, who are you saying that is? 

Mr. DAVIS. That’s Nancy. 

Mr. HOYER. No, Nancy is over here. Is this Nancy here? Okay, 

fine. The Speaker. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Yes. 

A. I got you. For the purposes of the record, further referred to 

as the 

Speaker. 

Q. We’ll call her the Speaker. 

Then over here above the M in ‘‘Democratic’’ is Catlin O’Neill? 

A. Right. 

Q. And shortly we’re going to see your head in conversation with 

Catlin O’Neill. 

A. Right. 

Q. Can you just run this clip, and then I have some questions. 

So I would ask you watch Mr. Hartz first, the Speaker next. 

A. Where am I? Oh, here I am. 

Q. There goes the Speaker. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Do you want to back up one more time? You’re 

going to see this person raise his hand to the Speaker, who is sort 

of facing in his direction. At that point she turns to go to signal 

what we believe to go vote. 

Mr. HOYER. All right. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. So she turns to go vote right there. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. There’s the arm. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. She’s going to vote right here. 


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Mr. HOYER. Right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Could you stop it for just a second? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. At the moment it’s 214 to 213? 

A. Right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. All right. Roll. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. And that’s Catlin right here. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. And stop it there. I believe Catlin O’Neill is 

engaged in a conversation with you. We believe that’s your head. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. This is you right here. 

Mr. DAVIS. Does that appear to be your head to you, Mr. Hoyer? 

Mr. HOYER. It appears to be my head. And obviously I’m talking 

to Catlin. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. All right. Let’s roll again. 

Mr. HOYER. You will observe there’s nobody else. It’s 214–214 

when you go a couple of seconds. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Well, it’s 214–213 at the moment. 

A. And there’s nobody else in the well. 

Q. Okay. Can you stop it now, please? 

You left Catlin O’Neill at 22:49:55:27? 

A. Right. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Steve, will you yield for a moment? Actually, he 

did not leave. When he is down there, Catlin backed up. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Walked away from him. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. If you would, I would be interested in the 

amount of time that they had any, if they had any, exchange over 

what we’re talking about. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I can ask questions after he sees it. I just 

wanted him to see it before we talked about it. 

Can you roll it now? And stop it there. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. It appears that Ms. O’Neill is talking to Mr. McNulty. Ms. 

O’Neill, Mr. McNulty, and in a minute he’ll bend over. 

A. Okay. 

Q. And in a minute it’s going to click to 214–214. And then— 

okay, can we stop there? 

So I guess I want you to tell me if you don’t agree with that sequence. I think what we saw in that sequence was Mr. Hartz at 

the Democratic leadership table waving his arm; the Speaker going 

into the well, taking a well card; the vote is 214 to 213; you have 

a conversation. And you say you don’t recall the conversation? 

A. I don’t recall specifically, but I’m clearly saying to Catlin that 

we need to shut down the vote when we’re prevailing. 

Q. Okay. And was it your expectation, or do you believe that 

that’s what she was communicating to Mr. McNulty? 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. You don’t know. Okay. 

But do you agree that after her conversation with you, she went 

and appeared to be having a conversation with Mr. McNulty? 


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A. It appears that way. 

Q. Okay. 

A. But Mr. McNulty would know far better than I what the conversation was. 

Q. I know. And when it clicks over—— 

A. And Ms. O’Neill. 

Q. Correct. 

And when it clicks over, it becomes a tie. Now, Mr. McNulty has 

made his first attempt to close the vote? 

A. Right. 

Q. And it is your observation that he was within his right to do 

that because we were beyond 15 minutes? 

A. We were at 16 minutes and 1 second. 

Q. But he didn’t close the vote, and the vote stayed open? 

A. Correct. 

Q. And I indicated to you that the vote stayed open. There were 

two changes on your side, Lampson, and I don’t remember the 

other one. Mitchell. And then the three Cuban Americans on our 

side came down and changed their vote. And as I indicated before, 

Mr. McNulty testified before the committee that it was his view 

that as the presiding officer, after the Mario Diaz-Balart card was 

entered, he was closing the vote because that was his interpretation in compliance with 2(a), and you don’t disagree with that? 

A. No. If that was his interpretation, then I certainly don’t disagree with what his—I believe Mr. McNulty is an extraordinarily 

honest person of high integrity. If that’s what he says, I believe 

him. 

Q. I do, too. I think he does a great job in the chair and got stuck 

in a tough situation. 

A. He’s a wonderful human being. 

Q. He’s a wonderful human being. 

I don’t want to—we’ve tried not to trick anybody in these interviews, and so I want to go through. Where we find ourselves as Republicans are that we have a set of people saying that no instructions were given, and we have some people who have said instructions were given on closing this vote at this moment, this first premature call as opposed to the second premature call. And I think 

you’ve indicated that your recollection of the conversation with Ms. 

O’Neill would have been that when we’re winning, we need to close 

it? 

A. I think my general feeling was that 15 minutes had transpired, it was within the Speaker’s authority to close the vote at 

his discretion, and that when we were prevailing, we ought to close 

it down. 

Q. Okay. Good. 

A. That’s my general proposition. 

Q. And that’s why you’re the Majority Leader. 

A. And it’s my responsibility. 

Q. I just want to read to you some observations from the professional staff that’s been interviewed by the committee relevant to 

whether or not you had made observations to Mr. McNulty. And I 

want to start with Mary Kevin Niland, who was the reading clerk 

on that night. And on page 8 of her transcription, at the bottom 

of the page she says, at that point it started out normal, normal 


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as can be for that late at night. And I just, I can remember Mr. 

Hoyer coming down the aisle as the vote was closing or getting 

close to being closed out telling I think it was Mr. McNulty the 

Chair, to close the vote. 

Do you recall that as you came down the aisle? 

A. You mean came down the aisle? 

Q. Yeah. 

A. I think I got closer. I don’t—I would have to look at the tape 

as to what—I said that, but when I said it coming down the aisle— 

because I don’t think—coming down the aisle I don’t think—I don’t 

recall when I said that, but I did say it. But now, you understand, 

I wasn’t having a conversation with Mr. McNulty. He was in the 

chair, and I said, close it down. 

Q. Right. But who was your observation directed to? 

A. To the Chair. 

Q. And do you have reason to—— 

A. But he didn’t respond. 

Q. No, I got you. 

A. That was my general wish for what would happen. 

Q. Do you have reason to believe you said it in a voice loud 

enough that Mr. McNulty heard you? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Then going to—— 

A. I don’t know that he did hear me, but I think I said it in a 

voice loud enough. That was my objective, to have him hear me. 

Q. I’m now turning to—I’m going to just read you what everybody else said, and then I’ll ask questions. 

Allys Lasky, who was the assistant tally clerk sitting next to 

De’Andre Anderson on that night, on page 10 says—the question 

is, so Mr. Hoyer comes down, Mr. Hoyer casts his vote. You said 

he came down the center aisle? The answer is, I can’t say that he 

voted in the well at that point. He may have voted on the electronic 

machine. But when he made it into the well, he moved off to the 

left, typically between the chairs where the Members sit and you 

would walk in to the rostrum, and had, you know, said I want this 

vote down, shut it down now. And I can’t say that’s exactly the 

words, but the sentence was to the fact of shut this down now; who 

did he say it to, the Chair; and then her observation it was the 

Chair? 

A. I think that’s accurate. He wanted the vote shut down. 

Q. Right. 

Mr. Sullivan, the Parliamentarian, on page 7 of his transcript: 

You remember him, Mr. Hoyer, saying, close the vote, words to 

that effect? Yes. And on—— 

A. They all heard me say it. 

Q. Well, apparently they did. Only one person didn’t hear you 

say it. Well, he says it a couple of times. And then lastly Mr. 

Hanrahan, who was the standing tally clerk; Mr. De’Andre Anderson says it, too, and Mr. Hanrahan says it. 

I’m sorry, I’m usually more organized than this. I apologize. 

On page 24, now, the only difference that night, and I wish it 

had gone a different way, because I’ve seen this before—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Whose testimony is this, Steve? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Kevin Hanrahan. 


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BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Because I’ve never seen this before, I’ve never seen the Chair 

buy into it, never. I wish he hadn’t done it, but he did. And I happened to be standing there filling out or processing a well card, 

which I then turned around and handed to De’Andre for insertion 

into the system. At that exact moment, I don’t know on what, 

maybe a goading from the side over there where the Majority Leader was, who at that point, I think, was taking John Sullivan’s head 

off, for whatever reason he bought into it, he banged the gavel, and 

he called the vote as a tie. 

That’s Mr. Hanrahan’s observation. So my question is—— 

A. It’s my understanding that Mr. Blunt has publicly said it was 

his job, and the Leader, the present Minority Leader, believes it 

was his job to determine when the vote should be closed. 

Q. And I don’t disagree with you. 

A. So the fact that Mr. Hanrahan had never seen it happen before seems odd to me. 

Q. Well, I think the issue is closed and closed according to the 

protocol. And what a lot of—you talked about the slip, for instance. 

Charlie Johnson said this is the first time in 40 years he can recall 

the vote being closed without the benefit of the tally slip, which is 

not just prepared by reading off the board, it is in consultation between the standing and the seated tally clerk, who verified the 

computer with the board to make sure that the information that’s 

being passed to the presiding officer is accurate. And Mr. Sullivan 

and Mr. Johnson both indicate that that is the way that the clerk, 

pursuant to Rule XX, certifies to the presiding officer that the correct vote has been received. 

A. And I think that’s proper procedure. 

Q. But you’re aware that there was no tally slip? 

A. I am. 

Q. And both times—well, actually all three times Mr. McNulty 

called this vote—— 

A. Can I respond to that? 

Q. Sure. 

A. I think the Speaker, it would have been his right to—at the 

time Ms. Pelosi cast the vote to say, give me the slip and—said, 

give me the slip. It would have been 214–214. He did not do that. 

I think that was a mistake, and I think he referred to it as a mistake. 

Q. Okay. 

A. But let me make it clear that my view is because that is appropriate procedure. It is not required by the rule. 

Q. No, it’s not. 

A. In my view. 

Q. And you’re right. Nobody says it’s a rule. 

A. But I think it is good practice. 

Q. Sure. 

Let’s go to the next clip, which is the sort of famous statement 

that you’ve been talking about. If we could queue up when the Majority Leader approaches Mr. Sullivan. 

A. Now, that is the time I’m going up and telling him that I don’t 

think the vote can stand. You will notice that the screen is down, 


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so the vote has been called. At that point in time I believe that’s 

the conversation where I’m saying to him I want to vacate the vote 

because the call did not reflect the numbers on the board. 

Q. I would like to go to the—— 

A. That was a less animated conversation. 

Q. I would like to go to the animated conversation. 

A. I’m sure you would. I was animated. 

You’ve gone by it. 

Q. No, I think it’s coming. 

A. Oh, yes. He comes on. Okay. 

Q. Okay. You can stop right there. 

But is it accurate that that’s when you uttered words to the effect that the Majority runs—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Just so we’re clear about the time, 22:50:45 is the 

time frame we’re referencing or thereabouts. 

Mr. HOYER. And I was there for what, 2 seconds? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Right. 

A. It took me a very short time to tell him my message. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Steve, if we can go back, just for the record purposes. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. As long as it comes out on your time, 

Delahunt, I don’t care. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I don’t care. If we can just take a look at that 

again and begin with when the Leader approaches to when the 

Leader leaves, and it would appear that he had a card. Okay. So 

we’re at 50 what? 

Mr. HOYER. 50:36. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. It’s not up there yet, though. 

Okay, that’s 50:39. When he started talking—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. So at 50:43. So we’re talking 4 seconds. It didn’t 

look like a conversation that I would note. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. It didn’t look like a two-sided conversation. 

A. Right. It was not a conversation. 

Q. Is that your recollection when you indicated to Mr. Sullivan 

that we run the place and not the Parliamentarians? 

A. Yes. And that is my conviction, and I believe it today. I think 

it’s accurate. And I think certainly the Majority party from 2001 

to 2007 believed that as well. What I regret is being quite so animated. 

Q. Right. Well, is it a—I don’t want to say what your mood was, 

but were you angry? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And what were you angry about? 

A. I believe the vote had been concluded, and it should have been 

concluded. I believe the Parliamentarian, not Mr. Sullivan, was— 

and I had no idea what they were saying, but my perception was 

that the Parliamentarian was in effect instructing the Speaker that 

he had to not shut down the vote. And that was why I got angry, 

because I believe the vote of 214–214, as I’ve looked at the tape— 

and there’s nobody in the well after the Speaker voted, and I think 


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that the Speaker was clearly within his rights to shut it down. And 

I believe that Mr. McNulty, unlike myself, who would have shut it 

down at that point in time, is an extraordinarily fair individual, 

has great respect for the Parliamentarian, as I do, and I think the 

Parliamentarian stopped the vote from being—not Mr. Sullivan, 

but—— 

Q. Right. Mr. Ethan Lauer? 

A. Yeah. That was my perception. I don’t know that’s the case, 

but that was my perception from wherever I was. I guess I must 

have been off on the side. And, yes, I got angry about that. And 

I did go up to Mr. Sullivan and tell him that we ran the House, 

not the Parliamentarians. I believe that is absolutely accurate. 

Again, I feel badly because I really like and respect John, and I 

was as animated as I was, but I was angry. 

Q. And to that point I think we all appreciate your expression 

of regret. But again, I want to turn to Mr. Hanrahan’s testimony 

and ask you if you agree with his characterization of not just that 

conversation, but other conversations you might have had with Mr. 

Sullivan during the course of this vote? 

A. Mr. Hanrahan, I take it, is the man standing at the desk? 

Q. He’s the standing tally clerk. 

A. Okay. Do you want to run the tape back while I’m discussing 

with Mr. Sullivan, and would you all watch Mr. Hanrahan? 

Now, if I were trying a case, I would tell the jury that Mr. 

Hanrahan was not paying attention to me. And you heard what I 

said to Mr. Sullivan. At no time did I say anything that was disrespectful, although I was animated. 

Mr. DAVIS. Can we stop the tape when the Leader is speaking? 

Can you repeat what you just said, Mr. Leader? 

Mr. HOYER. At no time did I say, in my opinion, something that 

was disrespectful to Mr. Sullivan. I was animated, and I was 

angry, and I stated what I believed to be absolutely the fact; that 

the Majority runs the House, the Speaker is in charge, not the Parliamentarians. They’re to advise. My perception was that they had 

stopped the vote, and that made me angry. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I may have been incorrect, you understand, because I was not 

close enough to know what the conversation was. But I did see 

what I thought the result was; the vote was attenuated. 

Q. But aside from that 5, 6 seconds, wherever on the rostrum, 

you also had a conversation with Mr. Sullivan on the floor in the 

well and off to the side. And I’ll show you a clip in a minute where 

you had a 4-minute conversation. So that wasn’t your only exchange with Mr. Sullivan. You’re not saying that, right? 

A. Oh, no, no. 

Q. Let me read what Mr. Hanrahan said, because I think that 

this an important point, and I don’t think that your integrity 

should be impugned if it is not correct. 

Mr. Hanrahan, on page 56 in response to a question, says, my 

recollection of that particular night, it was extremely unpleasant 

for what John had to listen to, and I think it was uncalled for, I 

don’t think it had a place. 

Further down on the page, I’m trying to dance around not using 

the profanity that was laced in there, but some of that was there. 


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And I think, you know, as I said, I’ve seen and heard a few things; 

I’ve been around here longer than some people, not as long as some 

others, seen some strange things, heard some strange things. I 

think those words, those kind of things, if they’re said to somebody 

on the street, you should probably be thankful that you’ve got a full 

set of teeth. I just don’t think you should talk to anybody that way. 

I also think that he was wrong. 

That was Mr. Hanrahan’s take. 

A. When I was talking to Mr. Sullivan, I presume you questioned 

him about that. I don’t know how many of you have known me for 

very long. I don’t know anybody that has heard me use profanity 

on the floor with a staff member. I don’t do that. 

Q. But do you understand—— 

A. As a matter of fact, I don’t use profanity that much, period. 

Now, was I angry? I was angry. And did I have further discussions with Mr. Sullivan along the lines? The answer to that is yes. 

Now, I don’t remember exactly what the specifics were, but the 

general tenor was what I said. 

Q. Okay. 

A. But Mr. Hanrahan is wrong. 

Q. And that’s all I was trying to get to. 

A. Yeah. And I hope Mr. Sullivan corroborated that. I don’t 

know. 

Q. Mr. Sullivan doesn’t recall what you said. 

A. I think my own view would be had I used profanity to Mr. 

Sullivan, he would have recalled it. 

Q. Can we just go to this long conversation between the Majority 

Leader and Mr. Sullivan; then I just have two questions, and I’m 

finished. 

A. Is this down at the well? 

Q. I don’t remember where it is, sorry. Is this going to take you 

a couple of minutes? 

Let me ask you just a couple of questions while they’re doing 

that so we don’t take more of your time than we need to. Were you 

aware that night, or are you aware today, that the Minority Leader’s card, well card, Mr. Boehner’s card, was not processed at all? 

A. I’ve heard that. 

Q. Do you have any explanation as to why the Minority Leader 

of the House attempted to change his vote and his vote was not reflected? 

A. I think it was inappropriate. And I was—when I heard that 

it wasn’t counted, I was surprised, because when I saw the 216– 

212 vote, I thought the vote ought to be—I mean, the 212–216, I 

thought the vote ought to be 211–217. The irony is I saw John 

change his vote, and in an abundance of caution and in a frenzy, 

I wanted to make sure I was beside his side because I had an intention to make a motion to recommit—I mean, to reconsider. So 

I voted no. The irony, of course, is I voted no already, so I didn’t 

need to do that. 

John’s no vote, I understand, was not counted. I have heard the 

rationale for not counting it. I think it was inappropriate. It was 

a decision by a ministerial office not to do something. That was my 

whole—that’s my point, by the way, with respect to the Parliamentarian, who is a ministerial officer, not a line officer. He’s an adviVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00524 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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sor. And whoever made the decision not to count John’s vote, Mr. 

Boehner’s, the Leader’s vote, made a mistake. 

Q. And what reason—— 

A. Because had I not decided to make the motion to reconsider, 

Mr. Boehner would have been in a position where he could not 

have made that. That was inappropriate. I don’t know why that decision was made. 

Q. And so we had some questions about whether or not the Minority was disenfranchised, and sometimes we operate under the 

no harm, no foul rule. 

A. Right. 

Q. So since you made the motion to reconsider—— 

A. But still I think it was inappropriate. 

Q. But because it deprived Mr. Boehner the opportunity to make 

it if he chose to make it. 

A. And I want to say for the record, as far as I know, nobody on 

our side of the aisle had anything to do with that. 

Q. You believe it was made by the Parliamentarian or the Clerk? 

A. It must have been made by the clerk. I understand Mr. 

Boehner says he didn’t request that it not be counted. 

Q. That’s correct. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Do we have it now? Can you point out where? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Mr. Hoyer is right here. That’s Mr. Sullivan that 

just sat down in the chair. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. We believe that this conversation—— 

Mr. HOYER. This is later. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Stop there a second. We are at 23:13:12. And, Mr. 

Hoyer, we can back it up, but you were about here about 20 seconds ago, and you walked around over there. 

Mr. HOYER. Okay? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Let me just ask counsel, how long do you think 

this conversation took? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. This clips is—I have it from 23:12:56 to 23—well, 

we actually cut it. It’s 4 minutes long that I counted that you are 

sitting talking to Mr. McNulty. 

Mr. HOYER. When do I come down to the rostrum; do you know? 

Mr. PAOLETTA. We’re long past this. The Republicans have left 

the Chamber. Most of them have left the Chamber. And you are 

over there with McNulty, and now John Sullivan has just—he sat 

down as you approached. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. This now passage of the farm bill. 

Mr. HOYER. Okay. I know what this discussion was about? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. So do you remember having a conversation, a lengthier conversation? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Can you tell us what was going on? 

A. I was apologizing. I thought I acted inappropriately; again, not 

in what I was saying in terms of substance, but I respect and like 

John Sullivan, and I should not have, in my view, been as animated and evidenced my anger in the public fashion that I did. So 

I was apologizing to John, but at the same time saying, John, I believe that it was inappropriate to stop that vote. The ParliamenVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00525 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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tarian does not have that authority to do it; the Speaker who was 

acting was in authority. But I want to apologize to you because I 

acted inappropriately. 

Q. And then just three more questions, and that is going back. 

A. I was right in the wrong way. 

Q. I understand. We all are on a regular basis. 

But going back, understanding your view on the first aborted 

McNulty call—— 

A. Right. 

Q. [continuing]. And your feelings and how you got animated 

about that. 

A. Right. 

Q. Again, the second McNulty call where he says 214–214, and 

the motion is not agreed to, if Mr. McNulty, being invested as an 

experienced presiding officer, has indicated that it was his judgment that to keep the vote open any longer after the Mario DiazBalart card was entered would have, in his opinion, been violative 

of this new clause 2(a) of Rule XX, you wouldn’t disturb that judgment because he’s the guy that should make that call? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Steven, if I can, will you yield? 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Yes, of course. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And on that particular issue you had no conversation with the Chair? 

Mr. HOYER. No. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. But at that moment in time, I think we all know that the vote 

was really 215 to 213, because the uptick is the Mario Diaz-Balart 

card that turns it. McNulty’s mistake, I would ask you—and you 

either agree or disagree with me, and if you don’t, I’ll argue it 

someplace else—McNulty’s mistake was the three Cuban Americans changed. The machine didn’t uptick the last Diaz-Balart card 

that turned it from 214–214 to 215–213 that got us into this pickle. 

And so when McNulty calls it, the 428 Members that have really 

voted had voted 215 to 213? 

Mr. DAVIS. Let me—and again, we are not trying to necessarily 

stick to the rigid rules of a deposition and the Rules of Civil Procedure, and obviously, Steve, we’ve both taken a lot of leeway for the 

sake of time as far as leading the witnesses go, but you’ve made 

a pretty blatant assertion that the vote was 215 to 213, and certainly Mr. Hoyer is entitled to say if he agrees or disagrees. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. That was my question. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. I’m asking him if he agrees with that or not. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. 

Mr. HOYER. Well, let me. We’re talking about fractions of seconds 

here? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Right. 

A. When Mr. McNulty, the Speaker, looked at the board, it reflected 214–214? 

Q. That’s correct. 


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A. And he called it 214–214? 

Q. That’s correct. 

A. At almost obviously the exact same time the clerk was inserting Mario Diaz-Balart’s vote—— 

Q. That’s right. 

A. [continuing]. And immediately reflected on the board? 

Q. That’s correct. 

A. I think Mr. McNulty was accurate in calling it at 214–214 

from his perception. 

Q. Right. 

A. He made a mistake. 

Q. Right. 

A. Because the machine in that split second—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. Changed what he visually saw to a different—— 

Q. Right. 

A. So I think he made a mistake—— 

Q. Right. 

A. [continuing]. In the sense that he did not make a mistake in 

what he said. He saw 214–214, and that’s what he reported. 

Q. Right. 

A. He made a mistake in that that was not what was coming into 

the machine at the time. 

Q. Right. 

A. But it was a split second. 

Q. I don’t think we disagree. 

A. Right. 

Q. And that mistake could have been rectified if he waited for 

the tally slip to be handed up from the clerk. The fact of the matter 

is at the moment in time when he called 214–214 because he saw 

it, 428 Members had either voted at the electronic voting station, 

so it is by well card? 

A. Right. 

Q. And the accurate number in terms of the votes that were actually in the possession of the Clerk’s Office at that moment in 

time would have made the vote 215 to 213 no matter what Mr. 

McNulty saw? 

A. Right. It seems to me, however, if I can—— 

Q. Sure. 

A. [continuing]. I don’t want to be argumentative—— 

Q. Well, I do. 

A. [continuing]. It seems to me the proposition is after our three 

guys changed, we didn’t want any of your guys to change? 

Q. Right. 

A. We have already agreed that votes—he was keeping the vote 

open. 

Q. Right. 

A. He closed it, it was inappropriate, and what he was told, there 

were other people in the well to change their vote. 

Q. Right. 

A. And I’ve seen that over the years. This was not an unusual 

experience, from my standpoint. But obviously my view at that 

point in time, as I’ve explained to you, is when he called 214–214, 

and then the machine immediately reflected 215–213, I thought 


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that perception and the reality was something that if that vote 

ended up that way—now, the vote kept going, and we won. Notwithstanding that, I thought the vote needed to be reconsidered. 

Q. Sure. And I got that, and I appreciate it, and we’re not splitting hairs, nor, I hope, being argumentative. 

A. I was referring to me, not you. 

Q. Fine. But if we go to that, after the Diaz-Balart call—— 

Mr. DAVIS. I think I called you argumentative. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. You’ve called me a lot of things, but it’s like 

water off a duck’s back. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. But there is a lag. I mean, when you finally get Space, 

Gillibrand and McNerney—not you personally, but Space, 

Gillibrand and McNerney are the three Democrats that come down 

and turn it from 215 to 213 to 212 to 216. There’s nobody in the 

well. 

A. When you say ‘‘finally’’—— 

Q. I’m saying there’s nobody in the well when Mr. McNulty calls 

it the second time. McNerney, Space and Gillibrand are not attempting to change their votes. I just want to say, your observation—I mean, you’re right. I mean, just as you wanted it closed 

when it was a tie and the thing would have not prevailed, yeah, 

as a Republican, once the Cuban Americans voted, we were pretty 

happy with the result. But in both instances there was nobody in 

the well, and it was not until there was a space of time that your 

three Democrats then came down and cast those—— 

A. Relatively short, wasn’t it? 

Q. It was a couple—— 

Mr. DAVIS. I’m going to question him about it. I have some redirect. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Steve, will you yield? I mean, I think you raise 

a—you know, obviously there are perceptions here. And again, 

going back to the tape, I don’t know whether the three Democrats 

were in the well or close to the well. We can only speculate what 

McNulty observed. But maybe we ought to rerun the tape just to 

determine after Diaz-Balart filed his card, I don’t know, I haven’t 

watched the tape as often as you have, but maybe one of the three 

Democrats that changed could be observed. And it will be interesting to note the time lag from the last—from the Diaz-Balart—— 

Mr. HOYER. Well, let’s look at it? 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. Let me ask one question, then I’m done, and we’ll look at the 

tape. You referenced the Medicare Part D vote that stayed open for 

3 hours? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And in that instance I agree with you. The vote rule said that 

the vote has to be a minimum of 15 minutes, and then it’s closed 

to the discretion of the Chair. And so the issue was did the Chair 

abuse their discretion on that evening? I understood the Democratic angst, and not only understood the Democratic angst, but 

three Members of this select committee were on the Ethics Committee at the time they considered that, and our conclusion was 


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that while nobody broke any of the rules, particularly Rule XX, 

that we did feel that our Majority Leader at the time acted in a 

way that did not reflect favorably upon the conduct of the House 

during the course of that event. And he received a rather famous 

letter of admonishment that your party then used to talk about culture of corruption and a whole lot of other things. 

And the question I would have to you is I don’t think—— 

A. I think the Majority Leader’s actions that night as it relates 

to when the vote opened or shut was really not the angst that we 

were caused. The angst was more by Nick Smith the next morning 

saying in effect that he had been bribed or offered a bribe. 

Q. Well—— 

A. I mean, to be accurate, that was what I think generated much 

of the—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Steve, if you would yield for a moment—— 

Mr. HOYER [continuing]. Angst on our side, the discussion on our 

side. 

Mr. DELAHUNT [continuing]. And direct that to the Chair of the 

subcommittee, former Chair of the subcommittee. I think we’re all 

aware that but for the statement by Nick Smith, that a subpanel 

or a complaint of a subpanel sua sponte on the part of the Ethics 

Committee would not have occurred. I think, you know, we spent 

a lot of time on that, and Mr. Hulshof did a tremendous job raising 

it. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. He did. 

Mr. HOYER. The reason I made the point that I thought a rule 

was not violated, I didn’t think a rule was violated. And I’m glad 

the press asked me that would I pledge to shut it down. I don’t 

think that was the problem. 

BY MR. LATOURETTE

Q. But that gets to my question. I don’t think we can debate, because you also considered actions by other Members, Mrs. Miller of 

Michigan and others, who didn’t threaten Nick Smith or anything 

else. 

But getting to the question that I have of you, with that as the 

backdrop, if the select committee reaches a conclusion that clause 

2(a) of Rule XX was not violated by the Majority or the Speaker 

pro tempore, I would ask you the question that was asked of our 

Majority Leader: Do you believe that your conduct on that evening 

reflected unfavorably on the House in a way that contributed to 

where we find ourselves today? 

A. I don’t think it reflected unfavorably on the House. I think it 

reflected unfavorably on me, because I think what reflected favorably on me and the Democratic Majority was that without a break, 

there was an immediate determination, and you saw me standing 

at the well with my arm on the lectern for 2 or 3 minutes waiting 

to immediately vacate the vote. Whatever the outcome, ultimately 

the 212–216, whatever the outcome was, I believed that I would be 

able to deal more fairly on both sides of the aisle if I vacated that 

vote immediately and allowed everybody the opportunity to revote 

in a less charged atmosphere. Unfortunately that did not occur because you guys left. 

Q. We left. We had enough. 


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Mr. LATOURETTE. I’m done asking questions. Do you want to roll 

the tape before we leave? 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, let me go back into the tape. And I’m going to 

try a little bit in my redirect to the scope of this cross examination 

to yield to my colleagues. 

Why don’t we go to 22:51, if we can. We’re going to go to a point 

on the tape 22 minutes and 51 seconds. And when we get to that 

point, I’m just going to ask you to watch until I ask the tape to 

stop. 

22:51. All right. Stop right here. Well, if you can get to 22:51. 

Well, tell you what, go to 22:51 and just let it run until I tell you 

to stop. 

Okay, stop. Let it run. Stop, stop. All right. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. At this point, Mr. Hoyer, for what appears to be 22:51:28, Mr. 

McNulty is speaking, and he’s beginning to call the vote. Do you 

agree with that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you agree with me that he is standing by himself at the 

rostrum without any Member of the House being physically close 

to him? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Are you even in the camera shot at this point? 

A. Not that I can tell, no. 

Q. All right. At 22:51:28, which is the approximate point at 

which Mr. McNulty begins to call the vote, can you even see yourself on the screen? 

A. No. 

Q. So you’re obviously not in a position to give any kind of direction, or it doesn’t appear you’re in a position to give any kind of 

direction to Mr. McNulty right now, are you? 

A. It doesn’t appear. You know, we can’t see the whole breadth 

of where I was. I’m not sure where I was at that point in time. 

Q. Before—and you had been watching this tape a moment ago— 

before Mr. McNulty called the vote, what did he appear to be doing 

to you? 

A. Here? 

Q. Yes. 

A. Looking at the board, looking up at the board. 

Q. Did he appear to be looking toward you or looking down, or 

does he appear to be looking up at the board? 

A. It appears to me to be looking up at the board. 

Q. Let’s see if we can just go back for a moment just so we can 

watch what—let’s go back a few minutes, back to 22:51:20, if we 

can. Let’s go backwards for just a few seconds and watch this, Mr. 

Hoyer. Stop. Okay. Just watch this, Mr. Hoyer. 

Stop. 

We were able to hear audibly sound in the Chamber at this 

point, 22:51:30:28; do you agree? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. At that point—— 

A. Yes. 


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Q. [continuing]. Can you hear yourself or anyone else orally directing Mr. McNulty to call the vote? 

A. No. 

Q. Do you see Ms. Catlin O’Neill anywhere near Mr. McNulty at 

the point he calls the vote? 

A. No. 

Q. And do you remember where you were at this point? 

A. No. I was on the floor. 

Q. Right. But do you remember where you were with respect to 

the rostrum? 

A. No. 

Q. And let’s start the tape again at the point Mr. McNulty says, 

the motion is not agreed to, and let’s let it run until I tell you to 

stop; with the sound playing until I tell you to stop. 

Go ahead, stop. 

What did you just hear, Mr. Hoyer? Did you hear the clerk calling out Mr. Space changing his vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. I’ll represent to you that Mr. Space appears to change his vote 

at 22:52. Does that seem about right to you? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Using my lawyer’s math, at the time the vote is called is 

around 22:51:28. Mr. Space changes the vote approximately 28:32 

seconds later. Does that sound about right? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Mr. DAVIS. Let’s play the tape again. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Would the gentleman yield for a moment? 

Mr. DAVIS. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. If you can go back to the original—I’m trying to 

think. 22:50. Just before he brings the gavel down, maybe 10 seconds before that. If you could ask Mr. Hoyer—or if you yourself 

could identify the two gentlemen to the left and ask Mr. Hoyer if 

he can identify them? 

Mr. HOYER. To the left of—— 

Mr. DAVIS. Not now. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Back to 22:50? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Yeah, back to 22:50. Okay. Right there. Mr. 

Hoyer, can you identify—I think there are two Members as we’re 

looking at it to the left? 

A. At the desk? 

Q. At the desk. 

A. Mr. Lampson and Mr. Space. And Emanuel Cleaver is the 

third one to the left. 

Q. Okay. And that’s at 22:51. All right. If you can roll it a bit 

more. 

Mr. PAOLETTA. Before you do that, it might be useful to back up 

the tape to see how long Mr. Space has been standing in the well 

with a well card there, and obviously Mr. McNulty sees him, and 

I assume is using his discretion to determine that he doesn’t have 

an intention of voting. But again, I think it’s relevant in terms of 

looking at this scene to see how long Mr. Space has been there, because it seems like he’s standing there quite a long time. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, let me make this observation. We’ll have an opportunity to have discussion between the committee. 


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Mr. HOYER. We’ll have an opportunity to back up and say, now, 

what’s exactly the situation. 

Mr. DAVIS. We’ll have an opportunity to have discussion staff 

level, at the Member level, and to make our arguments to ourselves 

and what we think happened. In deference to the Leader’s time, I 

don’t know that we’re getting anywhere by saying let’s go back 

here, and let’s see, and maybe this could mean this. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Just let me respond for just a moment. It would 

appear, okay, that they’re actually changing their vote via a card. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Well, that’s not correct because Mr. Lampson 

has already changed his vote minutes earlier. And so Mr. Lampson 

can’t—he could if he wanted to, but that’s not what’s going on. So 

I agree with Artur, we can argue this, and I think we should be 

asking the Leader what he thinks he sees. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. And if I can make one more point. We’ve 

talked with Mr. McNulty. I don’t think we can make statements 

that he obviously saw Mr. Space, because I don’t think that question was ever posed to him. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I agree. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Right. 

Mr. DAVIS. And again, the purpose I think we would agree is to 

question the Leader on what he saw. We can argue ad nauseam 

about our interpretations, but let’s go back to the tape again. 

Mr. Delahunt, did you have a question that was posed to the 

Leader at this point? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. No. To be candid, I was just really trying to understand the sequence here. Because my memory is that the three 

Cuban Americans came, they voted, and now I’m observing Space 

and Lampson subsequent to their changing their votes. And maybe 

Mr. Hoyer can answer. 

Mr. HOYER. I think Lampson changed his vote before the three 

Miami Representatives changed theirs? 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Prior to? 

Mr. HOYER. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And we can verify by the writing. But Space, and 

again we have to go back to the record to determine when Space 

voted. 

Mr. DAVIS. Well, let’s pick up on Space, because we do have that 

audibly. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. Before we move in that direction, Mr. Hoyer, by my count, at 

22:51:28 Mr. McNulty calls the motion is not agreed to. Approximately 32 seconds later Mr. Space votes. Does that seem consistent 

with what you saw? 

A. Yes. 

Q. All right. Let’s play the tape. 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. Mr. Davis, if you would just yield to me. 

About 32 seconds later is when the reading clerk calls it? 

Mr. DAVIS. Right, exactly. 

BY MR. DAVIS

Q. That’s all we can know, when she calls it. He obviously 

changed it before that? 


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A. We know that Space changed it before that or it wouldn’t have 

gotten to the reading. 

Q. Right. So 32 seconds passes when Space is announced? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Let’s pick up at 22—let’s see if we can go to 22:51:56. Again, 

play it until I tell you to stop. 

Stop at this point, 22:52:15. 

Do you see Mr. McNerney, Mr. Hoyer? 

A. Yes. 

Q. What does Mr. McNerney appear to be doing? 

A. Changing his vote. 

Q. And from what I can see on the tape, we’ve seen Mr. Space 

change his vote or be announced as changing his vote at 22:51:56; 

we’ve seen Mr. McNerney approaching the well at 22:52:15; and I’ll 

represent to you to save time, but according to the time sheet, we 

have Ms. Gillibrand is announced as changing her vote. 

A. She’s walking away. You can see her head. 

Q. And I’ll represent to you that according to our time sheet, at 

22:53:05, or 52:53, I’m sorry, the clerk announces Ms. Gillibrand as 

off no, on aye. So in a span of approximately 2 minutes, three 

Democratic Members are announced as changing their vote; is that 

correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. During the time that this occurs—— 

A. I accept it was 2 minutes, or I know it was 2 minutes. 

Q. All right. During the time frame, it is basically what we see 

on the screen, Mr. McNerney changing his vote, Mr. Space before 

that? 

A. Right. Three Republicans, five Democrats. 

Q. Only at the point that I see McNerney walking up there do 

I see you back in the screen; do you agree with that? 

A. I’m at that point in time, as I said earlier, talking to—about 

to talk to John, John has got his head turned away from me, to 

tell him that, John, I don’t believe that this is sustainable, I don’t 

think we ought to maintain this, and I want to vacate the vote. 

Q. Let me stop you at this point. Mr. LaTourette asked you a 

number of questions about the fact that these Democratic Members 

are changing their votes. And I think he made the point to you that 

even after the vote was called, these Democratic Members were allowed to go on and change their votes. That was a point that he 

made to you. Do you recall him making that point? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you do anything whatsoever that affects the fact that Mr. 

Space and Mr. McNerney changed their votes and turned in well 

cards? 

A. I was not—the answer is no. I wasn’t observing that, nor did 

I talk to any one of those five during the course of this vote. 

Q. And did you give any instruction to the Parliamentarian that 

these individuals be allowed to change their vote? 

A. No. My discussion was about the 215–213 or 214–214 call. 

That’s what I was concerned about. 

Q. Based on what you just saw on the screen, Mr. Space and Mr. 

McNerney, does anyone appear to be doing anything that allows 


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them to go up and cast their vote, or they appear to be acting on 

their own? 

A. Well, they appear to be acting on their own. 

Q. And I guess what I’m asking you is this: Mr. LaTourette was 

making something of the fact that after Mr. McNulty calls the vote, 

the Democratic Members were, quote/unquote, allowed to go up 

there and change their vote. Does there appear to be anyone making a decision as to whether or not these Members were allowed 

to change their vote, or does it just appear to be happening? 

A. Well, it appears to be happening. 

Q. And in effect it appears from watching the tape that even 

after Mr. McNulty says the motion is not agreed to, it appears that 

the process continues, and Members continue to change their votes; 

is that right? 

A. Even after the magic words. 

Q. Even after the magic words, it is obvious that Members go forward and change their vote; is that right? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And does anything—all right. 

A. Which I do not—as I’ve said many times, that is not an unusual circumstance. 

Q. Have you seen numerous other instances, Mr. Hoyer, when a 

presiding officer begins to call the vote, and someone yells, one 

more, and he stops and backs off of that? 

A. Yes. I referenced that earlier. 

Q. All right. And did it appear that the clerks believed that the 

process was continuing from the fact that they were processing the 

well changes? 

A. Obviously, yes. 

Q. You were asked a series of questions from Mr. LaTourette 

about whether, quote/unquote, direction was given to the presiding 

officer. Putting aside the question of what we saw and what we 

didn’t see, do you agree that the Majority Leader has the authority 

to give direction to a presiding officer as to whether to call a vote? 

A. If you mean can I order him or her to do something, I think 

no. Is it the job of the Majority Leader to try to manage the floor? 

I think, as Mr. Blunt and Mr. Boehner and I have all agreed, that 

is part of my responsibility. 

Q. Is it perfectly permissible for a Majority Leader to suggest to 

a presiding officer that a vote be called? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And is it up to the presiding officer whether or not to follow 

that suggestion? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Did Mr. McNulty follow the suggestion that a vote be called 

on August 2nd? 

A. You would really have to ask Mr. McNulty. I can’t—I know 

what Mr. McNulty said, so I’m not—but I don’t know whether—his 

response is—I think Mr. McNulty is the kind of individual, it’s 

been my experience for every day that I’ve known him in this 

House, that he did what he thought was right. 

Q. Now, let me frame the question differently. 

A. Now, whether he did it at my suggestion or somebody else’s 

suggestion, I didn’t have a conversation with him. I did, as I’ve 


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said, hope that the vote would be closed when we were prevailing 

so the bill would not go back to committee, yes. 

Q. Your hope was that the vote would be closed when the Speaker cast her vote? 

A. That’s correct. 

Q. Did Mr. McNulty close the vote at that point? 

A. No, he did not, much to my consternation, as you observed. 

Q. All right. You were asked a series of questions about the tenor 

of your comments to Mr. Sullivan. I just want to refer to page 76 

of Mr. Sullivan’s deposition. Mr. LaTourette asked Mr. Sullivan, 

but was he profane? The ‘‘he’’ being you. Mr. Sullivan’s response 

was, not to my recollection. On page 77 of the deposition, Mr. 

LaTourette says, but you don’t recall—he asked again, but you 

don’t recall the Majority Leader being profane? Mr. Sullivan’s answer, no. He may have said the word ‘‘damn’’ or something like 

that, distinguishing between profane and vulgar, certainly not vulgar. Maybe he said, you know, this damn place, we run this 

damn—or something like that, I don’t know. The final—did you 

have any reaction to that, by the way, Mr. Hoyer, that I read from 

Mr. Sullivan? 

A. I don’t think I said that, but, you know, it was—I didn’t have 

the instant replay button. It was a pretty animated situation, no 

doubt about it. 

Q. This was a heated conversation during a tense and close vote; 

is that correct? 

A. Yes. 

Q. All right. And you apologized, whatever you did say? 

A. That’s what was my second conversation. I was disappointed 

with myself. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. Let me yield to Mr. Delahunt to see if he 

has any questions. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. I don’t have any questions. 

Mr. DAVIS. All right. I don’t have any other questions of you. 

Mr. LATOURETTE. Great. I’m going to turn to my Republican colleagues and see if they have anything. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. PENCE

Q. Well, let me thank you, Leader, for making your office and 

your time so available and for the cooperation of your staff. And 

let me also thank you for the spirit with which you have approached this episode. And I appreciate your candor today. I have 

a few clarifying questions, but I won’t take nearly as long as Artur. 

A. Thank you. 

Q. That wasn’t intentional. Because I want to be sensitive to 

your time. 

Quickly on a side bar, you remember House Resolution 611 that 

we assented to the day after they created the select committee? 

A. Yes. 

Q. The first paragraph reads, resolved that the officers of the 

House of Representatives are immediately directed to preserve all 

records, documents, recordings, electronic transmissions or other 

material regardless of form related to the voting irregularities of 

August 2, 2007. 


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Do you recall, is that the correct language of the resolution you 

agreed to on August 3rd? 

A. Right. 

Q. Would it be your expectation that that would direct all of the 

officers of the House to preserve the referenced documents? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And not simply the Clerk of the House of Representatives? 

A. Yes. All officers of the House of Representatives. 

Q. Would it surprise you to learn that the Chief Administrative 

Officer had deferred to Lorraine Miller’s judgment about the individuals to whom that applied? Would you consider that to be appropriate on the part of the CAO or not, or would you have expected the CAO to make an independent assessment of documents 

to be preserved given the resolution adopted by the House? 

A. Well, this is the first I’ve considered this matter. My reading 

of this is pretty straightforward. All officers of the House. 

Q. All right. Thank you. 

A. I don’t know what transpired between the two of them. 

Q. We do, so thank you. 

My questions are going to be a little bit hodgepodge, and I want 

to reiterate the tone that Mr. LaTourette expressed. And I really 

appreciate what I sense were your heartfelt comments about the 

way this investigation has been conducted. This is not a gotcha 

game. I think both parties have appointed people to this committee 

who care very deeply about the House, and I understand that the 

issues about the conduct of a vote are the very center of the integrity of the House. And so don’t—if you don’t understand the question I’m asking, or it feels like it’s unfairly posed, I’ll rephrase it. 

In your testimony, I think with Mr. Davis’s questions, you first 

introduced in your responses the notion of what you first called the 

slip thing. You said you will see them look up. You said any time 

during a vote you will see them look up when they call the vote, 

and forgive me for paraphrasing, but your testimony today was— 

and let me say I believe this is accurate—that the House rules are 

silent on the tally sheet? 

A. Right. 

Q. Would it surprise you to know that this committee has received testimony that there was no recollection of a vote being recorded in the House in the past 40 years without a tally sheet from 

successive Parliamentarians? 

A. Mr. LaTourette mentioned that in his questioning to me. I 

don’t know that it would surprise me. The answer is, no, I don’t 

know that would surprise me. 

Q. But you saw the tally sheet as a practice. In fact, I think your 

testimony this evening was it was a good practice? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. But it was, quote, not required by the rules. It is an appropriate procedure, you said, but it is not required by the rules. 

A. I still feel that way. 

Q. When did you become aware, to the best of your recollection, 

that a tally slip had not been produced in connection with this roll 

call? 

A. Relatively recently. And it was sometime after this event. I, 

frankly, didn’t focus on the issue of a tally sheet. 


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Q. Sometime relatively recent to this evening or relative to that 

evening? 

A. Well, I heard the issue was raised sometime after, it may have 

been a couple of months after the incident. 

Q. Okay. It could have been a few months after? 

A. It could have been. I really don’t remember. But it was—the 

tally slip issue did not come up until subsequently, sometime subsequently, but it was raised. Prior to that time I had no idea. 

Q. So it would be your testimony today that at the time of the 

evening of August 2nd, you were not aware that a tally slip had 

not been produced in the—and to use your phrase—in the ordinary 

good practice? 

A. I don’t know if I said ‘‘ordinary,’’ but ‘‘good practice.’’ I said 

it would be good practice. It is good practice. 

Q. But you were not aware that—— 

A. My testimony is that I learned sometime after the evening in 

question that there had not been a slip. 

Q. So in fairness to you, at the time this vote was recorded and 

announced and this controversy happened, you were not aware that 

a tally slip had not been produced? 

A. That’s correct. It would have made no difference, however. I 

want to reiterate, I do not believe a tally slip is necessary. 

Q. Okay. 

A. I do not believe the clerk can refuse to give the Speaker a 

tally clerk and hold the Speaker in limbo on calling a vote. The 

tally clerk obviously acts at somebody’s direction. The tally clerk at 

some point in time—and that’s why I mentioned the 3-hour vote— 

the tally clerk obviously was never asked to give a slip. The vote 

was static for a very long period of time. The tally clerk obviously 

was not asked by the Speaker to give him a slip. Best practice 

would have been let me have the 214–214 slip when Pelosi votes 

or as she had voted. 

Now, the problem with this tally slip is if you have a fast clerk, 

you can get the slip right away. If you have a slow clerk, a lot can 

happen in a slow clerk. As I said, I was presiding officer for 4 

years. I think I was very fair, and I knew when to gavel, knew 

when to hold them and knew when to fold them, and I think the 

Speaker—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Sometimes you were fast, Mr. Hoyer, and sometimes you were slow. 

Mr. HOYER. Sometimes I was fast, and sometimes I was slow. 

And I would be shocked if any presiding officer on either side of 

the aisle who had presided for any period of time did not understand that concept fully. I know Mr. DeLay understood that because I saw him on a number of occasions, and maybe others as 

well, make it very clear as to when the vote will end. As you recall, 

on the 3-hour vote, it was very quickly concluded once the votes 

were garnered. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Yes, I recall that now. I also recall, for the record, that there 

was at least one Member of the Minority who had not voted during 

the entirety of these accounts. 


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A. And that has been mentioned to me. Now, if Mr. Wu had not 

voted for the next 3 hours, I think nobody would conclude that we 

ought to keep the vote open. 

Q. Believe me, Mr. Hoyer, I have no desire to go back. 

A. You and me both. 

Mr. DAVIS. Mr. Wu may still not have voted. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Maybe he wishes he had voted. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. Let me ask you a couple more questions, and then I’ll yield 

to my colleagues. 

In Mr. LaTourette’s dialogue with you tonight, you explained, 

and I thought explained your reason very clearly, about the decision to—your sense of what was happening at the time on your 

first attempt to call, the second call. But I think you told—and I’ll 

paraphrase here, and we, of course, have the record, and I’m not 

asking you to confirm this is precisely what you said—Mr. McNulty 

looked at the board at almost exactly the same time the clerk was 

inserting the votes of the Diaz-Balarts and the change of 215 to 

213. McNulty was calling from his perception because of the machine. 

Is it—I guess my question is if at the moment that the so-called 

magic words happen and the vote was called, if, in fact, at that moment, with the changes that have occurred, the vote was 215 to 

213, why the decision to vacate and to take that procedural route 

as opposed to Mr. McNulty acknowledging a premature call, accepting the changed votes of the Members of the Minority? 

A. First of all, by that time the vote had changed. And as I said, 

it’s not unusual in my experience that the vote is not closed even 

after the magic words if there are other people voting, which was 

the case. And ultimately we technically won. Three votes changed 

on your side and five on our side; we technically won the vote. But 

my view was that technically winning, I want to actually win, and 

I wanted to win, but I did not want to win with your side believing 

that we had done so with an inappropriate call, the 214–214, when 

the board reflected 215–213. 

Q. And so your sense, and I really want to understand this, when 

you say you technically won, are you referring to the vote first—— 

A. No, I don’t think technically anybody won, because I really 

don’t believe—Mr. LaTourette and the Parliamentarian and I apparently have a difference. The magic words do not make something happen. Before the magic words were said, as I said, whoever 

puts the vote up, the screen locked it as you saw it. The screen disappeared; on the first vote after the Pelosi vote and then the call 

for 214, the screen disappears. No magic words, but whoever runs 

the screen—who runs the screen? Does anybody know? I don’t 

know who runs the screen. 

Q. We do. 

A. I know the House runs it, but you don’t run it, I hope. 

Q. We know who runs it. 

A. I’m a little more nervous than I was when I started this. 

Q. We know who runs it. 

A. My point being I don’t know the authority that runs the 

screen, but it went down, and it went down because their percepVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00538 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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tion was the vote had closed. My comment was I perceived that as 

well. Later in the next vote there were clearly people changing 

votes. He called it what he saw, 214, and then he called it, and in 

the same instant he was calling—I mean, it was instantaneous that 

they then locked in a new vote. My only point was that he then 

hesitated because he saw the difference, and because I think he is 

the kind of person he is, he thought, wait, I’ve got to find out 

what’s happening here, and then there were other people voting, 

and he allowed the vote to continue. 

I do not believe that was an unusual circumstance as I’ve seen 

that a number of times over the years, over the 27 years I’ve been 

here. 

Q. Let me explore just one or two other quick things, and I’ll 

yield back. 

A. How long do you think we’re going to go? 

Mr. HULSHOF. I only have one question. 

Mr. PENCE. I only have maybe about 10 more minutes max depending on your answers. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. So make them short; yes and no, please. 

BY MR. PENCE

Q. I want to thank you for your candor on the subject of, I think 

you said when you looked at the video, and I don’t have the time 

check, but in good faith the section of the video where you were 

speaking to Catlin O’Neill, and she turns and speaks to Mike 

McNulty. Your testimony today was, I’m clearly saying to Catlin to 

shut down the vote. When we were prevailing, quote, my general 

feeling was that 15 minutes had expired. You added, it’s time to 

close it down, that’s my responsibility. 

Would it surprise you that both Mr. McNulty and Catlin O’Neill 

testified that they received no instruction from you about closing 

the vote? 

A. Instruction? You know, Catlin works for the Speaker. Is 

Catlin interested in my observations and desires? I think she is. I 

don’t think I can instruct Catlin. So I’m not surprised that she 

didn’t receive any instructions, because I think she perceives that 

instructions come correctly from the Speaker. However, I don’t 

think there’s any doubt in anybody’s mind in this room that Catlin 

is certainly interested in what the Majority Leader believes ought 

to be done, and I was telling him what I thought ought to be done. 

I can see where she would say I did not instruct her, because I 

don’t think I did instruct her in that sense. 

Q. But you clearly had communicated to her—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. When you wanted the vote closed, whether it 

was an instruction or not? 

A. Yeah. But, I mean, I’m not surprised that she wouldn’t say I 

didn’t instruct her. 

Q. Sure. 

A. I don’t think anybody on our side of the aisle, there was any 

doubt what we wanted. Everybody was yelling, as you recall, on 

both sides. 

Q. Let me make a—and I particularly—just between peers and 

colleagues, I hope God will spare me having to sit with one of my 


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colleagues and watch a repeated video replay of my next bad hair 

day. So I want to thank you for your willingness to submit to this 

process. But also I guess I just want to be very sensitive and say 

to you that was a very late point in the legislative process, and it 

was very late at night, and I appreciate your candor and humility 

about it. I hope you hear what I’m trying to say. 

A. I thank you. 

Q. I’m not being judgmental about your tone or temperament. I 

don’t seek to be. And I appreciate your candor about your emotions 

at that time. I think you said—well, let me ask real quick. Do you 

have any recollection of seeing the Diaz-Balarts voting when you 

were approaching the Parliamentarian? 

A. No. 

Q. That seems very contemporaneous—— 

A. But I was focused on the Parliamentarian, the Chair, and obviously I’ve watched the tape a number of times, and I know when 

they started to come out. I was particularly interested that after— 

when Ms. Pelosi voted, whether anybody was in the well. And I 

know they weren’t in the well because that was my focus, because 

if they had been in the well, then I think good practice would have 

been to not shut the vote down. But there was nobody in the well. 

He said 214–214. 

I think he was entitled to do that as the Speaker. I think he 

made that judgment. I was sorry that he didn’t follow through on 

it, and, to wit, I got animated. 

Q. And you were animated in that moment because you believe 

that the Speaker pro tem, with or without the tally slip, was fully 

within his rights to call the vote at 214 to 214, and your objection, 

to paraphrase tonight, was that you didn’t believe the Parliamentarian—that it was appropriate for the Parliamentarian to stop the 

process at that moment? 

A. Now, of course, as I said in answer to Mr. LaTourette, I don’t 

know what the Parliamentarian was saying. I’m talking about my 

perception. My perception was that the Parliamentarian had attenuated the vote. I got very animated. 

Now, to be honest with you, I have had in years past discussions 

with Mr. Brown, as far back as Mr. Brown. Now, again, I come 

from the background of having been a presiding officer for 4 years 

where I served every day as presiding officer, not just from time 

to time, and I didn’t need anybody to tell me when to shut down 

a vote. And I don’t believe that’s the Parliamentarian’s authority 

to tell the presiding officer. I think it is appropriate that we rely 

on the good judgment and advice of the Parliamentarian. 

Q. When you spoke to Mr. Sullivan at the end—— 

A. At the end? 

Q. At the far end when we were all—Republicans were out of the 

building. 

A. Is that when I spoke to him? Had you left? 

Q. Yes, sir. It was about 23:14:15, at least that we saw you talking to him. 

A. The longer conversation of Mr. LaTourette. 

Q. Your testimony tonight was, I was apologizing, I should not 

have been so animated. 

A. I was doing that. 


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Q. I told John it was inappropriate for the Parliamentarian to 

stop that vote. 

A. I told him I was right in substance and wrong in form. 

Q. Thank you. 

A. I didn’t say those words, but that’s what I meant. 

Q. When you spoke to Mr. Sullivan at the end, did he mention 

whether he had asked Ethan Lauer or whether Ethan had instructed the Chair not to close the vote? 

A. No, we never discussed that. 

Q. You didn’t get into that? 

A. No. We never had a—I’ve never had a discussion to this day 

about that with either Mr. McNulty or Mr.—I had no idea, because 

it was really irrelevant at that point in time. The water was over 

the dam. 

Q. Right. 

Just really one more question. This is more of a—you know, I 

think the Members of the Minority on this select committee share 

your high regard for Mr. McNulty. I think that’s pretty safe to say. 

Is it possible in your mind that your demeanor that night may 

have unintentionally created an environment of more pressure on 

him to close a vote? I mean, do you have anywhere that you may 

have maybe inadvertently created an environment where he felt 

more pressure to drop the gavel than he would have otherwise? 

A. Certainly possible. 

Mr. PENCE. I don’t have any other questions. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. HULSHOF

Q. Just one, Mr. Leader. I’ll let you off the hook easy. You’ve expressed your opinion about the role of the tally sheet. You’ve expressed your opinion about the authority of the Parliamentarians. 

You’ve been candid in your expression of acknowledging the statement that we control the House, not the Parliamentarians. My 

question is simple. Under the rules, who is charged with conducting the vote and maintaining its integrity? 

A. The Speaker. 

Q. If I showed you Rule 2, subparagraph (a), would your answer 

be any different? The first sentence. 

A. No. Clearly, the Clerk is the ministerial officer for carrying 

out the responsibility of looking at the machine, tallying the vote. 

But it’s the Speaker—you asked me whose responsibility it is. 

Q. I said who is in charge with conducting a record vote? 

A. Yes. The Clerk. 

Mr. HULSHOF. Thank you. Nothing further. 

Mr. DAVIS. Ms. Herseth Sandlin, do you have any questions? 

Ms. HERSETH SANDLIN. I don’t have any questions. 

Mr. DAVIS. That concludes the proceedings. 

[Whereupon, at 7:45 p.m., the interview concluded.] 


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(537) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

THURSDAY, MAY 8, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF MAX SPITZER 

The interview in the above matter was held in Room 1017, Longworth House Office Building, commencing at 1:13 p.m. 

APPEARANCES 

Representative William D. Delahunt. 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., WASHINGTON, 

DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: ANDREW L. SNOWDON, ESQ., 

DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., WASHINGTON, DC 

20006 

Also Present: Hugh Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, Representative Delahunt; Chanelle Hardy, Counsel, Representative Davis. 

Mr. SPULAK. Max, thank you for coming back again. You will recall that you were with us once previously. We reviewed your testimony. We’ve interviewed other people and, as a result, have some 

follow-up questions. 

Mr. SPITZER. Okay. 

Mr. SPULAK. So Mr. Snowdon wants to start with some questions. Please do. 

Mr. SNOWDON. I want to reiterate what Tom said. Thank you. I 

realize this is not the most convenient, so we will try to be quick. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. This is a video of Roll Call 814. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. The circles are there simply to facilitate people identifying 

certain individuals who were involved in the events that night. 

A. Okay. 

Q. When was the last time—or have you ever seen the video of 

Roll Call 814? 

A. I think that the Parliamentarian’s Office had a copy at some 

point shortly after the vote. I guess it probably would have been 

in September that we saw it, because I left for the August recess 

the day after this vote. So that would have been probably the only 

time that I saw it. 


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Q. Okay. And do you see yourself in this video at this point? 

A. If I do, it would be somewhere over near the Parliamentarians 

or I guess the Sergeant at Arms’ desk. 

Q. Let the record reflect you are referring to the far left side of 

the screen? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. SPULAK. Andrew, if we can, we’re at 22:49:27:12 at the time 

when he identifies himself. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. Do you want to run this—let the record reflect—can 

you identify the people who are in the various colored circles? Do 

you know who those people are? 

A. It’s kind of hard to tell you. Do you mind if I move closer to 

the screen? 

Mr. SPULAK. When you do, if you will identify the color of the circle. 

Mr. SPITZER. Sure. Okay. It’s kind of hard to tell who these people are. Honestly. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Why don’t you roll it, and as you see this progress if you can 

identify those people, please let me know. 

A. In the red circle, that looks like Hoyer coming down. 

Q. That’s the majority leader? 

A. Yes. The blue, I can’t tell who that is. 

Q. Okay. Stop it there, stop it there. Okay. Back it up a little 

bit. Okay. Stop there. This is at 22:49:50. 

Do you see the intersection of the orange and the red circle? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Can you identify who those people are? I previously said that 

the red circle is Mr. Hoyer. Do you know who is in the orange circle? 

A. Honestly, I can’t tell from this. 

Q. Okay. If I represented to you that was Catlin O’Neill, does 

that help refresh your recollection as to who that might be? 

A. You know, there is always a lot of people in that area moving 

around. It could be Catlin. 

Mr. SPULAK. In any event, you don’t have any personal recollection of Catlin O’Neill being in proximity to Mr. Hoyer at 

22:49:50:07? 

Mr. SPITZER. I don’t. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Where would you have been at 22:49:50:07? Where would you 

have been? 

A. Probably standing somewhere in that area at the very far left. 

Q. Can you approximate how many feet you would have been 

from where those two red and orange circles intersect? 

A. Probably 6 feet. Something in that range. 

Mr. SPULAK. But you don’t have a recollection of having been 

there at that time? I believe you said if you were there, you would 

have been at this point 6 feet away; is that correct? 


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Mr. SPITZER. That’s correct. 

Mr. SPULAK. But again—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. We can solve that pretty quickly. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So did you hear any part of the conversation between Ms. 

O’Neill and Mr. Hoyer at that point? 

A. No. 

Mr. SPULAK. Can I interrupt, Andrew? He says he doesn’t recall 

them being together. So how can he recall a conversation? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Let’s run through the video a little bit, until we 

get to the point the camera angle shifts. 

Okay. Actually, pause it there. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Okay. Do you see that at 22:49:59 there appears to be a conversation between Ms. O’Neill in the orange circle and the Chair? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Being Mr. McNulty? Do you recall observing that conversation? 

A. I do not. 

Q. Okay. I think we’ll see from the video that when we get a little farther the camera angle changes and you’re going to be extremely close to where Ms. O’Neill is standing right now. Okay? Do 

you know why you wouldn’t have seen that conversation? Would 

there have been somebody blocking you from where she is standing? 

A. Probably not. I mean, there was a lot of stuff going around. 

If—I mean, I was there that night. I assume that probably at this 

point I’m standing somewhere in this vicinity. I was looking 

around, checking the boards, looking around the Chamber. I don’t 

have any specific recollection of seeing the conversation between 

Catlin O’Neill and anybody that night. 

Q. Would that have been unusual for Ms. O’Neill to have been 

having a conversation with the Chair? 

A. No. No. She is the floor person, and she has a lot of contact 

with the Chair. I think she schedules all of the Chair people, so I 

think she has a lot of contact with them. 

Mr. SPULAK. Let me say, for the record, you see them approximate to each other. We don’t know that they are having a conversation. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Can you see—rewind it. Keep going a little bit farther back 

until the conversation between Catlin and Mr. Hoyer breaks up. 

There, that’s fine. 

I’d like you to watch as Ms. O’Neill approaches towards the 

Chair. Based upon the hand gestures of the Chair and the actions 

of the Chair, does it appear to you as you watch this video that 

they are having conversation? 

A. That’s what it looks like to me. 

Q. Keep going until we get to the point where the angle of the 

camera changes. Stop it there. 


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Do you know who is in the green circle? 

A. Would you mind just playing a couple seconds of it? Looks 

vaguely like John Sullivan’s head. That would be my guess. Yeah, 

that looks like John Sullivan. 

Q. Do you recall seeing a conversation—or Mr. Sullivan, Ms. 

O’Neill and Mr. Hoyer being—do you recall—— 

Mr. SPULAK. Do you want to mark the time, Andrew? 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Sure. Go back a little bit here. At 22:50:03, Mr. Sullivan and 

Mr. Hoyer and Ms. O’Neill appear to be in close proximity on the 

rostrum. Do you remember seeing them in close proximity on the 

rostrum that night? 

A. I don’t recall. I remember Mr. Hoyer and John Sullivan having conversations. I don’t recall if Catlin O’Neill was part of that, 

but it appears that she was. 

Q. Do you recall that conversation? 

A. No. 

Q. Okay. Go ahead, Hugh. Can you pause it there? 

Do you see yourself on the video now? 

A. Yeah, right there. 

Q. Okay. And this is at 22:50:13. And let the record reflect that 

he’s pointing—how would you describe where you are? Are you 

standing or seated? 

A. Looks like I’m standing. I think—I can’t tell if I’m behind the 

Sergeant at Arms’ desk or directly in front of it, but in that vicinity. 

Q. Okay. Do you have any reason to believe that you had just 

walked up to where you are standing now at 22:50:13? Or had you 

been there for some period of time before this? 

A. I don’t recall when I got to the Chamber. 

Q. Okay. Can you point to where Mr. Lauer is? 

A. Right here. [Indicating.] 

Q. Okay. Go ahead, Hugh. Pause it there. 

There, at approximately 22:50:36–37, Mr. Hoyer walks up on the 

rostrum and has some words with John Sullivan. Did you hear 

what he said that evening? 

A. I don’t recall that evening. I just heard now. I think I heard 

him say, but I don’t recall that evening. 

Q. Do you recall seeing him that evening walk up to the rostrum 

and have an exchange with Mr. Sullivan? 

A. Yeah, I do remember them having an exchange. 

Q. What was the nature of the exchange? 

A. Basically, Hoyer was upset that the vote was going the way 

it was and was talking to John to close the vote. 

Mr. SPULAK. May I interrupt? 

You were just asked if you remembered the conversation. You 

said you didn’t. But then Mr. Snowdon asked you if you remembered the nature of the conversation and you just described it. So 

what is that based on? 

Mr. SPITZER. I don’t recall the specific words that were being 

used. I just heard something on this tape. I don’t specifically recall 

that, but I do remember a conversation between the two of them 

about closing the vote. 


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Mr. SPULAK. About closing the vote. Can you expound on that? 

What do you mean by ‘‘closing the vote’’? 

Mr. SPITZER. That Mr. Hoyer wanted the vote closed and John 

Sullivan explaining that they were processing the cards in the well, 

the tally clerks were. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. May I interrupt you for a moment? 

Who is the Member in the well—who is the individual in the well 

who would appear to be bending, looking down—correct. 

Mr. SPITZER. I honestly can’t say from this angle. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Can you back it up just a little bit? 

Mr. HALPERN. Yes, sir. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. That’s fine. We have the three—you can—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. Back it up to 22:50:29. Pause it. Does that help? 

Back it up a couple of frames. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Does that help show you who that is? 

A. No, I can’t tell who that is. 

Q. If I told you that that was Mr. Space, would that refresh your 

recollection? 

A. I—if that’s who you say it is, then that’s who it is, but I don’t 

recall. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Well, what you can say is, as you saw that 

clip—— 

Mr. SPITZER. Uh-huh. 

Mr. DELAHUNT [continuing]. That there were three Members that 

appeared to be voting? Is that an accurate statement? 

Mr. SPITZER. That’s what it looks like, yeah. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And that other individual would appear to have 

gone to the table to secure a card. And just a few more seconds. 

And he is now approaching the desk, and the other three Members 

are leaving. 

Mr. SPITZER. Uh-huh. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. And he would appear to be voting; is that an accurate—— 

Mr. SPITZER. Yeah, it looks like he went up to the table and got 

a card. 

Mr. SPULAK. Would you say that he was in the act of voting? 

Mr. SPITZER. Currently? 

Mr. SPULAK. Yes. 

Mr. SPITZER. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Can you tell from that picture how many well cards he has? 

A. I can’t. 

Q. Or what the nature of the well cards is? 

Mr. SPULAK. May I ask who is the ‘‘he’’ that has well cards, plural? 

Mr. SNOWDON. I’m asking if he can tell if the individual who Mr. 

Delahunt referred to in the well in the act of voting—— 


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BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Can you tell from that picture if he has one well card or more 

than one well card? 

A. I don’t know. 

Q. Let me represent to you Mr. Hoyer indicated to the Select 

Committee during an interview that he was upset and voiced his 

frustration to Mr. Sullivan at that point in time because he was 

under the impression that one of the Parliamentarians had instructed Mr. McNulty not to close the vote because there were still 

votes being processed. 

Given where you stand, did you ever observe Mr. Lauer give any 

such instruction to Mr. McNulty that evening? 

A. I don’t recall if he did or not. 

Mr. SPULAK. Do you recall if Mr. Sullivan did? 

Mr. SPITZER. My guess would be—— 

Mr. DELAHUNT. The question was ‘‘if you recall.’’ 

Mr. SPITZER. I don’t recall. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. We don’t want you guessing. 

Mr. SPITZER. I don’t recall specifically who had the conversation 

with Mr. McNulty about closing the vote. 

Mr. SPULAK. But you did say that your recollection just of the 

conversation between Mr. Hoyer and Mr. Sullivan was Mr. Sullivan saying that there was still well voting. I think that’s what 

you said. Can you be as precise as you can about that? 

Mr. SPITZER. From my recollection, Mr. Sullivan was telling Mr. 

Hoyer that Members had submitted ballot cards and it takes a little while for the tally clerks to enter them into the computer and 

that’s what was causing the delay. 

Mr. SPULAK. I think that’s different than what you said. If you 

want to read it back, I think you said there was still well voting. 

Is it possible that’s what you said? 

Mr. SPITZER. It’s possible. I use the term ‘‘well voting’’ to encompass the whole process of a Member getting a ballot card and giving it to the Clerk. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. What exactly do you remember? I’d like to hear sort of your 

exact recollection. 

Mr. SPITZER. May I sit down? 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Please. You said you didn’t, until you sat and listened to the 

video, recall Mr. Hoyer’s exact words. But that you—— 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. [continuing]. Did recall from that evening the general nature 

of the conversation that Mr. Hoyer was having with Mr. Sullivan. 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Can you tell us exactly what you remember them discussing? 

A. Mr. Hoyer wanted to close the vote, and he—Mr. Sullivan was 

explaining that there was still well votes that needed to be processed, and that’s what was causing the delay. That’s really the extent of my recollection of that. 


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Mr. SPULAK. Do you recall any response that Mr. Hoyer gave to 

Mr. Sullivan? 

Mr. SPITZER. No, I don’t. 

Mr. SPULAK. So you don’t remember him objecting to what Mr. 

Sullivan had said? 

Mr. SPITZER. Well, he was very agitated. I don’t recall whether 

he said, you know, any specific words. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. ‘‘He’’ being Mr. Hoyer? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Do you recall seeing any conversations at all directly between 

Mr. Lauer and Mr. McNulty? 

A. I don’t have any specific recollections. I know that Mr. Lauer 

was up there sort of coordinating things. There is always a Parliamentarian up there, so I would assume they would be having a 

conversation. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. But you don’t have any memory? 

Mr. SPITZER. I don’t have any recollection. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Did you ever give any instructions to Mr. McNulty not to close 

the vote because there were still votes being processed? 

A. No, I did not. 

Q. And we’ve watched sort of the relevant sequence of events on 

this tape. Did you see at any point on this tape Mr. Sullivan having such a conversation with Mr. McNulty? 

A. Did I see it on the tape? 

Q. Yes. 

A. I did not see it. 

Q. Do you recall Mr. Sullivan having any conversation from that 

evening? 

A. I seem to recall at one point that Mr. Sullivan talked to Mr. 

McNulty. 

Q. Prior to this? 

A. Yeah, my recollection. 

Q. Prior to this, Mr. Sullivan had a conversation? 

A. Prior to this moment? 

Q. Yes, sir. 

A. I can’t say at what point it was. At some point during that 

vote. 

Mr. SPULAK. So it’s possible that it could have been after 

22:50:42:12? 

Mr. SPITZER. After or before. 

Mr. SPULAK. I understand. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. You appear—well, let me ask it this way. About how far are 

you away from where Mr. Sullivan and Mr. Hoyer are having this 

conversation? 

A. Probably the same distance as earlier, 6 or 7 feet. 

Q. And can you estimate how far Mr. McNulty is from that conversation? 


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A. Probably about the same distance. There are a couple steps 

up on the rostrum, probably 4 or 5 feet from there. 

Q. Did you notice whether he was looking at them having this 

conversation? 

A. From the way it is frozen here it looks like he is looking in 

that direction. 

Mr. SPULAK. But do you have any recollection? 

Mr. SPITZER. I don’t have any recollection specifically. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Take it to tab 8. Pause it there. 

Now that’s when Mr. McNulty closes the vote? 

A. Uh-huh. 

Q. Do you recall any conversations immediately after this between Mr. Sullivan and Mr. McNulty where Mr. Sullivan told Mr. 

McNulty to hold the vote open, to keep the vote open? 

A. I don’t recall. 

Q. Do you recall any conversations at all at this point between 

Mr. Sullivan and Mr. McNulty? And, again, you appear to be about 

6 or 7 feet away from where Mr. Sullivan is standing on the rostrum. 

A. I don’t recall. 

Mr. SPULAK. May I ask, is that not the same question you asked? 

If it is different, you can explain. You asked him earlier, did Mr. 

Sullivan ever tell Mr. McNulty to keep the vote open? And he said, 

could have been at some point. And then you are asking them 

again, did he ask him to keep the vote open? 

Mr. SNOWDON. I’m talking—it’s different temporal time periods. 

The one question I asked before was, prior to that point in time, 

had there been a discussion between Mr. Lauer, Mr. Spitzer or Mr. 

Sullivan not to close the vote and to keep it open? 

Mr. SPULAK. Right. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Now I’m asking, has there been any conversation 

from this point forward? 

Mr. SPULAK. I understand. So maybe you are trying to figure out 

where it happened. But I believe his testimony was he thought it 

happened, but he didn’t know whether it happened before the previous reference point or after. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Correct. 

Mr. SPULAK. Now you are asking the question, the temporal. Are 

you trying to determine whether his recollection was at this point 

in time 22:51:32:07? Because I think he said there was one time 

when it happened. Is that correct, Max? 

Mr. SPITZER. Yeah, I seem to recall one instance where Mr. Sullivan was talking to Mr. McNulty. I’m not sure where in the process. 

Mr. SPULAK. Allow me to ask this. Do you know has it happened 

yet? Or if you don’t know, you don’t know. But has it happened 

yet? 

Mr. SPITZER. I don’t know. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. At this point, Mr. McNulty has closed the vote. And let the 

record reflect we are at roughly 22:51:30, because he’s already gavVerDate Aug 31 2005 02:55 Oct 01, 2008 Jkt 044365 PO 00000 Frm 00550 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6602 E:\HR\OC\A365.XXX A365

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eled it. So I’m going to go forward and show you a conversation between Mr. Sullivan and Mr. McNulty, and let us know if that’s the 

conversation you recall from that evening between Mr. Sullivan 

and Mr. McNulty or if there was another one. 

Mr. SPULAK. I’m sorry—can I—while you were there, I just wanted to ask—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. Sure. 

Mr. SPULAK [continuing]. If he knew who was in the red circle 

at the bottom of the screen. We can go back. 

Mr. SNOWDON. It’s all right. Put it on. I’m sorry. 

Mr. SPULAK. I will ask you, do you know who that is? 

Mr. SPITZER. In that circle, I do not. 

Mr. SPULAK. Do you recognize that individual as being a Member? 

Mr. SPITZER. I don’t honestly know. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Let me, if I may, run it back for a second. That 

female that is approaching the desk appears to be voting. 

Mr. SPULAK. In fact, Mr. Delahunt, run it back. Because before 

we see Mr. McNulty, we see her there as well. So stop it there at 

22:51:22:15. She’s at the table—may I represent that she’s at the 

table where you pick up well cards; is that correct? 

Mr. SPITZER. That looks like what she’s doing. 

Mr. SPULAK. I’m sorry. Go ahead. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Is it fair to say that she is then approaching— 

now if you will watch her, she appears to be approaching the desk 

and appears to be bending over and is handing something to Mr. 

Hanrahan. Do you see that? 

Mr. SPITZER. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Am I accurate in my description of what you 

saw, or what I see? 

Mr. SPITZER. Yes. 

Mr. DELAHUNT. Okay. Thank you. 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Stop it there. Mr. Sullivan appears to be writing something, 

and there may be some conversation between Mr. Sullivan and Mr. 

McNulty at 22:52:37, roughly. 

Is that the conversation that you recall Sullivan having with Mr. 

McNulty? 

A. I honestly can’t say. I know that they had a conversation at 

some point in these proceedings. Whether that is the specific one 

that I recall or not, I couldn’t tell you. 

Q. Do you recall Mr. Sullivan beginning to write something for 

Mr. McNulty? 

A. I don’t have a specific recollection of that. 

Mr. SNOWDON. That’s all I have. Thank you. 

Mr. SPULAK. Thank you. 

[Whereupon, at 1:37 p.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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(547) 

SELECT COMMITTEE TO INVESTIGATE THE 

VOTING IRREGULARITIES OF AUGUST 2, 

2007, U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

FRIDAY, MAY 9, 2008. 

Washington, DC. 

INTERVIEW OF ETHAN B. LAUER 

The interview in the above matter was held at 1017 Longworth 

House Office Building, commencing at 10:00 a.m. 

APPEARANCES 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MAJORITY: THOMAS J. SPULAK, ESQ., KING & 

SPALDING LLP, 1700 PENNSYLVANIA AVENUE, NW., WASHINGTON, 

DC 20006 

OUTSIDE COUNSEL, MINORITY: ANDREW L. SNOWDON, ESQ., 

DICKSTEIN SHAPIRO LLP, 1825 EYE STREET, NW., WASHINGTON, DC 

20006 

Also Present: Hugh Nathaniel Halpern, Republican Staff Director, Committee on Rules; and Davida Walsh, Legislative Counsel, 

Representative Delahunt. 

Mr. SPULAK. Ethan, thanks for coming today. Do you recall being 

here back in February, February 14th? 

Mr. LAUER. Yes. 

Mr. SPULAK. And so we just have a few follow-up questions to 

ask you about that, and Mr. Snowdon will begin to ask you those 

questions. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Mr. Lauer, thank you again for coming in here today. We do 

have a few follow-up questions after your last interview. You were 

the Parliamentarian on duty for Roll Call 814? 

A. Yes. 

Q. We asked you a series of questions in the first interview. I 

just want to try to clarify a little bit. And those questions pertained 

to whether you specifically—there’s a series of events. Mr. McNulty 

attempts to call the vote at 214–214 and stops. Do you recall that? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. There are two instances where he calls it at 214–214. 

The first one he does it, stops; the second one he actually banged 

the gavel and said the motion is not agreed to. Do you remember 

both of those instances? 

A. I remember they both happened, yes. 

Q. Do you remember approximately how far apart they were time 

wise? 


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A. No. I mean, I’ve seen it on the video, and it was some minute 

to 2 minutes maybe. It was in that range. 

Q. I want to focus now on the first one where he calls it and 

stops. Prior to that did you specifically say to Mr. McNulty anything to the effect of you need to stop this, you need to stop this 

call because there are still cards being processed or there’s still 

Members voting? 

A. I don’t think I did. 

Q. You don’t think you did or you didn’t? I mean how comfortable 

are you with that response? 

A. I don’t remember doing it, so I don’t think I did it. 

Q. Do you know, did you see Mr. Spitzer do that? 

A. No. 

Q. Did you see Mr. Spitzer have any communication at all with 

Mr. McNulty that evening? 

A. No. 

Q. And again, focusing now on the first call of the vote, do you 

know whether Mr. Sullivan did that? 

A. I don’t know off—I can’t say for sure. My back was to everybody else in our office. I was looking at the Tally Clerk and the 

Reading Clerk’s podium. So I’m not sure who—again, the video and 

the memory are mixing, but I know Mr. Sullivan does come up behind me. And I assume he was trying to stop Mr. McNulty because 

he saw the cards as well still being processed. 

Q. And that is particular to the first time, the first closing? 

A. Now I don’t know. I think probably the first one. 

Q. You’re reasonably certain, however, that you didn’t do anything in terms of saying something to Mr. McNulty about stopping? 

A. I think that was a shortcoming. 

Q. After when Mr. McNulty does close the vote, when he calls it 

the second time, when he calls it at 214–214, bangs the gavel and 

said the motion is not agreed to, at that point where were you 

standing physically, do you remember? 

A. In the same spot right next to the Speaker’s podium. 

Q. So you’re standing right there? 

A. Right. 

Q. Did you say anything to Mr. McNulty to the effect of this vote 

needs to stay open? 

A. No. 

Q. In your mind, at that point had the vote been closed? 

A. I don’t know. It’s hard to say. It didn’t happen the normal 

way. 

Q. Would you consider announcing the result and saying the motion is not agreed to be an unequivocal statement of result? 

A. It’s a gray area in the practice. I mean, the system was still 

open and operating and the Chair—yet the Chair had tried to take 

a snapshot of where things were at a given time. 

Q. But if the Chair intended to close the vote at that point, and 

I’ll represent to you that the Chair has indicated that he did intend 

to close the vote at that point, would you as a Parliamentarian 

have said that that was within his discretion to close the vote at 

that point? 

A. Well, yeah. I mean, he could have closed the vote at—you 

know at any point after 15 minutes, after the minimum time is up. 


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But properly, you know, by setting a time when no more input 

would take place. 

Q. After he closed the vote the second time to 214–214, banged 

the gavel, the motion is not agreed to, did Mr. Sullivan immediately have a conversation with him in which he told him that the 

vote needed to stay open? 

A. I don’t think so. 

Q. Would you have been—given where you were standing—I’m 

sorry, just let me finish the question so she doesn’t get angry at 

me. If you, being the Parliamentarian on duty that evening, and 

given where you were standing, if Mr. Sullivan had immediately 

come up to have a conversation with Mr. McNulty, would you have 

been privy to that conversation? 

A. I would have been right in the middle of it, yes. 

Q. And to your recollection he did not have a conversation with 

Mr. McNulty immediately after that? 

A. I think he did not. That’s my memory, that no one really said 

anything. Everyone was taken aback. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Tom, do you have anything? 

Mr. SPULAK. Yeah. 

EXAMINATION BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You were asked by Mr. Snowdon about the vote being closed 

the second time, and he represented that it was closed. You responded that it was a snapshot of. He tried to take a snapshot of 

what? Can you explain what the snapshot was, and how would you 

compare that to the closing of the vote, or at least the attempted 

closing of the vote? I mean, presumably if the vote was closed, it 

was closed, it wasn’t a snapshot. A snapshot, at least to me, infers 

that the process was ongoing. So can you explain what you meant 

by the snapshot? 

A. Well, when I think of closing, you know closing is where 

there’s a termination of any more input, and also the processing of 

anything that has come in before that termination point. And that’s 

why—I don’t think those steps ever happened either of the times 

that Mr. McNulty spoke. That’s why in my mind I don’t think of 

it as much as a closing as him announcing where things stood at 

a given point when he chose to act. 

Q. But am I correct in inferring that, you say where he was at 

a point. That point wasn’t the end in what you’re describing, is that 

correct? That there was a point, but there was time after that point 

where the vote was still open, is that correct? 

A. Well, it was such a unique circumstance. When you say open, 

I mean I think the clerical process of accepting and logging in votes 

was still going on, and yet the Chair had tried to cut things. Like 

I say, at one point in time tried to make that be the result. And 

it’s just an unfortunate circumstance. I don’t know what to call it, 

you know. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me ask you this. If the vote had not immediately, the 

board had not immediately upticked to 215–213 after Mr. McNulty 

had taken those actions, after he had banged the gavel, said 214– 


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214, the motion is not agreed to, would there have been any doubt 

in your mind that the vote was closed at that point? 

A. Yes. 

Q. There would have been a doubt? 

A. Yes, there would have been a doubt. 

Q. Why would there have been a doubt? The time has gone to 

zero, he is a presiding officer, has discretion to close a vote at any 

point after that. Why would there have been a doubt in your mind 

that that vote was closed? 

A. Well, I think there were still votes that had yet to be reflected 

on that question. 

Q. Well, if—the issue arose because one vote, the one that made 

it 215–213, Mr. Mario Diaz-Balart’s vote, was still in the process 

of, I guess technically it had been entered, but the electrons were 

still flying to get that result reflected on the board, okay. And that 

was the only vote really in play, still in play at the time that he 

gaveled it and said 214–214. If that hadn’t happened, if he had 

waited another split second and read 215–213, would that vote 

have been closed in your mind at that point? 

A. Well, not in the normal way that it’s done. 

Q. In what sense? 

A. With verification from the Clerk that the system is not taking 

any more votes and there are no more coming in. 

Q. The tally slip? 

A. Yes. And that the tally slip reflects what the system has captured as the final result. 

Q. I just have one last question. And that is, throughout the 

course of 814 you seem to be roughly in the same spot close to 

where the Chair is. And I think we talked in the first interview 

about at one point Mr. Hoyer comes up and has a rather heated 

exchange with Mr. Sullivan very near to where you’re standing, is 

that accurate? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Was there a, for lack of a better term, on the rostrum at that 

point in time, was there a palpable sense of pressure to close the 

vote in your opinion? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And that was coming from Mr. Hoyer? 

A. I would say he was a part, big part. 

Q. And who else was a part of that? 

A. I can’t pinpoint any specific person, I’m sorry. A lot of yelling. 

Mr. Hoyer was the person who was entering the rostrum area. So 

that’s why I associate him with conveying the pressure. 

Q. When we look at the video, and we’re not going to show it 

now, but I’ll represent to you that there is a conversation that appears to take place. This is before the first calling of the vote between Mr. Hoyer and Catlin O’Neill. And immediately thereafter 

Catlin O’Neill turns around and appears from the tape to have a 

conversation with Mr. McNulty. Did you see that exchange between 

Catlin O’Neill and Mr. McNulty? 

A. I don’t remember. Are you saying that was before, before Mr. 

McNulty said anything? 


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Q. That was before Mr. McNulty’s attempt to close the vote the 

first time where he pulls up short. Did you see the exchange between Ms. O’Neill and Mr. Hoyer? 

A. No. 

Q. Did you see the subsequent apparent exchange between Ms. 

O’Neill and Mr. McNulty? 

A. I mean, it must have been right there, but I don’t remember 

it happening. I don’t remember anything about it. 

Mr. SPULAK. I’ve got a few. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. You said that one of the reasons why the vote, in your opinion, couldn’t have been closed was because there was still—I’m 

reading your testimony from February—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. What page, Tom? 

Mr. SPULAK. Well, actually, I really want to refer to what he just 

said. He referenced it in several places. Well, let me just ask you 

here. You said that there was still, I believe you said there was 

still voting activity? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Are we talking about what he just said? 

Mr. SPULAK. Yes, what you just said. That there were still cards. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Do you remember that? We could read it back? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Okay. Look at page 13. And I think this is referring to your 

notes. My note at the end says there are two Members in the well 

with cards, plus two at the tally’s desk. And this is in relation to 

the fact that there was still activity. That’s what I’m asking. At the 

time that Mr. McNulty called it the second time. But you just said 

that one of the reasons why you didn’t think it was closed was because there was still—I don’t know what words you used, but do 

you understand what I’m saying? 

A. Yes. 

Q. So what did you think was going on, because you described 

two things. There are cards. Presumably you’re talking about voting cards that are in front of the seated Tally Clerk—— 

A. Yes. 

Q. [continuing]. When you say that there’s cards? And then two 

at the tally’s desk. What does that mean, at the tally’s desk? I 

mean these are your words? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Where are you, Tom? I’m sorry. 

Mr. SPULAK. In my transcript it’s on page 13. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I’m just trying to understand what you meant by that, two at 

the tally’s desk? Well, let me ask, did you mean that there were 

two Members in the well who were trying to vote? 

A. So I said the well and the desk were the two places I mentioned? 

Q. Well, that’s what you said. I can show it to you. 

A. By desk I mean the desktop where the seated Tally Clerk operates the computer terminal. 


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Q. Okay. Those were the two that were — 

A. I would call that the desk, the Tally Clerk’s desk. And the 

well would be the Members with the voting cards trying to hand 

them in. 

Q. Okay. So you recall—do you recall that? I mean these were 

your notes that you took shortly after the incident. But do you recall that today? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Well, let’s back up one second. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Were they your notes or were they Mr. Spitzer’s notes? 

A. We each took notes and then I combined them right after, that 

night, minutes after the end of the voting for that night. 

Q. Okay. 

A. So it was a combination. 

Q. It was a combination. So do you specifically remember what 

Mr. Spulak is telling you now was a component of your notes, or 

was it a component of Mr. Spitzer’s notes? 

A. I would say it was probably my notes because I had the better 

vantage point. 

Q. Okay. And just to be clear, are you talking about the first attempt to close the vote or the second attempt to close the vote? 

A. I don’t know. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Okay. All right. That’s fine. 

A. I don’t know. Probably the second. Because the first was 

just—well, came and went so quickly and didn’t seem to have the 

focus that the second one did, so probably the second one. 

Q. Back to the attempt of—back to the second call—back to the 

second time Mr. McNulty, I don’t want to say attempted uptick, but 

the second time it was called, again, you suggested this morning 

that it wasn’t actually closed at that point, and you offered some 

reasons. When you spoke with John Sullivan, he indicated that 

what appeared to be, and correct me if I’m wrong here, but he 

seemed to indicate that it was not an unequivocal statement because of the fact that the numbers were wrong, that although he 

may have, you know, said words that would otherwise appear to 

formally close the vote, the fact that the total was not, the total 

that was immediately reflected on the board meant that that was 

not an unequivocal statement and the fact that the vote was still 

open? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Tom, I’m going to disagree a little bit. He does 

say it’s an unequivocal statement of result. He then says, that said, 

that the vote couldn’t stand because of the uptick. But he does 

pretty clearly say that in his definition that was an unequivocal 

statement of result. 

Mr. SPULAK. Okay. I’ll accept that. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But do you have an opinion of that, do you have an opinion 

of why that couldn’t stand? 


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A. Well, the type of announcement couldn’t stand, I agree with 

that. 

Q. And why is that? 

A. Because it was a—it’s a snapshot of prior, of a time that had 

already come and gone. It wasn’t based on anything other than 

where the vote stood at a certain time. 

Q. Well, then let me ask, why could we not just say the vote was 

closed to further input and substitute the 215–213 number that 

was immediately reflected on the board in place of the 214–214? So 

under that situation the vote would have been closed, but the motion would have prevailed. Why could that not have been the result, in your opinion? 

A. That’s a tough question. I thought about that. I don’t know 

if I have a real good answer why not other than the—you know, 

the mistake, mistake, I’m going to say it was a mistake, for the 

Chair to try to close it in such an opportunistic way at a time 

when—I mean, speculating that it was the result the Chair wanted, then just, it just put it in, put everything in such a strange spot 

that—I mean, just like taking the 215–213. It would still just be 

picking a time when to stop, when to stop taking any further input, 

as opposed to trying to take all the input that you know that is out 

there and then getting a result. 

Q. Without sort of qualifying him as an expert we’ll just assume 

that he has experience in the Chair, or assisting the Chair. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Assisting the Chair. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. So you said that there’s an opportunistic moment to close the 

vote. Isn’t that, in your professional experience, isn’t that part of 

the general process of presiding officers to close votes at opportunistic moments? I mean is there any—well, let me change that impression to say, is there anything in and of itself incorrect about 

closing a vote at an opportunistic moment, assuming that everyone 

has voted, or assuming—well, strike that, I’m sorry. Is there anything in and of itself wrong about closing a vote at an opportunistic 

moment; that is, when the majority has prevailed? 

A. I would say yes. 

Q. That it is wrong to close a vote at an opportunistic moment? 

A. Well, it’s wrong to try to preclude input on an opportunistic 

basis. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. In your opinion is that what happened on 814? 

A. Well, I don’t want to speak for his motive, but that’s certainly 

possible. 

Q. Well, you mentioned that you didn’t want to speculate that 

the tie vote was the result the Chair wanted. Is there any doubt 

in your mind that the tie vote was the result that Mr. Hoyer wanted? 

A. No. 

Q. And did he make it very clear to everybody on the rostrum 

that that’s the result he wanted? 

A. I don’t think he used those words. 


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Q. That wasn’t my question. Did he make it very clear, by either 

his words or his demeanor, that that was the result he wanted, in 

whatever words he used? 

A. I think it was his intent that the vote fail. If it was possible 

for the vote to fail, obviously that is what he would desire. 

Q. And he made that expressly clear? 

A. I mean he—I assume that would line up with closing a vote 

when that was the pending outcome. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. If I may, I think what you’re saying, and please tell me, is 

that he didn’t say he wanted to win, but he wanted the vote to 

close at a particular time, and it’s your opinion that by closing it 

at that particular time his goal of seeing the motion not prevail 

would have been achieved? 

A. I think that was understood. 

Q. I understand. But let me go back and ask this on this opportunistic concept. If Mr. Hoyer had—well, we just said that he wanted, you believe he wanted the motion to fail. If Mr. Hoyer had 

asked, had suggested, or had asked the Chair to close the vote at 

a time when there were no Members in the well voting and where 

the Chair had made the announcement to the body that—you 

know, alerting the Members to the fact that he was asking does 

anyone want to change their vote, sort of going through the normal 

procedure of wrapping up a vote. There was no one in the well, 

more than 15 minutes had expired and Mr. Hoyer states to the 

Chair, close the vote. Would you concede that that was opportunistic in your definition of the word? 

A. No, I don’t think so. 

Q. Well, how would you describe that? Well, let me ask this. 

Would that have been wrong? Do you believe there would have 

been anything wrong with asking the Chair to close the vote at a 

time when 15 minutes had expired and there was no one else who 

appeared to want to vote or to change their vote? 

A. That act by the Chair of closing the vote at that time sounds 

like normalcy. That sounds like that’s how it’s always done. 

Q. Yes. So you wouldn’t attach, or would you attach any sort of 

negativity, if you will, to a majority leader who was telling the 

Chair to close it at that point? 

A. Well, yeah, it would be better for him not to be involved in 

that process, but just to let the Chair do it in the normal fashion. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Why is that? 

A. Because it interferes with the normal operation. 

Q. Because the majority leader, given his position within the majority party, necessarily has substantial influence over the Chair, 

who is also a Member of that party, would you agree with that? 

A. Well, sure. Just think. Anybody—the more people you have 

trying to help the Chair do the job, just it never helps. 

Q. And would you agree that the majority leader is not anybody? 

A. Sure. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Let me follow up with this. But what would be wrong if there 

would be, and correct me if I’m wrong, you said that it would be 

normal process, and presumably, and if I may, normal meaning it 

would be appropriate, to close a vote at a time when there did not 

appear to be anyone who wanted to vote or to change their vote. 

Do you agree with that, that that would not only be normal, but 

that that would be appropriate? 

A. Barring some bizarre subway or elevator problem that was 

keeping people, or some meeting that everybody knew, we were 

waiting for a committee or something, yeah, that would be, that 

sounds like the normal vote. 

Q. So I’ll ask again. Then what would be wrong about someone 

encouraging the Chair to do what is not only normal, but correct? 

A. Well, just in my vantage point there is no need for that. It 

looks like you’re trying to—it just feels to me like then you’re trying to not just let the vote resolve under the regular process, but 

there’s an attempt—you know, I ask myself why does there need 

to be any more instruction or any more help on resolving this vote. 

It just seems funny to me. I don’t know if there’s anything wrong 

with it. 

Q. Well, finally in this area, have you seen instances where the 

Chair is encouraged to close a vote at a particular time during a 

vote? 

A. Yes. 

Q. Is that rare, is that somewhat common, is it very common? 

Can you sort of describe how often you see this? 

A. You see it. You see people, Members and staff, out on the 

floor, signals and gestures, desires to close. I mean obviously it’s 

usually associated with bigger type votes, not the every day kind 

of vote. But you know there’s always been that kind of behavior. 

Q. So in your professional opinion, then you would think—I mean 

do you think that all of that should be prohibited? 

A. I don’t think any of it is helpful to the Chair. 

Q. Do you think there should be—one of the things that we’re 

tasked with doing is to make recommendations. Do you think a recommendation should be that there should be no communication 

from the Members to the Chair regarding the timing of the closing 

of a vote? 

A. Potentially it seems it would be tricky, because obviously, you 

know, the guys who just want to get on the plane or just general 

shouting. But there’s got to be some—I don’t know, I would have 

to look at that to see whether that’s feasible. I think that could be 

a good policy. Understand, I’m coming at this from a rule standpoint, how workable this could be as a rule. But obviously definitely as a general policy amongst the voting whipping regimes on 

each side that they not try to influence what the Chair is doing. 

I think that—I don’t see that as being—that’s probably a good 

thing. 

Q. All right. Just one last question. Mr. Snowdon asked you if 

anyone—well, if either yourself or Mr. Sullivan had a conversation 

with Mr. McNulty immediately after his call the second time, and 

you said no, is that correct? 


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A. [Nonverbal response.] 

Mr. SNOWDON. You need to answer audibly. 

Mr. LAUER. Yeah. I’m trying to recall whether Mr. Sullivan or I 

had a conversation with the Chair immediately after. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Immediately after. 

A. I don’t remember saying anything right after it happened. I 

don’t remember anybody saying anything to the Chair either. 

Q. Do you remember if there was any conversation at some time 

after the vote was called, and at any time after the vote was called? 

A. Yes. 

Q. And do you have any idea what that conversation consisted 

of? 

A. No. I know Mr. Sullivan began to write, as he always does, 

he wants to write something for the Chair, get something on paper, 

to figure out where we were. And I don’t know what—I don’t remember what he was saying, if anything, to the Chair. But he was 

writing, you know, on the rostrum right next to the Chair. I don’t 

know what he said. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. So is your recollection that the first conversation between Mr. 

Sullivan and the Chair after the Chair called the vote the second 

time would have been when Mr. Sullivan started to write out the 

script for the Chair? 

A. That sounds right. 

Mr. SNOWDON. Do you have any more, Tom? 

Mr. SPULAK. Yes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Mr. Sullivan said that what he wrote out was, you know, both 

an explanation and the functional equivalent of a tally slip. From 

what you know, what the statement that the Chair read, does that 

describe what the Chair read from your recollection? 

A. I know that’s what he was trying to do. I think, again, another 

shortcoming of mine, was again there was yet, I think, Mr. 

Boehner’s vote was not reflected on what Mr. Sullivan had written. 

So, again, we had an outdated—it had become outdated already by 

that time. I think at the time he prepared it, that’s what he, Mr. 

Sullivan, believed he was doing, and that’s what it would have represented. But we were not—I was not vigilant to update it as more 

votes came in. So I think ultimately it probably failed as well on 

that regard. 

Q. Again, Mr. Sullivan called this the functional equivalent of a 

tally slip. Would you agree that that’s what it was? Was it the 

functional equivalent of a tally slip, notwithstanding Mr. Boehner’s 

card? 

A. At the time it was prepared—yeah, I guess I would want to 

check whether the electronics—I assume the electronic system was 

closed, the electronic voting stations. They must have been already 

closed such that, you know that assures the Clerk when they prepare the slip that the number won’t change unless the Tally Clerk 


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operating the terminal makes the change to verify that the number 

is static. So assuming that was the case, then, yes, that was what 

that document was meant to represent. 

Q. Would it matter to you that Mr. Sullivan prepared that or 

that a standing Tally Clerk prepared it? Assuming that the information was accurate, would it matter to you that it was prepared 

by the Parliamentarian as opposed to the Clerk, would it still be 

a tally slip? 

A. Well, obviously the part—the statement for the Chair you 

know would not be something the Tally Clerk would want to prepare. 

Q. I’m not talking about the statement part, I’m talking about 

the vote number. 

A. And the question is whether it mattered who wrote it? 

Q. Yes, that’s the question. 

A. Well, it’s such a, we hope, once in a lifetime event. But I guess 

ideally what we could have done was write the words to the Chair 

with blanks and then verified or let the Tally Clerk fill in the numbers, I suppose would be the most regular order we could get out 

of that scenario. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. And in fact, the reason that the Tally Clerks are the ones that 

prepare the tally slip is because they’re the ones that control the 

electronic voting system, and they know for certain when that system is closed to further input, isn’t that right? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I’m sorry, but to that point I’m asking specifically at this point 

in time, if Mr. Sullivan was preparing that slip, and he said that 

at the time he prepared it, that it was going to be the functional 

equivalent of a tally slip. If you don’t know, you don’t know, but 

I’m just asking this question theoretically, by him—would he not 

have checked with the seated Tally Clerk to get the number that 

was available at that time to put on the slip? Would you assume 

that that’s what happened? 

A. Yes. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Do you know that’s what happened? 

A. No. 

Q. Prior to August 2nd or in Roll Call 814, have you ever seen 

or heard of the Parliamentarians preparing the tally slip? 

A. No. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But let me follow it up. Assuming that Mr. Sullivan 

checked—— 

Mr. SNOWDON. I mean, I think he’s already said, Tom, he doesn’t 

know whether he checked or not. 

Mr. SPULAK. I know. I understand that. 


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BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I’m just asking you, assuming that he had asked the Tally 

Clerk what is the number, and the Tally Clerk gave him the number and he wrote that on the piece of paper, would it matter that 

the Parliamentarian prepared it versus the Clerk? Is there anything sort of unique or special or required that the Tally Clerk prepare the slip? I’m not saying under normal circumstances. In order 

to provide the quality control that we understand the tally slip to 

represent, for those purposes would it matter who wrote the numbers down on the piece of paper? 

A. It’s just the way that it’s always done. It’s such a part of the 

process, I’m sure, I assume, you know, in retrospect—I mean, 

would Mr. Sullivan have rather done it just leaving blanks, getting 

those numbers directly from the Tally Clerks themselves and then 

write it on there? I assume that would have been the most ideal, 

the most normal thing to do in an unusual circumstance. It’s just 

such an odd—I can’t envision another area where anyone other 

than the Tally Clerk would have ownership of the slip. 

Q. All right. One last question. Based on what you know, would 

you say that there wasn’t—this was on the third call, this was on 

the final call—would you say that there was no tally slip, that 

there was never a tally slip provided to the Chair on Roll Call 814? 

A. Yeah, there was no—not the usual slip that is produced by the 

Tally Clerks. 

Q. But that’s not my question. Would you say that considering 

the circumstances, would you say there was no tally slip? 

A. Well, in the way that we know what a tally slip is, no, there 

was not that tally slip. Is that what you’re asking? 

Q. I’m asking if there was, in your opinion, and if that’s your 

opinion, that’s fine, I’m asking for what a tally slip represents, 

would you say there was no tally slip provided? 

A. I would say there was none. 

Q. There was none? 

A. None. 

Q. Thank you. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. I have one last one. I promise. 

Mr. Spulak asked you a while back about essentially imputing 

the uptick number on the board to the Chair’s announcement, and 

you had some uncertainty about whether that would have been a 

viable alternative, a viable action from a procedural standpoint. Let 

me ask you another hypothetical, similar vein. If the Chair had 

simply said after he looked up and saw the uptick at 215–213, I 

made a mistake, the true number is 215–213, the motion is not 

agreed to and banged the gavel, in your opinion would that have 

been a valid result procedurally as well as substantively? 

A. This is where my memory is bad, but I thought if there were 

still voting cards that had been turned in, but had not yet been, 

you know, electronically entered, I would still think that would not 

be the right result. 

Q. Well, the Chair doesn’t have to accept those cards, does he? 

The Chair is not under an obligation to accept—I mean, the Chair 


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can make a determination after the time has expired that this is 

going to be the time where we’re cutting it off. Isn’t that within the 

discretion of the Chair? 

A. Okay. Well, I mean, maybe we’re talking about two different 

things. I mean, there’s Members who are holding cards that are 

trying to cast their vote in that fashion. I mean there technically—— 

Q. And do you know whether that was going on at the time the 

Chair called the vote the second time? 

A. I thought—yes, I thought there were at least—I think there 

were two Members—— 

Q. Who was that? 

A. [continuing]. Who were in the well. I don’t know if I—I might 

only remember it from the tape. I don’t know if I remember it from 

then. 

Q. I mean, there were plenty of Members in the well. Do you 

know if there were Members in the well specifically with the intention of voting? Mr. Clyburn I believe is in the well. Mr. Lampson, 

who has already entered a well change card and had it recorded, 

is hanging out having a conversation with somebody in the well. 

So do you remember if there were Members in the well with the 

intention of voting? 

A. I don’t know if I can say that for sure. I don’t remember that. 

Q. Okay. Let’s go back to the original question. That is, if Mr. 

McNulty had determined that he was going to cut off voting at a 

certain point in his mind and that vote upticks, the final vote, the 

one he determines is the last vote to be recorded, that upticks to 

215–213 and he says, I made a mistake, I announced it at 214–214, 

the real result is 215–213, the motion is not agreed to and hits the 

gavel, would that in your mind have been procedurally and substantively a closed final vote? 

A. Not if Members had already turned in cards that simply had 

not yet been electronically processed. I think that would be wrong 

to exclude those, to try to draw the distinction between—— 

Q. A Member who has filled out a card but not yet turned it in 

and a Member who has actually turned in a card, is that the distinction? 

A. Yes, I think so. Technically I think you’re right. Under the 

black letter of the rule the Chair does not have to take those well 

cards. But the Speaker’s opening day policies for many, many Congresses have been that the occupants of the Chair are going to be 

expected to take—not exclude people who are in the well trying to 

vote. And we’ve seen instances where that’s caused huge problems, 

where that has happened and the Chair has had to apologize the 

next day and so forth. That’s more of a ‘‘should.’’ The Speaker is 

not supposed to exclude those versus technically can they be excluded versus I think the cards that are actually already, have already been turned in. In my opinion, I would like to say those are 

part of that vote total, they just have not yet been reflected electronically. I would think that would be the best way to view it. 

Q. Well, going back to the original question, if Mr. McNulty had 

determined where that stopping point was going to be in his mind 

and he announces 214–214, then sees the uptick, if he had said, I 

made a mistake, the real result is 215–213, the motion is not 


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agreed to, hit the gavel before anybody else had turned in a card, 

would that have been a valid final vote? 

A. Yeah, if there were no more cards in the Tally Clerk’s possession. 

Q. Had been turned into the Tally Clerks? 

A. If everything had been entered and there were none in their 

possession, then, yeah, I think the Chair could have said he was 

mistaken because of the delay and so forth, and that the final vote 

was actually the other way, sure. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. I have just one thing. You said in your previous testimony— 

at one point today you also said, although I think you may have 

contradicted yourself, but you did say that there were two Members in the well, or at the desk I believe you said? 

A. Okay. 

Q. Isn’t that what you said? 

Mr. SNOWDON. Well, what did you say? What do you recall? And 

if you want to give me a page. 

Mr. SPULAK. Well, it’s the same reference. It’s on page 8. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. And again, as I’m looking for this, the point is, and I’m not 

asking you to be certain, I’m just asking, is it possible that there 

were Members in the well who at the same time it was called, 

there were cards on the desk that you just talked about being entered, but also that there were Members in the well who were— 

where is that? Well, let’s go back to this note that you said that 

you prepared. My note at the end says—and this is on my page 13, 

Andrew, February 14, 2008. My note at the end says there are two 

Members in the well with cards plus two at the tally’s desk. And 

so I’m not holding you to that statement. I’m just asking, is it possible that in addition to the cards that you saw on the desk there 

were Members in the well who may have wanted to vote at that 

time? 

A. Right. I mean, that’s what I said I had written down. 

Q. Is that what you believe today? 

A. Yeah. I think there were—I think that was my impression, 

was that there were—two jumps out of my mind as the number 

that had cards, that were holding cards, trying to figure out, I don’t 

know if they were filling them out. I think there were two. What 

I wrote down is probably more accurate than my memory, so I hope 

that that’s right. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. Let me ask you one more hypothetical. Obviously the Chair 

doesn’t want to disenfranchise anybody, any Chair, I mean that’s 

really not what they do. But if a Member has filled out a well card 

and has held on to it for an extended period of time, okay. They 

don’t know what they’re going to do, they’ve held on to it for a 

minute or 2 minutes and milled about in the well. Do you think 

that it would be reasonable for the Chair to look at that Member 

and assume that if they wanted to vote, wanted to enter that 


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change card already, they would have done so at that point and 

gone ahead and closed it? Otherwise the vote could stay open virtually indefinitely if a Member has a card and is just standing 

around in the well. Would you agree with that? 

A. I’m sorry, your question was? 

Q. It was a very inarticulate question. If a Member picks up a 

well card, fills it out but holds on to it for an extended period of 

time, a matter of a minute or 2 minutes, would you think that it 

would be reasonable for a Chair to see that, assume that if the 

Member wanted to vote, wanted to enter that card, they would 

have done so already and gone ahead and decided to close the vote 

if they felt that it was appropriate to do so? 

A. Well, I think in those kind of cases a lot of times we’ll have 

some intelligence on what’s happening. The Tally Clerk will ask or 

will check, has that person voted, because they might be there 

waiting for the next vote to start. But you’re assuming—— 

Q. A person voted, this is a change. 

A—the person has—or it is a change. And we assume we don’t 

know anything from the Member, we haven’t asked them is this for 

this vote or the next vote and they say it’s for this vote or we don’t 

know anything? A lot of times what happens is we know what that 

Member is doing, whether it’s the current vote or not. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. Because I mean it’s possible that without that information the 

Chair wouldn’t know whether that was an initial vote or a change, 

isn’t that correct? 

A. Right. 

BY MR. SNOWDON

Q. The Chair could see up on the board, can’t they, that that person has already voted? 

A. No. It’s behind the Chair. But they could ask the Tally Clerk 

to check. 

BY MR. SPULAK

Q. But you’re saying that often you rely on information in order 

to help you understand what’s going on? 

A. Yes. 

Mr. SPULAK. Is that it? Thank you very much. We’re off. 

[Whereupon, at 11:05 a.m., the interview was concluded.] 


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