Date: 2008-09-26
Speaker: LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART (republican)
Chamber: H
State: Florida

Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank my good friend. Mr. WELCH. the gentleman from Vermont. for the time. and I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker. this rule. which is a framework under which legislation is brought to the floor. if passed. will allow the House to consider legislation under suspension of the rules until Sunday. Suspension of the rules is a procedure by which the House of Representatives generally acts to approve legislation promptly. Legislation considered under suspension of the rules is usually noncontroversial. It usually has bipartisan support. by virtue of the fact that in order for bills to pass under that procedure known as suspension of the rules bills have to pass with at least twothirds of the votes of the House. Yesterday I came to the. floor to manage for the minority a similar rule. I did not ask for a vote in opposition regarding that rule yesterday. But today I must rise and oppose this rule. because unlike yesterdays rule. todays rule does not specify which bills the House of Representatives will consider. Instead. this rule. this framework that we are going to vote on now. in a few minutes. this rule provides blanket or blind authority to the majority. Now. yesterday we received a list of 44 bills that the House was being authorized to consider. But today we received nothing. just a request in effect for absolute power to bring legislation to the floor. So this will allow the majority to bring legislation to the floor that most Members havent even heard about. much less read. not to mention that we will have absolutely no chance to amend any of the bills. According to a senior member of the majority on the Rules Committee. such a procedure is "outside the normal parameters of the way the House should conduct its business. It effectively curtails our rights and responsibilities as serious legislators." Mr. Speaker. I believe it is quite unfortunate that the majority has opted to pursue this path. In reality. this is the sixth time that the majority is bringing forth a rule like this during this Congress. I know the majority will claim that is the same number. the same amount of times that the 109th Congress used this procedure. but I would remind our friends on the other side of the aisle that in every other record for limiting debate in the House. they have far exceeded the 109th Congress. and that is so even though on the opening day of the 110th Congress the distinguished chairwoman of the Rules Committee. Ms. SLAUGHTER. came to the floor and said that the new majority would "begin to return this Chamber to its rightful place as the home of democracy and deliberation in our great Nation." So. let us take a look at their recordbreaking performance. Mr. Speaker. First let us begin with closed rules. There can be few. if any. parliamentary procedures that are more offensive to the spirit of representative democracy than the closed rule. Those rules. closed rules. block Members from both sides of the aisle from offering amendments to legislation. no matter their party affiliation. When the House of Representatives is operating under a closed rule. all Members are shut out from the legislative process on the floor. Even though the majority promised a more open Congress. they silenced the voice of every Member and. of all the constituents of every Member a record 64 times. Mr. Speaker. Sixtyfour times. No other Congress in the history of the Republic has ever brought forth so many closed rules. No other Congress in the history of the Republic has brought forth 64 pieces of legislation during one Congress under the parliamentary procedure known as the closed rule. that shuts out all amendments. all possibility of Members. from both sides of the aisle from introducing amendments. The consistent use of closed rules by the majority is most unfortunate. It is really. I believe. quite offensive to the democratic spirit. and really obviously a contradiction with regard to the promises made by the majority They have also systematically bypassed the conference process. the process by which the House and Senate reconciles differences on legislation before voting on a final version. an identical. final version of legislation before sending it to the President. They have systematically bypassed this conference process. effectively shutting out the minority from having a say on legislation that makes its way to the Presidents desk. They also have used a technique known as pingpong 14 times to subvert the rights of the minority to offer motions to recommit and amendments. Now. in comparison. in the 108th and 109th Congresses combined. that technique. pingpong. that the majority has used 14 times during this Congress. that technique was used a total of three times in the prior two Congresses. So. again. the tendency can be seen time and time again. in contradiction. direct contradiction to the promises to go in the other direction. to go in the direction of transparency and fairness and openness. So with pingpong we also see the tendency of the majority not fail. E 1215 They also considered 45 bills outside the regular order. They blocked minority substitute amendments. allowing only 10 minority substitute amendments. again. even though they promised a procedure that. "grants the minority the right to offer its alternatives. including a substitute." Again. the majority contradicted its- own promise. directly. directly contradicted its own promise again. Now. these records that I have -alluded to. do not etch them in stone yet. We still have a few- days left in the 110th Congress. I would bet that the majority will break their own records yet again and. once again. their promises for a fair and open Congress. Mr. Speaker. I reserve the balance of my time.