Date: 2000-10-31
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. there has been a great plea for bipartisan behavior on behalf of the Republicans and Democrats. Yet as we see the Congress respond where we have a bipartisan agreement on a Patients Bill of Rights. to control the HMOs. to guarantee people the health care they need. on the minimum wage to make sure the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of Americans who are working at that wage will have the ability to provide for their family. on campaign finance reform. on common sense gun safety provisions. and now on workplace safety. each and every time we achieve that bipartisan agreement. we have the Republican leadership coming in and blowing up those agreements. They come in the back door. they come in the middle of the night. they come after everybody has left and they blow up these agreements. They find some way to kill it even though a bipartisan majority in the House and Senate support these measures. They blow them up. They are our legislative terrorists. They do not play by the rules. They do not accept the will of the majority. They do not accept bipartisan agreements. They do not accept written agreements that have been entered into the record. They do not accept any of that. Because they are terrorists. They are legislative terrorists. They have made a decision. It will be their way or no way. They could have chosen to side with the American public and protect the workers. the 1.500 workers a day that are disabled because of injuries. because of repetitive motion. workers who will not be able to pick up their children at the end of the day. workers who will lose their earning capacity to provide for their families. whether or not Halloween is as nice as it could have been or whether Christmas will be as nice or whether or not they will be able to buy school supplies for their children because their -hours have been diminished because of that kind of injury. And each and every time we have reached an agreement to protect these workers in the workplace. they come in in the middle of the night and blow those agreements up. They disenfranchise Members of the House. they disenfranchise their own committee chairmen. they disenfranchise their committee members. because they apparently have the right. the supreme right to overrule any decision. any agreement that is democratically arrived at in the House or in the Senate. The time has come for the American people to understand that these Republicans leaders could have chosen to stand with .Americans against the HMOs so they could get health care. to stand with low wage earners so they could provide for their families. to stand with those workers who are threatened by this illness every day. Every day 1.500 workers. They could have stood with the public interest in campaign finance reform. But when they had a chance to choose. each and every time the Republican leadership has chosen the narrowest of special interests. the narrowest of special interests against that of the public interest of American workers. American families. and American children. This is a sad day for this Congress. It is a sad day for the legislative process. But I guess it is a healthy day for Republican legislative terrorists.