Roy Blunt

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend for that response. I would ask further, if there are additions like that, which the obvious place to determine the merits of those additions is the House floor, will there be the opportunity for amendments and the ideas of other Members to be advanced?

Mr. BLUNT. I yield.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank the gentleman for his response. In that regard, normally when we have had a closed rule on a continuing resolution, it has been a continuing resolution that did not include much or normally nothing in new policy, and we will have to watch these circumstances and hope that if there is a significant policy addition or significant financial addition, there is the normal process that goes on with appropriations bills to have a debate and a discussion about that. We are hopeful that whatever this bill is, it is as narrow as it can be and also that we get it out of the way as quickly as we can so that we can get on with the appropriations work for the next year. I understand the challenge this creates for the appropriators, but the more we try to do the 2008 work in the 2007 bill, the harder that is, I think, to move that bill along quickly as well. Let me ask one other question.

Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate my good friend's comments in that regard too. As my friend knows, I argued and he argued and others did in November and into December that it would be so much better for this Congress if we could have worked with the other body and get these bills done last year. I regret that we didn't. I wanted to. I wanted to at least get some of them done. I think all of our colleagues on this side were on that side of the debate, or virtually all of us, and now we are faced with this work. One other topic I would like to bring up today, because we didn't get to discuss it during the privileged motion, but I know my good friend from Maryland cares about the House, cares about the procedures of the House. The topic that was raised earlier by the minority leader of an amendment submitted to the Rules Committee and then the Member who submitted it asked that it be withdrawn before the meeting; there may have been a similar occasion in the past, we can't find one in our research. I am hoping that was the fits-and-starts of a new Congress, rather than a new standard. Occasionally Members, and your Members did it often during the last Congress, submit an amendment, realize as the debate develops and the discussion goes on that that is not an amendment that is in their best interests, or anybody else's, to be offered, and then request it be withdrawn. I think we honored on every occasion, I believe, and if we did not, that is beside the point, my belief is on every occasion, if a Member wanted to withdraw an amendment, we allowed that Member to do that. I hope that will be the process from now on in this Congress as well. I would be pleased to have your reassurance that we are headed in that direction. I yield to the gentleman.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank you for that response. I would hope that would be the case. It has happened frequently. The gentleman has made no suggestion that this is unique or no one has ever thought about this before. It has happened frequently. When it has happened in the past, generally submitted by Members on your side to a Rules Committee at that time controlled by our side, when the Member said, wait a minute, I've changed my mind, that was always honored, with no sense of no, wait a minute; you put the piece of paper down, you now have to stick with it, even though we haven't acted yet.

Mr. BLUNT. Well, I appreciate my friend's comments. We look forward to that happening. I think we all will benefit from more debate, more discussion. That has always been the desire here, and often the minority doesn't feel like they get quite their opportunity to do that, but we hope that we have an opportunity to do that and look forward to moving to a process to where all the Members are involved, the new Members. Some of these issues, I will admit, that we have dealt with in the last 2 weeks, in fact in the last Congress, the Congress I was in the majority in, passed bills highly similar. But the 60 new Members didn't get to participate in committee. But that is behind us. I am prepared to look forward. I hope that we have those opportunities. We will look carefully at the character of the CR and hope that it is as minimal in its changes as possible and that all the members of the Appropriations Committee are part of that discussion.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the majority leader, Mr. Hoyer, for the purpose of inquiring about next week's schedule.

Mr. BLUNT. Reclaiming my time on that, in the committees my understanding is if the Delegates in the committees, if their vote is the vote that makes the difference in committee work, that vote does not have to be taken again. There is a fundamental difference clearly, the Constitution and the courts believe, in what happens on the House floor and what both majorities have decided happens in committee. I also think there is no analogous situation in terms of the number of people represented. Generally, the single district States now are close to or bigger than. The individual from Montana represents more people than anybody else on the House floor. There is no 160,000-vote in any State. My good friend from American Samoa, we have been friends for over two decades now. We have found many times to work together, and this certainly in no way reflects on my true fondness or long friendship with him. I would be glad for you to make a comment, and if you want to make a comment about the fact that American Samoa was excluded from the minimum wage increase, another issue that we are concerned about, we would like to be consistent in at least that regard in how we treat these Delegate representatives and the people they represent. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from American Samoa.

Mr. BLUNT. I have great affection for my friend, and have had for a long time. This is not meant to reflect on him or the people he represents in any way. By the way, there are about 60,000 people on American Samoa that my friend represents, as opposed to 600,000 that others represent. I will let you respond to the number if you want to.

Mr. BLUNT. I am sure we will, and I thank my good friend for that point. I would just point out for the purpose of this discussion, Alaska, which the majority leader wondered about the population there, has 626,000 people. Wyoming has about 420,000-some people. In terms of the decision to have the relationship with the Territories, that was not made anticipating that the Territories would be represented as States are represented. That is the plain and simple truth of it. If it had been, there probably would have been a different thought about how you treat both Puerto Rico and American Samoa. This is a debate that I am sure a dozen years ago was widely discussed as a debate that should be had as a constitutional debate. If your vote in the Committee of the Whole is going to matter, it shouldn't be reversible by a vote by the body that doesn't include those five representatives. We have Wednesday to discuss this, and I am sure that we will. I am glad to get the notification, although I think on an issue like this that clearly was a huge issue a dozen years ago, that notification on the floor is a little later than I would have hoped for. The other issue on the schedule, I appreciate the leader trying his best to accommodate the retreat that our Members will have next week. And of course there will be a reciprocal accommodation for the retreat you have the next week. Having scheduled the floor for some period of time, as the majority leader for a while and as the majority whip working with the leader, I sympathize with the leader's challenge of the floor. I would say that on this entire issue of the voting 5 days a week, whether in truth there is anything to vote for or not, I think has been widely taken advantage of, not by the leader but particularly by people who don't prefer to understand how hard our Members work. The late night comedians love the idea that Congress was suddenly going to work 5 days a week. I think that was an unfair view of what our Members do. In fact, I would advance the theory that our problem is not that our Members don't work 5 days a week, our problem is that too many of our Members work 7 days a week. Too many of our Members get so focused on this that they don't focus on the things that the people they work for hope they would, and this makes it even more difficult to get your work done. Here we are today, it was about 11 when we started this discussion. We had a 30-minute debate that when we finished at 6 p.m. last night, I would advance, could have happened then and then Members would have had a day in their district to meet with people who want to meet with Members on occasion during their regular workweek, not on Saturday or Sunday, and under this current schedule the only option is to come to Washington. I know my good friend appreciates how hard the Members work. I know his suggestion that we would start working 5 days a week in Washington was not intended to be an indication that Members somehow don't work as hard as other Americans do because he and I both know that is not the case. I wish our Members would have been able to go home last night or this morning and spend some of this workday at home instead of on an airplane. All of our Members as far as I know have a desk in their district office. If they are not going to be there Monday through Friday, they are not going to need that desk very often, and the only way to see them is right here. I think it is unfortunate that we had to come back today for 30 minutes of debate on a measure that was already agreed to on a vote that not a single person voted the other way. I say that more in sympathy than I do in criticism. I understand the pledge you made.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield on that issue.

Mr. BLUNT. I am reminded of a friend of mine, when I was the Secretary of State in Missouri, who was the leader, the Democratic leader in the State Senate, was fond of saying: If you can't change your mind, you can't change anything. I am absolutely confident that no committees met today. And I understand the work the committees do in the Congress. When the committees aren't working when we could have added 30 minutes onto the schedule last night and been done, not in the middle of the night, by 7 o'clock, I think that would have been a good decision to make. I would hope my friend will remain flexible about that in the future. This has gone on some time today. I appreciate the chance to talk about the work next week. I am also hopeful, and I would ask, will the change in the rules on allowing delegates to vote in the Committee of the Whole, will that go to the Rules Committees, and will there be a chance for Republicans to at least offer amendments?

Mr. BLUNT. Reclaiming my time, it seems to me that the courts must not think it is consistent, or they wouldn't have ruled and determined that if these votes made a difference you have to vote again with a body that doesn't include the votes from those five individuals. I would also suggest that while the gentleman makes the point that the Delegate from the District of Columbia represents essentially the same number of people that everybody else on this floor does, that the Delegate from Guam, for instance, represents about a fourth of that number, about 160,000, 165,000 people. So their vote will be tallied in the Committee in a way that appears that the Committee vote has a substantially different margin than the same issue taken to the floor would have, and I am sure this will be a matter of some concern. It was controversial when it was done. It only lasted for one Congress. And as the gentleman would make the point, appropriately, that when my side became the majority side in 1995, that 2-year period where this existed, that rule was changed back. A little more notice on that would have been helpful, but we have been given notice. We now know that this issue will come up on Wednesday. And in my own mind, I am still unclear why it is so significant for the work of the Committee to be disproportionate in its appearance to the work of the full House. They have maybe four or five extra votes that if they made a difference in essence don't count. But if they don't make a difference, it looks like the margin that the majority has created is bigger than in reality it would be if that was the margin that made the difference in whether an issue passed or not. I would be glad to hear a response to that.

Mr. BLUNT. Okay. This only happened in one Congress, which was the Congress in 1993 and 1994. I wasn't in Congress at the time, but I recall it was very controversial, I believe the gentleman suggested so controversial that there was a court case that determined that these votes, if they had impact on the outcome, immediately would have to be decided by the full House. And I am wondering, is that to give a deceptively large margin in the Committee of the Whole? The majority is in the majority. Four of these five Delegates are on the majority side. Every time it doesn't matter in terms of passage, I guess that means it appears that there are four more votes or maybe five more votes than there would otherwise be. What is the purpose of this? If it made a difference, it would immediately have to go to a vote that they could not participate in. I yield for an answer.

Mr. BLUNT. Yes, I would.

Mr. BLUNT. Now, I believe there are seven Delegates, and we might get our numbers straight on that. Also, I think I am right in that this has only happened in one Congress.

Mr. BLUNT. I thank my friend. I have several questions. On the last issue that you just raised, that is the first notice that I have had, maybe our staff has had notice, right before coming to the floor on changing the rules for the Committee of the Whole to where Delegates could vote. I would ask my friend, is that only in the Committee of the Whole? Is that what that rule change would be?

Mr. BLUNT. Well, the gentleman is right, we certainly haven't had any discussion on this until the floor today. I would also make the point that last week we did take two bills to the Rules Committee; but before any opportunity was given to even offer an amendment, it was announced that no amendments would be allowed. I think that is unprecedented in the last 12 years, where at least the Rules Committee always heard the amendments and tried to offer amendments and always offered a substitute in every instance that I am aware of.

Mr. BLUNT. I yield briefly, as the gentleman can usually out-talk me.

Mr. BLUNT. I would ask my friend how long you met and what was the topic.

Mr. BLUNT. I appreciate the information.

Mr. BLUNT. I would be glad to find out the substance of that meeting this morning. I doubt it was very substantive or could not have been done yesterday. I think all the Members understand this discussion. I think the general coverage of Congress meeting for 5 days a week was a disservice to the institution. It is like assuming that a surgeon only does the surgeon's work when they are in the operating room. Another point that I believe I am helping my friend, the majority leader, make is, when we are in committee and not on the floor, that doesn't mean we are not working. When we are at home holding town hall meetings or meeting with constituents, or in my case, seeing how we are doing restoring power to 200,000 people that didn't have power in my district this week in weather that was between 6 and 26 degrees all week, it was impossible for me to be there today because I had to be here to cast a vote that could have been cast last night. I hope we all work hard. Certainly the majority has had the better of this argument so far because it is a lot of fun to talk about Members of Congress that don't work, or suddenly Members are working. Another thing I am going to tell my friend we are going to do, frankly, is keep track of how many hours we worked in essentially a 3- and 4-day week versus a 4- and 5-day week. So far, we are winning in hours of working on the floor. We worked hard; you worked hard. On the appropriations process, I would have liked to have finished that last year. It is clear to me that the unwillingness of the other body to move forward, a thing neither you nor I have a lot of control over, was the real reason we didn't get more of that work done. We had 11 of our 12 bills done by the 4th of July, without tremendous effort to keep Members here on Friday. The year before we had all of our bills done by the 4th of July. I think that is a reasonable target for us, and I hope that we help achieve that target this year. We do want to get our work done. This is a bicameral legislative system. We don't control what happens on the other side. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. BLUNT

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I am here in opposition to this rule. I don't feel as strongly about the bill because I don't really think the bill is a serious piece of legislation. I don't think it addresses the issues that need to be addressed. I think the fact that this bill has come to the floor without going to committee, without any opportunity for debate, without the freshmen Members having any opportunity to ever be part of anything except one vote today is truly outrageous. This should be the premier issue for this Congress. Energy independence and all of that affects everything we are, everything we do as a people. It affects foreign policy, it affects our international situation in so many ways, it affects the economy, it affects the environment. And here we are with a bill today that hopefully is just checking off the list and we really get back to serious discussions of energy legislation. Mr. Speaker, energy independence is critically important, and it is not going to be achieved in this bill in this way. This bill does take a problem, a problem that was created in 1998 and 1999, a problem that was created when the Secretary of the Interior failed to put in a contract, what the laws that we passed clearly allowed the Secretary of the Interior to do. It didn't happen later, it didn't happen in 2000, it never happened in the current administration. It was a problem. It is a problem in a contract. Whether that is worth 3 hours of debate on the House floor or not, I don't know. I do know that contracts are normally dealt with in a court of law, not on the floor of the House of Representatives. This is a problem that was created by a past administration that needs to be clarified, but is so far off base from what we ought to be talking about today. We ought to be talking about energy independence for the country. This rule doesn't allow us to have that kind of debate because the process didn't allow that kind of debate. I guess we are going to be told later today that we are at the end of the 100 hours, which is an interesting calculation in and of itself. And maybe when we will get to the end of the 100 hours, we can get this checklist. I wondered for some time why we didn't have an agenda that would last 100 days. Since Franklin Roosevelt that has sort of been a mark of the work of the Congress. I have really decided there is not enough work here to do for 100 days, but these 100 hours are checking a list off that will not produce legislation that results in anything happening. At the end of the day today we hopefully can move on to the real business of this Congress, none of it more important than energy independence. This doesn't solve that problem, doesn't even take a significant step in solving that problem.

Mr. BLUNT. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. BLUNT. Madam Speaker, I appeal the ruling of the Chair.