John Conyers

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of H.R. 3719, the Small Business Programs Improvement Act of 1996. H.R. 3719 will better the ability of the Small Business Administration [SBA] to restructure and cut costs in critical areas of the 7(a) Loan Guarantee Program and the 504 Certified Development Company Program. These programs are both at risk of understanding in the coming fiscal years and will benefit greatly from the reforms provided in this act. However, there are components of H.R. 3719 which must be addressed in order to protect minority and women small business owners who apply for SBA loans. H.R. 3719 greatly limits the ability of lenders to use the Low Documentation [LowDoc] loan program of the 7(a) Program. The LowDoc Program began as a pilot project in 1994 and has since spread successfully across the country. The program provides a significantly shortened one-page application for a SBA guarantee for loans of $100,000 or less. Minority and women-owned small businesses disproportionately apply for these smaller loans. Therefore, the LowDoc Program has had great success in recruiting more women and minority small business owners to the 7(a) Program. In addition, because of the reduced paperwork required of the lending institution in LowDoc loans, the program has increased the participation of smaller lenders who have been found to be more likely to lend to smaller businesses. The SBA has been criticized in recent years for overlending to larger small businesses at the determent of smaller small businesses. The LowDoc Program is one of the devices the SBA has created to successfully address this complaint. H.R. 3719 severely limits the LowDoc Program by restricting which lenders can make LowDoc loans. Under the act, only those lenders who are preferred, certified or have significant experience in making small business loans can make LowDoc loans. These categorizations will greatly limit the number of lenders who can make LowDoc loans. In particular, the number of small lending institutions able to provide LowDoc loans will be greatly reduced. Thus, H.R. 3719 acts to limit accessibility to LowDoc loans. According to Representative Meyers, H.R. 3719 limits access to LowDoc loans on the basis of anecdotal evidence that LowDoc loans are high risk. However, the SBA has shown that there is no reason to believe that LowDoc loans are more risky than other loans, and, in fact, they may be even less risky. The SBA has found that both the currency rate, the rate of payments made on time, and the default rate on LowDoc loans are as good or better than those for other SBA loans. There appears to be little reason to alter the LowDoc Loan Program given that the program has made the 7(a) loan program more accessible to minority and women-owned small businesses, to all smaller businesses, and to small lending-institutions. In addition, the program has proven to be a relatively safe loan program. The changes to the LowDoc program are simply an example of the micromanaging which exists throughout H.R. 3719 and which is not necessary to successfully reform the SBA. However, I am confident that these problems can be worked out through amendments and in conference committee. Therefore, I restate my support of H.R. 3719 and commend the bipartisan effort which led to its creation.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, In the 1930's and 1940's, Mahatma Gandhi used nonviolent civil disobedience to win independence for India. In the 1950's and 1960's, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., used nonviolent civil disobedience in the struggle against racial discrimination in the United States. In the late 1980's opponents of apartheid engaged in nonviolent civil disobedience outside the South African Embassy in Washington, DC. Last week, some of the Nation's top labor leaders and politicians were arrested in a nonviolent sit-in on the front steps of the Detroit newspapers which are embroiled in a 14-month strike that has had a devastating impact on 2,000 striking workers and their families. The Detroit sit-in, which marked the first time labor leader John Sweeney has been arrested since becoming president of the AFL-CIO, took place on the 414th day of a strike in which the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News are losing more than $5,000 an hour--or about $1 million a week. I was among the 21 protestors who blocked access to the newspaper building on the Friday before Labor Day. We took nonviolent action to reaffirm the validity of the collective bargaining process and to focus attention on the struggle of working class people to secure decent wage jobs. In the tradition of civil rights protests, we knowingly broke the law to demonstrate our moral resolve to force the newspapers to bargain fairly with the strikers. Among the strikers and supporters watching us that day were a middle- aged African-American man with heart disease who has lost his home and his health insurance; a teenaged girl who talks wistfully of prestrike days when her father had the money to take the family to Detroit Red Wings games, and a striker's wife who lost her 15-year job around the same time her husband lost his. Each of these people represents untold thousands of Americans whose lives have been uprooted by socially myopic companies that ignore their responsibility to be fair and respectful to employees and the community. The outcome of this strike will resonate across the country. If the newspapers can destroy the unions in Detroit, the future of all unions is in jeopardy. It is time for people of good will to join me and others in urging the Detroit newspapers and the striking workers to settle this dispute at the bargaining table or to submit to binding arbitration. Common sense, decency and historical tradition demand that this labor dispute be brought to a quick and just conclusion.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Texas, Ms. Sheila Jackson-Lee, who has done an enormously useful job on the Committee on the Judiciary. (Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Hefner], a member of the Committee on Appropriations.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I associate myself with the remarks of the distinguished chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, and I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from North Carolina [Mr. Watt], an indefatigable member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 additional minute to the distinguished gentleman from Maryland.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Forbes].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Washington [Mr. Dicks].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, we began the attempt to do something during the summer recess by meeting with the President of the United States and the White House with our leadership, the ranking member of judiciary, myself, Vice President, Attorney General, FBI Director, and Speaker Gingrich was so amicable. Now we come to Friday, and he makes this unusually vituperative attack upon the President and misleads the American people on what has been going on here in our attempts to combat antiterrorism. We know what is happening here, and I hope that we can communicate this to everyone else.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to manage the bill, but I do want to allocate a block of time to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar], ranking member of the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure. Mr. Speaker, I yield 8 minutes to the gentleman from Minnesota [Mr. Oberstar] and I ask unanimous consent that he be permitted to control the time.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Texas [Mr. DOGGETT].

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from New York [Mr. Schumer], ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary, former chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime and now presently ranking member of the subcommittee. (Mr. SCHUMER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join my colleagues from Michigan in sponsoring legislation which will provide an opportunity for The Wellness Plan, a well-established HMO headquartered in Detroit, to enroll Medicare beneficiaries. This plan inadvertently has been frozen out of enrolling Medicare beneficiaries since January 1996 through a health care prepayment plan contract because of a technical change in the Social Security and Technical Corrections Act of 1994. State-licensed as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit HMO since 1975, and federally qualified since 1979, The Wellness Plan has been recognized as a model quality Medicaid managed care plan by national leaders, including President Bush and two former secretaries of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Wellness Plan is a model of the type of HMO into which our Government would like Medicare beneficiaries enrolled because it has a proven record with both the Medicaid and Medicare Programs. I urge that the House leadership advance this bill in this Congress so that we do not delay any further the enrollment beneficiaries into this plan.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, it is great to see the gentleman from California [Mr. Cox] again, because the last time I saw him, we adjourned the conference for him to go speak to the Speaker about how we could close this down, and then I find out that at 1:30 last night, he introduced the bill, and then the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Shuster] introduced a newer bill that is on the floor this morning. I want to just welcome him back to the process. I am glad we are all together here. But we have only got a little part of what we agreed on at the conference. That is the problem. It is not that these are bad items. They are small items. They are peanuts. What we were trying to do is deal with the major question of what most pipe bombs are made of by terrorists in their domestic weapon of choice, how we can trace them through taggants. That is of course not what is happening here. Therein lies the problem. When the Speaker of the House who, by the way, he and the majority leader were in great agreement at the beginning of the week, and the White House, we almost got an agreement right there, and we said, ``Well, let's run it through our legislative committees.'' Then we got into these 4 days and nights of conferences in which the gentleman was a key player. As a matter of fact, if he will recall, everybody agreed but him. So now he comes with this little shriveled-up document saying, ``Let's do this,'' the last thing before we go out for a month. I cannot accept it at this point and for those reasons.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Chairman, although the focus of the debate surrounding this legislation has been on the use of foreign languages by immigrants, in reality, the core of the issue concerning minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act is the constitutional and civil rights of American citizens--both native born as well as naturalized--whose first language is not English. The minority language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act have been signed into law and supported by President Ford, Reagan and Bush, as well as Presidents Clinton and Carter. During their most recent reauthorization in 1992, Senator Hatch said that the provisions are an ``integral part of our government's assurance that Americans do have . . . access'' to the ballot box. Since the minority language assistance provisions of the Voting Rights Act was first adopted, they have provided a catalyst for increase voter participation in language minority populations. From 1980 to 1990, Latino voter population increased by five times the rate of the rest of the Nation, and the number of Latinos registered to vote increased by approximately 500,000 between 1990-92. Participation statistics for Native Americans also indicate an increase in turnout as a result of minority language voting assistance. Recent studies confirm that nearly three-fourths of Spanish speaking American citizens would be less likely to vote if minority language assistance were not available. The evidence further reveals that the minority language provisions of the Voting Rights Act are a targeted, low cost method of ensuring the constitutional right to vote. According to the Government Accounting Office, the average cost of providing written assistance is minuscule, costing an average of 2.9 percent of election expenses or less. Seventy-nine percent of the jurisdictions responding to this study reported no costs in providing bilingual oral assistance. Denying citizens minority language assistance with regard to voting will not force or encourage them to learn English As the late Hamilton Fish, Jr., then ranking Republican on the House Judiciary Committee so eloquently state in 1992, ``by enabling language minority citizens to vote in an effective and informed manner, we are giving them a stake in our society, and this assistance . . . will lead to more, not less, integration and inclusion of these citizens in our mainstream.'' The most recent reauthorization of the minority language provisions were approved by overwhelming bipartisan margins of 237-125 in the House, and 75-20 in the Senate. Yet, only 4 years later, this bill would repeal these provisions without evidence that the discrimination has ended. I urge opposition to this measure.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, 378 days ago more than 2,500 employees of the Detroit News and Detroit Free Press went on strike after management and their unions were unable agree to new contracts. This strike has been terribly disruptive to the social, economic, and cultural fabric of the Detroit area. Both the newspapers and the strikers and their families have paid a heavy price for this year-long strike. The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press have seen their circulations drop, advertisers flee, and profits plummet; every week that the strike continues, the newspapers lose another million dollars. But more importantly, some striking workers have had to file petitions for bankruptcy or have lost their homes; others are in bad health and cannot pay their medical bills; they have seen their jobs filled by replacements recruited from out of State or eliminated entirely. This strike has become more than just a dispute between a company and its employees. It is about corporate social and economic responsibility and the need for employers, regardless of size, to threat their community and employees fairly and with respect. It is critical to the future of this Nation that we recognize the importance and validity of the collective bargaining movement. If unions in Detroit can be willfully broken, then the future of the collective bargaining movement in the United States may be in jeopardy. Economic and political struggles have never been easy. The Montgomery bus boycott went on for 381 days, it took 15 years to make Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a Federal holiday, Nelson Mandela was in prison for 27 years in the long battle to end apartheid, and the right to vote, even with a constitutional amendment and a variety of Federal statutes, has only recently become available to all citizens. Now is the time for all persons on all sides of this dispute to join with me in urging the Detroit Newspapers and the striking workers to once again come to the bargaining table or alternatively submit to binding arbitration and end the stalemate that is tearing Detroit apart.

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, can this measure be brought to a vote when a report has not been filed, and there has been no opportunity for additional or dissenting views?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I think the Chair will find that it is customary that reports be filed with legislation brought up on the suspension calendar. Is that not correct?

Mr. CONYERS

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, my point of order is that we are acting out of order even on a suspension of the rules here. This is not a club meeting, Mr. Speaker. The least that the subcommittee chairman could have done was advise us that he did not have a report, which would have led me to some form of my usual generosity, but just to say we don't have a report, we'll get one later this is under suspension of the rules, nobody needs to read the report. What would 400 other Members want to know about the report for? Just listen to the debate and vote for it when it passes. What is the difference? Why do we need reports here, anyway, by the way? Has the gentleman not learned anything in the course of all the years we have been trying to be legislators, responsible? What is this? I think it is extremely inappropriate for the Committee on the Judiciary, of all committees, that we would be proceeding this way. Are we going to just continue to have informed debate around here without reports? Because it will be here shortly, it's on the way, it's at the printer? The truck is pulling it up to the Capitol any minute. I don't know what you need a report for. Then to have the unmitigated gall to say, ``Well, so what? I'm not going to withdraw it, I'm not going to apologize, I'm not going to do anything because we're in control here. We don't need reports, the majority. If you don't like it without the report, vote against it, I guess.'' Mr. Speaker, there is nothing we can do here but be subject to the gentleman from Florida's arbitrary, uncooperative decision that we will not have a report accompanying his bill. How come? Well, I do not know. He just felt like it today. Well, I say to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], the House of Representatives does not work like this, and the gentleman as a committee chairman, I know he has not been a subcommittee chairman long, but it seems to me that he should check the procedure, maybe with the Parliamentarian, maybe with the counsel for the committee, maybe with even our people if he would like. We would be delighted to do that. But just to say ``We're bringing a measure on the floor, a very important measure, by the way. But we don't need reports around here, gang. Check with us this evening, tomorrow, whenever. But let's have some informed debate that nobody but the Members of the Committee on the Judiciary know anything about, and then let's hold it over for a vote and then we'll decide whether you want to pass a law into the United States Code Annotated.'' Oh, is it unimportant? Is it a technical amendment? No; it is very serious. It modifies a U.S. Supreme Court decision. It would seem that lawyers, of all people, would have some kind of civil consideration for the way we pass things in the House of Representatives. If the Committee on the Judiciary does not care about the rules and procedure of the House, should anybody else? We are the ones that try to set the rules and procedure for the Committee on the Judiciary, for the Congress. We are the ones that are able to modify the Supreme Court's decisions, as we are doing. And so we come in here, dragging in on Tuesday afternoon, the first measure up, and the first thing we say is, ``Well, there's no report, Ranking Member of Judiciary. What do you need a report for?'' ``Well, would you please consider getting one?'' ``No; I will not. Anybody that wants to read the report can read it when we get it.'' ``Well, when will you get it?'' ``We'll get it this afternoon. I guess we will get it this afternoon. Read it after the debate if you really want to find out what happened, because we don't have to do that around here. Don't you understand? Republicans run the House. So it's OK. You don't like it? Vote no. You don't like it? Appeal to the Speaker. You don't like the Speaker's ruling? He says see the subcommittee chairman.'' And so this is what it is like in 1996 in the people's body, in the House of Representatives, where we have a bunch of my wonderful friends over here looking at each other saying, ``I wonder why we don't just go ahead and pass this bill and forget the report.'' But what about the next bill, I would ask the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum]? Does that one need a report? Or does the subcommittee chairman of that measure have the same option that you do to tell everybody, ``You don't need a report. It's on the way. Get it later. We'll debate this some other time. Or if you don't understand the debate, get a copy when it's printed.'' But the rules of the House require this elemental courtesy to every single Member of the House of Representatives, and the gentleman is refusing to go along with the rules. I think that is very unseemly, I think it is very inappropriate, particularly coming from the committee that we both serve on. Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time. Mr. McCollum. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Michigan, of course, is a very distinguished Member of this body and I know that he intends to characterize the situation as it accurately should be characterized, but the truth be that the rules of the House of Representatives in this Congress are no different than they were in the last on this point, and, that is, that when we have a bill under suspension, there is no requirement that any report be filed whatsoever by any committee on a bill under suspension, which is what we have today with this bill that is before us. It is customary for Judiciary bills to get a report because that is something we would like to do, that is something that Judiciary members like you and I like to produce. We like to have those filed with bills. And if a report is going to be filed, because we want to do that, we like to do that, to explain the bill in the record, then that has to be done technically before the bill is formally voted on. We are going to request a recorded vote, I am, and I suspect we will get one based on the number of people here today, and there will be a delay of a vote, so that a report can be filed and will be. But there is absolutely no requirement that a report be filed. I might also remind the gentleman from Michigan, my good colleague, that this bill is not controversial in its nature, it passed without a single vote in opposition in both the subcommittee and the full committee, it was worked out in a fully bipartisan sense, as the gentleman knows, and there is no intent whatsoever on our part to pass a bill with any kind of pulling the wool over somebody's eyes with not having some technical whatever. We are abiding by those rules on a very noncontroversial, though a very important bill. Last but not least I might add why we do not actually have the report we would like to file out here today and fully intend to do so is because the leadership had initially scheduled this bill for next week and did not give us sufficient notice that it would be out here this week. We would like to get this bill passed as soon as possible, as I am sure the gentleman from Michigan would, and this is the window of opportunity, this week, to pass it. If we do not do it today, if we waited around to voluntarily do the report we do not have to do before we brought it out here and debated it, we would not get it accomplished. Mr. Speaker, how much time do I have remaining?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, how much time is the gentleman giving any Member that might want to file a dissenting view?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I would ask the gentleman if there is a way for a Member to file a dissenting view on this report if the report is already being printed?

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. Ladies and gentleman of the House of Representatives, we are in the process of amending a U.S. Supreme Court decision whose ruling applies to Members of the House of Representatives, applies to witnesses that may come before the House of Representatives and there are Members in broad daylight alleging that this is a minor provision, amending the Supreme Court's decision and we are talking about how minimal this is. The distinguished subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], alleges that there is no objection. How on Earth would he know? Nobody has ever seen the report. Nobody would even know about the bill if my colleague was not on the Committee on the Judiciary. What in the world is going on around here that makes this matter so important that without a report, we would ask on a suspension calendar that a matter changing the Supreme Court, the law of the land, that it be sent without a report. Well, I do not know why. What is the rush? Question: How can we have an informed debate without a report? The gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini], author of the measure, is familiar with this. The gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], chairman of the Subcommittee on Crime, is familiar with this. But what about the 400 other Members of Congress that may not have attended the Committee on the Judiciary meetings? What do they get? Well, they get nothing. They get the response that customarily we give Members a report, but today, because Republican leadership has indicated that this bill goes today, it is not going at all. Question: Why not? Another inquiry that I may have, is are we saying here that the Republican leadership, or may I speak more personally, the Speaker of the House saying that we will not allow a vote on this bill if it does not come up today or that it will not be brought forward? And by the way, where is this matter in the Senate? Does anybody happen to know or care? Are they waiting for us to send it over to them so that they can send it out? Do you know if it is marked up or not? Well, look, the House takes care of its own business and the Senate takes care of its. So we are in a very embarrassing situation, because if that is the way this House is going to be run, this is one Member that is going to take exception to this. I think it is unseemly. I think that it completely misses the point of a very important law that is in the process of being made. Someone said it will be--not someone, I am sorry, the chairman of the subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], said it would be printed in form and would be sent to the Members today. Well, what time today, I ask the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum]? Will it be before the vote or after the vote? And how much time would the Members have to read the report before they vote on it? Or does it matter, really? I mean, if you like it, we are putting it on suspension, we are rushing it through. No one can amend this, and now we do not have a report because we only supplied it customarily, we do not have to supply. So if you like this law or do not like it, just listen to the debate, listen to the author, and as far as we know, everybody should go along with this and that is the way we make laws in the United States now under the Gingrich regime. I take exception to this, sir, and I am ashamed of my subcommittee chairman who would allow himself to get drug into this ridiculous and embarrassing process. Now, both parties usually send out a whip package which gives us a heads-up on what is coming up on the legislation. Usually for Members that would like a detail, they include the report that it can be referred to, but there is no report here. Members can read the brief summary. I do not know what Republicans put in their whip packages, but we put a brief outline of the measure. Why, the gentleman from New Jersey [Mr. Martini], with a bill which he deserves full credit for, would he allow this measure to come up in such a haphazard way? Does the gentleman not have any respect for the law or the process? Does the gentleman not understand how the House of Representatives customarily works? Does he not want Members to at least vaguely understand what in the world he is doing that changes a U.S. Supreme Court standing decision? Does it not reach that level of seriousness that the other 400 Members might at least, if they chose to be informed, would have a report available to them? Does the gentleman have no respect for the process of this great House of Representatives? What do we want to turn this into, a club, a political club where the biggest gang gets up and says, well, this is it, there is not objection? How do we know there is no objection? How do we know there are not reservations? My colleague does not, and neither do I. But I have enough respect for the rest of my colleagues to object as strenuously as I can to this very shabby process. This is a very important piece of legislation. It is not a simple bill. The changes that the gentleman has grafted on to the Supreme Court decision and the existing law are very important and are very serious. I only wish that the gentleman and the Members on his side of the aisle would take it as seriously as we do on ours. We think it is a good measure, but that does not mean that I can arbitrarily cut off the debate from everybody else in this body because they have not seen the report. Do we not have any pride about this House of Representatives in which we serve? Do we not want to really make the House a democratic forum for all of us so that the American people can understand how we make process? Maybe the gentleman does. I think deep down in our hearts all the Members do. I think we are very serious about the business that brings us here to Washington, DC. I am looking into the faces of some very serious Members. But what about the process? What if there was one Member in the House that wanted to take exception, maybe even wanted to ask a question, where would he or she go to get the information? Does that not concern the gentleman at all? Does he not want to say that this bill was passed in broad daylight with the acquiescence and full understanding in the customary manner that we pass legislation around here? The gentleman has already bumped it up to the Suspension Calendar. We cannot amend it now. We only have limited debate, and still we cannot do it right. I think this is disgraceful. And then to refuse to take it off the floor for no good explanation whatsoever insults not just the Members of Congress, I say to the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCollum], but everybody in America that is expecting that we will pass legislation, especially from the lawyers in the Congress, in a fair and decent bipartisan manner. And that is not what is happening here today. So with all deference to all of my colleagues and for all my colleagues who are pleased that at least one Member would have the temerity to raise his voice and say, ``Process, fellas. Process.'' That is what tests whether a House is working fairly or not. It is not that, oh, we customarily send out reports but we were in a hurry today; we did not need it today. If Members do not like it, they can catch the report when it is printed. If they have a question, they can see me off the floor or check with staff and they will give that Member a response. But we are pushing this baby through Tuesday afternoon, first up, whether we are ready or not, whether people have had a chance to study it or not. Who cares. We are going to do it our way. It is unanimous anyway, which we do not know about at all. It is simple. It is not; it is very complex. So I ask the gentleman from Florida [Mr. McCOLLUM] again, with all the fairness of which I am able to muster at this time, please withdraw this measure from the floor and have it rescheduled.

Mr. CONYERS. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to yield to the gentleman any more. I think his answer should have been ``no'' about 2 minutes ago. Mr. Speaker, I object to the procedure that is going on now. I object to this bill being brought up until, according to the rules, Mr. Parliamentarian, there is a report accompanying it. Therefore, I ask that this measure be withdrawn from the floor of the House of Representatives.