David Dreier

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Reserving the right to object, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry. How much time is remaining on the vote that we can't see displayed any place that we are supposed to be casting?

Mr. DREIER. I am happy to further yield to the distinguished majority leader.

Mr. DREIER. If I could reclaim my time under parliamentary procedure. The answer to that is we don't know.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. If the gentlewoman would yield, I think I've got it in my hands right now.

Mr. DREIER. Reclaiming my time, I know my colleague would certainly share this concern to support the rule, but we like the idea of seeing what it is that we're about to vote upon before we do that. I know that may be an unusual request under this majority, but I think that is definitely fair. And I will say that I think that it's right and correct that Members have a chance to see what it is that they're voting upon, rather than having something thrown upon them. And we have Mrs. Wilson, who has legislation that we've offered probably a dozen times on our quest to defeat the previous question on rules so that we could at least allow consideration of this. And so that has led us, I believe, to this point. But I think it is just absolute lunacy to believe that we are, at this moment, in a position to go ahead and vote upon something that we don't know what it consists of. And I know my friend would agree with that, that we really shouldn't have a pattern like that.

Mr. DREIER. I would be happy to yield.

Mr. DREIER. I understand that.

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding, and I see we're joined here by a very distinguished member of the House Committee on Intelligence. I think we have been, for literally months, trying to make in order the legislation that has been introduced by our friend from Albuquerque (Mrs. Wilson), and we believe that that, in fact, is the answer to this problem. The President of the United States, in the news conference that he held with Mike McConnell about an hour ago, made it crystal clear that he is going to ask the Director one question: If he gets legislation that emerges from this body, will it, in fact, enhance our ability to make sure that foreigners on foreign soil who are trying kill us, if the legislation provides them with the tools to intercept those conversations and prevent them from having the ability to attack the United States of America? Now, my friend from Dallas has just very correctly said, can we see the legislation that we're expected to vote upon today if this suspension rule is made in order that will do exactly what the President has said is necessary to ensure the safety and the security of the American people?

Mr. DREIER. I thank the gentleman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say that I have the highest regard for my California colleague (Ms. Harman). She knows that very well. We share representing Los Angeles County here. And I know that she has worked very hard on intelligence issues. But I will say that I am very troubled with the exchange that I just saw take place between my friend from Albuquerque here, who has worked on this. She talked about the fact that we have legislation that was just rejected 36 hours ago by the Director of National Intelligence, Mr. McConnell. And my friend from California has just said something to the effect that she's not sure exactly what bill it is that we're looking at. I'm not an expert on this myself. I would be happy to yield to my friend if she wants to respond at all on this.

Mr. DREIER

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

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I think it's been very, very clear here this is a closed rule. It's outrageous that we have continued down this pattern of closed rules; and we were promised, the American people were promised much better than that. The underlying legislation is legislation that the administration just announced the President would veto if it were to pass. We should be debating the work of the Iraq Study Group, the bipartisan package; and, unfortunately, with this closed rule, we're denied a chance to do that. I also believe that my colleague from New Mexico, while debate seemed to be very personal among members of the Intelligence Committee, it comes down to the very strong statements that have been made by the Secretary of Homeland Security, the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. We need to immediately modernize the three-decade-old Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. So I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on the previous question so that we'll have an opportunity to make in order the very thoughtful legislation that has been introduced by our colleague from Albuquerque, Mrs. Wilson. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. DREIER. I thank the gentleman for yielding, Mr. Speaker. I will say again that it really baffles me as to why this majority will not allow us to have an opportunity to consider this bipartisan work product of the Iraq Study Group. On the opening day, Mr. Speaker, the new Speaker of the House of Representatives stood and talked about this new sense of bipartisanship. We all know that the war in Iraq was the key issue in the November election. We know that the war in Iraq was the key issue in last November's election, and it is on the minds of all of our constituents. We are all concerned about the future that this war on terror holds for all of us, and that's why the Iraq Study Group was established. Our former colleague, the former chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Lee Hamilton, the former Secretary of State, a Democrat and Republican led eight other Democrats and Republicans, highly regarded in this country, strongly partisan individuals, they came together with a bipartisan proposal. Unfortunately, the supposedly new bipartisan spirit that exists here in the House denies us a chance to even consider that. No one demonstrates more passion on this issue than Mr. Wolf. When he made the arguments before the Rules Committee, they were very compelling and very strong as only Frank Wolf can offer them. Unfortunately, Mr. Speaker, we have not seen a chance to do that.

Mr. DREIER. I thank my friend for yielding, and I would like to congratulate him not only for his amendment, but also for the comments that the former Governor of Delaware has just offered on the work of the Iraq Study Group. Again, this was a bipartisan effort that was launched by the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Wolf), who, as we all know, speaks passionately and eloquently on this and other issues. We all want to see this war come to an end. President Bush stood right here in this Chamber in January delivering his State of the Union message, and he said the following: I wish this war was over and we had won. So there is a shared goal of our trying to bring this war to an end as quickly as possible and to bring our men and women home to their families. Frankly, I join my colleague from Delaware in stating that I believe that the opportunity for implementation, if not all, most of the work of the Iraq Study Group, this great bipartisan gathering, would go a long way towards achieving that goal to which both Democrats and Republicans claim to aspire. So I would just like to thank my friend for his remarks, and I thank him for yielding to me.

Mr. DREIER. May I inquire of the Chair how much time remains on each side.

Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. Will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. DREIER. I begin by expressing my great appreciation to my friend from Worcester for yielding me the customary 30 minutes. I have to ask myself exactly why it is that we are here. One might think that this is Groundhog Day. We've already passed a rule on the Agriculture appropriations bill, and I would say to my friend, we've already passed the so-called SCHIP bill, which proposes a cut for seniors on the Medicare program and a massive tax increase for people all across this country and perpetuates this generational warfare challenge. That bill is behind us. We have not had a single dilatory motion that I've seen since passage of this SCHIP legislation, and yet the Rules Committee chose last night to do something that, from all of the research that we have done, has never been done in the history of the Republic. It is true that on occasion we have, after lengthy debate, come back with second rules when we were in the majority. For example, in 1995, we came back with a rule on the Interior appropriations bill that, by the definition of the new majority, would have been defined as an open rule. It simply said there would be a preprinting requirement that was put in order for all of the other amendments that would be offered during the measure. Mr. Speaker, never before have we seen a rule on an appropriations bill come from the Rules Committee to the floor that self-executes one amendment. But this rule doesn't self-execute one amendment; it self- executes six amendments. This has never, ever been done. We did, as my friend from Worcester said, have an interesting long discussion last night. We were here until nearly 3:30 in the morning yesterday, and then we had a lengthy discussion as we were waiting for votes here on the floor last night up in the Rules Committee. And I talked about the fact and my colleagues on our side talked about the fact that this was unprecedented. And Mr. Hastings, the gentleman from Fort Lauderdale, said, oh, well, will the world come to an end? The world isn't going to come to an end. But one of the great privileges that I have is working with our colleague, David Price, on our House Democracy Assistance Commission. And we are, right now, engaged with 12 new and reemerging democracies around the world. I like to argue that one election a democracy does not make. It's really hard work building democracies. And in countries like Lebanon, Afghanistan, Liberia, Kenya, Macedonia, the Republic of Georgia, the Ukraine, Haiti, Colombia, East Timor, Indonesia, Mongolia, countries that are moving towards democracy or have relatively young democracies, we have been working with their new parliaments because we know how important it is to have parliaments that have committee structure, oversight of the executive branch, libraries, members who can work to provide constituent services. That's what this 20-member Commission that David Price now chairs, and I'm privileged to serve as the ranking minority member on, has been working on. What we've done, Mr. Speaker, is we've said we have a 220-year history in the United States House of Representatives. We don't claim to have a corner on the truth, we don't know exactly how it's done, but we do have experience. And Mr. Speaker, it saddens me greatly that as we continue to work with these new and reemerging democracies for these countries that are just beginning to have a taste of political pluralism, the rule of law, and the opportunity to build democratic institutions, that we, today, are once again restricting the opportunity that the minority has had. I will say that my friend has talked about breaking an agreement. You know, there was an agreement, a bond that was talked about in last year's election and a bond that was made with the opening speech that was delivered by my California colleague, the gentlewoman from San Francisco, our new Speaker, the first woman Speaker of the House of Representatives. I regularly laud the fact that she has done that, the first Californian and the first Italian American. I am very proud as a Californian. But I will tell you that commitment was made on the opening day, and has been made repeatedly, by my very good friend from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority leader, time and time again. We have continued to hear about this promise that we will have a great new sense of openness. We will have transparency. We will have accountability. We will have the things to which we all supposedly aspire. But what is it we have gotten here, Mr. Speaker? As bad as you all say that we were when we were in the majority, as bad as the now majority says that we were, Mr. Speaker, when we were in the majority, we would have never contemplated self-executing five amendments in a rule for an appropriations bill.

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume. (Mr. DREIER asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. DREIER. I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. DREIER. That is the reason I reminded my friend of that, of course, Mr. Speaker. Let me just say that getting the people's business done is a priority for every Member of this House. I recognize the responsibility of ensuring that we move through with our appropriations work. As the gentleman knows very well, we were able to complete the House's work on appropriations bills in the past. The distinguished majority leader wants to do that as well. I do believe that if we look at the, you can call it a bump in the road, we have had very, very strong disagreement, as I said earlier, over the SCHIP bill. There was a lot of consternation about this. But the fact of the matter is, the additional hour was granted. We have now moved beyond that bill. We are now at nearly 2:30 in the afternoon, and things have moved certainly relatively smoothly today on the floor. I am just saying that I am very, very concerned about setting this kind of precedent to the appropriations process itself. I recognize we came forward with closed rules in the past. You all, unfortunately, have had twice as many closed rules at this point from the beginning of the last Congress. But on the appropriations process, I just hope, for the good of the institution, that being the half of the American people who won't be able to be heard, there were more than 60 amendments that were in the queue to be considered for this measure, that we don't go down to only 12 amendments. I just find that very troubling. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding.

Mr. DREIER

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes. Mr. Speaker, I want to apologize to the House for calling for the motion to adjourn, and I do so because in 15 minutes a memorial service is going to be held for our former colleague, Guy VanderJagt, over in the Ways and Means Committee room. And I will say that Guy VanderJagt is someone who served longer in the minority than any Member on the other side of the aisle. But no one understood about the rights of the minority better than Guy VanderJagt; and I will tell you, Mr. Speaker, those rights are outlined very clearly in the opening of Jefferson's Manual. Now, we have been excoriated over the past hour for having used what have been called dilatory tactics 2 days ago before we passed the SCHIP bill. The fact of the matter is that is now ancient history. We have been struggling to ensure that we continue with the debate on this very important bill under an open amendment process. I am going to urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that we will have the opportunity to table this measure and go back to an open amendment process. Why? Because this rule represents the trifecta of bad process. It has shut down the amendment process, it has restricted the period of time for debate, and it has rewritten the bill through self-execution in this rule. And I am going to urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that we can go back to what was promised on the opening day, and that is an open process. With that, Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the distinguished minority leader, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I urge a ``no'' vote on the previous question and on the rule. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.