Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield again to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I yield to the gentleman from Ohio.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentlemen from Virginia [Mr. Moran].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words, and I yield to the gentleman from Virginia [Mr. Moran].

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman for yielding further. Mr. Chairman, this is astonishing. What the gentleman is saying is we do not need any of this because if a motion comes up in a bill that has an unfunded mandate we defeat it. Has this been a charade? No, it has not been a charade. I mean, is the contract unnecessary? Is this superfluity? How can you argue that we do not need this whole bill and argue that we do not need this amendment because, after all, if it comes up we will vote it down. That stands the whole process on its head. I am surprised that the gentleman thinks that the whole thing we are talking about is illogical. Given the logic of a need for an unfunded mandates bill, applying it to appropriations bills makes the most obvious sense. The gentleman from California [Mr. Beilenson] is correct.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding. Mr. Speaker, I offered a free standing substitute that would have protected Social Security and would have met the argument that, ``Oh, you could then call anything Social Security.'' I offered an amendment to the Committee on Rules which would have taken the Barton amendment and simply added language that said, ``When you calculate whether or not there is a surplus or a deficit, you exclude Social Security,'' and defined it to be an old age and survivors program with payments. So it was not open to that. The Committee on Rules said ``No.'' I know now why they took Claude Pepper's picture down. They did not want Claude Pepper looking on when they killed an amendment that would have protected Social Security. But then they had second thoughts. They came up with about as meaningless a resolution as I have ever seen. Members keep saying, ``We don't want to cut Social Security.'' But you are trying to pass a constitutional amendment that will create an incentive to cut Social Security because under the amendment being offered, if there is a deficit elsewhere, it could be offset by a Social Security surplus. We have had the Speaker of the House say that we must recalculate the consumer price index so that it provides less. That is primarily a means of reducing cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients. Put the two together. The Speaker threatens the Bureau of Labor Standards and says, ``You had better cut the CPI.'' The main fiscal impact of reducing the consumer price index is to reduce the cost-of-living increase for Social Security recipients, which then swells the surplus, which you then, under your constitutional amendment, without our language, will use to hold down that deficit. So this piece of paper, being on Social Security and knowing that you are going to create a constitutionally driven incentive to reduce benefits to help with the surplus, is like being on the Lusitania and getting word that the Titanic has just set sail to save you. You have an entirely meaningless resolution, not binding on anybody, that is supposed to offset a constitutionally created incentive that people will have to cut Social Security.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, first I wanted to correct a mistake which I made last night. I referred to prior rules which prohibited at the objection of any one Member the meeting of a committee while the 5-minute rule was in process. I had not mentioned, in fact I was incorrect in not mentioning, that had been changed in the last Congress. I want to correct that error of mine. But that does not change my unhappiness with this procedure, particularly now that proxy voting has been done away with. I face a situation where as a member of the Committee on Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs, I may be asked to be at a hearing and perhaps a markup on the question of guaranteeing the Mexican debt and pushing for the kind of social and taxpayer safeguards I think are important. As a member of the Committee on the Judiciary, I want to be on the floor fully to participate in the balanced budget amendment. What we are facing is an artificial deadline made as part of a campaign approach, and it is one thing to as part of a campaign approach, and it is one thing to try and meet that. It is quite another to degrade the legislative process to meet this arbitrary deadline. I hope the other side will stop doing that.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. And yielded back 55 minutes.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry. consume?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I disagree with the majority leader's statement that this last year and the year before was blanket permission. As I understand the rule, unless the House granted such permission, any Member in a committee that was sitting in a markup could have objected. Any Member could have objected. If you sat during the 5- minute rule to mark up a bill in committee, the objection of a single Member in committee ended that meeting. You had to come to the floor, and any 10 Members could block it. This is an arrogation to the majority far beyond what we had. I sit on the Banking Committee. I do not want to be forced to choose between debating safeguards for the American people on the Mexico loan and protecting Social Security in the balanced budget amendment. What you have done is a brandnew procedure. The intolerance for debate is already starting to rise, shout them down, don't yield time. The gentleman has an hour. May I ask the gentleman from Texas how much time he plans to allow us to debate this?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, having worked very hard this weekend, having made a special round trip here to interrupt my weekend in my district to work on the Mexico loan bill, trying in cooperation with other Members to put together a set of conditions that would allow us to respond to a potential crisis in a way that met Members' concerns, I was appalled to see a memorandum from the chairman of the Committee on Banking and Financial Services on the Republican side threatening us that if we did not desist in our speaking about disagreements with the Speaker of the House, this would jeopardize the Mexico loan bill. Members on the other side have said that we must do the people's business. There is no inconsistency between vigorous debate where we disagree and working together where we agree. This effort to threaten us into silence by telling us that if we continue to express our views on the unrelated issues we have about the Speaker, we will therefore have them pull the plug on negotiations over the Mexico loan, makes it clear who it is that is interested in blocking things. The imperial speakership is being taken much too far.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Second, I want to know, are you telling me that this new change in which you say that it has to be verbatim, in fact, does not mean that, because two very important changes were made in the transcript from yesterday to today?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I have a unanimous-consent request. I would ask unanimous consent.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am talking now that there are two separate questions here, the ruling which my friend from Michigan was pursuing, and the new rule which the Republicans brought to this House as part of the Contract that said you do not change the Congressional Record; that is subsequent to all of the precedents you are talking about. There are two questions: One, your right to change the ruling; but, two, separate, the one I am focusing on, your right to change words in the Congressional Record in ways that are neither typographical, grammatical or technical, and I submit that changing ``personal'' to ``critical,'' one more sentence, ``personal'' to ``critical,'' and ``higher'' to ``proper'' are none of those. My question is: Why are you ignoring your new rule and changing the words in the Congressional Record, because they look better?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. The question is this, and it is a very serious one: When you say that ``personal'' and ``critical'' are the same thing, we were talking about references to the Speaker. Is it the Chair's ruling that given the circumstances any personal reference to the Speaker will inevitably be critical?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am very puzzled when you tell me they are technical and not substantive. Would you instruct your Members that you would recognize me and I am proceeding in regular order?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Does modification mean change? Mr. WATT or North Carolina. Mr. Speaker, a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mine will be quick, and then he can get his in there. My question is this: It has to do with the rule about changing. It is a two-part question. Am I correct that the Speaker acknowledges that the Congressional Record was changed in ways that were not either grammatical, typographical or technical, changing from ``personal'' to ``critical'' and ``higher'' to ``proper,'' clearly substantive? The second question is: Is the remedy for the violation of this rule that the Speaker talks to the Parliamentarian? I am all in favor of conversation, but I am surprised that a new rule as part of the Contract With America is breached and has as its remedy a conversation by the Speaker with the Parliamentarian.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. In the first instance, I thought the Speaker was the responsible ruler in this situation, while the Parliamentarian advised him.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I have a further parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. No, the Chair has not.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. The Speaker cited previous references to the House rules and manual. That predates the rules change adopted this year. This is not simply a case of making a technical change in a ruling. We are talking also about substantive changes in the debate in the House.