Barney Frank

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I am puzzled, and I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, at the beginning of this session, the House adopted a new rule which says the Congressional Record shall be a substantially verbatim account of remarks made during the proceedings of the House, subject only to technical, grammatical, and typographical corrections authorized by the Member making the remarks involved. In the Congressional Record that we received this morning, reflecting yesterday's proceedings, at page H301 in the transcript of the remarks of the Speaker pro tempore, the gentleman from Florida, there are two changes that were made between what he, in fact, said and what is in the Record. The first change is as follows: He said yesterday with regard to the statements of the gentlewoman from Florida about the book of the Speaker, ``It is the Speaker's opinion that innuendo and personal references to the Speaker's conduct are not in order.'' That has been altered and that does not appear verbatim in the Congressional Record. Instead, it says, ``It is the Speaker's opinion that innuendo and critical references to the Speaker's personal conduct are not in order.'' Additionally, later on in response to a parliamentary inquiry from the gentleman from Missouri, the Speaker pro tempore said, as I recollect it, ``it has been the Chair's ruling, and the precedents of the House support this, a higher level of respect is due to the Speaker.'' In the Congressional Record that has been changed to ``a proper level of respect.'' Now, I do not believe that changing ``personal'' to ``critical'' and ``proper'' to ``higher'' is either technical, grammatical, or typographical. Both make quite substantive changes. Indeed, Mr. Speaker, it seems to me that by the standard that the Speaker yesterday uttered, the gentlewoman from Florida was judged, but if you take today's standard of revised, illegitimately revised version that is in the Record, there would be no objection to what the gentlewoman from Florida said.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I make a point of order.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Chair's approval of the Journal.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. A point of order, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Tentatively as to the Chair's ruling, the gentleman is impugning the motives of Members of this House. The gentleman at the microphone has just said he has imputed inappropriate motives to things that have been said, but the tenor of the Chair's ruling is that no personal references to other Members ought to be allowed.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, a parliamentary inquiry.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, the biggest single mistake we are making in public policy today is to continue to spend far more on the military than is necessary. We have not responded responsibly to the collapse of the Soviet Union and our victory in the cold war. In particular, we continue to act as if Western Europe is in need of subsidy for its defense from the American taxpayers. During our recess, on December 3, Jack Beatty, senior editor at the Atlantic Monthly, wrote an excellent essay in the Boston Globe pointing out the irrationality of our current policy. I was flattered to read Mr. Beatty's forthright assertion that ``NATO is an exorbitant anachronism'' and I ask that his very persuasive essay be printed here. I hope that Members will read and think about it as we prepare to vote on the fiscal 1996 budget. [From the Boston Globe, Dec. 3, 1994] NATO: It's Time the Europeans Found Their Own Way (By Jack Beatty) NATO is an exorbitant anarchronism. Widely regretted by columnists and editorial writers, the current rift among the NATO allies over Bosnia should instead be seen as a welcome development, a chance to reorder national priorities. We can no longer afford to defend countries with higher standards of living than our own against a vanished threat. The Cold War is over, but the peace dividend has been swallowed up by

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, continuing my parliamentary inquiry, if a Member then says ``I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend and I oppose the bill,'' he cannot change that wording, is that correct, except to add punctuation, like an exclamation point? Is it correct that that wording would then appear? Then as I would understand it, if this is correct further, anything beyond that would appear in a distinctive typeface. Mr. Speaker, would it indicate it was not uttered on the floor, or would it just be a distinctive typeface?

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the gentleman for yielding this time to me. Mr. Speaker, I want to reiterate my objection to the procedure by which we are dealing with this. Tom Foley, our former Speaker, has been, it seems to me, unfairly maligned to some extent. Let us contrast the way we passed this bill, and we passed this bill, as the gentleman from Connecticut has been very decent in pointing out, under Tom Foley's leadership; but we passed it not in the middle of the night. I understand we are here at 10 after 1 in the morning because we are in the midst of this revolution, we are going to work hard except we are taking off now, I gather, for about 10 days. So we stay up late at night, rush this bill through, no amendments are allowed, no discussion will come through. Members are aware, for instance, and I am in favor of this, but it says in here no Member of Congress will be personally liable for the payment of compensation. I think that makes sense. I do not think all the Members have had a chance to talk about this. This bill does not apply the Freedom of Information Act to Congress. It says we will study it. I think that is a sensible thing, but those are things that ought to be talked about. This bill, unlike the bill we had before, allows Members to use federally funded frequent flyer miles, and that is not easy to say for me. It allows those to be used for personal use. Now people in the private sector cannot do that. What we are doing with this is giving good intentions a bad name. Yes, it is a good bill. It is a good bill when we worked it out last year. Typically the gentleman from Connecticut [Mr. Shays] tries very hard to be bipartisan, but sometimes, I guess, there are constraints. This is an all partisan sponsorship. This bill was bipartisan until now. What we have got is this silly insistence of rushing this bill through with no amendments at 1 o'clock in the morning when we are about to take 10 days off and do absolutely nothing so the Republicans can take something that was passed under Democratic leadership last year and claim authorship of it. Mr. Speaker, they are lucky that one particular bill does not apply to Congress, the copyright laws, because if it did, this example of intellectual theft and attempted partisan piracy would be ruled illegal.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, further parliamentary inquiry. The Chair explained anything uttered could not be changed, but something not uttered could be included in a separate typeface. So if one wanted to get a perfect set of remarks in, would one not be better advised not to utter anything because you could not change the utterance, but instead, put it in in writing.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Will the speaker tell me if it is his ruling that it is still Wednesday? I just want to know what day it is. I was told we have to this on the first day.

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. If the gentleman will yield, it will be better tomorrow afternoon if you get a little sleep.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, there has been a great deal of discussion of history tonight, so let us quote Karl Marx. ``History repeats itself; the first time in history and the second time as farce.'' Farce is what we are getting tonight. It is from the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon. This is almost exactly what the House did before, but there are some bill to the floor last time, it allowed in the rule 14 amendments, 8 of which could be designated by Republicans. You are bringing up a closed rule on a substantive bill for no good reason. You are going to debate it after midnight. You told us you would be family friendly. You forgot to tell us it would be the Addams Family that would be friendly, because we will be doing it at 3 o'clock in the morning. Why do something perfectly sensible, but block a chance to vote on frequent fliers, do it at 3 o'clock in the morning, don't allow amendments? Let me tell you from experience. When you are in the majority, sometimes inevitably you got to defend some dumb things. But in 1 day you have been dumber than we were in 2 years. What are you doing it for? Why not wait until tomorrow. You said we could wait. Do you want to hide the debate on frequent fliers? I do not know why the new Speaker is so attached to the frequent flier rule. But why not talk about it tomorrow? Why now allow some amendments? History? We made this history last year. We made history once. You cannot make history twice, unless you flunked it the first time, and the way you guys are handling this, I think some of you must have, because you do not understand what is going on. We are in favor of this. Most of us worked hard for it. We passed it last year. It was bipartisan. Why are you rushing this through on a totally closed rule? Comparison: We had eight amendments in order from Republicans. We had the frequent flier thing in here. We let it be debated during the day. You are rushing it through, because the Republicans promised it would be done on the first day? It will be after midnight. Now you are even fooling with the clock. Be sensible. Do not get carried away. Do it tomorrow, and do not exempt yourself from the most important law of all, common sense.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think we ought to be clear as to what we are talking about here. In my experience I have seen very few, in fact, no closed meetings. There is a very important concept known as the elephant stick. The elephant stick is a stick that a man carries. It is not Tonya Harding's stick, it is the one that you carry around Dupont Circle, and people say, ``What are you doing with that stick?'' And the answer is, ``Well, it is to keep away all the elephants.'' They say, ``Well, there aren't any elephants at Dupont Circle.'' Then you say, ``My stick works.'' Now, my friends on the other side have got a lot of elephant sticks tonight. They are banishing nonexistent elephants at a fast and furious pace. If they want to take credit for it, that is fine. But I have to tell you that these closed meetings they talk about are widely a figment of their imagination. But I am concerned about openness in this regard: I was told we were going to have a new way of operating. Is it the plan, and I will be glad to yield to any member of the leadership on the other side, is it the plan to finish this rule, and then take up another separate important bill, the compliance bill, at 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning, and then do nothing tomorrow? Is that the new way of legislating, that we will take up the important o'clock in the morning, keeping people here on overtime, and then tomorrow have nothing to do at all? If that is in fact the plan on the other side, I hope the leadership will tell us that, so some of us can suggest we ought to finish this bill, go home for the night, and come in tomorrow and then act on the compliance bill in the sunshine, not at 2 o'clock in the morning.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Madam Speaker, I will say I meant that in a purely metaphorical sense, but let me say I thank the gentleman for yielding. I think the example of openness we set here is important. Let GOPAC and every other political organization controlled by Members of the House follow the example because certainly no Member of the House would want to be considered so inconsistent as to vote that we will open meetings that no one wants to come to and then at the same time conceal information that people want to know about. The principle of openness is important. Let us hope that it sets a good example.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I would ask for an additional 30 seconds since I yielded to Tonya Harding over there.

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. I thank the gentleman very much for his acknowledgment of defeat on this issue. We can talk about openness. The point is----

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

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts

Mr. FRANK of Massachusetts. Mr. Speaker, a point of order. I would think that that motion would be that Members would have 5 days to extend their remarks, but under the new rules I do not see how they could revise remarks unmade, so Members would be allowed to extend. But I think under the new rule giving Members the chance to review unmade remarks is out of order, and they could only extend in a different typeface.