Congressional Record
102nd Congress (1991-1992)

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RULES COMMITTEE STACKED IN A PARTISAN MANNER (House of Representatives - May 06, 1992)

[Page: H3005]

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Ohio [Mr. McEwen] is recognized for 5 minutes.

Mr. McEWEN. So here we are, we have a Democratic-Republican bipartisan package for the good of the country, and for the good of the country, you have got to go to the Committee on Rules, and the Committee on Rules is stacked in a partisan manner 2 to 1 plus 1.

How does that happen? It happens on the first day of the session on January 3 of odd-numbered years. You come in here and you have a vote, and you choose the leadership of the House. Ladies and gentlemen, after that, then you can go do whatever you want, because you have set the rules of the game for the 2 years.

When you vote in that election for the Speaker of the House, the Speaker appoints the Committee on Rules, and they set the rules from then on day after day after day.

The Democrats say it would not be any different under the Republicans. How do we know that? At no time in the lifetime of 82 percent of all of the people living in America, never in the lifetime of 82 percent of all the people living in America have they ever voted in an election in which the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives.

Mr. DREIER of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McEWEN. I am happy to yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. DREIER of California. Would my friend, the gentleman from Ohio, repeat that again? I have heard that figure before, but I think it would be important for our colleagues to hear it.

Mr. McEWEN. Eighty-two percent of all the people in America have never voted in an election in which Republicans controlled the House of Representatives, elected the Speaker, or controlled the rules.

[TIME: 1950]

So you can say, well, you are all the same, and besides, you all voted for Reagan. None of that makes any difference.

The fact is that the laws are passed here. The Constitution of the United States, and I just had a nice little debate with a press person who wanted to lecture about how you had the Presidency for 12 years and so on. The Constitution of the United States says that the spending measures shall begin and taxing measures shall begin in the House of Representatives; so the President can wish only once and can write only once, and speak only once, but the Constitution says that it is controlled here.

We have for 58 of the last 62 years been under control of one political party and one political philosophy. If we want to change America, if we want to change the direction of America, we have got to change the Rules Committee. How do you change the Rules Committee? By the choice that you make on January 3 of the odd-numbered years. That is a partisan vote.

Do you wish it were not? Of course, we do. Would you like it to be different? Of course.

The fact of the matter is that it is a partisan vote, and when we chose the rules on the third day of 1981, 1983, 1985, 1987, and 1991, we decided which direction this country is going to go.

Mr. FAWELL. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. McEWEN. I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Illinois.

Mr. FAWELL. Mr. Speaker, I know in my recent campaign whenever I would tell people that I do not have the right in a given debate on the floor to rise and present an amendment, they believe that basically that is a right that all Members of Congress have. I explain to them, I have to go to the Rules Committee.

They say, `Well, what is the Rules Committee?'

I explain that is controlled by the majority party and they determine whether any amendments can be presented, who can present them many times, and can completely shut you off, and this is a perfect example.

Mr. McEWEN. Not only they can, but they do consistently.

Mr. FAWELL. I think the most important issue on the debt and the deficit problem has its tentacles in the Government with all the problems we have is the basic concept of asking that this body have the opportunity of simply debating whether or not we would like to add $6 billion of additional rescissions to what the Appropriations Committee has brought before this body, and they basically say no, you have no right to a vote on it.

Mr. McEWEN. You cannot vote on it.

Mr. FAWELL. You have no opportunity. You cannot even have a motion to recommit with specific instructions that name these particular amendments.

Mr. McEWEN. Let me just follow up very quickly on that point.

The Republicans, the minority, the Republicans used to be given one vote on a bill, just one, and it was at the tail end. You could say that we would like to send it back to the committee to change this one thing. That was called a motion to recommit with instructions. It was just a little eyedropper of fairness. We could not decide who would speak. We could not set up our amendments. We could not control what came to the floor. We could not decide when it came to the floor. They controlled the committee. But just as an eyedropper of fairness, we were given at the last moment a motion to recommit with instructions, which of course they would overrun. It was just kind of like an act of fairness, a little genuflection toward democracy.

In this Congress, in this Congress that has been virtually universally denied.

A meeting was held just today up in the Rules Committee in which it was discussed, and again this afternoon just an hour ago they decided to deny us on this bill that we are talking about that inherent right throughout the history of the United States, that little token of democracy, is now being denied in the 102d Congress.

[Page: H3006]

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield to me?

Mr. McEWEN. I am pleased to yield to the gentleman from Pennsylvania.

Mr. WALKER. Mr. Speaker, I just want to refocus this for a moment, because we started this off pointing out that the C-SPAN cameras have been denied up in the Rules Committee.

I think what we are talking about is why, because what they have found out is that when the light begins to shine into the Rules Committee and the American people begin to see what really goes on in there, they find that it is pretty slimy and pretty seamy, and they are not about to allow it to happen anymore. They begin to get in touch with the Rules Committee and they begin to think that you cannot continue to operate this way and the Rules Committee says, `Oh, had we ought to respond to this?'

No, they say, shut off the TV cameras so nobody can see this anymore.

Mr. DREIER of California. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield to me?

Mr. McEWEN. I yield to the gentleman from California.

Mr. DREIER of California. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend for yielding to me, and I thank the gentleman from New York for understanding this.

The gentleman from Pennsylvania has raised a very good point. I never quite got to the third reason that was outlined earlier by our friend, the gentleman from Texas [Mr. Frost] when he was making the case for kicking the cameras out of the Rules Committee room. He said along with the fact that this is a highly technical matter, the issue of cutting spending, a highly technical matter; No. 2, committee sessions have gone on an extraordinary length of time partly because of the presence of TV cameras.

The third reason was that Members did not have `sufficient notice for the committee to adequately consider this matter.'

Now, Mr. Speaker, we have regularly had the television cameras in the Rules Committee hearing this session of Congress, in the first session in this 102d Congress. We have had television cameras covering a lot of things in this House. Most of the cameras have been taking pictures of the Bank downstairs that I have seen lately. But it seems to me that for the committee to have to adequately consider this matter, that being allowing the television cameras to be in the Rules Committee room, is absolutely ludicrous as an argument for preventing the American people from having the opportunity to see what was going on there.

Mr. McEWEN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague on the Rules Committee for his leadership.

I thank the gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Walker] for his participation.

I thank the gentleman from Illinois [Mr. Fawell] for his leadership in trying to cut spending.

And I thank the gentleman from New York [Mr. Owens] for being so kind to allow us to proceed.

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. Burton] is recognized for 60 minutes.

[Mr. BURTON of Indiana addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]

The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from Michigan [Mr. Bonior] is recognized for 60 minutes.

[Mr. BONIOR addressed the House. His remarks will appear hereafter in the Extensions of Remarks.]

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