Legislative Program

LEGISLATIVE PROGRAM -- (House of Representatives - September 14, 2006)

(Mr. HOYER asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 minute.)

Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Boehner), the majority leader, for the purposes of inquiring about the schedule for the week to come.

I informed his staff of the length of time I thought this would take, I am sure she has informed him, and he is still here.

Mr. BOEHNER. I thank my friend and colleague from Maryland for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, next week, the House will convene Tuesday at 12:30 p.m. for morning hour and 2 p.m. for legislative business. There are a number of items on the suspension calendar. A final list of those bills will be sent to Members' offices by tomorrow afternoon.

For the balance of the week, the House will consider H.R. 6054, the Military Commissions Act, from the Committee on Armed Services; and H.R. 4844, the Federal Election Integrity Act, from the Committee on House Administration. The House will also consider additional legislation on border security, including providing for more Border Patrol agents, stricter enforcement, enhancing State and local law enforcement authority.

I would also like to note conference reports may be brought up at any time, and I expect to see H.R. 5122, the Sonny Montgomery National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007, a conference report, and hopefully we will have that passed next week.

About Friday votes, I know Members want to get home in time next Friday for Rosh Hashanah, and I am working to make that happen. But to do that, I believe we will be in very late on Thursday.

So I would suggest to Members that if they want to make flight arrangements for first thing on Friday morning, that would be the safe thing to do, but I do expect that we will be in late on Thursday in order to complete our work for the week.

Mr. HOYER. I want to thank the gentleman for that notice to Members. I think that is very helpful. He and I talked about it last week and he said he would work on it. I very much appreciate that and I know the Members do as well. I thank you for that.

Mr. Leader, this may have been an oversight. You did not mention that first votes will be 6:30 on Tuesday of next week. Is that correct?

Mr. BOEHNER. That is correct.

Mr. HOYER. On H.R. 4844, the Federal Election Integrity Act, I have not talked to any members of the committee nor the Rules Committee. As you know, I was the sponsor of the HAVA act, along with BOB NEY, and very interested in this entire issue.

Can you tell me about whether it will be open to amendments or that amendments need to be into the Rules Committee at a certain time, what you contemplate?

Mr. BOEHNER. This bill was reported out of the House Administration Committee some time ago. I imagine we will see an announcement out of the Rules Committee in terms of when their hearing is and whether they will call for amendments. But I would expect that announcement to come from the Rules Committee.

Mr. HOYER. I appreciate that. I would hope, Mr. Leader, that on this bill it could be open to amendment in some form, because clearly this is a critically important issue. As you know, we have just had our primary in Maryland. We had a number of glitches. I don't think there was any wrongdoing, but there was certainly some negligence which led to disruption. I don't think there was anything that perhaps deals particularly with this bill, but I am hopeful that we can consider it in a way that will allow Members to offer their own suggestions. I thank the gentleman for consideration of that issue.

With respect to the border security related legislation, there is a mention of other security legislation possibly coming to the floor. Can you be a little more specific as to what you contemplate might be on the floor next week?

Mr. BOEHNER. I am expecting that next week, and possibly as early and going into the following week, we may have two or three packages of issues that are intended to help strengthen our border. As the gentleman is aware, we have done a lot over the last 4 or 5 years to strengthen the border, adding additional Border Patrol agents, fencing, all types of technology.

We now have the National Guard down on the border. But we believe that there are a number of smaller issues that we can work with the Senate on and possibly include in the Homeland Security appropriations conference report. We talked about it today earlier in a press event. A list of those bills will be available, should be available by now.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman for that information.

On the military commissions/domestic surveillance, you list a bill regarding military commissions for next week. Is there any possibility that we might also have on the floor legislation dealing with the issue of domestic wiretapping surveillance?

I yield to my friend.

Mr. BOEHNER. The terrorist surveillance program is expected to be marked up next week in the Judiciary Committee, which I would then suspect would be on the floor the week thereafter.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the leader for his information.

Again, briefly, I was not going to ask it, but I am constrained to ask it. Is there any chance, Mr. Leader, that we will be able to consider the Labor-Health bill on the floor? It is the only appropriation bill, as you well know, that we have not passed through the House. We have done the other 10.

Do you have any expectation that that bill might be on the floor either next week or the week thereafter?

I yield to my friend.

Mr. BOEHNER. I thank my colleague for yielding.

There are conversations continuing about that bill. There are still some issues in that bill. Those conversations are continuing, but no decisions have been made.

Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman. As the gentleman knows, I have an amendment on the minimum wage in that bill.

Mr. BOEHNER. I am well aware of it, yes.

Mr. HOYER. I am very interested in it, and I would hope we could move it.

Notwithstanding the fact that I told your extraordinarily able staffer who sits behind you that it was going to take about 45 minutes for this colloquy, I will yield back the balance of my time at this time.

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