Providing for Consideration of H.R. 5822, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2011

Floor Speech

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Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Miami for his very thoughtful remarks in his opening statement in which he talked about the greatness of this bill.

This is a bipartisan bill, as has been pointed out by Mr. Crenshaw, as has been pointed out by Mr. Buyer. Democrats and Republicans alike have come together because, obviously, if we don't take care of our Nation's veterans, how are we going to incent our fellow Americans to join the armed services?

When commitments are made to them, they need to be kept. We all want to do everything we can for the brave men and women who have fought on behalf and served on behalf of the United States of America.

Obviously, I am here with a degree of sadness. I wasn't here for the exchange that took place when our friend, Mr. Flake, was here, but I have been told that my good friend from North Haven, who is managing this rule for the majority, indicated that if we had had an open amendment process, we would be allowing partisan obstructionism or something along that line to take place.

Mr. Speaker, it's very interesting that we have made what I consider to be rather sad history in this place. My friend from North Haven is a new Member of this institution and has not once, in her 18 months as a Member of the United States House of Representatives, been able to witness or participate in a bill being debated under an open amendment process.

I have got to say that until it is tried, I would say to my friend, Mr. Speaker, until it's tried, I would think that the notion of passing judgment on the problems of an open rule should really not be brought forward.

I will tell you that it is clear that an open amendment process is messier and uglier and more difficult than having everything shut down, but that's really what the framers of our Constitution wanted. They wanted there to be a free-flowing discussion. I just listened to Mr. Buyer a few minutes ago talking about the green initiative, and he wanted to engage in a colloquy with Chairman Edwards about this.

The fact is, when we get into an open amendment process, which, by the way, was done for every single year up until last year for almost all appropriations bills--in fact, virtually every appropriations bill has begun under an open amendment process. Then, if a bipartisan consensus and agreement cannot be struck to bring about some kind of limitation of debate between the chairman of the subcommittee and the ranking member, the Rules Committee has, on occasion, been called on. But the difficulty here for me to understand, Mr. Speaker, is that we are not even beginning with even a modicum of regular order.

Yesterday, in the Rules Committee, I talked about William Natcher, who was a great Member of this institution and served for a period of time as chairman of the Appropriations Committee. Two decades ago, when I joined the Rules Committee, I discussed the appropriations process with Chairman Natcher. He was probably best known--well, he was known for lots of accomplishments, probably best known as the only human being to go, for all the years that he served here, without missing a single vote. In fact, he gave me advice when I got here. He said, Make a speech in the well and miss a vote. This guy never missed a vote, and he was bound to that.

But one of the things that he was was a great institutionalist, and he understood what regular order consisted of. He believed that since appropriations bills are considered to be privileged resolutions, that those measures didn't have to go upstairs through the Rules Committee. They, instead, could come directly to the House floor. By virtue of doing that, it would mean that legislating an appropriations bill could be stricken by a point of order that a Member would raise, but he believed that that was the best way to do that.

Well, we moved away from that, and he said he didn't think that it was a wise thing. But we moved to the point where the Rules Committee would say, gosh, if there are items in an appropriations bill that consisted of things like legislation, there was an agreement with the authorizing committee that the Rules Committee would protect those. It was understood and done pretty much with bipartisan consensus.

But then Democrats and Republicans, alike, would be able to, under that sacrosanct appropriations process, offer germane amendments to the appropriations bill. Now we have gotten to the point, again, and for the first time in the history of the Republic, of shutting down the appropriations process, limiting the opportunities for Members to offer amendments.

While this is a very, very, very good and a critically important bill which virtually all of us will support at the end of the day, it's not the right way to do it. Process is substance. The American people learned that very clearly when we had the 300-page amendment dropped on us up in the Rules Committee at 3 o'clock in the morning, that, in fact, said that we had just a few hours to look at that measure before it was to be debated on the House floor.

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Mr. DREIER. Let me just close by saying that it's very, very important for us to recognize that process is substance. The American people get that. They understand that we are preventing their voice, Democrat and Republican alike, from being heard in this appropriations process.

It is wrong, and I hope very much that as we move through the appropriations process this year we will get back through to regular order. I certainly hope that beginning next year, when a new appropriations process will begin, that we will have the kind of open amendment process that the American people expect and, through their elected representatives, deserve.

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Mr. DREIER. I thank the gentlewoman for yielding.

I would say to my friend that she is absolutely right, having this 18-month experience.

The fact is, if the Rules Committee were to follow regular order and report out open rules, the meetings upstairs would last a grand total of 5 minutes because we would have the chairman and the ranking member of the subcommittee come forward, say we have got this bill, we have an open amendment process, any Member can stand up on the House floor and offer a germane amendment to the measure. It is considered under the 5-minute rule. We would end the meeting upstairs and we would allow the House to work its will, which is, again, what was done up until last year when we had this shut down for the first time.

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