Providing for Consideration of H.R. 3082, Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Act, 2010

PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF H.R. 3082, MILITARY CONSTRUCTION AND VETERANS AFFAIRS APPROPRIATIONS ACT, 2010 -- (House of Representatives - July 10, 2009)

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Mr. OBEY. I thank the gentlewoman for the time. I would like to respond to the fiction that I just heard from the previous speaker. The previous speaker indicated that never in the history of the Congress have we had structured rules for appropriation bills. I would like to suggest that he ought to read a little history.

We have 12 appropriations bills we have to bring to the floor each year. He will find that during the Republican control of this House, at least 6 of the 12 bills were brought to this floor under structured rules. He will find that almost 20 times that is the case.

Mr. GINGREY of Georgia. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBEY. No, I would not. I have 5 minutes. You attacked me. I will respond without interruption. I would ask the Chair to prevent further interruptions.

The fact is that I would like to ask the House a question: Why is it that some Members of this House believe that the Appropriations Committee must bring bills to the floor that are totally open when the Ways and Means Committee, when it brings tax bills to the floor, is entitled to have a totally closed rule?

Now, there is no inherent difference between the two, but there is one historical difference, and that is that the Ways and Means Committee used to be the committee that handed out committee assignments to Members of the House. And so the message went out: ``Don't mess with the Ways and Means Committee because they determine your career path in this institution.''

There is no great historical or moral or substantive reason to have that differentiation. It is simply a question of power relationships in the House that determined that.

I would also like to point out the Appropriations Committee has the right to bring to the floor its appropriation bills without ever going to the Rules Committee, and in fact we have had subcommittee Chairs who have done that. The advantage to the Appropriations Committee in doing that is that when the bills come to the floor without going to the Rules Committee, what happens is that any legislation on an appropriation bill--which under the House Rules is off limits--any legislation will be stricken on a point of order.

I remember when Neal Smith used to bring his bill to the floor, and within about 20 minutes the bill was shredded. There were a few paragraphs left in the bill. It took about an hour to finish the bill and then Neal could go off and have a conference with the Senate and do anything he wanted to do because there were no limitations.

So it has been an advantage to individual House Members for the Appropriations Committee to go to the Rules Committee, whether or not there's a totally open rule or whether there's a structured rule, because at least then individual Members have some capacity to influence the results.

Now, we have made quite clear to the minority side we would like to proceed in as open a fashion as possible. Mr. Hoyer, the majority leader, and I went to the Republican leadership weeks and weeks ago and asked them if there was some way that we could work out time agreements so that we can finish these 12 bills before we go home for the August recess.

The minority says they want us to do all of these bills individually. Not wrap them up in a CR. But then they proceeded to demand a procedure which will, in the end, result in bills going into a CR.

And so we asked the minority leadership, ``Will you agree to time limits?'' And the response was, ``Well, if we did that, our caucus would elect somebody else.''

Mr. DREIER. Will the gentleman yield?

Mr. OBEY. No, I will not yield. We asked the leadership, ``Would you be willing to go by a process in which we'll give you the opportunity to offer 10 or 15 amendments, the majority party will offer 5 or 6? You pick the amendments.'' And they said, ``No.'' They didn't want to do that.

There are a limited number of hours between now and the time we recess. If we want to get our work done, we have to limit the debate time that we spend on these bills.

So there is nothing radically new about this. We're simply trying to get the job done. And we're going to do that if it takes all summer.

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