I thank the gentlelady from New York for yielding me the time. I ask unanimous consent to revise and extend my remarks.
First, let me congratulate Speaker Pelosi as she begins her second term as Speaker of this House. I also want to congratulate my colleagues for their elections and I welcome our new colleagues to the House.
Our nation is facing very challenging times. Twelve years ago, when I was first elected, our economy was still growing and we were looking at a significant budget surplus. Our world was relatively peaceful. Now, after eight years of reckless and wasteful spending and after an ill-advised war, we face a global economic meltdown and international instability that seem to be spreading all too quickly.
In November, the American people elected a new President and larger Democratic majorities in the Congress. The voters sent a very clear message: things have got to change here in Washington.
We know that Congress will need to act quickly and responsibly in order to pass legislation to help our nation solve our economic and foreign policy problems.
And this Rules Package is designed to help us do just that. This is a good package and I'm pleased to support it today.
There are many important parts to this package. I'm pleased that this is the first Rules package that is gender neutral. There are other technical fixes included in this package that will help the House operate more smoothly and efficiently.
But, as we heard from Ranking Member Dreier, there are some changes that are receiving more attention than others.
For instance, this Rules package eliminates term limits for Committee Chairs. It's a good, necessary reform that will take some of the politics out of the process of becoming a Committee Chair. The then-Republican Majority included term limits on Committee Chairs in their first Rules Package in 1995. During their Majority, political fundraising played far too large a role in becoming a committee chair. Members publicly argued that because they had raised vast sums of money from special interests, they were entitled to chair a committee. While fundraising is a necessary part of our electoral process, it shouldn't be the criteria for selection of a Committee Chair. Eliminating term limits helps address this problem.
The other major change deals with the Motion to Recommit, which is modernized in this package. Specifically, the Minority will no longer be able to offer a -promptly- motion to recommit. The Minority will have the ability to offer a proper -forthwith- motion or a -straight- motion. But no longer will the minority be able abuse the process by offering political amendments designed to either kill a bill without actually voting against it or to provide fodder for a 30-second political ad.
During the 12 years while Democrats were in the Minority, we offered only 36 -promptly- Motions to Recommit. Over the last two years, Republicans offered 50 of these motions.
Following the 2006 elections that brought Democrats back into the Majority in the House, the new Republican minority had two options - either work in a bipartisan way to address the needs of the American people or obstruct the business of this House through gotcha-style politics.
Unfortunately, too-often they chose the latter.
The Motion to Recommit was not designed for this purpose. It was designed to be a tool for legislating, not a political weapon. Repeatedly, the Democratic Majority attempted to work with the Republican Minority on their Motions to Recommit. But every time we offered to accept their Motion in return for not killing the bill, the Republican Minority refused. They chose talking points over accomplishments. That's not legislating, and it's not what the voters sent us here to do.
I strongly disagree with those who say modernizing the Motion to Recommit is undemocratic. Let me be clear: any member who opposes a bill still has the ability - indeed, the responsibility - to vote -no.-
Congressional Scholar Norm Ornstein said it best - quote -A minority party deserves the right to be heard and to have alternatives considered, but with those rights come responsibilities. If the Minority uses the opportunity to offer amendments to exploit cynically the opening for political purposes - through ‘gotcha' amendments designed to offer 30-second attack ads against vulnerable majority lawmakers, or through poison-pill alternatives designed only to scuttle a bill, not to offer a real alternative - it soon will lose its moral high ground for objecting to Majority restriction on debate an amendments.-
Finally, M. Speaker, I want to point out that included in H. Res. 5 is the reauthorization of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission. The United States must reclaim its moral authority on human rights. I am honored to Co-Chair the Commission along with my good friend Frank Wolf of Virginia, and I look forward to working with him and our other members to advance the cause of human rights around the world.
Again, I thank the gentlelady from New York, our distinguished Chair of the Rules Committee, for the time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
