Providing For Consideration Of H.r. 3192, Homebuyers Assistance Act

Floor Speech

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Mr. McGOVERN. When the Republicans took the majority in 2011, Speaker Boehner and the entire Republican leadership promised the Democrats a right to ``a robust debate in open process.'' He promised us the opportunity to ``make our case, offer alternatives, and be heard.''

Instead, the Speaker has presided over the most closed Congress in the history of the United States of America, and Democratic alternatives are often prevented from coming to the floor.

By the way, not only are Democratic alternatives prevented from coming to the floor, Republicans can't even bring amendments to this bill because it is totally closed.

Now, I know my friends on the other side of the aisle are meeting as a conference tomorrow to choose a nominee to become the next Speaker and have other leadership battles ahead.

I hope that they are able to have an honest discussion about the ability to work through regular order and an open process that allows the House of Representatives to work its will and for both parties to be heard.

Now, maybe my friend from Ohio can help me understand why an amendment offered by the ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction, Ms. Waters, an amendment that would protect consumers, was not made in order.

I mean, we would have preferred an open rule. We would have preferred that many amendments would be made in order. But the ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction had an amendment that is germane to this bill, and it wasn't made in order.

I don't quite understand it. One amendment, just one. Maybe it was an oversight.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that we amend this rule and that the Waters amendment be allowed so that we can debate it.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Reclaiming my time, so the excuse is that this was not made in order because the ranking member did not offer this in committee.

Who cares? We have a debate on the House floor. This is supposed to be a deliberative body. We are supposed to be able to debate these things.

The gentleman did not say it was not germane. The gentleman did not say it needed special waivers to be made in order.

He just said: Hey, she didn't bring it up in the full committee. So we decided in the Rules Committee to say no, you don't have the right to be able to offer this and debate it.

Please. I mean, come on. This place is becoming a place where serious issues are not even allowed to have a debate. I am not even asking you to vote for it. I am just saying to allow there to be some debate.
THOMAS
When I travel to my district, Mr. Speaker, I hear from constituents who are fed up with this Congress. They are fed up with the process. They always want to know: Why can't you at least debate important issues that are relevant to our lives?

It is hard to explain that the Republicans just want to shut everything out, and this bill is no exception.

I talk to people who think this place is no longer a serious legislative body, and they have a point because we don't really debate serious things anymore.

We have things like this Benghazi commission that has cost the taxpayers millions of dollars, that the Republican majority leader admitted, on a very conservative TV station, that it was nothing but a political ploy to try to get Hillary Clinton's poll numbers down.

I guess it didn't come as any surprise to me. It came as a surprise that he was so candid in his admission of what this was all about.

There is time to debate a special select committee to yet do another investigation of Planned Parenthood. We don't even know how much that is going to cost because, when it was brought before the Rules Committee

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Again, we have some serious disagreements with the gentleman over how this bill, in our opinion, adversely impacts consumers. This good faith exception is not in the current law as it stands. This is new ground that this bill is moving us toward, and there are some real serious concerns for consumers.

All we are saying is, again, our priority is the consumers. If that is not the priority of my Republican friends, fine; you can defend the language that you put into this bill. But there is controversy over this, and we ought to be able to debate it. To simply say, you know, ``Oh, if we made it in order, it would fail anyway,'' is that going to be the new kind of standard for making amendments in order, that we are only going to allow amendments to come to the floor that we absolutely know will pass? Boy, that is a whole new standard that the Rules Committee and the Republican majority are now going to try to enforce.

Again, one amendment, one by the ranking member of the committee of jurisdiction--one. That is it, one. Give her 10 minutes.

I mean, I don't get why this had to be completely closed. But in any event, you are in charge. You can do whatever you want. And this place is being run under the strictest, most closed process, as I mentioned before, in the history of the United States of America.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Maxine Waters), the distinguished ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services, whose amendment was germane and was deliberately not made in order by the Republicans on the Rules Committee last night.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, let me just say to my friend, the gentleman from Kentucky, I signed his letter. I agree with him. There should be a grace period. If that is what we were talking about right now, I don't think there would be much of a debate. We got what we wanted.

But ``yes'' is not a good enough answer for some of my friends on the other side of the aisle. So you bring something that might be a redundant bill. But I would be less exercised over voting for a redundant bill if that is all it was. But you expanded it. You added something that wasn't in the letter. Basically, you added something that we strongly believe jeopardizes consumers.

Now, what makes us even more exercised over here is that the Rules Committee reported out a rule that denied the right of the ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, Ms. Waters of California, to bring an amendment to remedy that to the floor--a totally closed rule.

The one real controversy about what we are doing here today is this provision that we think hurts consumers, and we can't have a vote on it.

Mr. Speaker, the amendment was germane. She is the ranking member. We are only asking for 1 minute. We are not doing anything else here of any consequence. We are not trying to figure out our long-term budget problems. So you could give us another 10 minutes to debate an amendment, and you have chosen to not do that.

I will just say one other thing. Everybody holds up that prop, the 1,800 pages of regulations. But let's just help break it down because we are into a lot of props in this place. We ought to also understand what the facts are.

First, the 1,800 pages are contained in the double-spaced document. The text in the Federal Register is actually not 1,800 pages, but 634 pages, roughly one-third of that. The rule itself, the regulatory text, is only 26 pages--only 26 pages.

Mr. Speaker, 171 pages are sample and model forms which my friends on the other side of the aisle say we want the agency to help provide industry with concrete guidance. So there are 171 pages of sample and model forms in there. We have further breakdown here if my friends are interested.

Let's be clear. None of us here object. In fact, we all support the grace period. That is not what is contentious about this debate.

It is this anti-consumer provision that has been inserted in this bill by my Republican friends that have us concerned. At a minimum, the Rules Committee ought to have allowed for there to be a debate where that could be voted up or down. If my friends don't like it, they can vote ``no.''

Instead, we hear excuses, Oh, no, it wasn't offered in the full committee, as if that somehow is a reason to deny a Member the right to offer an amendment to the floor; Oh, we can't make it in order because, oh, it won't pass anyway, a new standard now by the Rules Committee in terms of what will be made in order.

Just give us the amendment. Let's have a real debate. Let's actually be deliberative for a change here.

Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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Mr. McGOVERN. Mr. Speaker, it is clear we have a disagreement here, and it ought to be resolved in an open and fair fashion with a debate and a vote on an amendment. We are not going to have that.

So I am just going to close by saying to my colleagues on both sides of the aisle I have got a radical idea for what I think is the greatest democratic institution in the world, the United States Congress. That radical idea is that we ought to allow a little democracy to happen here. We ought to not be afraid of debate. We ought to not be afraid of allowing at least one amendment--that is all, one amendment--to come to the floor so that the concerns that we have voiced on our side of the aisle, a worry that consumers will once again become victims and get a raw deal, could be avoided. We ought to have that debate, and we ought to vote up or down on it.

This grace period is, as I said, supported by everybody. It is supported by the CFPB. We are all on board on that. That is not the controversy. The controversy is this added stuff. And the way the majority has decided to handle this--to shut the whole process down--that is, I think, beneath what this institution should be about.

So I would urge my colleagues in the strongest possible terms to please vote against this rule. Send a message to the leadership here that we need to do this better. We need a better process. This process is lousy, and we all should be fed up with it.

I yield back the balance of my time.

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