Providing for Further Consideration of H.R. National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017
Floor Speech
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Mr. HOYER. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts for yielding.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this rule. This is not consistent with what the Speaker and the other leaders of the Republican Party have said they were going to do. It is inconsistent with how they said they were going to manage this House. It is inconsistent with the rights of the American people to have their Representatives vote on issues of great importance, which, of course, is what the Speaker and Mr. McCarthy and Mr. Cantor said in this book, ``Young Guns.''
I am going to read a paragraph from this book. This is in Paul Ryan's section, under his heading, the Speaker of the House:
``The new Washington way,'' in speaking about what was apparently the stuff he didn't like, ``isn't open debate broadcast on C-SPAN; it is closed-door, backroom deals. The Washington way doesn't seek input from both sides of the issue; it muscles through bills on strict one-party votes. And the Washington way,'' speaking clearly of the way the majority of the Democrats were leading, ``isn't interested in honest up-or-down votes on transformational programs. It rigs the process,'' it reads, ``to produce the outcome it desires through any means necessary.''
That is exactly what is happening in this rule--exactly. Paul Ryan and the young guns promised transparency, openness, and the House's being allowed to work its will.
So what has happened in the Committee on Rules?
Exactly the opposite. No transparency--a muzzling of the Members of the House of Representatives in not allowing a vote--but simply, unilaterally, in the dead of night, pocketing an amendment that was adopted in the committee that says that women would be treated just like men.
Now, I know that is a revolutionary concept for some on your side of the aisle here, and I know you certainly didn't want your Members to vote on that extraordinarily controversial issue. So in the dead of night, without any debate, without a vote in the Committee on Rules, it was simply put in the chairman's pocket, and 434 of us were ripped out of the process. The young guns said that wouldn't happen. Now, the young guns, by the way, so we all understand, are the Speaker and the majority leader now.
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Mr. HOYER. Ladies and gentlemen, we ought to reject this rule, and the American people ought to reject this rule. The American people ought to say: bring the issues to the floor and let the House work its will. That is why they elected us, not to have the chairman of the Committee on Rules say: Sorry, you don't get to vote.
He wasn't elected dictator; Steny Hoyer wasn't elected dictator; Jim McGovern wasn't elected dictator. We were elected to be one of 435 people to make policies for this country and for our people.
Reject this rule. Bring democracy back to the House of Representatives. Let the people's representatives set policy in the light of day.
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Mr. HOYER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for protecting us from ourselves. That seems to be somewhat paternalistic, of course.
As I understand it--and I was not there, but it wouldn't have mattered whether I was in the Committee on Rules--it was not done in open session in the Committee on Rules. The Committee on Armed Services voted upon it, and apparently the majority of your side lost, and they don't want us to consider it, and they don't want to subject your Members to voting on it and letting the American people know where you stand.
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