Providing for Consideration of H.R. Protect and Serve Act of Providing for Consideration of S. Veterans Cemetery Benefit Correction Act; and Providing for Consideration of H.R. Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018

Floor Speech

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Mr. WALZ. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Massachusetts and my friend from Georgia. We are going to see some camaraderie down here. I agree with the gentleman on this. And I thank Mr. Lamb for pointing out clearly what needs to be done to this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in opposition to the rule. This is one of those cases, and I think this is important on the rule, because, Mr. Speaker, we may know it in here, but for Americans who are watching this, the rule is how we have this debate. And this is an honest debate.

To be absolutely clear, there is no one in this Chamber who disagrees on the care for veterans. How we get there is what is different. On these amendments that Mr. Lamb was proposing to offer or other things that we would like to bring up to fix this, we should debate it here.

Dr. Roe, the chairman of the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, did this. He had an open rule. I brought up my amendment, it was debated, and I lost. That is democracy. I understand that. But it is the conversation that brings our Members in that gets us to consensus.

So, by structuring a closed rule--for the American people watching this, we already know what the score is of this game. We already know what is going to happen ahead of time. It is in this deliberative body that we should be having a detailed debate on this very proposal and then voting it down.

I think we say it because of time; we say it because of constraint; we say it because we want to control the flow of what happens here. Well, maybe the American people don't want that flow a little bit.

We should have this debate, and I will accept losing an argument. What I cannot accept is five people up in a room up on the third floor here making something out of order that is clearly in order, and whether it is accepted or not should at least be debated.

So I don't disagree with the gentleman's assessment. He is right about us trying to find common ground. There is going to be a lot of support on this piece of legislation when it comes up, but I think not having an open rule and an honest debate is selling us short from getting toward a more perfect bill--not perfect, a more perfect bill.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this closed rule.

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