Adopting the Rules of the House of Representatives for the 117th Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts, my very good friend, Chairman McGovern, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes; and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, we are here today to address the majority's proposed changes in the Rules of the House of Representatives for the 117th Congress.

These changes are some of the harshest and most cynical that I have experienced during my time in Congress. Democratic leadership is suppressing minority rights and paving the way for the Green New Deal by intentionally removing budgetary checks that have been in place for over a decade.

The most egregious of these changes is the complete gutting of the motion to recommit. The motion to recommit, or the MTR, is the minority's right to propose a final amendment before moving passage. This is a right that has been guaranteed to the minority for well over a century.

With today's changes, the majority is seeking to silence views they are afraid of with no regard for this institution or the American people's trust in our constitutional responsibility to govern and govern well. They are taking away the ability to debate a motion to recommit and the ability to offer a motion to recommit with instructions. This completely guts the minority's ability to offer a last amendment on the floor prior to passage of legislation.

I would remind my colleagues that during the many years Republicans were in the majority, we never even thought to deny the minority this motion. And the only reason Democrats are doing so today is out of embarrassment. They are embarrassed that the Republicans were able to pass eight motions to recommit in the 116th Congress. But rather than acknowledging that Republicans sometimes have good policy ideas that should be incorporated into legislation, the majority is instead seeking to completely cut off this key right, and that, Madam Speaker, is simply reprehensible.

Madam Speaker, the motion to recommit has been around since the beginning of the House as an institution, and it has been in its present form since 1909. In fact, in 1919, Representative Abraham Garrett of Tennessee, noted that ``the motion to recommit is regarded as so sacred it is one of the few rules protected against the Committee on Rules by the general rules of the House.''

And when Speaker Pelosi was herself in the minority, she equated the motion to recommit with the right of free speech enshrined in our Constitution. How this majority can now decide that a procedure that is so important it is on par with the guarantee of free speech must be eliminated is beyond my understanding.

Madam Speaker, it is simply shocking that Democrats are so afraid of Republican ideas that they feel the need to rig the system against us. They don't want the House to work its will. They only want the Speaker's will. And we all know why that is. It is because the majority cannot effectively defend its policies against competing ideas.

Eight times in the last Congress a majority of the House agreed that the Republican policy idea had merit and should be included in the final bill. But that state of affairs is evidently so embarrassing to Democrats that they can't stand it, and now they have to completely shut down minority rights lest they be embarrassed further, especially after the November election dealt them a harsh blow and they lost seats in their own ranks.

Madam Speaker, I want to offer my friends on the other side of the aisle a word of warning: Majorities do not last forever. If there is one certainty we can take away from the history of American politics, it is that the party in power in the House of Representatives today will not hold that position forever. I can also guarantee you that your efforts to shut us down will not shut us up.

So instead of having bills that pass with slight improvements made through an MTR, bills will fail here on the House floor. And for that reason, among others, I am sure Democrats will regret making this egregious change in the very near future. Republicans are proud to debate our policies and proposals, unlike the majority today, whose record of promised openness and fulsome debate is an abject failure.

Now, Madam Speaker, while gutting the MTR may be the worst piece of this rules package to many, I want to applaud my friends for removing an almost equally egregious piece of this rules package. When the majority released this package over the weekend, there was a particularly noxious provision that would have empowered the Speaker of the House to censor the free speech of Members and employees of the House. What is worse, it would have empowered the Speaker to act as the sole judge, jury, and executioner, and included no clear guidelines for how this would be enforced. This proposed rule was downright un- American.

Fortunately, my friends on the other side of the aisle have listened to reason and removed that provision from this package. I wish they had further listened to reason and removed the provision taking away the minority's right to an MTR, which is why I offered a very reasonable motion to postpone for one day.

Madam Speaker, I could go on all day about the MTR, but there are other changes in this rules package that need to be highlighted. Slipped into the package is another change that will effectively eliminate the paygo rule. Paygo is a useful budgetary control measure that essentially says that we can't spend money that we don't have. But if the majority gets their way, paygo will be eliminated for a broad category of topics, including for measures relating to climate change. This is doing nothing more than removing a key barrier to the Green New Deal and other liberal tax-and-spend policies.

But never before has the majority tried to lift budgetary rules on something as absurdly expensive as the Green New Deal, which is estimated to cost as much as $100 trillion over the next decade, should it be enacted.

It is clear that the majority doesn't even want to have a conversation about the cost of the Green New Deal, and instead wants to ensure that the American people never find out about the cost of their extreme plans.

There are other measures in this rules package that are just as absurd. Not content with having investigated President Trump throughout his Presidency and subjected him to pointless impeachment, now Democrats are including provisions allowing them to send subpoenas to former Presidents, former Vice Presidents, and former White House staff, long after their administration has ended.

This provision is a continuation of the Democratic majority's obsession with investigating President Trump and his administration, and ensures they will be able to keep their investigation gravy train rolling along long after the President leaves office.

There is a similar provision which will allow certain committee chairs to reissue subpoenas prior to the committee organizing for the 117th Congress, thus ensuring that existing investigations into President Trump, no matter how silly or pointless, will not have to slow down or even let the new Congress consider their current merits or legislative justification.

Allowing a chair to issue subpoenas without any consultation with membership or with the minority is nothing less than an abuse of power. But I suppose I should not expect any less given the other provisions in this package.

Madam Speaker, despite my affection for my friend on the other side of the aisle, I have to tell him that this package stinks. It is deeply cynical and deeply short-sighted. It tramples on minority rights and it ensures a power grab by Democratic leadership. It will change the nature of this institution, and not for the better.

Madam Speaker, today, I call on all Members to vote ``no'' on this rules package. I ask all of my colleagues, regardless of party, to reject these radical and, at times, ridiculous changes. I call on all my colleagues to protect minority rights. The future of this institution depends on it.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds to respond to my friend.

I remind my friend that you accepted eight MTRs, or eight were approved, because Democrats decided the Republican proposals were good proposals and made the bill better. We couldn't have done it on our own. So, you are actually limiting the choices in front of your own Members.

We might not feel so strongly about the MTR if we got more amendments approved anyway. We only get about 18 percent of the amendments. When we were in the majority, we gave you 45. We got 38. You now get 68. So, you are taking a tool away that is important to us.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rodney Davis), my very good friend and the distinguished ranking member on the House Administration Committee.

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

If we defeat the previous question, Madam Speaker, I will offer an amendment to the rule to immediately amend the rules package to strike the complete gutting of the MTR. My amendment will restore this sacred right to the minority to offer a final amendment to the bill.

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Mr. COLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

In closing, I want to urge all of my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this rules package. The majority's proposed package will only continue the ongoing assault on minority voices.

The changes in this package completely gut the MTR. With all due respect to my friends, we disagree on that. I am sorry you have a hard time handling it or getting your Members to where you want them to go, but the fact is, eight times in the last Congress, Democrats joined with Republicans in deciding that the Republican proposal improved the bill. It is that simple.

We shouldn't be taking that away, particularly when the record, I think, is so bad in the last Democratic Congress in granting amendment opportunities to the minority.

I remind my friends, when we were in the majority, you got 45 percent of all of the amendments made in order in the Rules Committee; the Republicans got 38 percent; the remainder were bipartisan. Last time, you got two-thirds of the amendments, we got 18 percent, and the remainder were bipartisan.

When you are removing the MTR, on top of not giving us very many amendments to begin with, we look on that as an effort to limit our ability to participate openly and effectively in debate. This rules package moves us in another direction.

I am sorry that the traditional rules of the House that have been here over 100 years are inconvenient to the Democratic majority. Sometimes it is good to be inconvenienced when you are in the majority.

You are limiting our ability to participate. Frankly, it will find other outlets; it always does. I think that is a tragic mistake I think that you will live to regret.

In addition to that, obviously, we disagree in the proposed rules package with eliminating paygo in some critical areas. We think you could drive a truck through those. It is a critical budgetary tool, and we do think it will be missed, and its absence will be used to pave the way for the Green New Deal.

In addition, the desire to continue to subpoena Presidents, Vice Presidents, and White House staff that are no longer in office strikes us as clearly an effort to just continue to harass the departing administration. I regret that. I think you will, too. I think people want us to look forward, not backward.

So we don't see much use in that, nor do we see the automatic ability to resubmit subpoenas from the last Congress as a good thing. Again, it is looking in the rearview mirror.

Madam Speaker, I urge rejection of the package, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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