Adopting the Rules of the House of Representatives for the 118th Congress

Floor Speech

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Mr. ROY. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend from Oklahoma (Mr. Cole) for yielding.

I am delighted to be down here on the floor of the House of Representatives in a Republican majority, and I am delighted to be talking about a rules package crafted by that Republican majority and that reflects what I think is a fundamental transformation of this House to ensure that the people can be represented by their Representatives. That is the point.

There is a reason that I have had great conversations with some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle about why having 72 hours to read a bill, or why having a bill that isn't littered with Christmas tree additional subjects rather than single subjects, as my friend from Virginia (Mr. Griffith) articulated so well, or whether having germane amendments and being able to open up the floor by virtue of changing the rules or restoring the Holman rule so we can have an impact on agencies that are out of control and not responding to the people's House, there is a reason why those rules are so fundamentally important: to restore this body and to restore the people's House.

That is why we are here. Everybody keeps running around in classic swamp speak talking about secret deals, a secret addendum.

What we are talking about is how people come to an agreement in this town to ensure that we are going to carry out what we have said we are going to do.

The rules package is on full display. The rules package has been on full display and publicly available since Friday or earlier last week.

The text of that rules package has been something we can look at. My friends are right. A good chunk of that text is the agreement reached a while back, a couple of weeks ago, 1 week or 2 weeks ago, with one significant change: the single-person motion to vacate which is in the spirit of that which goes all the way back to Jefferson. In fact, we are currently now operating not under any rules. That is why we are having a debate. We are about to debate on adopting the rules.

I can walk down right there into the well and file a motion to vacate a single person right now because that is the precedent. That is what we are operating under, because that goes back to Jefferson.

The whole point here is trying to ensure that we are continuing the great history of the people's House.

Yes, we have had conversations and agreements as individuals are supposed to do, looking each other in the eye and saying that we are going to bring balanced budgets to the floor of the House.

You bet that we have agreements that we are going to do that. You bet we have had agreements that we are going to bring the Texas border plan to make sure that we secure the border rather than perpetuating the fraud that the President of the United States continues to perpetuate endangering the American people. You bet that we are bringing forward a promise to have legislation that will set term limits because the American people are tired of a House that doesn't represent them. You bet that we have got agreements to do those things.

You bet that we have been talking about making sure that we can bring amendments to the floor of this House--open debate amendments on appropriations bills--that that was a part of the package that we were talking about; and you bet that a part of our agreement was ensuring that a Church-style committee under the leadership of my good friend, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Jordan) of the Judiciary Committee, will target weaponization of government against the American people. You bet that those agreements were reached.

I will not back away from that or shy away from it.

But this rules package is a rules package that reflects this body and the entirety of the Republican Party on making sure that we restore the people's House.

We are united to do that. We are coming out of last week strong and united to make sure that we stand up for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I encourage everybody to vote for this rules package.

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