Providing for Consideration of Conference Report on H.R. 2669, College Cost Reduction And Access Act
PROVIDING FOR CONSIDERATION OF CONFERENCE REPORT ON H.R. 2669, COLLEGE COST REDUCTION AND ACCESS ACT -- (House of Representatives - September 07, 2007)
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Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I thank my friend, the gentlewoman from Ohio, for the time; and I yield myself such time as I may consume.
This rule that the majority brings forth today, Mr. Speaker, is a standard
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rule for a conference report. But yesterday the minority on the Rules Committee voted against this rule because of the unsatisfactory manner in which the conference report was put together.
In his submitted testimony to the Rules Committee yesterday, Education and Labor Committee Ranking Member BUCK McKeon expressed concern with the process the majority used of the conference committee. The minority was informed at 9:30 p.m. that the conference committee would meet at 11:30 a.m. the following morning. However, the majority did not provide the minority with the text of the conference report at the time the meeting was announced and even kept the text away from Republicans at the meeting itself.
Republican conferees were, in effect, left in the dark. They had no way to know what was in the report. As such, it was impossible for members of the minority to propose amendments to the report and thus play any meaningful part in the conference.
Democrats did not even allow Republicans to see the conference report at the end of the meeting. Instead, Republicans had to wait until later in the evening hours after the conference committee had ended.
Mr. Speaker, our friends on the other side of the aisle campaigned, and they did so repeatedly, on an open, fair, and bipartisan process, including a promise to provide members of conference committees with texts of conference reports. They also said that they will allow members of the conference committee to vote on all amendments.
During consideration of the rules package for this new Congress, the distinguished chairwoman of the Rules Committee said, ``Never again will any Member of the Congress have to fight to find out where the conference to which he or she has been appointed is meeting.''
Well, in this instance, Members did not have to fight to find the conference committee location, but they certainly did have to fight to get the text of the conference report; and even after fighting, they did not get to see it. By keeping the text of the conference report away from the minority, Democrats were essentially locking out Republican Members from the conference committee, which is exactly what the Democrats said they would not do.
So, Mr. Speaker, because of the manner, the way the majority kept the text of the conference report from Republicans and thus committed, if you will, a process foul, we oppose this rule.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. LINCOLN DIAZ-BALART of Florida. Mr. Speaker, we reiterate that the process by which this conference report was composed was not fair. And it, in effect, violated the promises made by the other side of the aisle very recently, very recently made and reiterated. The process was profoundly unfair. I stressed that in my previous remarks, and I reiterate it now.
In addition, we've heard from the distinguished ranking member with regard to grave concerns by many of those who have been working on this issue, such as Mr. McKeon, for many years.
So for those reasons, Mr. Speaker, we oppose this rule and would urge a ``no'' vote on the rule.
Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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