Waiving Requirement of Clause 6(A) of Rule Xiii With Respect to Consideration of Certain Resolutions

Floor Speech

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Mr. SESSIONS. I want to thank the gentleman, my friend from Vermont, for yielding. And, Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

``I rise in strong opposition to this martial law rule and in opposition to the outrageous process that continues to plague the United States House of Representatives. We have before us a martial law rule that allows the leadership to once again ignore the rules of the House and the procedures and the traditions of this House. Martial law is no way to run a democracy no matter what your ideology, no matter what your party affiliation.''

Madam Speaker, those are not my words nor are they the words of my Republican colleague from the Rules Committee, Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who spoke these same words on the floor on Monday. They are not the words of my staff or some journalist who is covering the Democrat majority heavy-handed floor tactics. No. These are the clear and clever words of the gentleman from Massachusetts, our Rules Committee colleague, Jim McGovern. He spoke these words on several occasions last year regarding what was then eloquently called ``martial law rule.''

I will also use this opportunity to point out another comment that the gentleman from Massachusetts made about martial law rules.

His quote is particularly interesting because it was given to each of us on this floor last year on December 6, just a month before the Democrats took control of the House of Representatives, well after the election. He spoke about how the Democrats proposed to run the House, which today stands in sharp contrast to what they are actually doing.

About 1 year ago, the gentleman from Massachusetts said, ``Mr. Speaker, there is a better way to run this body. The truth, Mr. Speaker, is that the American people expect and deserve better. That is why the 110th Congress must be different. I believe we need to rediscover openness and fairness in the House. We must insist on full and fair debate on the issues that come before this body.''

Now, I and all of my Republican colleagues must ask, a year into the new Democrat majority, where is the openness and fairness that Mr. McGovern spoke about? Where is the openness on the energy bill rule where over 90 amendments were prevented from being considered on the House floor, including a Republican substitute? Where was that openness when we considered SCHIP reauthorization and, what, we had a closed rule?

I can help my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to find out because I know exactly where it is; they left it off on the campaign trail. This, like their promises to disclose earmarks and to run the most ethical and open Congress in history, was an empty promise. It is an empty promise which is becoming more and more evident from the opening day of this new majority, when the Democrats wrote into the rules of the House closed rules for consideration of the first six bills that we were to take up, in effect, discharging the Rules Committee from its duties and setting a new partisan tone for this Congress. Not much has changed since then, Madam Speaker.

Lacking the courage of their convictions to change what they perceived to be problems with how Republicans ran the House, the Democrat remedy for changing unfair practices in the Rules Committee was to have no Rules Committee at all. And that trend of closing down the House to Members that started back then, sadly, continues to this day.

Madam Speaker, there is a better way to run this body. The truth is is that the American people expect and deserve better. That's why the 110th Congress must be different. I believe we must and we need to rediscover openness and fairness in this House. We must insist on full and fair debate on the issues that come before this body.

Oh, by the way, following the rules of the House of at least presenting a bill 24 hours before it comes to the House floor would be a great place to start, because I know it's on the Speaker's Web site saying that that's the way we should operate. We're still waiting.

Madam Speaker, a year ago at this time, despite the House passing all but one of our spending bills, Democrats were on the campaign trail railing against Republican leadership, calling it a ``do-nothing'' Congress. Well, if last year was a failure because of Congress' ability to get all but one appropriations bill to the President for his signature on time, then what does that mean that this year we should think about Democrats when Democrats have failed to get more than one to the President after holding back popular bipartisan bills like veterans funding for their own political partisan gamesmanship?

Madam Speaker, I agree with the Democrats of 2006, not the Democrats of 2007. So, I rise in opposition to this martial law rule.

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