Expressing the Gratitude of the House of Representatives to Its Parliamentarian, The Honorable Charles W. Johnson

EXPRESSING THE GRATITUDE OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES TO ITS PARLIAMENTARIAN, THE HONORABLE CHARLES W. JOHNSON.

Mr. SIMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Charlie, we are certainly going to miss you. Sometimes that does not seem like enough, but all of the Members of the House and the fellow staff members here in the House are certainly going to miss you. Sometimes simple words are the best.

Parliamentary procedure, as has been stated here, the Rules of the House equally and uniformly applied to all, are what make this emotional and sometimes polarized place work. Charlie and I have sometimes disagreed about the interpretation of those rules and we have debated it a little bit. Yielding to the superior wisdom of Charlie, I found out that you can end debate with a nondebatable motion here in the House, but if we were back in Idaho, you could not do that. We have had some very interesting debates.

I always found, when I practiced dentistry, that when I was hiring a new chairside assistant, it was sometimes often easier to hire somebody that had no experience because then you did not have to untrain them before you retrained them. Sometimes I think Charlie's toughest job here is to take some of us who have been presiding officers in State legislatures and untrain us of the rules that we learned in our State legislatures before he retrained us about the Rules of the House.

I know that you have done a fantastic job. We have all enjoyed working with you. Sometimes the measure of an individual's performance is what those around him think about the job that he has done. As I have talked to other staff members here, I can tell you one of the things that was said yesterday, someone said, "If I had to think of one word to describe Charlie, it would be 'integrity."' That is not a bad legacy to leave.

Thank you, Charlie. We are going to miss you.