Rep. Waxman calls for a parliamentary inquiry to see how long the minority leader is allowed to speak when he was only yielded a few minutes. Boehner hits it out of the park at the end of the inquiry when he asks his fellow members of the House, "Don't you think the American people expect us to understand what's in this bill before we vote on it?"
This portion of the debate started at about 4:50 p.m. CDT.
REP. JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH8, MINORITY LEADER): Is that what, ah, is that what Green Peace...I'm still not happy with the Republicans, but Boehner got it right when he said that we, the American people, expect Congress to know what's in a bill before they vote on it.
REP. HENRY WAXMAN (D-CA30): Parliamentary inquiry.
BOEHNER: ...demanded to be part of this bill? Madam Speaker, I have the time.
WAXMAN: Madam Speaker, parliamentary inquiry.
BOEHNER: Now we get to page 34. Page 34 it says...
PRESIDER: If the gentleman will suspend. [garbled] Does the gentleman yield for a parliamentary inquiry?
BOEHNER: I'd be happy to yield to the gentleman.
WAXMAN: The Republican leader was yielded the balance of time, which I think amounted to around 4 or 5 minutes; he's talked for around 20. I know we have this magic minute that gives leaders a lot of extra time to speak, but I'm just wondering if there's some limit under the rules on the time that a leader may take, even though the time yielded was not 20 or 30 minutes.
PRESIDER: It's the custom of the House to hear the leader's remarks.
[APPLAUSE]
BOEHNER: When we get to page, when we get to page...
WAXMAN: Further parliamentary inquiry.
PRESIDER: Will the gentleman yield for a parliamentary inquiry?
BOEHNER: I'd be happy to yield to the gentleman.
PRESIDER: Gentleman from California.
WAXMAN: I know it's the custom of the House to give a little extra latitude. Is there any outside limit to the amount of time a leader might take? And do we have historical records that might be broken tonight?
[LAUGHTER]
PRESIDER: The custom...
WAXMAN: Or is this an attempt to get some people to leave on a close vote?
PRESIDER: The custom of the House is to listen to the leader's comments.
BOEHNER: Reclaiming my time, the gentleman...
[APPLAUSE]
BOEHNER: The gentleman's had his 30 years to put this bill together, and, ah, and the House is going to spend a whopping 5 hours debating the most profound piece of legislation to come to this floor in a hundred years. And, ah...
[APPLAUSE]
BOEHNER: And the chairman has the audacity to drop a 300-plus page amendment in the hopper at 3:09 a.m. this morning. And so I would ask my colleagues, "Don't you think the American people expect us to understand what's in this bill before we vote on it?"
[APPLAUSE]
BOEHNER: And so we get to page 34...
No comments:
Post a Comment