Bart Stupak: “we drafted these amendments carefully with legislative counsel and others to make sure they were germane. If you want to…”

“we drafted these amendments carefully with legislative counsel and others to make sure they were germane. If you want to rule that they are not germane, I guess you have the right to do that; and I will not appeal the ruling of the Chair because I can count the votes. But the thing I would ask, when a Member has a parliamentary inquiry, if someone would at least tell us where the amendment is wrong so it can be corrected. With all due respect to the chairman, you read what was put forth, but you never say what is wrong with our amendment. What is wrong with these last two amendments that made them not germane, so we can correct it to be within the parliamentary setting of this body? We have part of the House institution telling us our amendments are in order. We get to the floor, and we find them not in order. I guess it is just a little frustrating when we talk about the health and safety of the American people, and we have examples where the FDA has not done their job, so we try to correct it in the only body we can, through legislative amendments, and we come here and we get this ``speak-legalese,'' and I do not have anything against legals since I am an attorney myself. But just a simple question like where are we legislating in this appropriations bill, when we have such tightly crafted amendments that are even taken from existing law so we do not legislate on an appropriations bill and we are still ruled out of order or not germane.…”