Political Quotes

“we have a strict rule around here that a conference report, which is what this is--and for those who are not aware, that means the Senate has passed a bill, the House has passed a bill, representatives of the two bodies have gotten together and agreed on a compromise, a conference report. They held a conference and they agreed. The bill goes to the House and the Senate, and we are supposed to act on the conference report. That is our process. The idea is that the conference committee is supposed to iron out differences between the House and the Senate. That is what happens in a conference committee. What you do not do is bring up new issues in a conference committee. That is verboten. That is not right. If it was not in the House or the Senate bill, then it is not germane to the conference. Every now and then, people look the other way and forget about the rules and say: There is a group who wants another provision; granted it was not in the Senate bill and it was not in the House bill, but we are getting a lot of pressure to get it done, so we are going to stick it in the conference report.”