Sam Gejdenson: “I find a very frightening trend in this Chamber that there is an attempt to squelch free speech. It actually started in…”

“I find a very frightening trend in this Chamber that there is an attempt to squelch free speech. It actually started in the very first days of the Congress, shutting down some of the institutions that represented various concerns in the country. Now, we see on the floor when individuals try to express or respond to what was a very inflammatory statement apparently on the Republican side, that when the minority tries to respond parliamentary maneuvers are used to prevent them from speaking. Frankly, through the years we gave far greater opportunity to the minority to express its statements than we have seen here. The attempt to operate this House ad hoc out of the Committee on Rules, to try to squelch honest debate and criticism, the first instance of course was the Speaker himself when the Speaker used to come to the well and absolutely devastate everyone else as soon as his name was mentioned. They stopped it. It is an outrage.”