Maxwell Frost: “Mr. Speaker, I rise not only in opposition to this rule but to the heavy-handed manner in which the Republican…”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise not only in opposition to this rule but to the heavy-handed manner in which the Republican leadership has chosen to conduct business in the hours before we adjourn for the August summer recess. Mr. Speaker, I must protest in the strongest possible terms the fact that the Republican leadership has, in the dark hours of night, cobbled together what they are calling a conference report on legislative branch appropriations. The majority must be snickering behind their hands, Mr. Speaker, because this so-called conference report is constructed of one bill which has actually passed both houses, the Legislative Branch Appropriations, as well as one that has only seen action on this side of the Capitol, Treasury Postal Appropriations. But there is something else. This appropriations conference report also contains a tax bill, the repeal of the telephone tax passed earlier by the House. This action was taken without any consultation with Democratic Members of the Committee on Appropriations, or with the Democratic leadership. Accordingly, no Democratic member of the Legislative Branch Conference Committee signed this report. Mr. Speaker, while I have a photocopy of the conference report, I am at a loss to try to explain to my colleagues exactly what is in it. The report was assembled literally in the dark of night, sometime between 11:00 p.m. last night and 7:01 a.m. this morning, when it was filed.”