On the recordDecember 20, 2011
I actually again agree with my colleague, Mr. Garamendi. There has been a lot of sturm und drang, but there's actually something that we can agree upon here. First, I'll say that President Obama, many congressional Democrats and House Republicans all agree that 12 months would be better than 2 months in terms of the extension of these things. The Senate disagreed. They did it for 2 months. The Constitution says that if the House and the Senate disagree, the two come together, have a conference, a compromise, common ground is found, and then both Houses vote upon it. For some reason, we don't want to go through that process. For some reason, Senator Reid does not want to bring his people back from vacation to vote. Now, I will say that all this other conversation about issues kind of obscures--I think, almost is there to obscure the fact that this is about whether regular order will be followed, whether the constitutional method of resolving differences will be employed. Now, I would say that I ask the Senators to pay attention to what the Constitution says, to do the work of the American people. I know it's inconvenient. I know it's a holiday, but this is too important. Let's not give up on the process.
