Barney Frank: “this rules package is a very important continuation of the majority's effort to shut down democratic debate. The ranking…”

“this rules package is a very important continuation of the majority's effort to shut down democratic debate. The ranking minority member spoke about this rule allowing the chairs of committees to roll votes. Basically what it represents is a willingness of the Republican Members to roll over, to beg, to sit up and do whatever their leadership tells them, because what this does is degrade the possibility of democratic debate in committees. People not familiar with the jargon probably do not fully understand what is being proposed. You will go to a committee session, a markup as we call them, and vote on the legislation, and you will offer an amendment to try to change things. Under these rules you may very well not know whether your amendment has won or lost. There will be a debate on the amendment and the Chair of that committee can then postpone the voting on that amendment until the end of that session. And what do you do if you have offered an amendment that might be somewhat controversial that has a chance to pass? What do you do if you could have passed the amendment if you have made a slight change? How do you then decide what to do next? Obviously there is no way you can have a rational debate in a committee if, having offered an amendment, you cannot tell whether or not that amendment has passed or not.”