Barney Frank: “I am here to protest what has become a significant degradation of the democratic process in this House. We have a…”

“I am here to protest what has become a significant degradation of the democratic process in this House. We have a situation in which the House leadership has turned the legislative process into a propaganda arm. With increasing and depressing frequency, we are given resolutions to vote on in a form which does not allow for amendments, and these resolutions contain a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. What we have is a pattern of taking sentiments to which all Members of the House or nearly all Members subscribe, sentiments which are quite proper, and then adding into these sentiments are far more controversial sentiments, sentiments that many of us disagree with. It is an abuse of the process of democracy to bring forward on this floor resolutions which combine those things with which Members agree with things which are controversial in a form which does not allow Members to even begin to separate them. There are, for good reasons, parliamentary rules and ways through which Members can express partial agreement. We can amend. We can divide the question. But when bills are brought here under suspension of the rules, as they often are, the legislative process is turned into a political propaganda machine. What happens is Members feel coerced into voting in very large numbers for particular sentiments which could not in many cases get a majority on their own and certainly could not get majorities of the size that they get.”