Barney Frank: “when we have points of order, they are important because they establish precedents, and for that reason I intend, if the…”

“when we have points of order, they are important because they establish precedents, and for that reason I intend, if the Chair rules in favor of this point of order, to join in trying to overturn it because I cannot think of a more damaging precedent. What this does is to take advantage of the fact that the House did not complete the fiscal 2003 appropriations when it should have in the last calendar year. Thus we are now dealing with fiscal 2003 appropriations in a Congress later than we should, not just a year later but in a Congress later than we should. Because it is a later Congress than it should be, the 302(b) allocations expired. Instead of routinely reenacting them, the majority waived the requirement for itself in a rule and did not waive it for any amendment; so the precedent being set will be as follows: Do not get the work done on time, let it go over until the next Congress months after it should have been done; then abstain from the routine act that the gentleman from Wisconsin mentioned, give yourself a waiver from your failure to act, and do not give it to anyone else. So the precedent is that if you delay the appropriations bills, you can bring them to the floor in an unamendable fashion, totally unamendable so that when we complain about the underfunding of the Securities Exchange Commission we are told do not despair, we have introduced a bill and one of these days we might even act on it.”