John Joseph Moakley: “Mr. Speaker, this rule really makes a mockery of the legislative process. I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose it…”

“Mr. Speaker, this rule really makes a mockery of the legislative process. I strongly urge my colleagues to oppose it, not only for the substance of the bill, but also for the process by which it is being brought to the floor. Just to give my colleagues a little bit of the background, just before midnight last night, the Committee on Rules was informed that we would not meet until 8 o'clock this morning and that the House would stay in recess until we completed the consideration of these rules. Once we met at 8 o'clock and filed the rules, the House adjourned immediately, and it immediately reconvened. This convoluted process has been in order to stretch one calendar day, the 26th of October, into two legislative days. The reason for that, Mr. Speaker, is because my Republican colleagues are then able to bring up a number of rules to the floor the very same day that they were reported out of the Committee on Rules. This way Members, particularly Democratic Members, have virtually no idea what is in these bills, especially, Mr. Speaker, since we were excluded from all the negotiations. Mr. Speaker, this bill contains major unrelated provisions that look like everything but the kitchen sink. The tragic part, Mr. Speaker, it still does not do enough for high school construction or high school modernization.”