John Joseph Moakley: “OK, but I could spend all week reciting quotations from Members on the Republican side calling restrictive rules of any…”

“OK, but I could spend all week reciting quotations from Members on the Republican side calling restrictive rules of any kind unconstitutional, undemocratic, unfair. Yet, the first day of the session, on the very first item on our legislative agenda, what do we get? A closed rule within a closed rule. I am very, very disappointed in the party who is crying for open rules and free debates, to come forward today with this rule. I know some of my Republican colleagues will argue that we do not need an open rule on this particular measure because the House passed the same legislation in the last session, under Democratic leadership, let me add. Yet I cannot recall a single occasion on which my Republican colleagues supported a closed restricted rule on any previously-passed piece of legislation. Let me add that when the Democratic leadership brought the Congressional Accountability Act to the floor last year, we made 14 amendments in order. The scream was 'It is a gag rule, it is a closed rule.' Here today we come and we cannot put one amendment in order; they come with seven amendments into the bill.”