Steny Hoyer: “we are a Nation of laws. This House was established to make those laws. We have a manual. It is called Jefferson's…”

“we are a Nation of laws. This House was established to make those laws. We have a manual. It is called Jefferson's Manual. It has in it the Constitution of the United States of America. It has as well the rules that Jefferson put forward. At page 123 it says, ``the weaker party can only be protected from those irregularities and abuses which these forms were intended to check, and which the wantonness of power is but too often apt to suggest to large and successful majorities.'' Mr. Speaker, I have great respect for you, and you run this House fairly. But this is another instance, not an isolated incidence, not a unique incidence of the arbitrary use of power. The Committee on Rules shuts us down. It does not give us amendments. It does not give us time to debate. It does not adequately give us substitutes. It shuts down the majority. It shuts down the minority. This is not what Jefferson had in mind nor, I suggest to you, our Founding Fathers. This is indeed not an isolated incident.”