Steny Hoyer: “Mr. Chairman, I urge the Members to support this bill. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) and the gentleman…”

“Mr. Chairman, I urge the Members to support this bill. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) and the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Pastor) have fashioned a bill that will serve the legislative branch well next year. That paragraph, of course, was written before a determination was made unilaterally to change this bill, to undermine the premise on which that paragraph was written. I regret that unilateral change which, as the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey) has pointed out, was not taken in a bipartisan way. The gentleman from North Carolina (Mr. Taylor) and the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) both led this bill through its two phases, subcommittee and full committee, in a bipartisan, fair fashion. It was that procedure that I respected and that bill that I was going to support. Unfortunately, however, after it left the bosom of our committee, other forces were brought to bear, the bill will now be changed, and I do not believe it will serve this institution as well as it should. There are some things in this bill that I am pleased about, such as the transit subsidy program for the roughly 4,000 employees of the Library of Congress.”