Steny Hoyer: “Mr. Speaker, this Congress seems destined to end the first session of the 108th Congress in the same hapless and…”

“Mr. Speaker, this Congress seems destined to end the first session of the 108th Congress in the same hapless and undemocratic way in which we began it. One of our first acts this year was to pass an omnibus appropriations bill on February 13 that wrapped up 11 of the 13 annual spending measures for fiscal year 2003 in one piece of legislation. It was bad enough that we could not finish our work on time and had to pass that omnibus bill 4 months, a full third of the year, after the start of the fiscal year. But what was even worse was the fact that the Republican leadership dropped that 3,000 page bill on the Members and forced them to vote on it within a few short hours, a 3,000 page- plus bill.”