Steny Hoyer: “we have sad days in the House when we undermine any semblance of comity and of regular order, when we indeed undermine…”

“we have sad days in the House when we undermine any semblance of comity and of regular order, when we indeed undermine the premise on which so many were elected in 1994 in the so-called revolution, when they came to this House on the premise that Democrats somehow did not follow the regular order, did not follow the rules. The chairman of the Committee on Rules, the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), was one of the major proponents of that proposition. This process is not fair to any Member of this House; and, more importantly, it is not fair to the American public. My colleagues have heard the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley), the ranking member of the Committee on Rules, outline the scenario, the timing under which this was done. I have no criticism of either the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) or the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Kolbe), the chairman of our subcommittee, with whom I work very closely. They are, in my opinion, both honorable men who have acted honorably, although they have acted consistent with directions which were not consistent with good order of this House. The ranking member has correctly stated that this bill is approximately $7 billion, give or take a couple of $100 million, over the budget allocation. Yet we came to subcommittee, we came to committee, and we came to this floor and were told, you cannot do this, you cannot add this $1.2 billion.…”