Steny Hoyer: “Mr. Speaker, these tactics demean the People's House. Hear me. Hear me. These tactics demean the People's House, demean…”

“Mr. Speaker, these tactics demean the People's House. Hear me. Hear me. These tactics demean the People's House, demean democracy, demean freedom, and they fly in the face of commitments by Republicans when they regained the majority to run an open and deliberative process. These comments are on the record. Here is how Gerald Solomon, the former Republican Chair of the Committee on Rules, explained it in November of 1994 when you were just about to take power. This is a quote, on the record: ``The guiding principles will be openness and fairness. The Rules Committee will no longer rig the procedure to contrive a predetermined outcome. From now on,'' the Republicans said, ``the Rules Committee will clear the stage for debate and let the House work its will.'' The year before, Congressman Solomon remarked, ``Every time we deny an open amendment process on an important piece of legislation, we are disenfranchising the people and their representatives from the legislative process.'' Mr. Speaker, this side of the aisle represents at least 140 million people.”