Mark Meadows: “I would like to thank the gentleman from Florida, the chairman of the committee, for his fine work, for his friendship…”

“I would like to thank the gentleman from Florida, the chairman of the committee, for his fine work, for his friendship, and I just want to say: You will be missed. I rise in opposition to the gentlewoman's amendment. This is something that we have debated for many, many hours. She knows full well what is the issue and what is not the issue, Mr. Chairman. I am here tonight to clear the record once again. To suggest that this is all just about local control and local budget autonomy missed the foundational principles of where they have this limited right in D.C. already. It goes back to our Founding Fathers and the principles found in the Constitution. It goes back to when this was debated and actually signed into law where Democrats and Republicans came together to say that we are going to give D.C. the ability to have local control over local issues with one major exception, and that major exception had to do with the appropriation of funds, and truly the power that rests and resides in this esteemed body. So to suggest that anything nefarious is happening would be to ignore not only history, but to ignore debate that has happened in this very Chamber before. The gentlewoman from D.C. has offered a number of times a bill to actually repeal this very right. So to suggest that D.C. automatically has this right to be able to have budget autonomy would go against previous arguments that the gentlewoman has made.…”