Melvin Watt: “My colleagues, I want to get back to what this debate is about. It is about whether we give unprecedented authority to…”

“My colleagues, I want to get back to what this debate is about. It is about whether we give unprecedented authority to the Speaker to bring up any legislation at any time with no advance notice, what we call in the vernacular, martial law. I tell you, I cannot think of anybody in this House I would less like to give unprecedented authority to. If I am thinking about who I am going to give some unprecedented authority to, you think I want to give unprecedented authority to somebody who would lead people to take school lunches out of kids' mouths, to take Medicare away from elderly citizens, whose reputation and ethics are at stake and will not allow anybody to talk about it, who does not want to fund education programs for our children? This is the person we are talking about giving unprecedented authority to? I would not think of giving this man unprecedented authority and voting for this rule. I can think of probably 434 other people in this House I would give it to before I would give it to this Speaker.”