Charles Rangel: “all of us are going to miss my friend from New York and the chairman of the Committee on Rules. He is leaving this…”

“all of us are going to miss my friend from New York and the chairman of the Committee on Rules. He is leaving this august body with his charm and his wisdom; certainly he is going to leave a vacuum. But I hope he does not put out the legislative lights before he leaves because since we have had a Republican majority the rules of the game as to how we legislate have dramatically changed. I can understand why the gentleman from New York (Mr. Solomon) keeps yielding to the Democrats: Because hardly any Republican is willing to stand up to defend this thing that has come out of the Committee on Rules. But I would like to say this, that there used to be a time in the olden, Democratic days where we had standing committees with chairmen and we had senior Republicans. We used to have something, and I forgot the name of it, but I think it was hearings? Yes, hearings. And we used to have witnesses and experts, and they used to testify. And then along came the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrich) and he says, ``You don't need that. You only need one committee, the Committee on Rules. As a matter of fact, we don't need that. All you have to do is have a meeting in the Speaker's office, go upstairs in the middle of the night, find the most complex tax matters that you want, and forget the eight committees that have jurisdiction because, after all, no committees are meeting unless it is to attack the President of the United States.…”