Jerry Nadler: “Whereas the Committee on the Judiciary conducted a markup of the bill H.R. 748, the ``Child Interstate Abortion…”

“Whereas the Committee on the Judiciary conducted a markup of the bill H.R. 748, the ``Child Interstate Abortion Notification Act,'' on Wednesday, April 13, 2005, and ordered the bill reported on that same day; Whereas the Committee on the Judiciary subsequently reported H.R. 748 to the House on Thursday, April 21, 2005, with an accompanying report designated House Report 109-51; Whereas, during the markup of H.R. 748, Representatives Nadler, Scott, and Jackson-Lee offered in good faith a total of five amendments to the bill, all of which failed on party-line votes; Whereas, because Representatives Nadler, Scott, and Jackson-Lee called for recorded votes on their amendments, under section 3(b) of Rule XIII, the votes were published in House Report 109-51; Whereas, although it is the long and established practice in House reports to describe recorded votes with objective, nonargumentative captions, the Committee on the Judiciary majority departed from this practice in House Report 109-51 by captioning these five amendments with inflammatory, inaccurate captions; Whereas, when Representative Sensenbrenner, the Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary, was asked about this language and given the opportunity to correct it, both in the Committee Rules and on the House floor, he instead explained that it was his purpose and intention to include these derogatory and inaccurate captions in House Report 109- 51; Whereas, committee reports are official congressional documents to whi…”