Marcy Kaptur: “I recall Speaker Gingrich's initiative this evening called Correction Days. The idea was to do away with congressional…”

“I recall Speaker Gingrich's initiative this evening called Correction Days. The idea was to do away with congressional business as usual and make government more responsive to our people. Mr. Speaker, I fear today and tomorrow may be the opposite of Corrections Day. They could be renamed Special Interest Days. Maybe we will need another Corrections Day to undo the damage we think is being done as the House completes its regular business, passes its respective appropriations bills, and finally recesses. I am speaking in particular of the continuing resolution about to emerge from behind closed doors and being worked on by the leaders of one side of this Chamber. Mr. Speaker, the special interests know full well that Members of Congress are eager to wrap up and get back home and prepare for the upcoming election. So they have lined up, it appears, so they can speak their special provisions into law at the last minute in the continuing resolution, because they know we have to pass that in order to keep the Government running. We used to have Howard Metzenbaum as the watchdog over on the other side, but we have heard rumors, in fact, that patent law protections might be undermined by some provisions being inserted by one of the Members in the other body.”