Marcy Kaptur: “I rise to object this evening to the manipulation of the leadership of this body, particularly the Speaker, Mr. Hastert…”

“I rise to object this evening to the manipulation of the leadership of this body, particularly the Speaker, Mr. Hastert, and the majority leader of the other body, Mr. Lott, that is essentially disenfranchising the membership of this body with regard to one of the most important issues before us, and, that is, meeting the needs of rural America, the disaster affected regions of our country, our farmers, who are experiencing historically low prices and bad weather, sort of twin eviscerators, that we are witnessing the hemorrhaging of equity out of rural America. For the record and for the American people and hopefully for my fellow Members, I come to the floor tonight to recount what has been happening here sort of below the surface where the press is generally not picking up on it. Employing what certainly must be the most unusual committee process I have ever experienced in my 17 years here in the House, the Republican leadership of this House has basically taken the drafting authority of our appropriations agriculture subcommittee away from our membership.”