Stephanie Tubbs Jones: “let me switch horses just for a moment and talk about what just happened on the floor of the House. We just had a vote…”

“let me switch horses just for a moment and talk about what just happened on the floor of the House. We just had a vote on the energy bill, and my colleagues will recall that the vote, when it began, was supposed to be a 5-minute vote. Ultimately, it ended up probably being a 45-minute vote, and again, the Republicans are twisting arms of their colleagues to get them to vote in support of a bill when, in reality, they would not have done that. In fact, there are many times on the floor of the House when the vote should have been called and it was not. I am going to quote some of my colleagues specifically on this issue. The gentlewoman from New York (Ms. Slaughter), my colleague says, Once again, on an issue of critical importance to the American people, the Republican majority has chosen to trample the democratic process and manipulate the outcome of a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives after the vote was completed. This is unethical subversion of our democracy, and the Republican leadership has brought shame on themselves in the House of Representatives. Unquote. One would think that this was the first time that the Republican leadership had made a decision to trample on the rights of the people and to engage in shameless conduct by twisting arms on the floor of the House, but let me give my colleagues some background when this has happened previously.…”