Political Quotes

“I had a series of four or five amendments that I thought were particularly important because of the possibility of regulations being propounded in the future that could be objected to in court. And since we could not get the judicial review section straightened out, we recognized we had to have certain exemptions. The Chair had suggested that because he was under a calendar direction from the Speaker to proceed with the markup of the bill that we would have an opportunity between the markup and the floor time to consider these amendments. We tried to contact the majority leadership and the majority chairman and we were not successful in accomplishing that. I heard of course yesterday for the first time that this particular amendment would be received. But our problem here was the speed at which the markup was made. No hearings were held. Some of those, myself, a new member of the committee, although having been in the House for 10 years now, was not aware of the process of this new committee, knew this legislation was important and felt that it was not proper for us to draft legislation on the House floor. That is what the committee system is all about.”