Charles W. Stenholm: “having joined with the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Baesler) and other members of the Blue Dog Caucus to initiate a…”

“having joined with the gentleman from Kentucky (Mr. Baesler) and other members of the Blue Dog Caucus to initiate a discharge petition last October to force consideration of campaign finance reform under a fair and open process, I am very pleased to be here tonight debating a rule to bring up campaign finance reform under an open process. The American people deserve to know where their representatives stand on the major proposals to reform our campaign finance laws. Although this rule meets the standard of openness that the Blue Dogs call for in our discharge petition, the process for considering campaign finance reform will fall far short of the standard of fairness unless we defeat the previous question and allow the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Moakley) to offer an amendment to allow the House to have clean votes on all the major proposals under a fair process. Having worked with my Republican colleagues to use discharge petitions to force a fair debate on the balanced budget constitutional amendment and other issues, I am very disappointed that the majority did not listen to the advice of those of us who initiated the discharge petition that brought us to this point. The Blue Dog discharge petition in the underlying rule, H. Res. 259, calls for extensive debate on leading reform legislation followed by votes on each offered substitute.”