Political Quotes

“I thank the gentleman, my friend from Ohio, for yielding me the customary 30 minutes for debate. I rise today, Mr. Speaker, in opposition to this rule, which provides for consideration of both H.R. 1210, the Portfolio Lending and Mortgage Access Act, and H.R. 3189, the Fed Oversight Reform and Modernization Act of 2015. As the first matter of business, I would like to recognize that yesterday's rule, H. Res. 526, marked the 45th closed rule of this congressional session, making it the most closed session in history. {time} 1245 I join my colleagues in the minority in their distaste for this closed and exclusive process and echo their calls to Speaker Ryan to maintain his pledge to usher in a more transparent and open debate process that includes input from Members of both parties. Very occasionally I talk about when I first came to Congress in 1993. The radio at that time was hammering those who were perpetrating closed rules. My party was in the majority and was being rightly, in my opinion, accused in that regard. I didn't know what a closed rule was. I didn't come here and start on this committee. But now that I have had a considerable amount of experience on this committee, I have come to believe that it is wrong for either party in the majority to conduct a process that disallows Members in this body from having an opportunity to participate in refining the underlying bills that come here for our consideration. Mr.…”