David Obey: “it is important that the previous speaker understand that what has been happening in this House tonight on these motions…”

“it is important that the previous speaker understand that what has been happening in this House tonight on these motions to adjourn has nothing whatsoever to do with whether any of us want to work or do not want to work. They do have everything to do with procedural fairness and treating the average Member of this House the same way the leadership is treated. For three out of the four appropriation bills which have been brought to the floor this year, we have had the Republican leadership unilaterally rewrite committee products with no consultation with the minority party. The first of those occurred on the original hurricane supplemental, where the leadership unilaterally decided to rewrite that bill after it had left the committee. The second was the agriculture appropriations bill. Again, we had a bipartisan bill as it emerged from the committee. It was rewritten unilaterally by the leadership of this House, and that caused considerable problems, as you know. We now had a third bipartisan bill, the legislative appropriations bill, and again today the House leadership unilaterally rewrote that bill, without any consultation with the minority and without any consultation with the Committee on House Administration, which has authorization jurisdiction over House accounts. Now what we are asked to do is to approve a rule which will allow for only one amendment.…”