Bob Wise: “Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of ambivalence about this particular provision. If the majority party, the Republican…”

“Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of ambivalence about this particular provision. If the majority party, the Republican Party, wants to limit the terms of its chairs and the Speaker, that is their business. I would just make a historical reference, which is that the Democratic Party has not had problems limiting terms when those Chairs have proven or fallen short of the perform standards that we felt we needed to set. For instance, I know that in my lifetime here I have seen the year when three full committee Chairs were removed from their positions by the action of the Democratic caucus. I have seen in other Caucuses lesser numbers of Chairs removed because, for whatever reasons, the caucus felt that they were not performing the job as well as they could or perhaps there was someone else that needed to perform it. Be that as it may, if the Republican Party feels that it needs to have some kind of hard, ironclad agreement because it will not take the steps that are really necessary for all of us to take because there are times you do need to suck it up and just go out and say to somebody, 'The time is over; you are not doing the job that we expect of you.' But as I say, if the majority party wants to do that, that is its business.”