Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-OH)-"High financial crimes have been committed."
http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/...-the-republic/
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX)-"We are under Martial Law"
http://www.dailynewscaster.com/2008/...r-martial-law/
"July 28, 2006
HOUSE LEADERSHIP INVOKES “MARTIAL LAW,” FORCING MEMBERS TO VOTE ON KEY BILLS WITHOUT FULL KNOWLEDGE OF WHAT THEY ARE VOTING ON: MOVE REPRESENTS EROSION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS
The House Rules Committee on Thursday afternoon reported a resolution that would provide martial law authority in relation to all of these bills.
...Under the martial law procedure, longstanding House rules that require at least one day between the unveiling of significant legislation and the House floor vote on that legislation — so that Members can learn what they are being asked to vote on — are swept away. Instead, under “martial law,” the Leadership can file legislation with tens or hundreds of pages of fine print and move immediately to debate and votes on it, before Members of Congress, the media, or the public have an opportunity to understand fully what provisions have been altered or inserted into the legislation behind closed doors. This is the procedure that the Leadership intends to use to muscle through important bills in the next two days....
What is “Martial Law”?
The House leadership is using a parliamentary gambit to evade a longstanding House rule that is supposed to ensure that this kind of obfuscation does not occur. That House rule (Rule XIII(6)(a)) provides that a resolution (called a rule) reported by the Rules Committee cannot be considered by the House on the same legislative day that the rule is reported (except by a two-thirds vote of the House). This is supposed to ensure that Members of the House and the public have at least one day to examine and analyze what is in legislation before they have to debate and vote on it.
To maneuver around this House rule and rush the three proposals discussed above to a vote before they have been fully examined, the Rules Committee reported a rule late Thursday afternoon (H.Res. 958) that would waive the application of Rule XIII(6)(a). Instead, it would allow the Rules Committee to wait until the last minute and not to report the rules governing the consideration of these bills or to release the text of the bills themselves until immediately before debate and votes on the bills, and on the rules governing their consideration, commences.
This extraordinary procedure is known as a “martial law” rule because it suspends the normal procedures and safeguards and allows the House Leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. It enables the Leadership to seek to ram a bill or conference report through before the Members have the opportunity to fully understand what they are voting on."
http://www.cbpp.org/7-28-06bud-stmt.htm
Hybrid Mode
