Congressman Young Votes in Partial Support of the 110th Rules Package
Washington, D.C.,
Jan 5, 2006 -
Alaska Congressman Don Young voted in support of Titles 1, 2 and 3, but voted in opposition to Titles 4 and 5 of the Rules Package of the 110th Congress (H.Res 6).
"I supported Titles 1, 2 and 3; but Title 4 is one that we should seriously consider. If we follow the rule as passed by the majority, and we are faced with an emergency such as Katrina, then according to the way this title is written, funds will be taken from other sources such as education or Social Security. This is a new Majority and they must understand that there will be situations when we cannot have offsets. This is a very bad rule, which according to some of my Democratic colleagues, is not expected to stay in place for a very long time," said Congressman Young shortly after voting no to this title.
"I did not support Title 5 simply because this provision allows legislation to be taken up next week without any input from our side of the aisle or without any hearing or understanding of the impact this will have on the legislative process or the end result. The Democrats took power based upon a campaign promise that there will be no shutting out of other parties and that there would be an open door policy; this title is in total contradiction of that promise."
Title 1: Adopts the rules of the 109th Congress. The adoption of the Rules of the previous Congress is a traditional practice in order to have a base text to amend further. The majority of the rules from the 109th Congress will remain in place with several possible changes through a further amendment process. This title passed by a vote of 426 to 0.
Title 2: Highlights the ethics portion of the rules package. This title includes several of the provisions in the Lobbying, Accountability and Transparency Act of 2006 (H.R. 4975), which passed the House of Representatives in the 109th Congress. This title passed by a vote of 430 to 1.
Title 3: Highlights the commitments Democrats made during the 109th Congress as part of their pledge to fully include the minority in the legislative process. However, several other major provisions from the text of these proposals were not included in the Democrat Rules package for the 110th Congress, such as a minimum of 24-hour availability of legislative text for the minority. This title passed by a vote of 430 to 0.
Title 4: Highlights fiscal responsibility such as earmark reform, limited tax benefits, limited tariff benefits, and "PAYGO" which prohibits consideration of any bill, joint resolution, amendment, or conference report that has tax and spending provisions which have the net effect of increasing the deficit or reducing the surplus for the current fiscal year and either the following five or ten fiscal years. This title passed by a vote of 280 to 152. Congressman Young did not support this title.
Title 5: Highlights miscellaneous provisions that address committee procedures, floor procedures for the 100 hours agenda, and traditional language to deem the current budget adopted by the House during the 109th Congress. This title passed by a vote of 222 to 200, however, Congressman Young did not support this title either.
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