House Rules Committee ranking Democratic member Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-NY) admitted at the opening of the House Rules Committee hearing on Speaker John Boehner’s 1,603-page omnibus spending bill that nobody had actually read the bill before the hearing.
“There’s some things I think I really have to say about this, mostly process, 1,600 pages right here” Slaughter said as she gestured toward the bill. “Released in the middle of the night. Not one member of the committee has been able to read all the way through it or anything of it, I suppose. No opportunity for public input. No hearings. No committee markups. And no time to adequately consider $1.1 trillion in spending.”
Slaughter went on to note, correctly, that “this process goes against all of the transparency pledges that House Republicans themselves have made.”
In addition to Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas, the Republican members of the committee include: Reps. Virginia Foxx (R-NC), Rob Bishop (R-UT), Tom Cole (R-OK), Rob Woodall (R-GA), Richard Nugent (R-FL), Daniel Webster (R-FL), Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and Michael Burgess (R-TX). The Democratic members of the Committee, in addition to Slaughter, are: Reps. Jim McGovern (D-MA), Alcee Hastings (D-FL) and Jared Polis (D-CO).
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