Legislative Debate

Key House Democrats late Wednesday night said they have serious reservations about a patent reform bill

House members on Wednesday night engaged in a rare debate over the constitutionality of proposed legislation, one that split the usual party alliances and revealed a surprising array of differences over how to interpret the Constitution.

Members began debate on H.R. 1249, a bill that would mark the first major overhaul of U.S. patent laws in several decades. Because of numerous concerns over the constitutionality of the main piece of the bill, members agreed to hold a separate debate on this issue before starting general debate on the bill.

Tuesday night debate on a bill to eliminate the Election Assistance Commission (EAC) resolved nothing, and if anything made it more clear that the bill runs the risk of failing on Wednesday, as all Democratic speakers spoke out against it.

The bill, H.R. 672, is up Wednesday on the suspension calendar, which means two-thirds of all voting members to support it for passage. Republicans would likely need more than 40 Democrats to support the bill for passage, but Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D-Texas), one of the three Democratic members of the House Committee on Administration, predicted that Democrats would defeat the bill Wednesday.

Thursday's home-stretch debate in the House on the Agriculture appropriations bill continued to reveal a split within the Republican party between those who are looking for more dramatic spending cuts and those from farm states who have an interest in protecting farm programs from further reductions.

In early morning debate, Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) proposed the elimination of countercyclical payments for U.S. cotton producers. Flake said the language is needed in order to help save another $147 million that the U.S. pays to Brazil to settle a trade dispute about U.S. cotton subsidies.

Members of the House on Wednesday night returned from their White House picnic to resume consideration of the 2012 agriculture appropriations bill.

In a quick voice vote, members approved an amendment from Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) that cuts several programs in the bill by less than one percent. Kingston implied that the change would help pay for the $147 million per year payment to the Brazil Cotton Institute, since the House earlier Wednesday struck language prohibiting payments to Brazil.

House Republicans on Wednesday made several attempts to cut key food and nutrition programs favored by Democrats, and set up a series of roll call votes later in the day.

When amendment consideration began at 1 p.m. on the agriculture appropriations bill, Reps. Paul Broun (R-Ga.) and Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) introduced two amendments to cut the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program. Broun's amendment would cut this program by 10 percent, and Foxx's would cut $82.5 million.

The already tense debate over funding for agricultural programs got even more combative Tuesday night, after a Democratic member said Republicans are difficult to debate because they "make up stuff" and even lie to win their arguments.

Rep. Mel Watt (D-NC) said he does not often debate on the House floor, for three reasons. The first is because Republicans are "tone deaf," and are "not really listening to what anybody is saying to them." Secondly, he said they don't care about the substance of the bill up tonight on the floor, which he said would force women and children to go hungry.

"And third, they just make up stuff, you know," he said. "They have this, you know, if we repeat it enough, it's got to be true, and we'll convince the American people of about anything if we just keep saying it over and over again. Or they lie about it and they have convenient memories that forget that it was President Bush…"

House Financial Services Committee Ranking Member Barney Frank (D-Mass.) on Tuesday night defended an amendment to the agriculture appropriations bill that would nearly double funding for the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC).

Speaking on the House floor, Frank said reduced CFTC funding would prevent the agency from regulating derivatives, including oil derivatives. Several Democrats spent much of the day Tuesday arguing that this would only make it harder for the agency to prevent commodity price spikes caused by speculation.

"The CFTC, we think, should be able to say to people who don't use the commodity, please don't buy it up and hold it off the market so you can then sell it when the price goes up and make a profit," Frank said.

Members of the House late Tuesday were mired in an ongoing rhetorical battle over the agriculture appropriations bill, as several Democrats took to the floor to argue against proposed cuts to the Women Infants and Children (WIC) food program.

"When they say women and children first, it means to save them, not to throw them overboard," House Minority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said at about 5 p.m. "Surely America is a generous enough country to feed those who need food."

The House over the next two days is expected to hear successful points of order against four controversial sections of the FY 2012 agriculture appropriations bill that key House Republicans believe violate the House rule against legislating on an appropriations bill.

These provisions, already embedded in the bill, are expected to be stripped through points of order even though three of the four were put forward by Republicans during committee work.

The first of the four sections at issue has been the most controversial, as it represents a Republican attempt to limit Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. Section 740 would prevent funding in the bill from being used to enforce FDA regulations unless they are based on "hard science."