House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) on Friday afternoon called on
his colleagues to support the $1 trillion omnibus spending bill, even
though he claimed no one — or almost no one — in the House has read it.
“I rise in strong
support of this bill, and I urge my colleagues to support this piece of
legislation,” he said. “None of them have read it.”
He quickly acknowledged that House Appropriations Committee Chairman
Hal Rogers (R-Ky.) had read the bill, and that ranking member Norm Dicks
(D-Wash.) had probably read it as well. But he said that despite his support
for the bill, he is not a fan of the process Republicans used to
bring the bill forward so quickly, and at the last minute, for passage.
“Had I as majority leader brought that bill that sits on that floor,
1,207 pages, within the last 24 hours to the floor, I think the response
from that side of the aisle would have been harsh, accusatory and not
helpful,” said Hoyer, who was the lower chamber’s majority leader from 2007 until the GOP majority took over this year.
Read more on The Hill’s Floor Action blog.
