Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: THURSDAY, September 9, 1993 TAG: 9309090214
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: GREG EDWARDS STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
Ninth District Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon, said he agreed the rule should be repealed, but not by the route that Perot supporters suggest.
Buddy Holloway of Bristol, United We Stand's 9th District coordinator, explained the issue at a recent organizational meeting of the New River Valley Chapter of United We Stand. Tom Roberts of Blacksburg is the temporary chairman of the chapter, which has about 450 members.
The Perot group backs legislation sponsored by Rep. James Inhofe, R-Okla., that would overturn a House "gag rule," Holloway said.
The rule places a veil of secrecy over the House's discharge petition process, forbidding members from revealing who has signed a petition. A discharge petition is the means by which legislation stalled in House committees can be brought to the floor of the House for consideration.
Under current House practice, members must go to a clerk's desk in front of the House floor to sign the petitions, which are kept in a locked desk drawer. It takes 218 signatures to force consideration of an issue without committee approval.
Opponents of the process complain the secrecy, practiced since 1931, allows members of Congress to say they support a piece of legislation and at the same time quietly refuse to sign a petition to force its consideration.
Holloway said the rule is presently keeping such legislation as the balanced-budget amendment, term limits and a meaningful line-item veto from receiving consideration by the full House.
Freshman Rep. Inhofe's bill, itself, has been tied up in the House Rules Committee. But it was reported Wednesday that Inhofe's own discharge petition to force consideration of his bill had received enough signatures to bring it to the House floor.
Inhofe got help in his efforts to force the House to deal with the issue from the Wall Street Journal, which editorialized in the bill's favor this summer and printed a list of names of House members who hadn't signed Inhofe's petition.
Boucher's and three other Virginia House members' names were on a list of nonsigners, which prompted the 9th District United We Stand organization to start a petition drive in an effort to persuade him to sign.
Boucher said Wednesday that the discharge-petition process should have been made public long ago and said and he will vote to abandon the practice.
But the congressman said he would not sign a discharge petition to force consideration of the issue. He has never signed a discharge petition, even to free up some legislation that he has supported, Boucher said.
Roberts of United We Stand said he was disappointed that Boucher had not signed Inhofe's petition. He said he had heard earlier that he was going to sign it.
But, Boucher said, by signing a discharge petition, a member is essentially saying he does not trust the House's committee process to work effectively. The committee system was designed purposefully to operate slowly, to promote slow deliberation of legislation, he said.
"We do not want quick judgments . . . we want a deliberative process," the congressman said.
A balanced-budget amendment bill and other bills mentioned by Holloway have not been approved by House committees, he noted.
by CNB