BE OUR GUEST: OBSTINATE HOUSE LEADERSHIP DELAYS RELIEF TO FLOOD VICTIMS

Bill Emerson is a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Missouri's 8th District. Cape Girardeau is his home in the district.

The obstinate House leadership is at it again toying with Midwestern lawmakers and their constituents who immediately want to pass an emergency appropriations bill to help fund federal flood relief efforts.

As Southern Missouri's Congressman, the latest antics by the liberals who control Congress are particularly frustrating. They apparently would rather hide behind "special rules" of the House, than present members like myself a clean disaster relief package free of non-emergency, non-essential pet projects. Allow me to explain.

Before most legislation can be acted upon, the power-wielding House leadership hands down a "rule." Just like any board game you have at home, these are the directions or "rules" which the chamber follows when considering legislation. In other words, before dealing with the actual issue, members first must vote on the rules of procedure so everyone knows what kind of amendments can be offered and how much time will be designated for debate on the House floor.

With that said, it should help one understand in better detail what exactly happened last Thursday regarding emergency flood relief funding.

First, the House voted on a special rule that would have set the parameters for debate and amendment of the disaster bill. The House did not vote on the disaster bill itself it never had the chance because the rule failed.

Instead of a clean emergency assistance package dealing strictly with this disaster, the special rule would have authorized a $100 per week stipend for inner-city youths to "clean up" for job interviews from the $50 million Youth Fair Chance Program. It is a slap in the face to the thousands of sandbaggers, emergency response teams, and flood victims that their suffering and hard work and tax dollars would be lumped together with an extraneous Los Angeles-contrived scheme to provide youth between the ages of 17 and 30 with $100 a week for a haircut and some clothes in order to be more presentable in seeking employment.

In no stretch of the imagination is this an emergency it's hanging a Christmas Tree ornament onto the package.

Worse still, under the special rule's restrictions on floor debate and amendments, this frivolous spending item could not be dealt with or amended out of the bill. In no uncertain terms, the House leadership said to members through this rule: "Our way, or no way!"

Second, there have been misconceptions in the national media that all members who voted against the special rule wanted to use this as an example of getting "fiscally tough." This is simply untrue. What happened is that some members wanted to offset this spending by cuts elsewhere in the budget. I don't necessarily agree that this offset is a good idea, since emergencies call for certain exceptions to normal budget rules, as we saw with Hurricanes Hugo and Andrew and the San Francisco earthquake. Even though, in all likelihood, I would have voted against an offset amendment, I do believe it has the right to be offered as an amendment on the House floor. Unfortunately, the special rule precluded this sort of amendment from even being offered.

Third, and finally, the defeat of this "special rule" is now being blamed for the delay in the House approval of flood relief funding. This, too, is untrue. The crux of the vote on the special rule is this: once the rule was defeated, the House leadership could have and should have brought the disaster relief bill back up that same day under a process allowing for amendments. It didn't. The bill could have been brought up, debated, and passed on the next day Friday. Again, it wasn't.

Instead, the House leadership has tentatively scheduled the disaster bill for later this week (possibly today). I would hope we could get a clean disaster relief bill, but the word in Washington (at the time of this writing) is that the House leadership will not compromise on its, tight, restrictive, special rule insisting upon $100 per week stipends for inner-city youths to get haircuts and new clothes. The obstinate House leadership is the real reason for the delay which is occurring at the expense of flood victims.