It's an incredibly hot day in Washington. But it's not just the air conditioners working overtime. Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee are hard at work, and have been for days, on the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) extension. More specifically, thanks to certain parliamentary maneuvers, a woman named Sharon Davis, the committee's clerk, has been hard at work reading and re-reading H.R. 3162. All 465 pages of it. Multiple times.
Last night, SCHIP came up for the first reading, which, as you see on C-SPAN, is when the clerk must read through the entire bill unless unanimous consent is given to forgo the reading. That usually happens, and the clerk doesn't get more than a few words into thousand-page bills before being allowed to stop.
But last night, Congressman Joe Barton, the committee's ranking Republican member, objected when Democrats asked unanimous consent to skip the reading. So Ms. Davis began to read the bill.
Democrats scrambled to figure out a way to get around a unanimous consent objection, and after they tracked down enough members to win the vote, moved to dispense with the reading. Barton, hoping to stall until enough Republicans returned to vote with him, asked several parliamentary procedure questions, but lost the vote. Ms. Davis had made it through about 120 pages of the bill, according to a source in the room at the time.
The committee moved to the bill's second reading, and Barton jumped in again, objecting to another unanimous consent request. He offered his own unanimous consent request that Davis be allowed to pick up where she left off on the first reading, but, on the advice of counsel, relented and made her start on page one. "I was just trying to be civil," he said, according to the source. Republicans allowed the second reading to be dispensed with in order to open the bill up to amendments.
Barton's amendment came first. According to one committee staffer, Barton's substitute is the Democratic bill, which, after the 465 original pages, requires the previous 465 pages to be struck and substitutes an additional 30 pages. That's another 495 pages for Davis to read.
At some point during the evening, Davis took a break when another clerk was brought in. Barton, ever the good sport, called for and led the applause for Davis' efforts. But the substitute clerk read for less than half an hour before the committee recessed.
That was last night, when the committee recessed around 10:20 p.m. It was unclear that they would take a break, and at least one staffer brought a change of clothing for the morning if they hadn't.
Today, after what we hope was a very sound night's sleep, Davis was at it again, reading the bill. At one point this morning, a committee Democrat asked unanimous consent that Davis be relieved of duty by Barton himself. Barton got up, went down to the clerk's desk and offered to take over for Ms. Davis. But Rep. Ralph Hall, a Texas Republican, objected, saying he would rather hear Davis read than Barton.
In all likelihood, Ms. Davis will be reading for quite a while. When the committee recessed in order to take part in votes on the House floor, Davis paused at page 109. It is unclear whether the committee, should Davis ever finish reading, will be in to work late into the night or over the weekend.
And, should any Davis sympathizers criticize the Republican minority for forcing so many readings, Committee Chairman John Dingell, the dean of the House, made then-Clerk Marie Burns and other substitute clerks read 138 pages of a bill to reform the Superfund program as the committee's ranking minority member in 1995.
So as Washingtonians drip sweat from their brows headed home, members of the Energy and Commerce Committee sit in the chronically over-air conditioned Rayburn House Office Building, listening to Sharon Davis read as much as she can. One hopes Ms. Davis knows where to find a good cough drop, should the need arise.
