FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 9, 2023

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Representative Ritchie Torres (NY-15) moments ago delivered the following remarks on the House floor during scheduled debate over a new rules package:

“The so-called rules package proposed House Republicans would perpetuate the same disorder, division, and dysfunction that nearly devoured the Republican nominee for Speaker.

A single member threshold for filing a motion to vacate empowers extremism and rewards rabble-rousing. It would make the House so dysfunctional as to be ungovernable.

It would give the new Speaker only a Pyrrhic victory because a motion to vacate makes him arbitrarily removable at any moment, at the whim of any person, no matter how personal or petty the underlying grievance.

Simply put, this is NO way to govern.

Moreover, House Republicans decry the ‘weaponization of the federal government’. Yet, the Holman rule would enable the federal government to be weaponized against any federal official who draws the wrath of the Republican majority.

The Holman rule would enable House Republicans to zero out funding for a criminal investigation into Donald Trump. The new rules would defund the Office of Congressional Ethics.

The new rules would enable a member being investigated by the FBI to investigate the investigators investigating them.

Mr. Speaker, so much for draining the swamp. I yield back.”

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