mr. chairman , i thank the distinguished gentleman from california , the chairman of the committee on appropriations , for yielding me this time ; and i want to congratulate him on the fine work that he has done , not only on this legislation , but on all of the appropriations bills . 
we have debated this issue , mr. chairman . 
we debated this issue in the 108th congress . 
we have had three markups on this issue , two in the committee on house administration , one in the committee on the judiciary , and we had 122 democrats who joined with us in support of a responsible piece of legislation which , in fact , encourages the madisonian vision of an elected people 's house . 
now , i heard my friend from wisconsin talk about the fact that if we are going to pass this legislation , he would support it if we went ahead with a constitutional amendment . 
it was the distinguished chairman of the committee on appropriations who just said we had that debate . 
sixty-three members of this house chose to support a constitutional amendment . 
the only reason that we are here at this moment having this debate is that the other body has refused , last year and since march of this year , to proceed with acting on this house 's housekeeping matter . 
it is a housekeeping matter for the house of representatives to maintain the process of elections . 
now , i think that if we look at the debate that we have had , if we look at the fact that we have continued since september 11 of 2001 to focus on a wide range of matters that impact this institution and the challenge that we never faced in our history , i believe that having this very important legislation that was passed by a margin of 329 in this congress , 329 to 68 , that including it now in the legislative appropriations bill is the most appropriate way to deal with it . 
we chose in the committee on rules to allow the gentleman from washington ( mr. baird ) xz4000110 to have an opportunity to strike this measure ; and in just a few minutes , we are going to , once again , have a vote on whether or not we allow the process of elections to go ahead . 
now , it is very true , it is very true that it would be difficult , it would be messy , it would be ugly ; but walter dellinger , the former solicitor general , a great constitutional scholar from duke university , made it very clear in his testimony before the committee on rules , when we talked about this issue , that he would prefer to see a house of representatives that is comprised of fewer members that are actually elected by the people than would be appointed . 
now , my friend from washington state talks about the fact that these appointed people would be running our country and we would not have elected people . 
under the constitutional amendment that my friend supports , we could see this institution , the people 's house , consist of individuals who are appointed making decisions over those who are elected ; and i think that is counter to the entire intention that was put forward by the framers of our constitution . 
so when this comes up , i am going to urge a `` no '' vote on the baird amendment . 
