The Cutting Room Floor

Seasoned lawmakers have come to expect that their legislative ideas have less-than-favorable odds of getting a straight up-or-down vote on the House floor.

Nonetheless, House members and their aides filed into the Rules Committee hearing room all afternoon and evening on Tuesday to make the case for why their amendments deserved to be considered by their colleagues.

The room overflowed, and aides lined up against the walls in the hallway outside the hearing room as their bosses answered questions at a witness table reserved for testimony from House members.

Some of the amendments are simply expressions of policy preference. For example, Jerrold Nadler , D-N.Y., did not plan to push hard for his amendment to increase appropriations in the bill by 75 percent.

But for others, like Mitchell, the stimulus represented an opportunity to get a floor vote on long-pursued policy goals.

Mitchell filed an amendment to extend current tax rates on capital gains and the estate tax in addition to his proposal to halt the automatic increase in members’ pay from taking effect.

He first introduced the salary freeze as a freshman in the last Congress.

“We’re trying to find every avenue,” he said of the stimulus amendment.

Adler said he would turn to allies in the Senate to promote his plan to give retired senior citizens and disabled veterans $500 checks.

Steve King , R-Iowa, sought to replace the entire contents of the legislation with his flat-tax proposal.

The Winner’s Circle

Among the most successful proposals was one from Mark Steven Kirk , R-Ill., that sought to strip $200 million in funding for refurbishment of the National Mall, where hundreds of thousands of Americans watched President Obama take the oath of office on Jan. 20.

“The Mall in its current condition handled the inauguration of President Obama well,” Kirk wrote in a letter to fellow House members urging them to oppose the spending.

Kirk argued that three previous plans to remake the Mall were stopped after negative responses to them.

“Given the collapse of the National Park Service’s A, B and C options, it is clear that this program is not shovel-ready and would spark opposition from a number of quarters,” he wrote.

Kirk’s amendment was wrapped into a “self executing” rule that will adopt a handful of amendments at once when the full House votes Wednesday to approve the rule governing debate on the bill. The Rules Committee approved it on a party-line vote Tuesday night.

Larry Kissell , a freshman Democrat from North Carolina, had offered amendments intended to direct stimulus spending to American textile and metal manufacturers. He was one of the lucky ones; his proposal for uniform purchases to be made from American textile-makers was put on the docket for a Wednesday floor vote.

But Jack Kingston , R-Ga., was on the losing end with his objection to the bill’s $50 million provision for the National Endowment for the Arts. His amendment would have shifted the money to transportation projects, which he says would have a more stimulative effect on the economy.

“I just think putting people to work is more important than putting more art on the wall of some New York City gallery frequented by the elite art community.” Kingston said. “Call me a sucker for the working man.”

Slaughter said that when amendments are denied, she and her Democratic colleagues on the Rules Committee are happy to discuss why an amendment failed to get its chance on the floor.

“We give them a reason,” Slaughter said. “It’s not a capricious thing.”