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a time for the Committee to arise and report.
You will recall that in our rules we have
adopted the Committee of the Whole procedure. That is the
place where we let down our hair, where debate is free
and where no restrictions on the number of times a dele-
gate can speak, and where the previous question cannot be
moved. Therefore, unless there was some procedure by
which time limitations could be set on debate in the
Committee of the Whole, it is possible that the Committee
of the Whole could be used as a filibuster device.
The rule that we have proposed is drawn, modeled
upon, not taken from, a rule adopted with success by the
New Jersey Constitutional Convention of 1947. There are
two substantial changes made in it. As originally pro-
posed in our Committee, Senator Malkus proposed and the
Committee unanimously approved the proviso that makes it
clear that if a time limitation is set on a proposal that
the proponents and opponents shall have equal time. The
practice, I think, as Congressman Sickles has pointed out,
is substantially, I wouldn't say identical with, but
modeled upon the practice that prevailed in the House of |
