Mr. Speaker, this bill manipulates the legislative process by repackaging legislation that for the most part has already passed the House, and by taking out of that legislation two amendments that were passed on the floor of the House and giving us no opportunity, giving the House majority no opportunity to correct this.

The bill includes three previous bills. On one of them I offered an amendment to prohibit gun possession by convicted misdemeanor sex offenders against minors. The amendment was agreed to unanimously and incorporated in the underlying bill. This is one of the poison pills. One of the poison pills, in other words, is that apparently the sponsors of this bill think it is essential to allow people convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses against minors to possess firearms, so they can use firearms against minors the next time.

The other amendment, the ranking member offered an amendment to combat crimes based on race, religion, national origin, disability, gender and sexual orientation by allowing the Federal Government to provide resources to local law enforcement to act as a Federal backup if local authorities do not prosecute these crimes. The amendment passed 223-199.

Now we are faced with this legislation on a suspension calendar. We are told that it is on a suspension calendar and it is unamendable because we have already debated. Yes, but we passed it in different forms, and they are just taking out the two poison pills.

Who has the right to decide that what the majority of the House voted is a poison pill and not give this House the right to vote on whether it agrees with them or not?

If the gentleman brought forth this bill under the regular calendar and said should we remove these two provisions because we cannot pass them in the Senate, let the House debate that. Maybe we would decide it is more important to let the Senate pass this bill and permit misdemeanor sexual offenders to have firearms than not to pass the bill. Maybe we would decide that, but that should be decided in a debate, not because someone behind the scenes decides that the will of the House can be overturned.

I urge Members to oppose this bill because it does not include these two provisions, to ban gun possession by those convicted of misdemeanor sex offenders against minors. We should not go on record today, as a vote for this legislation would be in favor of gun possession by people convicted of misdemeanor sex offenses. And it also does not include the hate crimes amendment that was sponsored by Mr. Conyers and included by the House by majority vote.

It is wrong to prostitute the procedures of this House to undo the majority votes on the floor by behind-the-scenes manipulation and then say this is democratic procedure.