House Commerce Votes Down Bid to Keep Minority's Ability to Allow Virtual Witness Testimony

amendment would have allowed witnesses to appear virtually without the Commerce chair’s approval. Allowing “witnesses to participate remotely in those hearings provided the opportunity for the committee to hear from a diverse group of people from outside of Washington, D.C., and from all walks of life,” Pallone said: He cited full House rules for this Congress that give the House majority leader “new veto” power to deny requests for remote witness testimony. “Rather than taking advantage of the technological tools that allows us to engage with Americans where they are, instead of forcing them to come to us, I am afraid that Republicans’ unnecessary restrictions on remote witnesses means Congress will only hear more from the wealthy and well-connected,” Pallone said. Republicans proposed “rules that are identical” to the ones the then-majority Commerce Democrats wrote for the last Congress, said committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Wash. “I don’t think it’s fair to burden the majority with requirements that the Democrats chose not to impose upon themselves” when they were in the majority. Rodgers said she will “do my very best to follow the House rules,” including urging House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., to grant requests to allow remote witness testimony. House Commerce approved committee rules by voice vote.