House Minority Whip Michael W. Chippendale: Closing Remarks

And so, okay, I get it. But these seven amendments are a response to things that my constituents, those who elected me to come here and make policy, unlike the ECC, whatever, they asked me to deal with these issues. And it would be reckless of me as their representative not to do that. So when I hear silly things like our creative amendments, these are creative amendments. These are amendments in response to our constituents. And in fact, we are obligated to consider those things that may happen as crazy as people may think they are, because this very body outlawed chickens that lay eggs in the state of Rhode Island. So we do some crazy crap in this room. So nothing we think of in an amendment should be dismissed in such an elitist, snobbish way as being some form of a trick. We're representing the people who elected us and sent us here. We also heard about tried-and-true methods and how wonderful it's going to be. Those tried-and-true methods have been in place since 1990, 31 years ago. We've achieved 10%. Yeah, they're tried-and-true, all right. Whoo! Can't wait to see what the next round looks like. And the unelected body that we've spoken about ad nauseam today. Ad nauseam, the unelected—we are abrogating our authority to this unelected body. Need I remind everyone in this room that just this year, we did something that's not that easy to do, change our rules. We changed our rules to allow us to bring administration officials, the same people we're being told to trust, into our committees under oath for the first time in the history of the House. We now have that power because we explicitly stated—and it's on the record. Go back and watch the videos if you have a faulty memory. We stated that we do not trust them. We don't trust them. But today we do, because it works for us. You can't have your cake and eat it too, and there's a whole lot of cake-having and cake-eating going on today. I'm not going to put the seven amendments in, but those amendments represented people who build houses for a living, who manufacture things for a living, and don't want to be dictated how and what materials they have to use, about farms, about people who raise their own food on their own property for their own personal consumption. All of these things are important to the people I represent. They're not props. They're not tricks. They're not ploys or tactics. I resent the characterization as such. If we're afraid of engaging in debate and discussing ideas in this body, if any one person has that fear, you need to check whether or not you belong here or you think you should be here. Because that's what we do. We debate ideas. Excuse me, there's a point of order. Point of order, please. I'm confused. Are we talking about amendment or the bill, or are we just sitting here being admonished? I'm confused. It's a good point. We are debating the bill. Representative Chippendale has 30 seconds left. If you could speak about the bill and not the characterization, I'd appreciate it. 30 seconds. Certainly, certainly, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely. We will be dealing with this bill for years to come, obviously, the good and the bad. I just wish that the idealism that drove the particular language and elements of this bill was a little bit more pragmatic, because it does not reflect the reality that is our state. Just again, pointing to we've only achieved 10 percent of those goals in the past 31 years, but we're going to do the next 90 between now and 2050, in under 30 years. It's insanity.