WEBVTT

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Well, as you know, Congress—the House—is

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not a continuing body; it reconvenes and

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sets its new rules every two years.

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And at the Opening Day ceremonies, it’s a

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very festive day. Members are excited,

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new Members are here with their families, and

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there were certain procedural things that we had

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always been able to cover. That was one of the

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two times we could bring cameras into the chamber:

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we were allowed to bring them in for Opening Day

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and for State of the Union.

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This was even before you had 1979, when

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the chamber was broadcast gavel-to-gavel.

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We were allowed to bring cameras in for those days

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even before ’79. So, there was a certain

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protocol of what was allowed to happen.

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That’s standard and that’s always a happy day

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and always a very creative day for stories

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about the new Members. But when you have a

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change of Congress, that’s when our office really

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does one of its better days of service

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because the new Members include a new leadership.

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And the new leadership and a new Speaker, when

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it [the House] changes parties we can provide

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a continuum of what has happened in the past.

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Now, each Speaker can decide not to go with

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the precedents that had been set, but they don’t

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always realize what the precedents were, or why.

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Our office because it has good records of

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that sort of thing—it’s not the sort of thing

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that other offices would really keep tabs on.

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But when you had the cameras up, when you

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had the lights down, all sorts of things that

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affect how the day looks and how the day is

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perceived, that is one of the things that we

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were able to do with both changes of the House.

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When the House went to the Republican Party

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as the majority, and when the House went

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back to the Democratic Party as the majority.

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And I think if you ask either Speaker’s Office,

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they would say that it was very helpful to them

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to have someone in office who had that

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institutional memory and could guide them,

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and then they could make their choices

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about what changes they wanted to make.