King Refused to Allow Committee Democrats to Offer Amendments

From Congress Daily via Govexec.com...

"The top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee says bipartisan relations on his panel have been damaged from the experience of pushing through a port security bill during last month's rush to recess for the fall elections.
House Homeland Security ranking member Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., told CongressDaily "there's no question" that the process of finishing the bill strained bipartisan relationships on the committee, mainly because Democrats were not allowed to offer amendments during final conference negotiations."
"Thompson said he feels that King lied to him. "When a person tells you to your face that you will have an opportunity to offer an amendment and then just absolutely ignores his word, that damages all the good will that has gone before in the committee," Thompson said. "Most of us come to conference with only our word, and when you violate your word to another member that damages relationships."
When asked for a response, a spokesman for King said only, "These comments don't warrant a response."
Democrats intended to offer amendments to the bill that would have boosted funding for rail and transit security and lifted the cap on the number of passenger and baggage screeners that the Transportation Security Administration can employ.
"All Chairman King had to do was give us an opportunity to present our amendments, and if we lost, then so be it," Thompson said."

This is a follow-up to what we posed back in september about King just plain lying about what is going on in his committee.