With the audio electronically enhanced, C-SPAN’s coverage of late-night floor action will be played in an open hearing Tuesday, and House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer will be asked to explain what he meant when he said, “We control this House, not the parliamentarians .”

For the minority party, those were fighting words.

Republicans have been arguing since that night — Aug. 2, 2007 — that the results of a legitimate floor vote were improperly undermined and that the Democratic leadership was to blame.

Hoyer, a Democrat from Maryland, previously spent nearly three hours undergoing private questioning by members of a bipartisan, six-member panel formed to investigate Republican complaints about the handling of a motion to recommit an appropriations bill (HR 3161).

Hoyer was one of 20 witnesses deposed behind closed doors by the special panel investigating roll call vote 814.

As the select committee takes its inquiry public, Hoyer is scheduled to be questioned again, along with key players on the dais that night, including Rep. Michael R. McNulty, a New York Democrat who was filling in at the time as Speaker pro tem.

With a thwack of his gavel, McNulty that night ruled that Democrats had defeated a Republican motion to ban welfare benefits for illegal immigrants. But when the gavel sounded, the tally board showed a vote of 215-213 in the minority party’s favor.

Select panel ranking member Rep. Mike Pence, R-Ind., said he will play C-SPAN highlights with enhanced audio and onscreen circles in red, yellow, orange and green following the principal players, including Hoyer, McNulty and Catlin O’Neill of the Speaker’s staff.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. in 1539 Longworth.