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May 16, 2007
Sounds Like Fightin' Words
...to me.
GOP threatens to shut down House over rules changeHouse Republicans Wednesday threatened to shut down House business by calling a series of procedural votes until the Democratic leadership assured them that rules governing key parliamentary procedures would go unchanged.
Republicans began their assault in the mid-afternoon after hearing that the Democratic leadership allegedly planned to change the germaneness rule, which would limit the ability of the minority to challenge provisions in a bill on the floor.
“This is an astonishing attempt by the majority leadership to duck accountability for tax-and-spend policies the American people do not want,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “The majority leadership is gutting House rules that have been in place for 185 years so they can raise taxes and increase government spending without a vote. House Republicans will use every tool available to fight this abuse of power.”
Nancy Amin Dada can try to do anything she wants, since there seems to be no cherishing of tradition in this bunch anyway.
It should be interesting, to say the least.
After losing a string of embarrassing votes on the House floor because of procedural maneuvering, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has decided to change the current House Rules to completely shut down the floor to the minority.The Democratic Leadership is threatening to change the current House Rules regarding the Republican right to the Motion to Recommit or the test of germaneness on the motion to recommit. This would be the first change to the germaneness rule since 1822.
In protest, the House Republicans are going to call procedural motions every half hour.
Posted by tree hugging sister at May 16, 2007 05:14 PM
Comments
A pox on both their houses, they're both hypocrites. Dems want to change the rules now, and the Repubs whine. When the Repubs wanted to change the filibuster rule, the Dems whined.
They're all useless.
Posted by: Tainted Bill at May 16, 2007 07:10 PM
Nonetheless, Bill, the rules are distinguishable. The filibuster rule outright prevents a majority of the Senate from getting its way: there are valid arguments for that, but only if you recognize that the Senate is SUPPOSED to be a check by individual states on majority rule, which most of the public wouldn't begin to understand. The filibuster rule is purely procedural: it has nothing to do with the substance of the business being debated.
The germaneness rule is substantive, and undercutting it like this would open the floodgates still further to bad legislation, because it would invite amendments unrelated to the substance of an underlying bill. The germaneness rule is one of the few protections against total majority rule in the House, unlike the utter deference to individual members in the Senate.
Posted by: Dave J at May 16, 2007 08:49 PM
The Constitution set up our government with checks and balances, several layers deep. But, IMHO, one of the more effective controls set up by the Founding Fathers was to require approval of bills by BOTH the House and the Senate, within certain legal and procedural guidelines. As I once read, the more barriers to passing legislation, the better.
In the current situation, I am actually grateful for gridlock, given how wild the Dhimmicrats are running.
I'm not happy with the Republicans either (for the same reason Bill points out, as well as others), but they at least understand the need to avoid legislation that bypasses the legislative process.
That they are somewhat more mature than the Party of San Fran Nan and Horrible Harry is not very reassuring. But sometimes you take what you can get.
Posted by: The_Real_JeffS at May 16, 2007 10:06 PM
Hmmmm.
Between the Scylla and Charybdis of complete irrationality and utter incompetence.
Well that's our Congress.
I wonder if we can force term limits on them down to 1 term only?
Posted by: memomachine at May 17, 2007 10:48 AM
MM - why not be totally ambitious, and limit them to zero?
Posted by: Nightfly at May 17, 2007 11:59 AM
Brother Nightfly:
There are a lot of days I wish we could impose a negative term limit. Afterall, a joke is funny the first time you said it. Not the politician [googleplex raised to googleplex] retelling.
Posted by: Bart at May 17, 2007 11:44 PM