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Shutting down the House
Somebody appears to have found a semblance of a spine
By Jeff Emanuel Posted in Congress | Democrats | House of Representatives | Republicans — Comments (1) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
According to a source on the Hill:
House Democrats are trying to make it easier to raise taxes, without forcing their Members to take the tough votes on the record, by denying long-held minority rights within the House.
Specifically, the source continued
The Democrat Leadership is threatening to change the current House Rule regarding the Republican right to the Motion to Recommit (specifically on the "paygo" provisions) or the test of germaneness on the motion to recommit. This would be the first change to the germaneness rule since 1822.
House Republicans have decided that they are not going to take this treatment lying down. In response, they are planning to "shut down the floor" with procedural motions at every opportunity - we have been told to "expect one every 30 minutes throughout the day."
"We don't have the filibuster," said a Hill staffer, "but we can slow this chamber down to a crawl and that's what we are doing."
There is one exception, though, said the source -- "If the House Democrats want to pass a clean funding bill for our troops, we'd be more than happy to allow that on the floor immediately."
More information can be found here
Such threats lend credence to all the caution the Dems have shown in rolling back the "checks" on the minority party that the Repubs put in during their years in power.
Some Dems wanted to trash all of those rules immediately. Perhaps the cautious were more right than they knew.