Nancy Can’t Take the Heat
Fails in Attempt to Change House Rules
By Mark I Posted in Congress | Spotlight Blogs — Comments (11) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
in•com•pe•tent
[in-KOM-pi-tuh nt] adj.
Speaker of the House, and America’s Mother-in-Law™, Nancy Pelosi isn’t exactly having a run of success at running the House of Representatives. Her Democratic majority has managed to pass exactly none of its vaunted “Six for ‘06” initiatives into law thus far. Oh, they have passed them in the House, they just haven’t become actual laws due to a nasty little impediment known as the Senate, also controlled by Democrats.
Some of Pelosi’s initiatives haven’t even been that successful. Feisty Republicans in the minority have managed to kill off more than their fair share of bills with a little known parliamentary maneuver known as a motion to recommit. When a motion to recommit is passed, the bill under consideration is sent back to the committee of jurisdiction with a kind of poison pill attached. For example, when the Democrats attempted to grant a voting representative to the District of Columbia, Republicans scuttled the measure by offering a motion to recommit that would have repealed the District’s handgun ban. “Conservative” Democrats were forced to vote for the Republican motion, effectively killing the underlying bill. Republicans have used this tactic a half a dozen times or so to frustrate the Democratic majority. And frustrate them it has.
Read on…
Today, Speaker Pelosi tried to fire back. But rather than utilizing her own parliamentary maneuvers or making better use of House Rules—or in other words, competing—she attempted to quash the motion to recommit altogether.
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.
1822.
Nancy can’t compete under the rules, so she tried to do what all good liberals do. She moved to punish the successful. For the first time in 185 years, a minority in the House of Representatives would have had no opportunities on the floor of the House to affect legislation, if she had gotten her way.
Republicans did not lie down for this. They protested by offering procedural motions every half-hour. There were at least three motions to adjourn. All failed, but each motion took up at least 15 minutes of floor time for a vote.
The left wing base of the Democratic Party cannot be happy with the performance of the Speaker and the Democratic leadership in this Congress. Last week, Majority Leader Rep. Steny Hoyer voted with Republicans against a Pelosi backed plan to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 90 days. Today, the Senate rejected another Iraq withdrawal plan designed to withdraw troops by March of next year. Bush is still president, Cheney is still Vice-President. There have been no high profile resignations of Bush Administration officials since the Democrats took over. The Bush tax cuts have not been repealed. The minimum wage has not been increased. The war on terror is still being fought at home and abroad. And the troops are still in Iraq. Now Nancy has embarrassed herself and her voters by admitting publicly that she doesn’t have the chops to compete with Republicans openly on the floor of the House. That isn’t exactly what our left wing friends voted for in November.
If the Speaker thinks she has been feeling heat from the Republicans, she’d better watch her back and check the skies. The vultures are already circling around this Speakership.
« Rep. Capuano's Newspeak for Censorship — Comments (5) | Shutting down the House — Comments (1) »
Nancy Can’t Take the Heat 11 Comments (0 topical, 11 editorial, 0 hidden) Post a comment »
is NOT controlled by Democrats. It's too close to 50/50
Just because they have proven themselves to be liars and frauds to the American people there is no need to pretend that simple math is beyond the scope of even democrats and their supporters. (unless of course it is)
Well done is better than well said. —Benjamin Franklin
When the Dakotas get around to sitting down and voting, then the liberals will control the Senate.
Oh, not the democrats, didn't you know?
Two independents rising for the left.
the tin head under the expensive coiffure. It's a question of what Dumbo and her pack of Incorruptibles think they can get away with. To be sure, overturning a procedure 185 years old means nothing to them, no matter how often it has been used throughout the party's history.
There is no small touch of the Jacobin to this.
"a man's admiration for absolute government is proportinate to the contempt he feels for those around him". Tocqueville
I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America.
Alexis de Tocqueville
this is known as obstruction. Wasn't there a lot of complaining about this in the 109th?
But either way, isn't it kinda ... uh, rich for liberals to come here complaining about the speck in our eye while firmly fixing the logs in theirs?
Here's to a brutal 110th.
George W. Bush: He's A Folder ... Not A Fighter.
Nancy Pelosi's actions now vs the Democratic outrage over any talk of changing Senate rules to eliminate judicial filibusters in the last Congress.
Poor Nancy! All hat and no cattle.