Historically, the minority in the Senate has been much more powerful than the minority in the House. There are all sorts of powers given to individual senators as well as the filibuster to hold the majority back. But in the House, as under the Republicans with Tom DeLay, the majority has a lot of power to ram things through while leaving the minority little to do except splutter to the press about how the majority is treating them so unfairly.
However, the House Republicans in the minority have been able to thwart much of what the Pelosi Democrats want to pass through using some parliamentary maneuvers. One power they have is what is called the "motion to recommit" which, essentially, allows the minority to offer an amendment to a bill and if, a majority of the House goes along, the bill is sent back to the committee whence it came. And the Republicans have been quite successful in offering such amendments that gain the support of all the Republicans and enough Democrats to send such bills back. They did this with the bill to give the District of Columbia a voting member in the House by adding an amendment to change DC's tough gun control law.
Well, this Republican success in blocking Democratic measures has really ticked off the Democratic leadership. So they tried to change the rules by blocking the ability of the Republicans to recommit, a rule in parliamentary procedure that has been around since 1822. Out the window go all the promises the Democrats made before the 2006 election to show deference to the minority. Somehow, like the Republicans before them, all those fine promises fade away once they got into power.
Democrats are wielding a heavy hand on the House Rules Committee, committing many of the procedural sins for which they condemned Republicans during their 12 years in power.
So far this year, Democrats have frequently prevented Republicans from offering amendments, limited debate in the committee and, just last week, maneuvered around chamber rules to protect a $23 million project for Rep. John P. Murtha (D-Pa.).
On Wednesday, Democrats suggested changing the House rules to limit the minority's right to offer motions to recommit bills back to committee -- violating a protection that has been in place since 1822.
Much of this heavy-handedness is standard procedure in the House, where the majority has every right to dominate, but it contradicts the many campaign promises Democratic leaders made last year to run a cleaner, more open Congress.
Just last December, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) declared that Democrats "intend to have a Rules Committee ... that gives opposition voices and alternative proposals the ability to be heard and considered on the floor of the House."
If this sounds familiar, it is. Republicans made similar promises in 1994, only to renege when they took control of the Congress in 1995.
One effect of the change in rules that Nancy Pelosi wanted to implement would have meant that there would have been no recorded votes on motions to raise taxes. As House Minority Leader, John Boehner explains,
In a stunning move, House Democrats today revealed they will attempt to rewrite House rules that have gone unchanged since 1822 in order to make it possible to increase taxes and government spending without having to vote and be held accountable. House Republican Leader John Boehner (R-OH) today vowed Republicans will use every available means to fight this unprecedented change.
“This is an astonishing attempt by the majority leadership to duck accountability for tax-and-spend policies the American people do not want,” Boehner said. “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.”
Last November, House Democratic leaders promised the most open, ethical Congress in history:
“[W]e promised the American people that we would have the most honest and most open government and we will.” (Nancy Pelosi press stakeout, December 6, 2006)
“We intend to have a Rules Committee ... that gives opposition voices and alternative proposals the ability to be heard and considered on the floor of the House.” (Steny Hoyer in CongressDaily PM, December 5, 2006)
The rules House Democrats are seeking to change have not been changed since 1822.
Republicans have already achieved significant legislative successes on the House floor with 11 consecutive “motion-to-recommit” victories that exposed flaws and substantively improved weaknesses in underlying Democrat bills. But rather than living by the same rules which have guided the House of Representatives for 185 years, Democrats are proposing to change the rules in order to game the system and raise taxes and increase spending without a House vote. What are House Democrats afraid of?
Of course, hypocrisy in politics is not news, but it still should be noted when it occurs. Red State has more on what Nancy said then and what she is trying to do now.
The Republicans came together and were able to stop this Democratic move by stopping work in the House by calling for procedural votes every half-hour. The Democrats have backed down for now, but they'll be back.
When the Republicans in the Senate majority got fed up with Democratic filibusters of Bush's judicial nominees, the media and observers of the Senate were furious, calling it the "nuclear option" for tinkering with long-established rules on filibusters in the Senate. It was considered scandalous to try to tinker with tradition. Well, here is a longer-held tradition and the Democrats wanted to get rid of it. We'll see if they'll receive the same obloquy that the Republicans received for the so-called "nuclear option."
One of the real goals of the Democrats has been to hold non rollcall votes on taxes and spending. That way members could vote for unpopular bills on raising taxes for increased spending and be able to avoid those pesky negative ads from opponents highlighting such votes. And just think about this. One of the guarantees of a republican government such as we have is that the people have some control over their representatives by being able to express dissatisfaction with their votes and even to vote them out the next time they came up for reelection if we don't like their positions. Of course, voting out an incumbent has become increasingly difficult these days. Think how much harder it would be to get rid of an incumbent if they can hide their most unpopular votes by not getting how they voted on the record.
This is all very inside baseball, but it's important. The Republicans were successful in blocking Pelosi yesterday. We'll see what the next battle brings.
