Who decided on the shitty 5-minute rule for congressional hearings?

[DetlefK]

Five minutes is nothing. That's 5 questions. With filibuster it's 0 questions.

And as the parties alternate, after each questioning the narrative is reset and you get overhead each time, eating even more into the time. Why not simply give one side 1 hour to grill the witness and then it's the turn of the other side?



Who thought this would be a good idea???????

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. It's one of the House rules and I think it's been in effect for a long time,

and I agree that it's stupid. It only allows for speechifying and grandstanding and makes it almost impossible to conduct serious questioning. That's why it's so much more effective to have staff lawyers do it and get the politicians out of the way.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

2. Yes, would love to know the debate about that. Yesterday afternoon was

great with a real lawyer. Like night and day. Do you suppose Nadler couldn't get the rule changes without leaving the 5 min deal in? Why ? all Dems would vote yes, I would think?

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

5. Each committee member wants his/her turn in the spotlight

and won't want to give it up. That's why the rule exists in the first place - so all of the members can be on TV and make a speech. Some of them do an OK job but some of them just make asses of themselves. If I had my druthers all questioning would be done by staff lawyers but the politicians would never go for that.

[Laura PourMeADrink]

7. I do wonder if Berke helped them with questions to set Lew up - ready him for the

Berke kill. While he was speaking I thought - wow, this guy watched all morning and quickly formulated questions to pull it together. Amazing. Yet, if it was all orchestrated even better.

[unblock]

3. Every politician wants a share of the spotlight.

[Jose Garcia]

4. It's up to the individual committee chairman

[Ninga]

6. It's not a Court. The House Committee is

bi-partisan. They vote on the rules. They come to an agreement.

Nadler has a huge job. He was effective yesterday and so were the Dems.

[Midnightwalk]

8. Restructure it to emphasize getting at the truth

Most of the questions are known up front.

I’d like to see the time give the counsel increased maybe with two or three experienced members added to mix up the dynamic a little. Everyone wants their chance at a sound bite but that’s not what is best for getting at the truth.

I’d also like the chair to be able to rule that an answer was unresponsive and reclaim the time or some other way of disabling the running out of the clock. Something like “reclaiming the time, can you answer yes or no in less than 10 seconds? Tell me when you are ready.” The lengthy preamble shouldn’t count.

If the witness wants to stall that should just add to his time in the hot seat.

Same rules would apply if the gop were in the majority but I don’t think that’s bad.