Louise Slaughter: Republican Rules Change 'An Atrocity' That Allows Shutdown To Continue
WASHINGTON -- Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) has been fuming in recent days about Republicans quietly changing the House rules to prevent a clean funding bill from getting a vote, guaranteeing the government would remain shut down.
But two weeks ago, in the middle of a largely unnoticed House Rules Committee hearing, it was Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) reacting in disbelief to what Republicans had done.
House rules typically allow any member, Republican or Democrat, to call up a Senate-passed bill for a vote. But on Sept. 30 -- the eve of the government shutdown -- Republicans on the House Rules Committee changed the rule so only House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) could call up a Senate-passed clean funding bill -- a bill that has the votes to pass the House and would end the shutdown, if it were given a vote. The move to prevent lawmakers from bringing up the bill came as part of Republican leaders' strategy to try to extract concessions from Democrats in exchange for reopening the government.
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"They changed and rigged the standing rules of the House in order to keep the government shut down," Van Hollen said on MSNBC. "If they had not changed that rule, the government would be open right now because I, for example, could have, under the normal rules of the House, demanded to have a vote on that Senate bill and we would have had the government open already."
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