Democrats Fed Up With Yielding to GOP Rules

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A43045-2004Jul11?language=printer

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (Calif.), who leads Democrats in the House, and Rep. David Dreier (Calif.), the Republican chairman of the powerful Rules Committee, are on friendly terms despite political differences.

Dreier was one of the few Republicans to attend a party for Pelosi after she was elected House minority leader in November 2002. "I was very proud that the first minority leader was from my state," he said.

But that didn't stop Pelosi from roughing up Dreier during a contretemps on the House floor June 25. Behind the attack was rising anger among House Democrats about Republican use of the procedural power of the Rules Committee to prevent or limit amendments and debate on key bills.

In that case, Pelosi was protesting Dreier's refusal to let the House debate a Democratic amendment that she said would have helped Californians "get the refunds they deserve after they were ripped off by Enron and others."

[taxidriver]

1. they're just now getting fed up? golly, there must be a lot of daschlesque

gop biatches in the senate.

[maggrwaggr]

2. their assholes are finally getting sore?

man, what are their assholes made of, anyway? Steel?

[Democat]

3. James Carville stated one of the problem with current elected Dems

Carville said these weak Bush ass kissing Democrats don't want to offend anyone because they are afraid they might not get invited to the good Washington parties. He also said that Republicans don't care about going to parties, they care about winning in the House and Senate.

Our side needs more fight, less wimpiness.

[Justitia]

17. We tried that - remember Howard Dean? The angry guy?

They skewered him and roasted him on a spit. For what?

Well damn, I've been apoplectic for some time now, but being a Dem in Texas kinda makes you that way.

The pink tutu dems have MUCH to answer for in my book.

The hell with all of them.

[primavera]

18. Actually, "they" are us

It was Dems who skewered Dean, thanks to the unrelenting efforts of the DLC "Dems" pouring out of the Republican Trojan Horse to convince us all that our only hope of winning an election is to lay down in the middle of the road and say thank you every time we get run over.

[Justitia]

20. agree completely

I am a fervent anti-DLCer.
They are the poison pill in our party, meant to do us in.
Now the "nice-nice" contingent is getting cranky over the thermostat setting in hell.

[Tansy_Gold]

25. If Dean had wanted it badly enough. . . .

. . . . he would have stayed angry.

I'm sure the dedicated Dean supporters will correct me if I'm wrong, but the way I recall, Dean tried to play down the scream, then kind of apologized for it, and then finally it was discovered that the microphone cut out all the background noise and made the scream sound "worse" than it really was. But by then the damage had been done.

If Dean had had faith in himself and in his supporters, he'd have stood up to the DLC and not backed down. He wimped out -- and that's exactly what too many of the Dems keep doing. I don't think a single one of them isn't guilty of having royally wimped out -- and worse, they invariably wimp out when it does the most damage.

[SeeTheLight]

4. What, pray tell, is the problem?

It has always been that the majority makes the rules, and the minority isn't happy.

The GOP was a minority for most of the last few decades, and I'm sure they weren't particularly happy with the rules, either.

This sounds like sour grapes, to me, at least. It would seem to me that whining on TV leads to little more than contempt.

[rooboy]

5. Ah yes... Democracy without decency. n/t

[DerBeppo]

6. agreed

eom.

[Bunny]

7. Oh well, that clinches it.

I mean, if you say so, it must be true. Thanks so much for enlightening us, oh great and wonderful SeeTheLight. We have now indeed seen the light. Thank you so much for coming here and helping us out - we've been soooo confused for soooo long. We shall now go forth and whine on TV no more. :eyes:

[Andromeda]

8. So we should just shut up?

This Repug majority has abused their power since 1994 and has stalled most Democratically sponsered bills or prevented them from coming to the floor at all.

Tom Delay is one of the most unethical, vitriolic representatives the Congress has ever had. Thankfully, most of the "House Managers" in the Clinton impeachment trials have not been re-elected.

When the Democrats were the majority they reached across the aisle to their Republican colleagues. The Democrats are more willing to be cooperative and to actuate compromise when working with the Repugs than the other way around.

The Republicans don't know how to handle power and when they have it, they blow it big time.

Look for a Democratic majority coming up.

[trogdor]

24. You wait until the Hate Amendment comes to a vote.

They don't have anywhere near enough to pass it. Watch and see how many Republicans just conveeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeniently play hooky that day because they remembered what happened to the people in charge of impeaching Clinton.

[ixion]

9. ah, just like all the contempt that you felt for Gringrich, et al.

when they stood on the floor ranting and raving about Clinton's penis, no doubt.

Sour grapes. Please. The Dems have been laying a** up allowing the rethugs to rape and pillage at will.

You opinion is a shining example of the double standard applied to the 'liberal' and 'conservative' parties. If the dems or greens complain, it's whining. If the repugs complain, it's a crusade.

Puh-leeezze. :eyes:

[gatlingforme]

10. Welcome, !!!, what you say is true, but to say the Dems whine?

At least the Dems do not out people(Plame), destroy peoples careers, put people in jail for disagreeing with them, lets see what else? give the finger to protesters(Bush) etc...... you have to be joking

[natrat]

14. tell people to

fuck off on the senate floor

[RetroLounge]

11. Yeah, right, Sour Grapes, that's it!

Thanks for enlightening us and welcome to DU. Hopefully your stay will be longer than the thought process used for your post.

RL

[BiggJawn]

12. S'Yeah, Right....

The ReTHUGs refuse to allow time for debate on Democratic-offered bills, but illegally hold votes open until Delay gets to go twist enough ReTHUG arms to change their votes on bills to tip them the GOP way.

The House has become (thanks in no small part to the "Sons of Newt") no more civil than a poorly-monitored daycare center. If your average Congresscitter is an example of a state's "Smartest and Finest", then we're in DEEP shit.

[UpInArms]

13. here's a paragraph from recent letter received

from my Pug congressional representative when I attempted to get him to at the very least, look at the memos that stated *Co was not bound by the Constitution and international treaties:

You well know I support the President and his initiatives. President Bush has created and implemented policies that will push Americans forward while constantly protecting our interests. He has led this country through conflict with great success and skill. These are sound approaches to keeping America on the right track. He is doing a great service to this country and I am proud to have him as our president. The system of government in the United States does not provide for one branch to have more powers than the other. The balance of power is equally shared between the three federal branches.

(edited for typos)

[lapfog_1]

15. So I'm guessing

that YOU won't have any problem with the new rules once the Democrats
take back the house, senate, and the presidency? Especially the
one on "up against the wall, redneck mothas!"

Yup, majority rules. Why don't we just let the majority rule.
Especially in things like national elections? You know, like the
one in 2000?

[rman]

16. the rules were established before the game started;

making up the rules we go is not an option, though we shouldn't be surprised that's what repubs do.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

19. But the Dems never shut the Rebubbas out of conference committees

or kept votes open for incredible lengths of time while twisting arms to get their guys to switch.

[primavera]

21. Interesting response

I think it's a very American point of view to perceive rules more as artificial impediments to be circumvented rather than substantive barriers erected to forms of behavior we as a society have decided are self-destructive. If you adhere to the first interpretation, then someone who manages to find a way around the rules - as human ingenuity is always apt to find a way of doing sooner or later - is merely someone being creative. Conversely, if you believe that rules serve a purpose, it follows that when loopholes or gaps are discovered through practice, they should be plugged so as preserve the integrity and balance of the system.

I think the most persuasive issue is the one you yourself raised: after nearly thrity years in the majority, Dems discovered and began to exploit the loopholes, much, as you say, to the chagrin of Republicans. Now the shoe is on the other foot and Republicans have taken far less than 30 years to capitalize on those same loopholes. The fact that both sides perceive that the rules as they presently exist allow a majority party to stifle the discourse which Congress was established to promote to my way of thinking indicates that there is now a nearly universal consensus regarding the ability of existing rules to protect the mission of Congress. To lay back and grin smugly when you benefit from the very rules that a few years ago you yourself were decrying as unjust is hypocritical. If all parties concerned agree that the rules are inadequate, then the rules need to be changed rather than each party hypocritically exploiting structural and procedural weaknesses equally whenever it happens to suit their purposes.

[Rose Siding]

22. Dems held a vote open once in '87

The repubs freaked. Even Gingrich refused to do it. Now, it happens a lot- gives the leadership time to threaten the careers of members families.

Nancy's unglued because they'd just done it again. I had no idea how fringe this tactic was until I read this- 'Tapped' posted a great article on 'tone' written by a conservative who is ticked about this-

snip>

In the 22 years that Democrats ran the House after the electronic voting system was put in place, there was only one time when the vote period substantially exceeded the 15 minutes. At the end of the session in 1987, under Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, the vote on the omnibus budget reconciliation bill--a key piece of legislation--was one vote short of passage when one of the bill's supporters, Marty Russo of Illinois, took offense at something, changed his vote to no, and left to catch a plane to his home district in Chicago. He was unaware that his switch altered the ultimate outcome. Caught by surprise, Wright kept the vote tally open for an extra 15 to 20 minutes until one of his aides could find another member, fellow Texan Jim Chapman, and draw him out of the cloakroom to change his nay vote to aye and pass the bill. Republicans went ballistic, using the example for years as evidence of Democrats' autocratic style and insensitivity to rules and basic fairness.

In 1995, soon after the Republicans gained the majority, Speaker Newt Gingrich declared his intention to make sure that votes would consistently be held in the 15-minute time frame. The "regular practice of the House," he said would be "a policy of closing electronic votes as soon as possible after the guaranteed period of 15 minutes." The policy was reiterated by Speaker Dennis J. Hastert when he assumed the post.

But faced with a series of tough votes and close margins, Republicans have ignored their own standards and adopted a practice that has in fact become frequent during the Bush presidency, of stretching out the vote when they were losing until they could twist enough arms to prevail. On at least a dozen occasions, they have gone well over the 15 minutes, sometimes up to an hour.

The Medicare prescription drug vote--three hours instead of 15 minutes, hours after a clear majority of the House had signaled its will--was the ugliest and most outrageous breach of standards in the modern history of the House. It was made dramatically worse when the speaker violated the longstanding tradition of the House floor's being off limits to lobbying by outsiders (other than former members) by allowing Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on the floor during the vote to twist arms--another shameful first.

http://www.aei.org/news/newsID.19527,filter./news_detail.asp

here's the link to Tapped's write up (July 13- 3:22 post)-

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2004/07/index.html#003293

[BadGimp]

23. about FUCKing Time!

eom