Pelosi’s power grab fails thanks to clever House Republicans


You failed, Ms. Speaker.

Prior to last year’s election, Nancy Pelosi and other high-powered Democrats wanted to make it clear to the American people that if they were elected to the majority, that they were going to ‘change’ how business was conducted in Washington, DC and pledged to do what Republicans supposedly wouldn’t, and that was open the doors to bipartisanship Congress (via Red State – emphasis added):

House Republicans might have their doubts, but Minority Leader Pelosi says a Democratic majority next year would place a heavy emphasis on bipartisanship — and would offer the Republicans minority rights often denied Democrats now.

“[I would like] to come as close as you can in the political reality to a bipartisan management of the House,” Pelosi said in a Wednesday interview with CongressDaily. “I’m a big believer in bipartisanship on so many issues. You can’t address the entitlement issue, the healthcare issue, and do it in a partisan way. They are too big, they involve too many people, and they involve too much money, private and public money. You’ve got to do it in a way that has legitimacy.”

Pelosi, who is widely viewed to become speaker if Democrats pull off a net 15-seat gain on Election Day, intends to stand by a proposal she offered House Speaker Hastert two years ago to enact a Minority Bill of Rights.

It includes guaranteeing the minority at least one-third of committee resources, a revamped work schedule, a commitment to moving legislation through regular order, and allowing at least 24 hours before voting on conference reports.

“I would consider the role to be speaker of the House, not speaker of the Democrats,” she said. “I love this institution. I’ve been here 19 years now.”

Pelosi said her time as minority leader has been spent “learning in the minority how you don’t want to be treated, and that’s how we would not want them to be treated.”

Oh really, Ms. Speaker? Then how do you explain this?

PELOSI LOWERS THE BOOM
Wed May 16 2007 14:43:59 ET

After losing a string of embarrassing votes on the House floor because of procedural maneuvering, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has decided to change the current House Rules to completely shut down the floor to the minority.

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.

The Republican response?

House Republicans Wednesday threatened to shut down House business by calling a series of procedural votes until the Democratic leadership assured them that rules governing key parliamentary procedures would go unchanged.

Republicans began their assault in the mid-afternoon after hearing that the Democratic leadership allegedly planned to change the germaneness rule, which would limit the ability of the minority to challenge provisions in a bill on the floor.

“This is an astonishing attempt by the majority leadership to duck accountability for tax-and-spend policies the American people do not want” said House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio). “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.”

Indeed, that’s what they did. The details (via Robert Bluey):

In response to an earlier post, the Democrat Leadership responded to the protest votes (after about 4 hours) and pulled the rule change from the bill. Read Chairman Hensarling’s statement here.

Earlier today, House Democrats, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), today sought to rewrite the rules of the House to prevent PAYGO offsets from expanding the scope of germaneness to further what Republicans may offer in their motions to recommit the bills to Committee. Such a change would allow House Democrats to more easily raise taxes and increase government spending without being held to account. The move would have marked the first change in the germaneness rule since 1822 and is a direct infringement on the rights of the Minority in the House and the Americans that they represent. The Republican Study Committee Floor Action Team, under the leadership of Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), began requesting a series of procedural protest votes every 30 minutes in response to this power grab by the Majority, and was joined Rep. Tom Price, another member of the RSC floor Action Team. Today was a big win for all Republicans in the House.

It was also a win for the American people.

Here’s a podcast of Chief Deputy Republican Whip Eric Cantor explaining what happened today.

I’m always hesitant to use the term “fascism” to describe the opposition, but in this case, I think it’s entirely appropriate. The House Speaker, who lied to the American people when she talked about wanting to ‘reach out in the spirit of bipartisanship’, turned into a fascist today because she was tired of not getting her way. This was not the ‘change’ the American people voted for.

Now, I wonder how many times the mediots will question her on what she tried to do today? Will there be a 60 Minutes special on her attempted blatant power grab like there would have been if this had been Denny Hastert several months ago? I won’t hold my breath.

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