"Liberals and Libertarians Find Common Ground in House"

[applegrove]

Liberals and Libertarians Find Common Ground in House

By JONATHAN WEISMAN at the NY Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/us/politics/left-and-libertarians-unite-to-amend-house-spending-bills.html?_r=0

"SNIP............................



WASHINGTON — From abortion to electronic privacy to background checks for gun purchases, a strange thing has been happening on the floor of the House as it debates its spending bills for the coming fiscal year: the stirrings of liberalism.

The House on Thursday voted 221 to 200 to approve an amendment by one of its most vocal liberal members, Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, to ban federal contracts for companies that set up sham headquarters in offshore tax havens like Bermuda. Thirty-four Republicans bucked their party to push it to passage.

That was only the most recent stirring of life on the House’s left flank. Democrats have long hoped they could find common cause on at least some issues with the Republican conference’s libertarian wing. That is starting to happen, fueled by rising distrust of government on the right, a willingness of Democrats to defy the Obama administration in some instances and a freewheeling amendment process on appropriations bills.


Lawmakers involved in the legislating say their successes on the spending bills are not the result of luck or happenstance, but of concerted outreach and negotiations. As momentum builds, those efforts could extend beyond routine spending bills to larger policy matters, like overhauling mandatory prison sentencing laws, reinstituting voting-rights protections stripped away by the Supreme Court, or pressing far-reaching changes to intelligence and surveillance practices.




...............................SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. Maybe congress will function like it has three parties anyhow.

[Warren DeMontague]

2. Well, sure. Who can resist his sardonic quips?