One thing the Republicans seem to grasp that our side doesn't.

[Warren DeMontague]

44. Yes, the party that controls the house controls the committees.

While I believe the minority party - or anyone- can introduce legislation; civics classes were a long time ago, mind you- the idea that the Democrats while being in the minority could tack on additional "demands" to, say, appropriations bills as the prior poster suggested- I don't think it works that way.

Yes, obviously my whole point in this subthread is that job one for our party needs to be to retake the majority in the house; fortunately the crazy-ass teabaggers are making that significantly easier IMHO.

(Edited to add; yeah, I guess it's even worse than that, which figures and explains alot, i.e. the "Hastert Rule", misnamed or not)

Lastly on your point about elections- yeah. Sure. Although in terms of sheer numbers there were about 1.5 million more votes cast for Democrats in House races, than Republicans. The situation we have NOW is one whereby a very small minority of members in the House, from gerrymandered districts full of crazy people, somehow have the power to hold the whole country hostage. "Rules" or no, that's fucked up and a situation what needs to change. When the Democrats controlled the House and a Republican was in the White House, divided government was made to work- in fact, it has worked well in the past under different combinations. What you have now, though, is divided government that is NOT working. So something needs to change.

As for "elections have consequences", it's fucking funny that the GOP doesn't seem to want to deal with the consequences of losing TWO Presidential elections. The ACA is the law of the land, and every damn thing they've thrown at it- from the Supreme Court to Mitt Romney- has failed. They need to grow the fuck up and deal with the consequences of being a minority party that does not represent most Americans, and stop trying to punish the country for not voting for their sorry asses.