House Democrats muzzle GOP on sensitive issues

[Enrique]

Source: Associated Press

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gdHQ5RHV9ZBHsLq1TUvtF44rDKSgD99FMVF80

House Democrats muzzle GOP on sensitive issues

By ANDREW TAYLOR – 1 hour ago

WASHINGTON — In their zeal to protect their members from politically hazardous votes on issues such as gay marriage and gun control, Democrats running the House of Representatives are taking extraordinary steps to muzzle Republicans in this summer's debates on spending bills.

On Thursday, for example, Republicans had hoped to force debates on abortion, school vouchers and medical marijuana, as well as gay marriage and gun control, as part of House consideration of the federal government's contribution to the District of Columbia's city budget.

No way, Democrats said.

At issue are 12 bills totaling more than $1.2 trillion in annual appropriations bills for funding most government programs — usually low-profile legislation that typically dominates the work of the House in June and July. For decades, those bills have come to the floor under an open process that allows any member to try to amend them. Often those amendments are an effort to change government policy by adding or subtracting money for carrying it out.

The tradition has often meant laborious debates. But it has allowed lawmakers with little seniority to have their say on doling out the one-third of the federal budget passed by Congress each year. It was a right the Democrats zealously defended when they were the minority party from 1995 through 2006.

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Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gdHQ5RHV9ZBHsLq1TUvtF44rDKSgD99FMVF80

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Muzzle away. :toast:

[WriteDown]

1. Herein lies the problem....

"It was a right the Democrats zealously defended when they were the minority party from 1995 through 2006."

This stuff comes back around.

[Enrique]

2. successfully defended?

or did Tom Delay run roughshod over them?

[WriteDown]

3. Zealously.

Not successfully. I think its just the right to be heard, not to take action.

[Xipe Totec]

4. You are accepting the AP quote as accurate

My recollection is that the Democrats were muzzled by the republican majority.

You are right about one thing: This stuff came back around.

[WriteDown]

5. More research is needed...

but one thing is for sure, this is not good..

"The process has become so relentlessly efficient that Democrats were actually forced to drag out action to Thursday on a $33 billion measure funding energy programs and water projects. The reason? They need to stretch the workweek into Friday to force lawmakers to remain in Washington for committee work on health care and other spending bills."

[smiley_glad_hands]

10. And how is efficiency a bad thing? Repugs have nothing to offer btw. eom

[Igel]

11. Personally, I like my reps or their aides to at

least read the bills they're voting on.

"Ruthlessly efficient" means not only that repubs don't have a voice--usually something liberals in a democracy like irrespective of their agenda, but which more than a few progressives dislike when it doesn't advance their agenda--but that dems also are stripped of their voice.

Moreover, it means that those few reps that actually want to know what they're voting on don't really have a choice--they vote 'no' in ignorance, they vote 'yes' in ignorance, or they abstain in ignorance--but the primary attribute in all of that is ignorance. When I chaired a committee it was very satisfying, in a bad sense, to get through the agenda before the food we provided at the start of the meeting was cold. I learned to be dissatisfied and slow things down so that the reps had a clue what it was they were voting on, and to allow them to speak ... even if I profoundly disagreed with what they said. It's a simple matter of fairness, and I think being fair is a dandy value. Apparently a lot of people disagree--lack of fairness is evil if they suffer as a result, but sacred if they get to screw others. (The usual word for this is 'hypocrisy'--not just a Republican value, it seems.)

[razorman]

7. And it will come around again some day. It always does.

It is the same with filibusters. I guess it all depends on whose ox is being gored, when it comes where some folks stand on these issues.

[damntexdem]

6. Well, rabid dogs need to be muzzled.

Good work, Congress!

[alstephenson]

8. Good. eom

[Arkana]

9. Good.

About time we started treating them like the minority party.