Well America, you voted for change, and you are about to get it, although it is probably not the change you were hoping for. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has solidified her power in the House of Representatives by doing away with several rules that the Republicans brought to the chamber back in 1995. These rules were an effort on the part of the GOP to ensure that all elected officials who participated in the legislative process had a fair chance at making their voices heard.
Now, Pelosi wants to make sure that only the Democrats' voices are heard and has cut the GOP and any other opposition out of the legislative loop.
From Human Events Online:
| House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi's proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office. ... In reaction, the House Republican leadership is sending a letter today to Pelosi to object to changes to House Rules this week that would bar Republicans from offering alternative bills, amendments to Democrat bills or even the guarantee of open debate accessible by motions to recommit for any piece of legislation during the entire 111th Congress. These procedural abuses, as outlined in the below letter obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, would also include the repeal of six-year limit for committee chairmen and other House Rules reform measures enacted in 1995 as part of the Contract with America. |
Pelosi's new rules will make secret, back-room deals the norm again while removing any transparency that the GOP tried to bring to Washington back in 1995. Non-Democrats will not be allowed to offer dissenting voices nor will any minority party be allowed to offer alterntive legislation on major issues.
Here is what the Republican House rules did that Nancy Pelosi wants to end:
| Reforms to the House Rules as part of the Contract with America were designed to open up to public scrutiny what had become under this decades-long Democrat majority a dangerously secretive House legislative process. The Republican reform of the way the House did business included opening committee meetings to the public and media, making Congress actually subject to federal law, term limits for committee chairmen ending decades-long committee fiefdoms, truth in budgeting, elimination of the committee proxy vote, authorization of a House audit, specific requirements for blanket rules waivers, and guarantees to the then-Democrat minority party to offer amendments to pieces of legislation. Pelosi’s proposed repeal of decades-long House accountability reforms exposes a tyrannical Democrat leadership poised to assemble legislation in secret, then goose-step it through Congress by the elimination of debate and amendment procedures as part of America’s governing legislative process. |
Cleary, the Dems are the new Fascists in town.
Also, I wonder what the reaction from the Dems would have been if the GOP were in power and had done what Pelosi is doing.
You can access the complete article on-line here:
Pelosi Erases Gingrich's Long-Standing Fairness Rules
Connie Hair
Human Events Online
January 5, 2009
For a .pdf copy of the letter the House GOP leadership sent in response, click the following link:
Letter Opposing Repeal Of Fairness Rules
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