The media is full of stories regaring the handover of Congressional power from the pachyderms to the donkeys today. Two stories caught my eye.
First, TPM Muckraker is sharing a letter from three GOP congresscritters asking that the “minority bill of rights” that Nancy Pelosi suipported a couple of years ago be honored. Quoting the letter:
[P]lease join us in co-sponsoring the Minority Bill of Rights, which we plan to introduce next week. This Bill of Rights is identical — in both letter and spirit — to a 2004 proposal made by then-Minority Leader Pelosi[....] It includes:
- Bills should only come to the Floor after full hearings, open subcommittee and committee markup, and with Members having a full 24 hours to review legislation prior to consideration at the subcommittee level.
- Bills should normally be considered under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate cosnisting of a full amendment process that grants all members the right to offer amendments or substitutes.
- Members should be allowed a full 24 hours to examine bills and conference reports before they come to the floor, and rules governing debate must be reported before 10:00 p.m. for a bill to be considered the next day.
On the surface at least, this doesn’t seem like a bad idea. True, it could slow down the operations of Congress, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. Perhaps a slowdown will limit the amount of mischief Congress can cause (regardless of who’s in charge).
Perhaps if the GOP had accepted the Bill 2 years ago, they wouldn’t be starting this Congress with a 30-seat deficit in the House.
However, it appears that questions have been raised about what lessons the Democrats may have learned from their years in the minority. From the Washington Post:
House Democrats intend to pass a raft of popular measures as part of their well-publicized plan for the first 100 hours. They include tightening ethics rules for lawmakers, raising the minimum wage, allowing more research on stem cells and cutting interest rates on student loans.
But instead of allowing Republicans to fully participate in deliberations, as promised after the Democratic victory in the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats now say they will use House rules to prevent the opposition from offering alternative measures, assuring speedy passage of the bills and allowing their party to trumpet early victories.
The more things change….