It Can't Happen Here?
Apparently, all of life is like high school, where the popular kids try to rule the school through tyranny. Today's illustration comes from the Washington Post, which describes a fight between Congressional Democrats and Republicans that has Tom DeLay's fingerprints all over it. [link] If this weren't the Congress, and if it weren't part of an emerging and disturbing trend of Republican abuses of power, and if the implications weren't so serious, it would all be funny. In the circumstances, however, it's scary and makes me sick to my stomach.
Apparently, a House committee was considering a bill that will alter corporate pension obligations and revise upward the amounts that people can put into IRAs and other retirement accounts (and, if implemented, will cost the government approximately $10.3 billion over five years). Around midnight Thursday/Friday, the Republican members substited a 91 page version for a longer version that had been circulated weeks earlier. At the committee meeting on Friday, the Democrats on the committee protested that the timing of the shift prevented them from reading the bill, and noted that there was no exigency that would warrant fast-tracking the committee process. Therefore, as was their right under the rules of the House, they demanded a public reading of the bill. During the public reading, they retired to the House library to plot strategy, and left Democrat Pete Stark to watch the committee -- without him there, the Republican members could vote by unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. Even so, the chairman of the committee made a motion to dispense with the reading and lowered his gavel at the same moment; when Rep. Stark protested that he had objected, the chair stated that he was "too late". Stark then left the committee meeting, whereupon the committee approved the bill by a unanimous voice-vote (and without any Democrats in the room).
What makes this story somewhat ominous is that at the same time that the Republicans were railroading the revised bill through committee, the chairman of the committee called the Capitol Police to have the Democrats ousted from the House library, in order to disrupt their "strategy session". [The good news is that after consulting the Sergeant-at-Arms, the Capitol Police determined that this was a "committee matter" and declined to get involved.]
Apparently, all of life is like high school, where the popular kids try to rule the school through tyranny. Today's illustration comes from the Washington Post, which describes a fight between Congressional Democrats and Republicans that has Tom DeLay's fingerprints all over it. [link] If this weren't the Congress, and if it weren't part of an emerging and disturbing trend of Republican abuses of power, and if the implications weren't so serious, it would all be funny. In the circumstances, however, it's scary and makes me sick to my stomach.
Apparently, a House committee was considering a bill that will alter corporate pension obligations and revise upward the amounts that people can put into IRAs and other retirement accounts (and, if implemented, will cost the government approximately $10.3 billion over five years). Around midnight Thursday/Friday, the Republican members substited a 91 page version for a longer version that had been circulated weeks earlier. At the committee meeting on Friday, the Democrats on the committee protested that the timing of the shift prevented them from reading the bill, and noted that there was no exigency that would warrant fast-tracking the committee process. Therefore, as was their right under the rules of the House, they demanded a public reading of the bill. During the public reading, they retired to the House library to plot strategy, and left Democrat Pete Stark to watch the committee -- without him there, the Republican members could vote by unanimous consent to dispense with the reading. Even so, the chairman of the committee made a motion to dispense with the reading and lowered his gavel at the same moment; when Rep. Stark protested that he had objected, the chair stated that he was "too late". Stark then left the committee meeting, whereupon the committee approved the bill by a unanimous voice-vote (and without any Democrats in the room).
What makes this story somewhat ominous is that at the same time that the Republicans were railroading the revised bill through committee, the chairman of the committee called the Capitol Police to have the Democrats ousted from the House library, in order to disrupt their "strategy session". [The good news is that after consulting the Sergeant-at-Arms, the Capitol Police determined that this was a "committee matter" and declined to get involved.]
posted by Daniel at 6:02 PM
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