How does the US House of Representatives do its work, and when does it get done? Well…
Never before has the House of Representatives operated in such secrecy:
At 2:54 a.m. on a Friday in March, the House cut veterans benefits by three votes.
At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April, the House slashed education and health care by five votes.
At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the Leave No Millionaire Behind tax-cut bill by a handful of votes.
At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, the House passed the Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one vote.
At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated Head Start by one vote.
And then, after returning from summer recess, at 12:12 a.m. on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq.
Always in the middle of the night. Always after the press had passed their deadlines. Always after the American people had turned off the news and gone to bed.
What did the public see? At best, Americans read a small story with a brief explanation of the bill and the vote count in Saturday’s papers.
But what did the public miss? They didn’t see the House votes, which normally take no more than 20 minutes, dragging on for as long as an hour as members of the Republican leadership trolled for enough votes to cobble together a majority.
They didn’t see GOP leaders stalking the floor for whoever was not in line. They didn’t see Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader Tom DeLay coerce enough Republican members into switching their votes to produce the desired result.
In other words, they didn’t see the subversion of democracy.
Link from Scott.
Could it be they had a few rounds of drinks at a waterin’ hole before headin’ off to work and voting????????
The other jolly fun the Rethugs enjoyed all session was to introduce entirely new (and always draconian) provisions — not even whispered about in either the House or Senate version of the bill — in the conference committee. They’d bury those in a mountain of paper, not let the entire bodies see the results until just before the final votes, then rush them through passage in the middle of the night.
Seems to me the Democrats are playing by rules that existed for the first 210 years of Congress, even though those rules have changed. That may be why the Dean campaign is working; the grassroots recognizes the phenomenon but the DC Dems don’t.
I’m guessing we’ve all missed it because we’ve spent the last few days watching some homeless guy get his teeth checked on every channel.
I guess we know when to turn on C-Span now, huh?