Deceit and dysfunction are increasingly “normal” in Congress, but what most Americans don’t know is that they are all by design. Last week, the New York Times exposed some of the culprits — creators of the GOP-led government shutdown — who have been working on forcing a shutdown for months. They include former President Ronald Reagan’s scandal-plagued, anti-pornography crusading attorney general, and former Senator Jim DeMint’s Heritage Foundation’s Heritage Action lobbyists.
And now, a deceitful House GOP has changed the rules of the game — literally –to ensure the shutdown continues until Eric Cantor, the string puppet of a few Tea Party and extremist Republicans, says otherwise.
In, “A Federal Budget Crisis Months in the Planning,” the Times explains how “a little-noticed ‘blueprint to defunding Obamacare,’ complete with a “defunding ‘tool kit,’” came into existence:
Shortly after President Obama started his second term, a loose-knit coalition of conservative activists led by former Attorney General Edwin Meese III gathered in the capital to plot strategy. Their push to repeal Mr. Obama’s health care law was going nowhere, and they desperately needed a new plan.
It articulated a take-no-prisoners legislative strategy that had long percolated in conservative circles: that Republicans could derail the health care overhaul if conservative lawmakers were willing to push fellow Republicans — including their cautious leaders — into cutting off financing for the entire federal government.
“We felt very strongly at the start of this year that the House needed to use the power of the purse,” said one coalition member, Michael A. Needham, who runs Heritage Action for America, the political arm of the Heritage Foundation. “At least at Heritage Action, we felt very strongly from the start that this was a fight that we were going to pick.”
Now we learn, thanks to progressive Democratic Congressman Chris Van Hollen’s work, that the GOP-majority of the House Rules Committee actually changed the rules, just hours before the GOP-led government shutdown, to prevent anyone except the House Majority Leader — Eric Cantor of Virginia — from introducing legislation that will end the shutdown.
“Though at least 28 House Republicans have publicly said they would support a clean CR [continuing resolution] if it were brought to the floor — enough votes for the government to reopen when combined with Democratic support — a House rule passed just before the shutdown essentially prevents that vote from taking place,” the Huffington Post reports:
Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), presiding over the chamber, told Van Hollen that the rule he was asking to use had been “altered” and he did not have the privilege of bringing that vote to the floor. In the ensuing back and forth, Chaffetz said the recently passed House Resolution 368 trumped the standing rules. Where any member of the House previously could have brought the clean resolution to the floor under House Rule 22, House Resolution 368 — passed on the eve of the shutdown — gave that right exclusively to the House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia.
“The Rules Committee, under the rules of the House, changed the standing rules of the House to take away the right of any member to move to vote to open the government, and gave that right exclusively to the Republican Leader,” said Van Hollen. “Is that right?”
“The House adopted that resolution,” replied Chaffetz.
“I make my motion, Mr. Speaker,” said Van Hollen. “I renew my motion that under the regular standing rules of the House… that the house take up the Senate amendments and open the government now.”
“Under section 2 of H.R. 368, that motion may be offered only by the majority leader or his designee,” Chaffetz said.
“Mr. Speaker, why were the rules rigged to keep the government shut down?” Van Hollen asked.
“The gentleman will suspend,” Chaffetz interjected.
“Democracy has been suspended, Mr. Speaker.”
Indeed.
The House Rules Committee, which changed the rules on September 30, hours before the shutdown, has nine Republican members and just four Democratic members. Of the nine Republicans, many are members of the House Tea Party Caucus, including Pete Sessions of Texas, Rob Bishop of Utah, Rich Nugent of Florida, and Michael C. Burgess of Texas.
Any questions?
Watch:
-The New Civil Rights Movement
No comments:
Post a Comment