SPEAKER BOEHNER STARTED HIS HOUSE LEADERSHIP WITH ONE BIG LIE



 

The Leader of the Pack.......

 

This GOP lie started just minutes after Ms. Pelosi handed John Boehner his giant Speaker’s gavel.

Please note the following as the definition of a standing rule in the House of Representatives:  “When a bill comes before the House of Representatives, the Rules Committee may set a “closed rule” for its debate and final vote. Under a closed rule, no additional amendments or substitutes to the bill may be offered from the floor.”

Sounds pretty innocuous doesn’t it?

But, this is just another issue where the Speaker of the House, Mr. John Boehner had once again lied directly to the American people.

The be very clear, here is exactly what Mr. Boehner said the day he took over from Ms. Nancy Pelosi as the new Republican House Speaker:

“We will do these things . . . in a manner that restores and respects the time-honored right of the minority to an honest debate, a fair and open process.  And to my friends in the minority [the Democrats], I offer a commitment: Openness, once a tradition of this institution, but increasingly scarce in recent decades, will be the new standard. There were no open rules in the House in the last Congress. In this one there will be many. . . . You will always have the right to a robust debate in an open process that allows you to represent your constituents, to make your case, offer alternatives and be heard.”

So, “You will always have the right to a robust debate,,”…..Yeah, right!

The frequent promise to always, “let the House work its will”, is almost never honored with today’s GOP.  And this is not just for the high-profile issues such as immigration reform, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage.

Now I am not saying that Speaker Pelosi didn’t also use “closed rules” in order to get things done while the Democrats ruled the House.  In fact, as Speaker Boehner has stated, Speaker Pelosi had the lead of the most ever, of 61, “closed rules” by the time she finished her run as House Speaker.  But she had also never promised that there was going to be such, “openness”, as Boehner did, just as she assumed her leadership.  Leader Pelosi was very clear that in dealing with the nation’s recent market crash, she needed to get things done right away and without the interference of the GOP.

As for Boehner’s statement of “openness”, starting this week, Boehner is now ahead by one of Ms. Pelosi’s record of 61 “closed rules”.  And Boehner’s House still has seven months in which to run up the score even higher  Boehner will obviously have by far, the highest record once his current leadership run is over.  Boehner’s record may never again be passed, that is unless the Republicans are still running the House in the next congressional run.

Yes, the Republicans now hold the overall record, but in just one week they also approved a total of 21 closed rules, including 11 in one, single day.  So, they already held the “weekly” and the “single-day” records for using, “closed rules”.

The Republicans single-day record occurred due to what was called the “Ted Cruz Effect”, which was right after the Republican-caused government shutdown.  This was when the congress almost followed the Texas Republican Senator’s ill-advised plan of offering to reopen the government only one piece at a time.  That was the single-day they approved 11 closed rules.

Now this increasing of the “closed rules” is not a new thing that started with the battle between Ms. Pelosi and Mr. Boehner.  The number of “closed rules” have been increasing for years.  To put this in perspective, there were 9 closed rules in the 1991-1992 Congress, 5 in 1993-1994, 25 in 1995-1996, 23 in 1997-1998, 51 in 1999-2000, 29 in 2001-2002, 44 in 2003-2004, 56 in 2005-2006, 61 in 2007-2008, 37 in 2009-2010, and 53 in 2011-2012

The reason for the continuing increases in closed rules is that the majority party that’s running the show, their natural inclination is to try to exert more control over the process, rather than less.  As the two parties continue to be more and more separated in their political doctrines, or while the right is now going more far right and the left is doing the same, they then each, when in control, also want as much control over the process as possible.

This is all an understandable inclination. 

As is another idea of getting their bills through legislation under “emergency” rules rather than the more laborious normal procedures. Last year, 4 in 10 bills were taken up under “emergency” rules.  The Democratic lawmakers have complained at doing that, saying that this doesn’t give them adequate time for reading all of the details in the bills.  Either ruling party is free to run the show in this fashion throughout their leaderships.

But Speaker Boehner should at least apologize to all of us for his initial promise of “openness” and transparency.  That was obviously just a bunch of Bull.

And, as one Washington Post op-ed writer put it,  “[The Republicans]… instead, embraced and expanded the use of their Washington shenanigans”.

In other words, it’s back to the Republican’s “business as usual”.

Copyright G.Ater  2014