No surprise, either.
Via Connie Hair of Human Events comes a report that the Democratic party has yet again decided that their Congressional majority allows them to interfere with Republican constituent communications. To summarize the situation: there is a bipartisan committee called the Franking Commission that effectively regulates what can and can’t go out officially. This oversight is not supposed to be partisan – Jazz Shaw, who is not a conservative, remembers that it wasn’t during the Iraqi liberation – but apparently the Democrats are sufficiently worried about their health care rationing program to ignore that little detail.
They have decided to not only block that existing chart – yes, this one – on the health care rationing bill; they’re now dictating to Rep John Carter of Mars Texas what language he may or may not use in his electronic town meetings. Apparently the mere utterance of of the phrase ‘government-run health care’ is enough to frighten Democrats; would that they were as alarmed at the reality.
The Republican members of the Commission, by the way, are angry about this:
“Does the Majority here believe that controlling the Rules committee which sets the rules, controlling the debate, controlling the rules that come on the floor is not enough? Now they are telling us that they are going to interfere with our ability to communicate with our constituents because they happen to disagree with our interpretation of the facts.
“I thought politics was about the contest of ideas. This is something I’ve never seen before. We now are being told that our words are going to be censored by the Majority because they disagree with us. It goes against what we are supposed to be doing here – debating important issues and communicating with the American people the serious matters facing their Congress.”
So contra AoSHQ I suggest that you only politely contact the Democratic side of things. They’re the ones having difficulty distinguishing between their responsibilities as legislators and their particular social club, after all.
Moe Lane
Crossposted to RedState.
What I don’t understand is why the minority doesn’t fight back. A small handful of Republicans with an actual spine could significantly gum up things, even in the house. When I watch c-span I see them ask for unanimous consent dozens of times a day – all it would take is a few congressmen refusing consent and firing points of order requiring votes and things could be significantly impacted. Is it an escalation? Sure, but given the majority’s actions I’d think it would be justified.