Tag: congress

House votes against raising debt ceiling, 318-97.

Which is a surprise, given that I didn’t think that there were 318 Republicans in the House… no, wait, there aren’t. 82 Democrats voted against raising the debt limit without accompanying spending cuts; which is highly entertaining, given that 114 House Democrats signed Rep. Peter Welch’s letter requesting… precisely this vote. Do compare the signatories to said letter with the no votes on HR 1954: you will notice an entertaining amount of overlap, there.

The hysterical bit? The Democrats are complaining that they didn’t get to add amendments to the bill, which is fairly straightforward: Continue reading House votes against raising debt ceiling, 318-97.

#rsrh “No recess for you!”

You know, there’s a part of me that deplores that we have to do things like this.

President Obama will not be able to make recess appointments over the week-long break to commemorate Memorial Day, after Republicans forced Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., to keep the chamber open for pro forma sessions every three days.

However, there’s a much larger part of me that is prone to murmur Payback’s a bitch. And What goes around, comes around.  Guess that the Democrats shouldn’t have opened that particular Pandora’s Box, back in 2007…

Via AoSHQ.

Moe Lane

PS: Regarding President Obama making recess appointments anyway: yeah, sure, completely destroy that precedent.  The next Republican President will thank you for it.  Then again, nobody ever claimed that the Democratic party is big on long-term thinking…

#rsrh Gun-grabbers emulate Quixote.

Word is that the remaining gun-grabbers in Congress are looking to exploit the Tucson shootings by introducing a magazine capacity restriction bill – because, of course, violent paranoid schizophrenics are absolutely legendary for their reflexive tendency to obey the law – which will promptly die in a corner somewhere, crying and alone.

Seriously: this isn’t 2007.  The GOP is in control of the House, and we have precisely zero interest in doing Red District Democrats the favor of giving them anti-gun legislation to vote against.  Wasn’t it fun to have the ability to decide what bills go forward, Rep. Pelosi?  Do you miss the power?  Yes?  Glad to hear it.

Yeah, well, we’ve just had four years’ worth of lessons in Why Being The Minority Party Sucks.  Don’t be surprised that we took notes.

Moe Lane

#rsrh QotD, Self-Evident Truth About Congress edition.

The DC Examiner, on ‘productive Congresses,’ and why that phrase should make you shiver a little inside:

Our Founding Fathers were always wary of those who wanted government to do lots of big things. That’s why they created a system that separated powers among three more or less equal branches and provided each of them with powerful checks and balances. When professional politicians become frustrated with Congress, it is a sign that our system is working as intended.

Our system is not working as intended.

#rsrh Congress Keeping it Constitutional.

(Via Hot Air Headlines) David Weigel got a copy of the new guidelines for establishing the Constitutionality of all new laws in the 112th Congress, and I suspect that the Democrats have not yet grasped the magnitude of how nasty this is going to be for their side’s operating methodology.  What is particularly entertaining is how the Republican House leadership gave a comprehensive glove to the Left’s Constitutional scholar community: they recommended that those looking for help use the Federalist Papers; the Congressional Research Service; the Heritage Foundation; a site run by the Liberty Fund; CATO; and the Federalist Society… with the American Constitutional Society clearly tacked on as an afterthought, or possibly to cut down on the whining*.  I’d call this ideological grouping ‘lopsided,’ except that if we could trust Democratic legislators to create Constitution-friendly legislation then we wouldn’t have this new rule in the first place.

I would seriously recommend, by the way, that Congressional staffers take this new requirement seriously, for the most practical of reasons: whether or not you agree with this rule, it exists – and it puts the official writers of legislation on the record… and on the spot.  Anyone inclined to treat this like a joke would be well advised to remember that most jokes do not age well, and that no Member of Congress wants to appear to be not taking his or her job seriously.  Particularly when there’s an election coming up – and in the House, there’s always an election coming up.

Moe Lane

*They also included the Brookings Institution, but nobody can reliably predict what side those guys are on any given day.

#rsrh QotD, Humor us edition.

Doug Ross, on the Democratic leadership’s reaction to being told that from now on they’re going to have to demonstrate a working knowledge of the US Constitution and how it permits their particular bills if they want to introduce said bills into the House:

Say, I wonder if Nancy Pelosi would approve? Oh, wait. I don’t give a crap. The American people kicked her dimpled butt out of the Speaker’s seat and back into Coach.

I am about as unsympathetic as Doug is, myself. Sure, it’s embarrassing to treat grown legislators as if they were not particularly bright children; but not nearly as embarrassing as when said legislators demonstrate that such treatment is warranted.

More to the point: elections have consequences.  And may I say that it is a pleasure to be on the other side of that saying, for a change?

Moe Lane

Freshmen House assignments.

The Hill reports that the following House freshmen will be given slots on the following committees:

  • Appropriations: Alan Nunnelee, Steve Womack, Kevin Yoder, & Tom Graves on Appropriations.
  • Energy: Cory Gardner, Morgan Griffith, Adam Kinzinger, David McKinley, Mike Pompeo, and Charlie Bass.
  • Financial Services: Quico Canseco, Bob Dold, Sean Duffy, Michael Grimm, Nan Hayworth, Bill Huizenga, Robert Hurt, Steve Stivers, Steve Pearce, and Michael Fitzpatrick.
  • Ways and Means: Rick Berg and Diane Black on Ways (four more members out of the ten total were elected in 2008).

There are a good number of Tea Party members in that list (and a bunch who are not; I expect that my respected colleague, friend, and RS boss Erick Erickson is going to be annoyed at the Appropriations lineup); it looks like about a third of the freshman class were put on these four important domestic committees.  As Ed Morrissey notes, we have to keep an eye on who Boehner puts on in Rules (whose membership is pretty much the Speaker’s personal prerogative), and which freshmen (if any) get Armed Services/Foreign Affairs.  I personally would like to see Allen West get a spot on the latter – if only because having him on that committee would ensure that there was never a dull moment around there.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

#rsrh EJ Dionne: Speaker-to-Ducks.

See, now this is the mistake that E.J. Dionne and other more or less doctrinaire Democrats keep making.  Dionne knows that the country has problems; he also knows that these problems need some sort of solution implemented.  Fast.  Obviously, the existing solutions by established politicians aren’t working, so Dionne’s going to solicit opinions from less established ones (who will hopefully be more frank, or innovative, or who will have a fresher perspective).

So far, so good… except that to do all of this Dionne went out and interviewed three losers.  Specifically: Mary Jo Kilroy (one-term lame duck), Joe Sestak (two-term lame duck who retired to go lose a Senate race), and Tom Perriello (one-term lame duck).  And the advice that they gave was precisely what you’d expect from a group that had eight years’ worth of Federal experience between them, and who universally folded at their first real challenge: fight the power (with all the tired class war cliches that they have to command) and recycle the platitudes that all three relied upon to win in 2006 and 2008.

Now, what Dionne should have done would have been to interview the people who won: Representative-elect Steve Stivers, Senator-elect Pat Toomey, and/or Representative-elect Robert Hurt*.  Because first, their opinions about what needs to be done in this country are obviously going to be more relevant than Kilroy’s, Sestak’s, and Perriello’s.  And second, because the minor detail that E.J. Dionne is not going to like hearing what the winners have to say is actually a feature, not a bug.  You see, Kilroy, Sestak, and Perriello deserved to lose.  Because they were wrong.  And their party is wrong.

And the Democrats – indeed, the entire Left – need to face that.

Moe Lane

*It wouldn’t hurt for Dionne to have talked to Pat Meehan, who won Sestak’s old district.

#rsrh QotD, Lesson needs repeating edition.

Jim Geraghty, on the incredible sight of watching surviving Democrats in Congress casually shrug off 25% losses in the House and 10% losses in the Senate*:

The only Congressional Democrats who understand the message of 2010 are the ones currently cleaning out their offices.

Pretty much.  As Jim notes, the rest of ’em are mostly Congressmen in safe districts (Senate Democrats are probably going to get a good deal more nervous as the 2012 election approaches).  Mind you, what with redistricting coming up maybe we can correct the gerrymandering that led to such safe districts…

Moe Lane

*The term for this is ‘decimation,’ by the way.

The New Sobriety.

I don’t know whether this new sobriety on the part of the House GOP caucus is due to conviction, or fear:

Since all the Republicans will really control after January is the House of Representatives, much of what Boehner and Cantor have had to say has involved changes internal to the House. The new House will, for instance, systematically review federal regulations that depress job creation. It will also require that before bills reach the floor their sponsors articulate what constitutional authority justifies the action they propose and why it is an action better taken at the federal than the state or local level. Boehner and Cantor, moreover, have promised to bring back the practice of rescission bills, which take back spending that has been appropriated but not yet spent; to ban earmarks; to build the House schedule around committee hearings rather than floor votes; and to do away with silly votes to commemorate local events or declare national popcorn month.

…and I don’t really care, either. And I suspect that neither do any of you: just as long as it gets done. As Yuval Levin notes, the above represents a symbolic first step – obviously, there’s a whole list of things that we need to do, which IS going to be painful; see Ace of Spades for a very clear-headed assessment of just how painful those things are likely to be* – but as Levin also notes, symbols matter.

And elections have consequences.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Continue reading The New Sobriety.