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The implication of the House Rules Committee.

By: Moe Lane (Diary)  |  May 13th, 2010 at 01:00 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The House Rules Committee. People usually call this one of the most important House committees out there, which is in my opinion untrue: it simply is the most important House committee. The reason that I say that is because the Rules committee has ultimate control over how and in what way a bill is presented and debated; add that to its ability to dictate appropriate amendments leads to an effective result of Rules being the gatekeeper for House legislation. The membership is deliberately skewed heavily in favor of the majority party (currently over two-to-one), and majority party membership on that Committee is at the discretion of the Speaker of the House.  In other words, if a Member of Congress disapproves of the way that the Rules Committee operates, the only way to show disapproval is to vote for somebody else for Speaker of the House.

The Democratic vote to re-elect Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House for the 111th Congress was 255 For, 1 Not Voting.  Every action – and every flawed piece of legislation – that made it past the Rules Committee since then is thus the responsibility of those 255 Members of Congress who authorized giving control of the American legislative agenda to Speaker Pelosi.

And that is why there is no such thing as a “conservative” Democratic politician.  That first vote defines all the rest.

Moe Lane

Crossposted to Moe Lane.

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COMMENTS

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  • jeffreywturner

    Don’t get me wrong, I think you are right that there are no conservative Dems left in Congress, but not for this reason.

    The reason I say this is because of the implication of this argument on RINO’s.

    If you are going to say that voting for Pelosi as Speaker automatically makes you liberal, then you have to say that voting for Boehner automatically makes you conservative. Accordingly, all of the liberal Republicans who voted for cap & raid, etc. can get off saying “hey, I voted for Boehner to be Speaker, what more do you want”.

    Don’t you remember that this was the argument Specter always used over in the Senate? He used to say he was a loyal Republican simply because he caucused with them. His favorite line was “the most important vote you will ever take is the organizational vote”.

    I am not trying to let these blue-dog/lap-dog Dems off the hook, I am just saying this isn’t a fair argument, unless you are willing to let RINO’s make the inverse argument, and I am not.

  • http://www.hakubi.us/ Neil Stevens

    The RiNO argument is way overblown most of the time.

    RiNO is like Neocon. People tend not to use it any correct or meaningful way but to refer to somebody the speaker disagrees with.

  • http://moelane.com/ Moe Lane

    It would be reasonable for a Democratic voter to not vote for a liberal Republican for the same reasons that a Republican voter should not vote for a conservative Democrat: the parties are divided on ideological lines, and that’s the way it is. But nothing in that post argues that a Democrat /Republican should not expect more than the bare minimum of liberal / conservative voting from the appropriate Members of Congress.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    Which is why a party switch is considered so traitorious — by either side. It is also why the question of ‘Who would Charlie Crist caucus with’ is an item that deserves a public commitment, long before election day.

  • jeffreywturner

    n/t

  • jeffreywturner

    You want a commitment from Charlie Crist on something?

    That would be worth about as much as wooden nickel.

  • E Pluribus Unum

    I just want him to go on record well before an election as to who en intends to caucus with. Not that I would ever believe him.

    But it goes like this:
    –If he states publicly that he is an indie who will caucus with the Repubs, then the bulk of all those Democrats who are polling for him now will run straight back to Meeks. It’s likely he would pilfer some votes from Rubio (possibly even enough to split the vote and get Meeks in), but Crist would come in a sad third place.
    –If he states publicly he is an indie who will caucus with the Dems, then he splits the Dem vote, probably coming in second behind Rubio.

    If he states a commitment either way (regardless of which), he has no chance of winning. If he keeps his mouth shut, he’ll be widely reviled for it, but might have a chance to win in the general.