And speaking of holding floor votes open until the GOP gets the results Tom DeLay wants, Mary Lynn F. Jones had a great item this week for the American Prospect about some reform proposals that deserve bi-partisan support, but won’t get any.
It’s a sad state of affairs when a lawmaker has to introduce a bill prohibiting other lawmakers from hacking into one another’s computer files, bribing other members on the House floor, or calling the Capitol police to have another member removed from a room. But that’s exactly what legislation being introduced this week by Rep. Carolyn Maloney does.
While each of these examples would seem to violate standards of common decency, they’re all things Republicans have done since taking control of the House in 1995. Maloney’s bill — called the Restoring Democracy to the U.S. Congress Act of 2004 — isn’t the only one. Rep. Martin Meehan is proposing legislation — the Democracy in Congress Act of 2004 — to allow votes to stay open for a maximum of 30 minutes.
(Maloney’s bill calls for a 17-minute time limit; the only restriction now is that votes are open for a minimum of 15 minutes.) Republicans have abused this rule repeatedly, most recently on July 8, when they held open a vote for 38 minutes. That was enough time for GOP leaders to convince nine lawmakers to withdraw their support for the bipartisan amendment limiting Patriot Act invasions of Americans’ reading habits, ensuring its defeat even as Democrats chanted, “Shame, shame, shame.”
The fact that House GOP leaders engineer non-existent voting deadlines is one of the more obvious abuses that DeLay & Co. are relying on with increasing frequency. But Jones also emphasized a behind-the-scenes abuse that doesn’t get as much attention.
The length of votes on the House floor isn’t the only problem, Meehan said on July 14. More than 30 bills have been sent to the House floor under rules that strip Democrats of the power to offer amendments on the floor. Some members are forced to vote on legislation they haven’t had a chance to read because it’s printed shortly before the vote. “Haste and secrecy have overtaken deliberation and openness,” Meehan said.
I’m not sure which is worse: the fact that these measures won’t get the support they need or the fact that these proposals are necessary at all.
As Maloney wrote in a “dear colleague” letter urging other lawmakers to support her bill, “we are increasingly becoming a model of how not to run a democracy.” At a time when the president and his party seem so intent on spreading democracy throughout the world — using whatever means or justification it can — voters here should demand that GOP leaders practice what they preach. Otherwise, what lesson are we teaching?