Friday, February 02, 2007

Not so "fair," not so "open"

Interesting write-up about Nancy Pelosi's House and her campaign promises that she (and Dems) would run a more open and fair House of Representatives. Here's a free sample:
As with the initial "100 hours" legislative agenda, the Democratic leadership again did not give Republicans -- nor even their own Democratic members -- a chance to debate or offer amendments to the omnibus spending bill. Democrats say that's because they had to pass all the remaining spending bills left over from the Republican Congress as quickly as possible. Fine, but we're talking about one of the House's primary responsibilities essentially being driven through without any participation from the members. This bill was written by a small band made up of the House and Senate Democratic leadership team and appropriators -- not exactly what we envisioned when the speaker talked about a more "open and accountable" Congress.

2 comments:

Little David said...

Ned,

What aspects of the new spending bill did you object to?

There seems to be at least a little bit of truth that Republican led Congress that preceded could not get the job done.

ned said...

Not so much the aspects of the bill (though it is more rhetoric than reform on "earmarks") but the aspects of the procedure . . . even if Nancy Pelosi were the smartest person on earth (Hillary!) she isn't a dictator and a process for amendments and debate, within reason, should be allowed in the House.