Posted on 01/03/2013 9:40:13 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Hastert says violation of namesake rule threatens GOP's ability to lead By Justin Sink - 01/03/13 11:48 AM ET
Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) said Thursday that current Speaker John Boehner's (R-Ohio) decision to pass the "fiscal cliff" compromise bill without a majority Republican support threatened the party's "ability to lead" on future votes.
Under the so-called "Hastert Rule," Republican Speakers of the House customarily do not allow a vote on the House floor unless a majority of the GOP majority supports a bill. Tuesday's vote on the fiscal cliff compromise deal passed the House 257-167, but Republicans voted 151-85 against.
"Here is the problem," Hastert said during an interview on the "Kilmeade and Friends" radio program. "Maybe you can do it once, maybe you can do it twice, but when start making deals when you have to get Democrats to pass the legislation, you are not in power anymore."
The former Illinois lawmaker said Boehner risked allowing Democrats in the minority — and the White House — to drive House votes by not insisting on majority Republican support.
"When you start passing stuff that your members are not in line with, all of a sudden, your ability to lead is in jeopardy because somebody else is making decisions," Hastert said. "The president is making decisions, [House Minority Leader Nancy] Pelosi [(D-Calif.)] is making decisions, or they are making the decisions in the Senate."
Hastert also warned that Boehner risked abdicating the House's traditional and constitutional authority to dictate spending bills with the deal, which was negotiated primarily in the Senate.
"All tax bills and all spending bills under the Constitution start in the house, when you give up that responsibility you really give up your responsibility to govern, and that is the problem," Hastert said.
Hastert had previously said that on some issues, he could see allowing a Speaker violating his namesake rule, although again cautioned against doing so.
"On occasion, a particular issue might excite a majority made up mostly of the minority," Hastert told the Washington Post in 2004. "Campaign finance is a particularly good example of this phenomenon. The job of speaker is not to expedite legislation that runs counter to the wishes of the majority of his majority."
The Republican party is a dead party walking.
Lead by a brain-dead zombie that cries.
Shove it, Boehner...just declare yourself a dim-bulb-crat, you’rea already 90% there.
Yet ANOTHER FAT, DISGUSTING BASTARD from Past GOP-e’s oinks his “comment”!
I have said that the GOP should just vote "present" and allow Obama to do whatever he wants -- but put his fingerprints on absolutely everything, and not allow the Republicans to get blamed for anything. That's risky, and it might be stupid. But even stupider is to allow Obama to do whatever he wants and allow the Democrats to blame any disaster on the Republicans. That's basically what Boehner has achieved.
It's stunning.
GOP’s ability to lead?
What the f*ck is that supposed to even mean...
“Yet ANOTHER FAT, DISGUSTING BASTARD from Past GOP-e’s oinks his “comment”!”
Did not what he said make sense to you?
I don’t want to hear SH!T from the SOB after what he pulled from 1999-2006. He was one of the BIG reason’s we LOST the US House in 2006(Karl Rove Being ANOTHER)!
Denny is whitewashing the problem.
The Constitution says ALL spending bills MUST originate in the House.
That means if they don’t, they are by default NOT CONSTITUTIONAL. They are not following the process mandated by the Constitution. Therefore, they are inherently unconstitutional.
Denny it is hardly a matter of giving up leadership. It is blatantly unconstitutional. That bill is not lawful due to the way it originated. The Senate created it. Not the House. It’s a fundamental problem. The Senate is not given that governing power. Whehter the House doesn’t put forth a spending bill of its own or not.
This is the difference between giving lip service to the Constitution and doing whatever the hell you want, and actually FOLLOWING the Constitution, being both legally empowered to do only certain specific things, in certain, clearly spelled-out ways.
GOP ability to lead??? What a cruel joke!
The Constitution and the rule of law are obviously no more. The question is what to do about it. Early after the election the proposal was secession by the states. That’s an option that would lead to open Civil War.
What other options are there? Have they left us any other option?
I’ve thought of taping the section of “Princess Bride” where the old hag says, “Boo! Filth! Muck! Bow to her. Bow to the queen of putrescence. Boo!” (or something like that) so I can memorize it and use it every time a Congress-critter appears in public.
Think that would work? That’s about all they’ll let me do, right before they pull me away and throw me in jail for disturbing the peace... Is that what we the people have left as an option?
“Tuesday’s vote on the fiscal cliff compromise deal passed the House 257-167, but Republicans voted 151-85 against.”
Everything else aside, looks like he stuck the Democrats with responsibility for it, and on the Republican side he separated the sheep from the goats.
Constitutional government?....what a quaint idea................
Yep. Hassert tried to hide that pervert, Mark Foley.
Now I say that only after reading through Hastert's statement, but he's saying that between the lines ~ as is Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro ~ she knows all about those rules.
The Republic off Venice only had to retire on Doge for all the others through time to UNDERSTAND the grave responsibility of holding that office.
What threatens their ability to lead is their lack of leadership - at the risk of sounding tautological.
26 million Republicans didn't go to the nextelection and the Democrats won without even trying!
if you didn’t read my earlier post, scroll up ~ ‘cause that’s what Hastert is actually saying ~ as would virtually anyone who’d been Speaker of the House!
But on this occasion Hastert is right — and he’s taking the conservative view (compared to Boehner, anyway). Do you disagree with his criticism of Boehner? Seems to me that Hastert, for once, is acting in a NON-”establishment” manner.
5.56mm
Hastert’s exactly right.
Boehner thinks it a success when the majority of his caucus doesn’t have to vote ‘aye’ to pass a bad bill. He’s certifiable.
We’re toast.
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