Pelosi Erases Gingrich's Long-Standing Fairness Rules

Human Events ^ | 5 January 2009 | Connie Hair

[Clinton's a liar]

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation. Pelosi’s proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office.

Pelosi’s rule changes -- which may be voted on today -- will reverse the fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America.”

In reaction, the House Republican leadership is sending a letter today to Pelosi to object to changes to House Rules this week that would bar Republicans from offering alternative bills, amendments to Democrat bills or even the guarantee of open debate accessible by motions to recommit for any piece of legislation during the entire 111th Congress. These procedural abuses, as outlined in the below letter obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, would also include the repeal of six-year limit for committee chairmen and other House Rules reform measures enacted in 1995 as part of the Contract with America.

[TEXT OF LETTER AT LINK]

[Clinton's a liar]

A goose-stepping overstep?

[Charles Martel]

No taxation without representation.

[bestintxas]

I guess a 9% approval rating for the Congress she presides over gives her lots of authority, doesn’t it?

[ClearCase_guy]

1) Democrats remove all political power from the minority party.
2) Democrats make a hash of everything.
3) Elections in 2010 and 2012 bring the Republicans back into power.
4) First thing the Republicans do is change the rules back so that the minority party recovers a great deal of political power.

You can see it like it's already happened.

[Red Badger]

SIEG HEIL!....OR ELSE!.............

[massgopguy]

Tenth Plague. It’s all on them now.

[doodad]

Who did not see this coming?

Why is that the Dems can just rewrite anything every time they don’t like something, but can also stymie the Republicans at every turn with “parliamentary” procedures?

Don’t like the rules or playing fair? Just rewrite the rules.

[SW6906]

Hey, CAL, Nice to see you posting here again. Good article, BTW.

[buckalfa]

Elections have consequences. The GOP House blew their chance to lead and be effective prior to 2006.

[SolidWood]

Nazi Pelosi.

[Redcloak]

[A]ny thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible

What thought of bipartisanship? I doubt that Pelosi did this without first getting approval from The Glorious Leader.

[o_zarkman44]

let the war begin

[mass55th]

"...that any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be rendered impossible before he even takes office."

Obama bi-partisan? Oh yeah, he really practiced that in the Senate didn't he?

[Slings and Arrows]

I am Jack’s Total Lack Of Surprise.

[McKayopectate]

The RINO’s will be reaching so far across the aisle they’ll fall out of their seats. All blame goes to this administration now.

[roses of sharon]

The 9% comes from an idiot public who thinks Republicans run Congress.

[mass55th]

"let the war begin"

I hope you're not depending on the Republicans in Congress to fight it.

[Danae]

Well, at the very least we will be able to SOLIDLY blame Democrats for EVERYTHING. Literally.

[weegee]

And to think they crapped their pants when the districts were redrawn in Texas.

[FrankR]

And the coup rolls on...