Democrats Beat Democracy To Death
November 7, 2009 · carl · Print This Article
This weekend we will be bringing you a series of articles that may escape your notice otherwise, but that we feel are important enough that you should know about them.
In this article, one of our favorites, Michelle Malkin, asks whatever happened to the transparency the Obama administration promised us?
In 2006, the minority party in Congress issued a dire report on the “unprecedented erosion of the Democratic process.” Democrat Rep. Louise Slaughter, then the ranking member of the House Rules Committee, authored the scathing document. She blasted the majority Republicans’ violations of “procedural fairness,” short-circuiting of debate, and late-night meetings “to discourage Members and the press from participating” in legislative deliberations. My, how history repeats itself.
Fast-forward to 2009. The Imperial Congress has returned. The oppressed have become the oppressors. Democrats have met the enemies of deliberative democracy and it is them.
Three years ago, the Democrats complained of House Republicans rushing through conference reports “before Members could read them.” Sound vaguely familiar? They urged their colleagues in power to “spend more time on major, substantive legislation” instead of ramming things through. Déjà vu, anyone? The Slaughter report pleaded for more transparency and public access: “Regular order should be the rule, not the exception.” Instead of meeting late at night or early in the morning, the Dems called on the majority to operate “during regular ‘business’ hours so that Members and the press can attend and participate.”
Three years later, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is jamming a 1,900-page health care takeover bill through Congress for a hasty Saturday vote while members of her own party revolt against strong-arm tactics. Upwards of 40 pro-life Democrats have objected to the plan’s government abortion subsidies. Majority leaders evaded sunlight by keeping a compromise amendment on the matter out of the version of the bill made available to the public. As of Thursday afternoon (less than two days before the scheduled vote), Pelosi had yet to decide whether to permit an abortion ban amendment to her health care bill.
Pelosi’s “most ethical,” open, and transparent House ever ordered Capitol police to block a GOP staffer from attending the public unveiling of the health care reform plan last week. A week before that, Democrat Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-N.Y.) locked Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room to prevent them from meeting when Democrats weren’t present
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