Obstructionist Congress – Only They And Never Me

Obama has been lashing out at congress.  In fact, democrats in general blame congress for failing to pass his legislation referring to them as a “Do-Nothing Congress.”

President Obama and his supporters are well aware that Friday’s jobs report is an ugly mess. But they’re trying to gain the high ground by shifting attention to Congress, highlighting a number of White House jobs proposals that have languished under the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

In a trip to a Honeywell factory in Minnesota Friday, Obama responded to the dismal news with a speech demanding Congress take action on a variety of measures, including infrastructure investments and aid to state and local governments to prevent teachers, firefighters and police from being laid off, that Republicans have thus far opposed. He also announced a new initiative to encourage private employers to hire returning veterans.

“We’ve got responsibilities that are bigger than an election,” Obama said. “We’ve got responsibilities to you. So my message to Congress is: Now is not the time to play politics, now is not the time to sit on your hands, the American people expect their leaders to work hard no matter what year it is.”

I wonder what the President would say regarding the latest shenanigans taking place in the lower chamber:

Republicans and Democrats got snippy on the House floor Wednesday over a typo in a GOP deregulation bill, which Democrats have so far refused to let Republicans fix quickly on the floor by unanimous consent.

The bill, H.R. 4078, is meant to prohibit major federal regulations until the unemployment rate falls to 6 percent, but instead says no new regulations can be issued until the employment rate falls to 6 percent.

Earlier in the day, Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said he would not grant unanimous consent to add “un” to the word “employment” and thus fix the bill on the floor. And Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) indicated that Democrats were not willing yet to allow the quick fix.

House Oversight and Government Affairs Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) asked Connolly if he would object to a unanimous consent request to make the correction. Issa cast the error as a mistake made by professional staff.

But in reply, Connolly said, “This member will reserve the right to object at the appropriate time.”

“Nothing could be more insincere than to pick on professional staff on a typographical error,” Issa shot back. “If we have to… go to the Rules Committee, I guess we will, but I’m really sorry to see that kind of an attitude on what the gentleman and all of us know was simply a typographical error.”

Connolly then took umbrage with Issa’s remark, and asked the presiding officer, “Did this member hear… the distinguished chairman of the Oversight and Government Reform Committee characterize a member as insincere?”

Truly doing the people’s will.

Now, to be fair, the more we can restrain Washington from passing laws, the better off we are, so, I must find myself congratulating the Do-Nothing Democrats of the House!!

13 responses to “Obstructionist Congress – Only They And Never Me

  1. I do think partisanship has caused both parties to abuse procedural possibilities, which I think has prevented needed action. While I oppose how McConnell has used the filibuster, I equally opposed how the Democrats were doing that when the GOP had the majority. I’d say either get rid of the filibuster or go back to the old rules when someone like Strom Thurmond took a steam bath to drain himself of liquids so he could pontificate for 24 hours and not risk losing the floor. A filibuster should take effort, it shouldn’t just be a procedural vote! And certainly the Democrats should allow a quick fix of the typo!

    • I do think partisanship has caused both parties to abuse procedural possibilities, which I think has prevented needed action.

      Again, some see this as a bug. Some see it as a feature.

      While I oppose how McConnell has used the filibuster, I equally opposed how the Democrats were doing that when the GOP had the majority.

      Thank you!

      • But there’s no comparison between what Dems do and what the GOP has been doing.

        http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/jamesfallows/FilibusterGraf.jpeg

        Abuse is abuse; the GOP are much, much worse abusers.

        • But there’s no comparison between what Dems do and what the GOP has been doing.

          I wanna make sure we’re talking about the same thing.

          Your chart shows cloture filings in the Senate going up beginning with the Democrats retaining the majority in 2009. In 2009-2012 there were 139 cloture filings.

          From here I get this:

          Cloture is the only procedure by which the Senate can vote to set an end to a debate
          without also rejecting the bill, amendment, conference report, motion, or other matter it has been debating.

          To present a cloture motion, a Senator may interrupt another Senator who is speaking. When the motion is presented, the clerk reads it.

          The next number is the number of ties a cloture vote was actually take and the next number is the number of times that cloture was invoked, or the filibuster was broken.

          Is that right?

          I think so, but I wanna make sure.

          If that’s the case, it doesn’t show the number of times that Reid has filled the amendment tree prohibiting the minority the opportunity to amend the bill. THAT is the missing data.

  2. It’s a thoughtless piece of legislation and the typo therefore seems kind of fitting.

    Speaking of obstructionism, what do you expect Republicans in the House are going to do with the tax cut that just passed the Senate?

    • It’s a thoughtless piece of legislation and the typo therefore seems kind of fitting.

      I would suspect that you are less understanding when it’s not your tribe that ascribes thoughtless to the legislation in question.

      Speaking of obstructionism, what do you expect Republicans in the House are going to do with the tax cut that just passed the Senate?

      I bet they don’t even take it up. However, they will rightfully feel that bills speaking to revenue should originate in the House. As such, they’ll craft their own version and send it to the Senate. There, Reid will have to decide if HE wants to obstruct or cooperate.

      • A bill that seeks to ban all new regulations regardless of content? Even if you believe certain regulations are job-killing that is a pretty overbroad piece of legislation

  3. The Senate has already rejected the bill the House is likely to pass, so it won’t even come up. I think politically this was a winner for the Democrats. McConnell was convinced that Reid couldn’t get 50 votes — the Senate failed to pass this in the past when they had larger majorities. He was afraid that if he filibustered that would hurt him politically, but if the Democrats couldn’t get 50 votes they’d have this issue taken away. I suspect Reid used everything he could to get the 51 yes votes, and thereby be able to say that it passed.

  4. Boehner says the House will vote on the Democratic plan for the Senate. It’ll be interesting to see how many Republicans, if any, defect. The Democrats claim to be united on this.

    • It’s nice to see the table turned for a change and the Dems outmaneuvering the Republicans. More importantly, if this somehow passed (not that I think it will) there will be nothing to prevent the tax cuts for the wealthy from sunsetting.

    • Boehner says the House will vote on the Democratic plan for the Senate. It’ll be interesting to see how many Republicans, if any, defect.

      Yup.

      Though I doubt many republicans will defect. The Hill reports that they already have a parallel bill extending ALL the Bush tax cuts set up for a vote as well.

      It’s nice to see the table turned for a change and the Dems outmaneuvering the Republicans.

      I’m actually surprised. One of my critiques of the democrats is that they are nothing but “not republicans.” You got greenies, socialists, gay-rights, abortion-rights, unions, gun haters pacifists all in one place. United only by their distaste for what they call “the establishment.”

      This is why republicans are often able to defeat what should otherwise be a significant majority.

      But we’ll see. My guess is that the House sends back to the senate a bill that extends all the cuts. The republicans should be able to win the debate due to the fact that tax legislation comes from the House, not the Senate.

      We’ll see.

  5. Your view of the Democrats is a caricature — though many see the GOP as a similar caricature – tea party racists , homophobes, nationalist Islamophobes…likely for all sides the two parties are both establishment parties and not the caricatures the other side holds of each.

    The Democrats have out manuevered the GOP on this issue. The procedural thing is irrelevant — it doesn’t matter where legislation originates if the two sides agree. Going to procedure for your argument is a loser. The Democrats will simply repeat: “We passed tax cuts for the middle class, and the GOP is blocking them because they want to extend breaks on the very wealthy. We can have the debate about the very wealthy, but the Republicans should join us NOW to pass tax relief to the 98% of Americans they claim they agree should get tax relief. Do the right thing and join us now for that, don’t hold it hostage to a debate about tax rates on the very wealthy.”

    • it doesn’t matter where legislation originates

      Isn’t that funny?

      Going to procedure for your argument is a loser.

      The procedural one won’t be the argument. The argument will be that the House passed a tax bill that the senate won’t vote on.

      Do the right thing and join us now for that, don’t hold it hostage to a debate about tax rates on the very wealthy.

      Unlike the filed of republican wanna be’s, I would take a 10 for 1 spending cut for tax raise.

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