Report by House Democrats Alleges GOP Abuse of Power

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 8, 2005; Page A13


Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and other revolutionaries used accusations of
arrogant and heavy-handed tactics to stir a populist revolt against 40 years
of Democratic domination of Congress before the GOP takeover of 1994.

Now, after 10 years of Republican control, House Democrats are making
strikingly similar charges against today's Republicans.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) plans to lash out at the
chamber's Republican leaders today with a report accusing them of abusing
their power through parliamentary tactics designed to suppress dissent.

The report contends that rules governing major legislation "severely
restrict or sometimes even totally block the minority's ability to debate or
amend bills." It charges that Republicans on the Rules Committee have
intentionally "used emergency meeting procedures and late-night meetings . .
.. to discourage Members and the press from participating in the legislative
process."

Pelosi, a liberal who has few weapons besides rhetoric to use against the
conservatives who control Congress, described the forthcoming report as
documenting "devastating details of the profound abuse of power that
characterizes House Republicans after 10 years in the majority."

"While this Republican administration has spoken strongly about promoting
democracy around the world, the House Republican leadership is working
feverishly to undermine democracy here at home," she said in a statement to
be released with the report.

Pelosi said the leaders "ram bills through committees without full
discussion, permit few if any floor amendments, and if need be, hold open
floor votes until enough arms have been twisted to ensure passage." In
November 2003, the House leadership kept a roll call going for two hours and
51 minutes -- more than double the previous record -- until they could round
up enough votes to pass President Bush's Medicare revision and prescription
drug bill.

Republicans replied that Democrats just want to slow down the process and
that the opposition has procedural guarantees that were routinely denied to
the GOP when it was in the minority. For instance, House Rules Committee
Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) has a policy that when a bill will not be
available until after 10 p.m., a committee meeting is held early the next
morning rather than late that night, aides pointed out.

The 147-page report, by the Democratic staff of the House Rules Committee,
is called "Broken Promises: The Death of Deliberative Democracy" and is
described on the cover as "A Congressional Report on the Unprecedented
Erosion of the Democratic Process in the 108th Congress," which ended at
noon on Jan. 3.

"In the 108th Congress, House Republicans became the most arrogant,
unethical and corrupt majority in modern Congressional history," the report
begins. "When they took control of the House after the 1994 elections,
Republicans vowed they would be different than previous Congresses."

The report goes on to say that "what sets the 108th Congress apart from its
predecessors is that stifling deliberation and quashing dissent in the House
of Representatives became the standard operating procedure."

Rep. Louise M. Slaughter (N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Rules Committee,
said that the method by which Republicans run the House and their procedures
"are moral decisions."

"Over the past two years, the Republican leadership ignored House Rules and
the basic standards of legislative fairness and decency with an impunity
that is unprecedented in the history of the House of Representatives," she
said in a statement.

The report notes that Gingrich said during a January seminar at the Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars that the House leadership's tight
rein on House proceedings is an "enormous strategic mistake."

The report calls for Republicans to "open up the process by allowing debate
and votes on more serious amendments" and give members at least three days
to read reports from conference committees.

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Cry me a river Pelosi...