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- On the Hill: A Procedural Chess Match
On the Hill: A Procedural Chess Match
- By Politic Now
- Published 04/20/2007
- On the Hill
-
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To hear Republicans tell it, some of the most politically vulnerable Democrats in the House have cast eye-popping votes in the opening months of their service in Congress.
Representative Zach Space, a freshman Democrat from Ohio, voted to allow illegal immigrants to unionize, a stance that might not play too well in his Republican-leaning district.
Representative Carol Shea-Porter, who upset a favored Republican last fall in New Hampshire, voted to deny older Americans access to life-saving drugs and their neighborhood druggists. And Representative Ciro Rodriquez, who recaptured a Republican seat in Texas, voted to let air and rail travelers who act suspiciously file suit against fellow passengers who report them.
Of course, that is the Republican characterization of those votes. Democrats have a different view.
“It is preposterous,” Mr. Space said, referring to the way Republicans are criticizing his vote a procedural proposal written by House Republicans. “People will see it for what it is.”
The votes in question came on what are formally known as motions to recommit, usually obscure party-line proposals that Republicans are using to pummel Democrats in swing districts.
Hoping to reclaim their majority next year, Republicans have been loading once mundane opposition motions with all sorts of political bombs, which they are then unleashing in press releases to local newspapers, on a special website and – presumably – in future 30-second campaign ads.
The votes have so unnerved some Democrats that they have begun supporting the Republican motions, which has only fueled the Republican push.
“By legitimizing it early on, the Democrats said in effect that these votes matter,” said Ken Spain, a spokesman for the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, which has been gleefully heralding the votes in the most sensational terms possible.
Take this headline on a release from the Republican committee following a vote Wednesday on a motion to recommit: “Iowa Lawmaker Votes against Barring Sex Offenders, Kidnappers and other Convicted Felons from Receiving Free Taxpayer-Funded Grants for Their Businesses.”
That proposal prohibiting felons from getting aid was tied to a popular piece of small business legislation and was ridiculed by Democrats as an outrageous political ploy since the
But the fact is that they are also formal actions of the House and put lawmakers on record, even though their legislative significance is open to question. Democrats know that such votes can provide the basis for an effective attack ad that will stand up to at least some scrutiny. The reason they know it is because they used their own motions to recommit to help unseat Republican incumbents in the last election.
One particularly tough Democratic ad based on a motion to recommit hit Republican incumbents for voting to increase their own pay while denying full disability benefits to veterans, including those wounded in Iraq. Some of the targets of that ad are no longer serving in the House.
Alert to the potency of such attacks, the Democratic leadership is trying to take some of the sting out of the Republican strategy. Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, the majority leader, said this week that the leadership is urging Democrats to stay united against the Republican motions to make it easier to portray them as meaningless process votes.
They are employing other tactics as well. After Republicans derailed a measure on voting rights for the District of Columbia via a motion to recommit centered on gun rights, Democrats established a convoluted floor process that thwarted a similar assault when the bill passed Thursday. That left Republicans sputtering that Democrats were abusing their majority power.
“The Democratic majority has made clear they will stop at nothing to use the rules to provide political cover for their members and avoid substantive debate,” said Representative David Dreier of California, senior Republican on the Rules Committee.
With the two parties plotting every legislative move with an eye toward the 2008 elections, the procedural chess match is likely to continue. Because if there is one thing neither side needs to recommit to, it is their determination to win.
Link to Source
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/21/us/politics/20web-hulse.html?_r=2&oref=slogin&oref=slogin
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