An oldie but goodie: America as a One-Party State

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

just a reminder that Kuttner warned

Today's hard right seeks total dominion. It's packing the courts and rigging the rules. The target is not the Democrats but democracy itself.

<snip>
Extreme Centralization. The power to write legislation has been centralized in the House Republican leadership. Concretely, that means DeLay and House Speaker Dennis Hastert's chief of staff, Scott Palmer, working with the House Committee on Rules. (Hastert is seen in some quarters as a figurehead, but his man Palmer is as powerful as DeLay.) Drastic revisions to bills approved by committee are characteristically added by the leadership, often late in the evening. Under the House rules, 48 hours are supposed to elapse before floor action. But in 2003, the leadership, 57 percent of the time, wrote rules declaring bills to be "emergency" measures, allowing then to be considered with as little as 30 minutes notice. On several measures, members literally did not know what they were voting for.

Sorry, No Amendments. DeLay has used the rules process both to write new legislation that circumvents the hearing process and to all but eliminate floor amendments for Republicans and Democrats alike. The Rules Committee, controlled by the Republican leadership, writes a rule specifying the terms of debate for every bill that reaches the House floor. When Democrats controlled the House, Republicans complained bitterly when the occasional bill did not allow for open floor amendments. In 1995, Republicans pledged reform. Gerald Solomon, the new Republican chairman of the committee, explicitly promised that at least 70 percent of bills would come to the floor with rules permitting amendments. Instead, the proportion of bills prohibiting amendments has steadily increased, from 56 percent during the 104th Congress (1995-97) to 76 percent in 2003. This comparison actually understates the shift, because virtually all major bills now come to the floor with rules prohibiting amendments.

DeLay has elevated votes on these rules into rigid tests of party loyalty, on a par with election of the speaker. A Republican House member who votes against a rule structuring floor debate will lose committee assignments and campaign funds, and can expect DeLay to sponsor a primary opponent.

How does this undermine democracy? As the recent Medicare bill was coming to a vote, a majority of House members were sympathetic to amendments allowing drug imports from Canada and empowering the federal government to negotiate wholesale drug prices. But by prohibiting floor amendments, DeLay made sure that the bill passed as written by the leadership, and that members were spared the embarrassment (or accountability) of voting against amendments popular with constituents.

One-Party Conferences. The Senate still allows floor amendments, but Senate-passed bills must go to conference with the House. Democratic House and Senate conferees are increasingly barred from attending conference committees, unless they are known turncoats. On the Medicare bill, liberal Democratic Senate conferees Tom Daschle and Jay Rockefeller were excluded. The more malleable Democrats John Breaux and Max Baucus, however, were allowed in. All four House Democratic conferees were excluded. Republican House and Senate conferees work out their intraparty differences, work their respective caucuses and send the (nonamendable) bill back to each house for a quick up-or-down vote. On the Medicare bill, members had one day to study a measure of more than 1,000 pages, much of it written from scratch in conference.

Legislation Without Hearings. Before the DeLay revolution, drafting new legislation in conference committee was almost unknown. But under DeLay, major provisions of the Medicare bill sprang fully grown from a conference committee. Republicans got a conference to include a weakened media-concentration standard that had been explicitly voted down by each house separately. Though both chambers had voted to block an administration measure watering down overtime-pay protections for workers, the provision was tacked onto a must-pass bill in conference. The official summary of House procedures, written by the (Republican-appointed) House parliamentarian and updated in June 2003, notes: "The House conferees are strictly limited in their consideration to matters in disagreement between the two Houses. Consequently, they may not strike out or amend any portion of the bill that was not amended by the other House. Furthermore, they may not insert new matter that is not germane to or that is beyond the scope of the differences between the two Houses." Like the rights guaranteed in the Soviet constitution, these rules are routinely waived.

<snip>

But didn't the Democrats commit the same abuses during their 40-year House majority? Basically, no. The legislation written by stealth in the Rules Committee and in conference, and the exclusion of the minority party from conferences, are new.

http://www.prospect.org/print/V15/2/kuttner-r.html

[Mandate My Ass]

1. I was glad to see he talks about HAVA

There have been lots of questions about exit polls, statistical anomalies etc, which is all good, but the one question I have that nobody seems to have ascertained is how many people were forced to vote provisionally. My guess is a lot. And the speed with which Kerry conceded means none (or pitifully few) could have been counted. How I wish this part had been prophetic.

And if a variation of the 2000 Florida theft is attempted in 2004, it is inconceivable that Democratic leaders and activists would show the same docility that Al Gore displayed.

We've seen divided government before, with a Democratic president and a fiercely partisan Republican Congress. It is not pretty. But it is much more attractive than a one-party state.


We're living in the one-party state for all intents and purposes. Molly Ivins addressed the topic legislative dictatorship in one of her recent columns, hence my sign line.

[satya]

2. Kick. eom

[BurtWorm]

3. kick