Raw Story: Democrats furious over GOP efforts to rewrite amendments

[whometense]

Raw Story:

Democrats in the House are furious over what they see as a deliberate attempt by Republicans to rewrite Democratic amendments to make the Democrats amendments look preposterous, RAW STORY has learned.

The Republican-written rewrites, along with the Democratic description of the amendments, follows. RAW STORY has also learned that Republicans have not rewritten similar amendments in the past, and is expected to obtain a copy of previously "neutral" rewrites sometime this afternoon.

DEMS: a Nadler amendment allows an adult who could be prosecuted under the bill to go to a Federal district court and seek a waiver to the state’s parental notice laws if this remedy is not available in the state court. (no 11-16)
GOP REWRITE:. Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have created an additional layer of Federal court review that could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction under the bill. By a roll call vote of 11 yeas to 16 nays, the amendment was defeated.

DEMS: a Nadler amendment to exempt a grandparent or adult sibling from the criminal and civil provisions in the bill (no 12-19)
GOP REWRITE: . Mr. Nadler offered an amendment that would have exempted sexual predators from prosecution under the bill if they were grandparents or adult siblings of a minor. By a roll call vote of 12 yeas to 19 nays, the amendment was defeated.

MUCH more...

[TayTay]

1. This is so bad it reads like a 3rd grade parody

Childish, stupid and mean-spirited. Rethuglicans are the lowest form of life on earth. What a bunch of retards. (OK, that's insulting to genuine retards. They just flat out suck!)

[whometense]

2. How do the dems keep on??

Seriously, I find this so depressing. Tonight, for example, I had to turn off the news and watch "That Thing You Do". Had to.

It feels like we've been waiting forever for the "moderates" consciences to snap to. There appears to be a full court press on - Smirky, Cheney, and Rove beating up repugs on the phone, making threats, making promises. I'm not naive - I know the whole thing is Let's Make a Deal - but god. Isn't there a body of repugs out there who value doing the right thing over loyalty to party??

Maybe Smirky thinks he's playing John Wayne in his own western. He's ratcheted up the stakes so high it's either win or die. Say, wait a sec...doesn't he have a gambling problem?????????? Is this all one big high stakes poker game to him?

[TayTay]

7. This is what Kerry meant when he talked about 'felt needs.'

Lincoln was right when he said, "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." The Rethugs are still banking on being able to fool enough of the people enough of the time to get by.

But Sen. Kerry, in his recent speeches is correct when he says that the 'felt needs' of the American people are not going away. They are, in fact, increasing in pressure, a little bit every day. The Rethug diversionary tactics will not be able to fool the people for that much longer. (Can't you feel it already beginning to slip away from them?) No matter how many Notification Bills on abortion they pass, it doesn't really help the majority of Americans get real health care reform. (I deplore these bills. This is flat out wrong. But in the big picture, notification laws only affect a tiny percentage of the population. This is a classic case of Rethugs trying to throw their base a bone and praying that the base is satisfied with that as a single achievement of their tenure in the 109th Weasel Congress.)

While the Rethug majority diddles with the edges of abortion rights, wages in America are falling. Americans are paying more for gas, despite a costly war in Iraq that was supposed to help secure America a nice preferred pipeline of good oil. Iraq is a quagmire that we can't get out of and our military families are being asked to bear burdens that are arduous and unfair. American jobs are being outsourced to countries that have invested in an educational infrastructure. America, as Sen. Kerry pointed out the other day is not graduating enough people in the sciences and that mistake will catch up to us sooner rather than later.

Kerry is prescient. His development of the 'felt needs' line is extremely interesting and bears watching. (That's why I was so keen to hear if he used it again in Texas. It's a great thing to focus on going forward. Let me know if it comes up in the speech in LA this weekend.) America is piling up problems and the Rethugs have no solutions. Their cupboard begins with conservative social goals and ends with absolute Free Market ideology that allows corporations to break the law, evade taxes and outsource America's future to other lands. That is not going to be enough. Eventually you come up against the great All-American family that can't find a job with decent wages, has no health care and substandard schools, is sick from environmental pollutants that give their kids asthma attacks and doesn't trust their own government to accurately count their vote. Felt needs indeed. The day of reckoning is being put off with diversionary tactics and side shows about dopey crap. But it cannot be put off forever.

What is your take on this? What say you?

[karynnj]

8. Wonderful post

The last paragraph sounds almost like something out of Charles Dickens! The real question is how bad it really has to get before the majority of people wake up and see what has happened. What's encouraging is that on SS for the first time, people seem to not be falling for the Republican line, although they are doing everything they can to win this. (I've heard everything from "financial planners" on radio explaining how Private accounts are the only answer, to the Sunday show people phrasing questions to blatantly bias the question - but it's not working. With the numbers as they are, I can't imagine the arm twisting we'll see on this.)

As this battle rages, I hope that people may consider that they were lied to on all the other things you mentioned. Kerry has become increasing out spoken and eloquent on so many of these issues, but he really hasn't gotten much coverage on a lot of this. He gets enough that people know his main point but nothing else. As you've been writing, he really has been weaving all of these things together into a very powerful call for activism and change. Over the last 3 months, he has seemed to get better with each speech (on a subject). As importantly, as Ginny pointed out, almost every solution he has argued for was in "Call to Service" which he wrote in 2002 or 2003. So, while re-inventing his message, he is staying true to his goals and beliefs. I like that you MA people have said the new JK seems authentically the JK that you've seen before.

I think he is not only prescient on the issues, but he is intentionally leading a movement that didn't really exist when he started leading it. The JohnKerry.com list had people who are genuinely involved in politics, but a lot of us, who although partisan enough to do something to get on the list during the campaign, were highly likely to do nothing for the next 3 years. His November email and letter were startlingly different from anything I've ever seen. They very personally expressed his thoughts (and thanks) and were a call to continue fighting.

The things he initially asked people to do; email or write congressmen, sign petitions for kid's health care etc, and pay attention to what was happening were things that required little effort, but it may have helped keep many people who were demoralized by the election stay involved. He now seems to be occasionally referring to the johnkerry.com activist community. It almost seems that he is giving credit before things are done to positively encourage people to follow or even to lead in their own communities.

The best result would be that in 2006, the Democrats could make at least some gains. If Dean, Kerry and others all motivate people to participate in the mid-year elections, it might make Congress less depressing. Regardless, the media will then step up its interest in 2008. I suspect that they will anoint various people in turn on both sides, building them up, then tearing them down - all the while saying Kerry has no chance.

If Iowa and NH are still first, Kerry could well surprise them again with as little help from the press in 2008 as in 2004. Then the fact that he will have these amazing new speeches, that some of us will have read about for 3 years, might actually make their lack of coverage now a plus. Iowa will be interesting because he and Teresa actually met so many people there last time and others are probably on his list. I would be willing to bet that he would use these people to informally meet their friends and neighbors - like you MA people talked about with his long ago coffees when he ran then and try to develop grass roots from both of these groups. (He could also benefit from being the only viable liberal against a group of people who are centrist Democrats)

At minimum, he is elevating issues and their possible solutions more than anyone else on the Democratic side. His dignity and grace last November, his Presidential appearance and demeanor, and the fact that in the middle of bitter fighting, his was the main voice calling on the Republicans to remember the virtues of the time when the Senate was able to work on a bi-partisan level all will be pluses for him if he runs.

[whometense]

9. Once again,

your grasp of the big picture is amazing. I tend to get bogged down in the minutiae - but you are right. I do feel the public has passed a tipping point.

It's that whole "fool me once..." thing. * lies and lies and lies, and he's gotten away with it. But I don't think he will any longer. His abysmal poll numbers are showing that the (thinking) public just doesn't believe what he says anymore. What's more, it's increasingly clear that he is head of a party that cares only about power for power's (and money's) sake. If you could poll on it, I would guess that a very small minority would say they valued wealth over the public good. Everyone wants to have enough money. I don't believe most people love money the way these creeps do.

I hadn't picked up on the "felt needs" line, but it is great. It's one thing to talk about what families want, but the public now can see that Kerry is prescient. He's been out in full public view and talking about this stuff for over two years now.

[TayTay]

10. The Rethugs are violating the #1 rule of politics

They are making it about them. It's not about them. It is never, ever, ever about them. It's about US. (You know, We The People.) Look at the Rethugs. It's about Delay. (The weasally bastard.) It's about Bolton (another bastard.) It's about how the Wall Street crowd wants our money in the SSI debate. (And Wall Street is closely associated with REthugs, right?)

The Dems have an opportunity here. As long as they remember that it's not about them. It's about We The People. Have faith and stay tuned.

[whometense]

3. Rep. Louise Slaughter wrote

a diary on Kos about this. She sounds agonized. Check it out - there's a video link there too.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/4/27/104035/827

[whometense]

4. Slaughter's remarks on the House floor tonight

(she was blogging live from the House floor!!)
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2005/4/27/104035/827/41#41

Slaughter's Remarks (4.00 / 11)

M. Speaker.

After being brought to task by the American people for meddling in the personal and private life decisions of an American family during the Schiavo tragedy, you would think the Majority in this Congress would have learned...

You would think that they would have learned that the people of this country don't want the government intruding into the lives of American families... But they haven't learned M. Speaker, because here they go again.

This bill is another an invasion into the private lives of American families, and it is an invasion into the legal rights afforded to all women in this country.

I am talking about the legal right for women to choose, which is afforded by the Supreme Court of the United States.

We have a duty in this body to consider legislation which will maximize our freedom and equality, values which are the very fabric of our society.

Our job here is to protect the legal rights of those we serve, not take them away.

And I urge a no vote on its passage

But I want to talk for a minute about another abuse which has occurred in this chamber, a personal affront to three of our colleagues I have never witnessed in my near twenty years serving in this House.

The Rules Committee discovered yesterday that the Judiciary Committee Report on this very bill, which was authored by the Majority Staff, contained amendment summaries which had been re-written by committee staff for the sole purpose of distorting the original intent of the authors.

This Committee Report took liberty to mischaracterize and even falsify the intent of several amendments offered in Committee by Democratic Members of this body.

At least five amendments to this bill, which were designed to protect the rights of family members and innocent bystanders from prosecution under this bill, were rewritten as amendments designed to protect sexual predators from prosecution and were then included in the committee report as if that was the original intent of the authors.

The thing is, sexual predators were not mentioned anywhere in any of these amendments.

These amendments were no more about sexual predators then they were about terrorists or arsonists or any other criminal class in our society.

These amendments were about the rights of grandmothers and siblings and clergy and innocent bystanders.

I asked the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee about this deception yesterday afternoon at the Rules Committee hearing.

And instead of decrying what I certainly expected would be revealed as a mistake by an overzealous staffer...The Chairman stood by those altered amendment descriptions.

He made very clear to the Rules Committee that the alterations to these members' amendments were deliberate.

When pressed as to why his committee staff took such an unprecedented action, the Chairman immediately offered up his own anger over the manner in which Democrats had chosen to debate and oppose this unfortunate piece of legislation we have before us today.

In fact...He said, and I quote..."You don't like what we wrote about your amendments, and we don't like what you said about our bill."

To falsely rewrite the intent of an amendment submitted by another member, to intentionally distort its description as being designed to protect sexual predators, is no different than accusing a fellow member of Congress as being an apologist for sexual predators themselves.

That is in effect what the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee has done here, with all deliberation.

And he has ensured that these amendment descriptions will be encapsulated in the record for all time by including those unfair and incorrect amendment summaries in the Committee report.

This is a new low for this chamber M. Speaker.

This is a clearly dishonest, unethical attack on the credibility and character of another member. And sadly, it is just the latest in a pattern of unethical and abusive tactics employed by this Majority.

How incredibly arrogant is this majority...that they believe they have the right to tamper with official congressional documents for their own political purposes?

How unbelievably arrogant is the leadership of this Congress...that they would force their own politicized interpretation of another members work upon this body, and upon the American people, in an official committee report?

The Majority's actions are not only an affront to all members of this house, but they are also an affront to the American people.

There is no question that we can debate and disagree over the impact a bill will have.

We can argue over how well it has been written or what language it should include to be more effective. But regardless of how that debate turns out, the caption on the top of that bill or amendment serves to instruct the American people as to what original intent of that legislation was.

It serves as an unbiased reading on what that amendment aims to accomplish.

To falsify and rewrite that description as a political attack, is not only unprecedented, it is fundamentally dishonest and it is an abuse of the power given to the Majority by the American people.

And I have no doubts Mr. Speaker, no doubts, that unless the congressional record is amended to reflect the true captions of these amendments, then we will surely see these erroneous captions again in the form of campaign attack mail pieces.

In fact, when we pressed last night in the Rules Committee to have the record amended to reflect the honest and accurate captions that belong on those amendments, we were defeated on a party line vote.

So now, these honorable and hardworking Members of Congress will be forever branded in the official record as having offered amendments which were designed to protect sexual predators, when nothing, nothing could be further from the truth.

M Speaker, I have often heard the Chairman of the Rules Committee as well as other Republicans talk about the loss of civility in this chamber.

But perhaps they will be the last to realize, that in order to regain some of that lost civility, they need look no further than their own abusive, unethical and arrogant administration of this House of Representatives.

[JohnKleeb]

5. I saw this happen today at work

:wow: btw Nadler and Conyers both talked about how it was unfair that a grandparent, or whoever can't transport. I thank Conyers for informing me on why htis bill is crap.

[whometense]

6. Drip, drip, drip...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20050427/ts_nm/congress_abortion_dc&printer=1

House Passes Abortion Restrictions for Minors

Wed Apr 27, 7:59 PM ET

The House of Representatives passed legislation on Wednesday that would make it a crime to take a minor across state lines for an abortion and create a national requirement for parental notification for underage women seeking to terminate a pregnancy.

The vote was 270-157, with most Republicans and more than 50 Democrats backing it.

The bill is broader than legislation passed by the House several times in recent years that has died in the Senate. But with anti-abortion forces gaining strength in the last elections, people in both parties say it is now more likely that similar legislation would pass the Senate.

The House bill was approved after acrimonious exchanges in which Democrats accused Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee of grossly distorting their amendments.

"I've never seen anything like this," said an incensed New York Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler (news, bio, voting record), who had offered an amendment exempting grandparents or clergy from prosecution if they helped a girl travel to get an abortion.

The committee report described the measure as one that "could be used by sexual predators to escape conviction."

The bill sponsored by Florida Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (news, bio, voting record) would make it a crime punishable by up to a year in jail for anyone other than a parent to take a teen-age girl across state lines for an abortion.

It went further than past legislation by adding the national parental notification requirements, even in roughly half the states that do not have them.

It would also require a 24-hour waiting period for a minor's abortion. Doctors could be prosecuted under the legislation.

The White House said in a statement the bill "is consistent with the administration's view that parents' efforts to be involved in their children's lives should be protected and the widespread belief ... that the parents of pregnant minors are best suited to provide them with counsel, guidance, and support."

Supporters of the bill said it was necessary to protect young women because an adult predator could impregnate a girl and then force her to have an abortion to hide the crime.

A doctor "cannot treat for a hangnail without parental consent or at least parental notification," said Wisconsin Republican Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. "Abortion is a very serious medical procedure. In many cases, complications arise."

Opponents said the bill was too far-reaching, and could further isolate young women by making it a crime for a caring adult, including a grandparent, from helping.

"This legislation would criminalize responsible adults," said Illinois Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky.

Copyright © 2005 Reuters Limited.

[sandnsea]

11. Guess what also failed

An amendment to deny fathers who molested their daughters the right to sue. Yep, fathers who molest their daughters and get them pregnant can sue if they aren't notified that their daughter wants an abortion. Distort amendments into labeling grandmas as sexual predators, and protect the real predators. It was shocking to watch. They're insane.

[whometense]

12. Sickening.

Words fail me.

[TayTay]

13. Rethuglican family values

Can you even imagine this? The Repuke's ability to sink ever lower into a moral swamp amazes even me. These people MUST be made to answer for this stuff in the next election. (http://www.sojo.net/index.cfm The progressive religious site should have a lot to say on this. There are ways to bring this up, reference it as immoral and as a slap in the face to American values.)

EDIT: I specifically went to this site because they are proposing language that talks to people who are believers. This site is NOT for the types of people who want to cram religion down someone's throat. It is informative in the sense that it explains the religious point of view. I am not really very religious and I read it for explanation and to find relief in the fact that so many religious people are progressives. It is not a site that wants to change your beliefs. It is a site that wants to explain the beliefs of others and how to use those beliefs to harness the forces of progressive change in America. Clear?

[whometense]

14. No prob here ;-)

I'm not traditionally releigious either, but I'd never ascribe nefarious motives to you. :-)