After you control the Congress for a while, you get a little cocky when the other side takes control don’t you? While the Republicans controlled things, the Democrats tried to get through a minority bill of rights which would offer some assurances of balance and protection for the rights of the minority party. Now that the Democrats hold the majority in both sections of Congress, the Republicans decide that minority bill of rights is a good idea.
Thirty-one-year-old Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) is not a large man, standing perhaps 5 feet 3 inches tall in thick soles. But he packed a whole lot of chutzpah when he walked into the House TV gallery yesterday to demand that the new Democratic majority give the new Republican minority all the rights that Republicans had denied Democrats for years.
“The bill we offer today, the minority bill of rights, is crafted based on the exact text that then-Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi submitted in 2004 to then-Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert,” declared McHenry, with 10 Republican colleagues arrayed around him. “We’re submitting this minority bill of rights, which will ensure that all sides are protected, that fairness and openness is in fact granted by the new majority.”
Omitted from McHenry’s plea for fairness was the fact that the GOP had ignored Pelosi’s 2004 request — while routinely engaging in the procedural maneuvers that her plan would have corrected. Was the gentleman from North Carolina asking Democrats to do as he says, not as he did?
In other words “We wanted to grab as much power and control as possible while in the majority, but since we’re in the minority now we think that things need to be more even between the majority and minority.” Expect this to get shot down, and when control changes the entire play will run again with the end result being again nothing changes. Fucking politicians.
[tags]Republicans want rights they denied Democrats in previous terms[/tags]