In a protest against the way that the House Democratic leadership's handling a the upcoming Iraq War supplemental spending bill (it's going directly to floor consideration, bypassing an Appropriations Committee markup session), House Republicans are using quorum calls, motions to reconsider votes, and motions to adjourn.
So far (the session is still ongoing; there will be more dilatory tactics by the Reps), there have been 16 procedural votes or moves to prevent the House from doing its job -
Motions to adjourn - 4
Motions to reconsider a vote - 6
Questions of the presence of a quorum, stopping proceedings - 6
In addition, every vote has been a 'recorded' one, taking 10 - 20 minutes each.
[And counting - as I was writing this post, there was another quorum question, plus they are continuing with forcing every vote, even on totally non-controversial measures, to be a recorded one, *and* then forcing reconsideration of said votes.]
Wouldn't it be ironic if the Reps' tantrum resulted in putting off consideration of the war supplemental funding bill until next week or even the week after next? And that when the bill finally arrives on the President's desk, it contains something that the White House hates (like Harry Mitchell's modern G.I. Bill, timetables for withdrawal from Iraq, restrictions on torture, etc. - all of which *will* be in the supplemental) and would want to veto, but won't have time, because the latest supplemental funding runs out on June 15.
The President would be in quite a bind if that situation came to pass.
Nope, wouldn't want that to happen at all.
Really.
Trust me.
;)
Anyway, the House might consider the Iraq War supplemental bill on Thursday, though after today's stellar performance by the Republicans (say what you want about them - you've got to admit they do 'dilatory' really well when the put their minds to it), there may not be enough time for the bill to reach the House floor this week.
No comments:
Post a Comment