Tuesday, August 7, 2007

Democracy or Dictatorship Update: Steny Hoyer "We Control NOT Parliamentarians"

Friday I posted about House Democrats stealing a 215-213 procedural vote, they lost on motion to recommit an agricultural bill that would have provided tax-payer benefits to illegal aliens. Democrats tried to essentially re-vote on the motion, but Republicans stormed out. Records of the vote have disappeared from the House voting system and the House clerk's website.

Democrat Majority leader,Maryland's own Steny Hoyer tried to strong arm the House parliamentarian saying, “We control this … not the parliamentarian.” The video is telling. Breitbart has a lengthier video here. Sometimes C-SPAN can be enjoyable to watch!

The Washington Post reported that a Hoyer accepted GOP calls for an a select committee to investigate the matter. An interim report is due on Sept. 30 and the full report next year.

This presents a bit of a problem for Hoyer, who the Washington Post quotes as saying "I do not believe there was any wrongdoing by any member of the House. I do believe a mistake was made... and I regret it."

How will Hoyer square his strong arming of the parliamentarian on the procedural matter with his regret that this was all just a harmless mistake?

See Minority Leader John Boehner's take on all this here.

In an interesting side note, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi brushed aside Hoyer's regret and citing Republican sour grapes saying, "they've just been deluged by the success of the Democrats on behalf of the American people." Riiiight Nance, a 26% approval rating is a "deluge." From that statement alone you can tell she grew up in a Baltimore Democratic political machine.

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