Back in September and October of 2013 I wrote two blog articles regarding Speaker Boehner’s reluctance to let a clean version of a Continuing Resolution come to the floor for a vote. The first article was titled Hastert Rule is Un-American and offered a history of the Hastert Rule while the second article focused on its use at the time. The title of the second article was Speaker Boehner Needs to Act Like an American. For those who may not be aware of the Hastert Rule, it is named for Speaker Dennis Hastert who served in that capacity from 1999 to 2007 and, for reasons I don’t yet know, decided it was good leadership to limit bills from the floor debate unless they were supported by a “majority of the majority” party. Even I can see that such a procedure blocks the minority party from much of the democratic process of the U.S. House of Representatives and is therefore un-democratic and un-American.
This week, Speaker John Boehner, fresh from an embarrassing vote on a bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security, decided to let a clean funding bill come to the floor for a vote even though it was not supported by a majority of the Republicans in the House. I imagine he did this because he was a bit upset with some members of his caucus for not supporting the earlier bill even though they had indicated their support before it came to the floor for a vote. He can speak to his motivations, but I doubt the bill would have come to the floor if the Majority Whip didn’t think it would pass.
We all know that the clean funding bill passed in the House on a bipartisan vote and went to the President for signature because it had already been voted out of the Senate on a similar bipartisan vote, but let’s look a little bit deeper.
This bill was passed because the democratic process was allowed to work in both the House of Representatives and in the Senate – No Hastert Rule and no filibuster. Both political parties were allowed to participate in that process and the DEMOCRATIC PROCESS WORKED!
What Speaker Boehner and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell showed the American people was that DEMOCRACY WORKS when it is not obstructed by procedural rules which are un-democratic and un-American. For over six years the Legislative Branch of our government has obstructed the work of the American people because its members didn’t want to work with our President. We elected all of them, but some of them decided not to do their job as Americans and, instead, worked to advance their political ideologies.
The Sausage Grinder is broken; will you help to fix it?
Comment here or send an email: abrokensausagegrinder@comcast.net
Like us on Facebook: A Broken Sausage Grinder
Follow us on Twitter: Hank Thomas
Watch on YouTube: A Broken Sausage Grinder