How Congress Plans on Screwing Us Tomorrow

The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities notes that the House of Representatives is planning on implementing legislative martial law tomorrow.

What, exactly, is this procedure?

The House leadership is using a parliamentary gambit to evade a longstanding House rule that is supposed to ensure that this kind of obfuscation does not occur. That House rule (Rule XIII(6)(a)) provides that a resolution (called a rule) reported by the Rules Committee cannot be considered by the House on the same legislative day that the rule is reported (except by a two-thirds vote of the House). This is supposed to ensure that Members of the House and the public have at least one day to examine and analyze what is in legislation before they have to debate and vote on it.

To maneuver around this House rule and rush the three proposals discussed above to a vote before they have been fully examined, the Rules Committee reported a rule late Thursday afternoon (H.Res. 958) that would waive the application of Rule XIII(6)(a). Instead, it would allow the Rules Committee to wait until the last minute and not to report the rules governing the consideration of these bills or to release the text of the bills themselves until immediately before debate and votes on the bills, and on the rules governing their consideration, commences.

This extraordinary procedure is known as a "martial law" rule because it suspends the normal procedures and safeguards and allows the House Leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. It enables the Leadership to seek to ram a bill or conference report through before the Members have the opportunity to fully understand what they are voting on.

So the House leadership basically wants to force members to vote on bills that could have any crazy provisions attached, from yet more deficit-ballooning tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans to, say complete abolition of the National Institutes of Health, while not allowing time for debate or even to read the bills. While the latter is unlikely (due to the political backlash that would occur), a simiilarly nefarious piece of legislation could be lurking.

I also have to agree with the conclusions in the article:

Legislation that has far-reaching implications for millions of Americans deserves to be considered under a more democratic process. Waiting until the last minute to reveal what is in these bills, and then "spinning" or potentially mischaracterizing changes in the bills without Members of the House or the public having an opportunity to obtain a more objective review of what the legislation does, is unfair to Members of the House. It also is unfair to the millions of Americans whose lives could be affected by this legislation. It represents a further step in reducing the degree of transparency and democracy in how this country is governed and how decisions are made. At a time when our leaders preach the goal of promoting democracy abroad, they should not be reducing it at home.

Yet another procedure to undermine public debate. A democracy thrives upon discussion and dissection of issues and their solutions. I hope members of Congress on both sides of the fence reject the very premise behind this motion, and refuse to participate en masse, so that the cretins who thought this scheme up can expose themselves for what they are.

Unfortunately, I know better than to hold my breath.