Thursday, March 22, 2007

Doings In The House   [Rich Lowry]

E-mail from a Republican in the House:

Rich,

Not sure if you are paying attention to what is going on in the House of Representatives today, but it has been quite a day.  On the floor was the DC voting rights bill.  Our side spent the day arguing about how it was unconstitutional, their side spent their time talking about how unfair we have been to these oppressed citizens.  The Democrats shut us out completely from offering amendments on the floor.  The only option we had was to offer a Motion to Recommit.  Our MTR would have restored gun rights to the citizens of DC.  A similar bill passed in the last Congress with 50 Democrat votes.  Republicans have been able to win the last 6 MTRs we have offered — unprecedented in congressional history.  Majority parties usually argue that the MTR is a procedural vote and doesn't mean anything.  The Democrats have gotten in the habit of allowing us to win a few of these and now their members are accustomed to doing so.  So, imagine their surprise when we offered an MTR on guns in DC.  It flustered them so that they had to pull the bill from the floor.  When will it return?  The world may never know...

03/22 04:06 PMShare