Czarina Pelosi's Power Grab

In early January, the "Madame Speaker" and House Democrats changed the 100-year old rule of "motion to recommit" sequestering Republicans to the sidelines of the political game. Now, it seems she has further consolidated her power by cornering her own party. Ensuring the Pelosi Progressive agenda is just about a fact of reality.

The motion to recommit basically gave the minority party the ability to force a bill back to the committee it originated from.

There are two types of motion to recommit; 1) The minority could call for a bill or resolution to be sent back to its committee of origination without instructions for changes or amendments to the legislation. Hence, saying to the committee,"We don't want it in its present form, change it." Also, this makes the bill non-debatable if it does not provide an instructions for changes. 2) In this scenario, the minority party can call for the legislation to be returned to the originating committee with instructions for amendment.

These instructions have to be relevant and appropriate to the bill or resolution. Once amended, the legislation is then returned to the House floor and debated, voted on, and if approved, passed by by the House.

Here are some examples, provided by the House Means and Ways Committee, of how using the MTR actually provided tax relief for the American people.

H.R. 3648 Mortgage Debt Forgiveness Strike the tax increases.
H.R. 2419 Farm Bill Strike the tax increases (offered by Mr. Goodlatte).
H.R. 5351 Renewable Energy Bill Strike objectionable tax increases and other objectionable provisions, including one identified by the Joint Tax Committee as a tax earmark; provide additional tax relief by extending marriage penalty relief and the enhanced child tax credit.
H.R. 5719 Taxpayer Assistance Act Direct IRS to ensure illegal aliens do not receive Earned Income Tax Credit and prevent self-declared “sanctuary cities” from issuing debt exempt from federal tax.
H.R. 6049 Energy Tax Incentives Strike the tax increases and provide additional tax relief, including the AMT patch and a longer extension of other expiring tax provisions.
H.R. 6275 AMT Patch Strike the tax increases and provide for additional tax relief for the charitable use of a vehicle.

By forgoing the "motion to recommit," Pelosi and Progressives in Congress have eliminated the last remaining bit of Democratic balance on the Hill. This fundamentally renders Republicans to the sidelines and takes away an opportunity for legislative opposition they could have provided.

While Pelosi moved to consolidate her power away from the Republicans, she now seems to be doing the same to her own party. With the Democrats on the Hill taking the lead on economic crisis, committee and even some sub-committee chairman, have been frozen out of the process of writing legislation. Most of the major bills are now being written by the Madame Speaker's office, with only limited input from other democratic legislators.

Frustration is developing, in the Democratic ranks, over this truncated process and there are calls for a return to the regular order of writing bills in the appropriate committees.

From The Hill,

“This is really set to come to a head soon,” said Rep. Bart Stupak (D-Mich.), who chairs the Energy and Commerce Oversight subcommittee. “The question is: Are we actually going to get a chance to legislate? There’s an opportunity to turn this corner, but we have not done that yet.”

In the opening volleys of the 111th Congress, Pelosi has created her own personal fiefdom. Her aristocratic entitlement attitude towards power is setting a dangerous precedent in creating a dictatorial role for the Speaker. "Arcane rules," as the Democrats call them, like the motion to recommit, were set into place to avoid situations like this and with her power grab against her own party there are no denying Pelosi's tyrannical intentions now. In 2010, this power crazed lunatic needs to be removed from her position.

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