Oppressed House Democrats
Michael Crowley says in the liberal New Republic that House Democrats have lost all clout:
Chris Van Hollen came to Washington to make a difference. Running for the House of Representatives in suburban Maryland last year, he called himself a candidate “for people who care about issues.” The Washington Post agreed, raving that he had “the makings of an exceptionally effective member of Congress.” Although he was an obscure state legislator at the time, Van Hollen worked furiously to defeat three strong opponents in a September primary, including the handsome and stupendously well-connected Mark Shriver, who happens to be the nephew of a president named Kennedy. In the general election, he toppled Connie Morella, a 16-year Republican incumbent, becoming one of just two Democrats nationally to defeat a sitting House Republican. The victory prompted the Post to declare him “a national Democratic star.”…
But, on a Tuesday afternoon in mid-May, Van Hollen isn’t grinning. He’s waiting to ask permission, which will probably not be granted, to make an effort, which will almost certainly fail, to alter a piece of legislation. This has him standing in a hallway outside the door to H-313, a cramped, hard-to-find space on the third floor of the U.S. Capitol Building that serves as the hearing room of the House Rules Committee. While “Rules Committee” may sound like something that enforces dress codes, it is in fact one of the most powerful, if little-known, bodies in Congress. Rules dictates nearly everything that happens on the floor of the House of Representatives, from how long bills will be debated to which amendments and legislative alternatives–if any–will be granted a vote. With a crack of the gavel, the Rules Committee can, and often does, decree that even a bill or an amendment with clear majority support never comes up for a vote. In some ways, the House floor is merely a stage; H-313 is where the scripts are written, the outcomes preordained. Democrats often say that c-span would better serve the public by moving its cameras from the House floor to this room.
Van Hollen is here today because, he says, his constituents are facing a “sneak attack.” Earlier in the month, he discovered a provision, buried within a gigantic Pentagon budget bill, that would strip decades-old civil service protections from up to 700,000 Defense Department workers, thousands of whom live in his district. The measure purports to boost efficiency, but, to Van Hollen, it will suddenly, expose these workers to managerial whims–or, worse, raw political pressures. So he wasted little time offering an amendment to strip the provision from the larger defense bill. With the Rules Committee considering whether to allow a vote on his amendment, Van Hollen has come to argue on its behalf. But there’s not much cause for optimism. Given the committee’s nine-to-four Republican majority, Rules hearings tend to have a kangaroo-court quality.
Suddenly the heavy door swings open, and a young woman in a power suit summons Van Hollen inside. H-313 is an absurdly small space, about half of it consumed by the committee dais, which has the oversized look of a large couch in a tiny studio apartment. A few dozen worn wooden chairs offer visitors less legroom than a coach-class seat. The air is humid and stagnant. Van Hollen navigates a narrow aisle between the chairs and squeezes behind a small witness table alongside Democrat Jim Cooper of Tennessee, the lead co-sponsor of his amendment. Presiding at the dais is John Linder, a grim-faced Georgia Republican. Cooper speaks first, then Van Hollen, who argues his case passionately. “This really should be a bipartisan amendment,” he says, as Linder crosses his arms and frowns. “This gives powers to the secretary of defense to rewrite the rules governing civil service at the Department of Defense at any time!” Linder’s eyes dart impatiently around the room. “It does threaten to undermine the credibility of our civil service as a nonpartisan body,” Van Hollen continues–but to little avail. Linder’s thoughts are clearly someplace else, someplace where there are no annoying Democrats like Van Hollen. If Linder has listened to a word, there’s no sign of it.
When Van Hollen is done speaking, one Democrat on the committee, Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, puts up a token protest to Linder. It would be “outrageous” to quash Van Hollen’s amendment, he tells Linder. But McGovern’s tone is perfunctory. There is a pause. “Thank you,” Linder deadpans. Perhaps five minutes after he arrived, Van Hollen leaves.
Welcome to the life of a House Democrat. It has been nearly a decade since the GOP revolutionaries stormed their way to the House majority in 1994, dethroning Democratic chairmen and ramming through their Contract With America. Today, Democrats say they are languishing under the most despotic majority the modern House has seen. They find themselves a completely subjugated, powerless minority–routinely barred from offering bills and amendments, shut out of committee deliberations, even denied such basic dignities as private meeting space. “It’s a fascistic system,” fumes George Miller, a fiery California liberal who was recently threatened with removal from the House floor after a particularly furious outburst. “The manner in which they’re running the House is corrupt.” A Democratic leadership aide is blunter still: “We’re basically getting bitch-slapped around by these guys because they control everything.”
Democrats are being hypocritical, of course. When they were in the majority, they treated Republicans far worse. Even in the minority, Democrats resort to the hardest of hardball tactics, such as filibustering the president’s judicial nominees in the Senate. When Republicans tried to undo the cruelest gerrymander ever imposed on the state of Texas, Democratic state legislators fled the state, rather than “letting every vote count.”
What Democrats are amazed at in the US House is that Republicans are actually fighting back! If you want to thank one person for that, thank Tom DeLay. A committed, hard-as-nails conservative, DeLay has not been afraid to treat Democrats the way they’ve always treated Republicans. Constantly derided by the liberal media as a “former exterminator,” DeLay got himself elected to congress because the EPA was imposing onerous regulations on his business. Since then, the press’ campaign against DeLay has never let up. Because of their unrelenting hostility towards him, DeLay tries to avoid any media attention. That’s why he’s the House majority leader, not the speaker. However, behind the scenes, whether it’s raising money, organizing grassroots volunteers, making sure the right legislation comes to the House floor or trying to get fairer congressional districts in his home state of Texas, DeLay’s tireless and thankless work should earn him the eternal gratitude of conservatives everywhere.
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