"John Smith" wrote in message
Damn democrats anyway! Who are they to ask us to participate in our own
government! ROFLOL


House Speaker Nancy Pelosi plans to re-write House rules today to ensure
that the Republican minority is unable to have any influence on legislation.
Pelosi's proposals are so draconian, and will so polarize the Capitol, that
any thought President-elect Obama has of bipartisan cooperation will be
rendered impossible before he even takes office.

Pelosi's rule changes -- which may be voted on today -- will reverse the
fairness rules that were written around Newt Gingrich's "Contract with
America."

In reaction, the House Republican leadership is sending a letter today to
Pelosi to object to changes to House Rules this week that would bar
Republicans from offering alternative bills, amendments to Democrat bills or
even the guarantee of open debate accessible by motions to recommit for any
piece of legislation during the entire 111th Congress. These procedural
abuses, as outlined in the below letter obtained by HUMAN EVENTS, would also
include the repeal of six-year limit for committee chairmen and other House
Rules reform measures enacted in 1995 as part of the Contract with America.

After decades of Democrat control of the House of Representatives, gross
abuses to the legislative process and several high-profile scandals
contributed to an overwhelming Republican House Congressional landslide
victory in 1994. Reforms to the House Rules as part of the Contract with
America were designed to open up to public scrutiny what had become under
this decades-long Democrat majority a dangerously secretive House
legislative process. The Republican reform of the way the House did business
included opening committee meetings to the public and media, making Congress
actually subject to federal law, term limits for committee chairmen ending
decades-long committee fiefdoms, truth in budgeting, elimination of the
committee proxy vote, authorization of a House audit, specific requirements
for blanket rules waivers, and guarantees to the then-Democrat minority
party to offer amendments to pieces of legislation.

Pelosi's proposed repeal of decades-long House accountability reforms
exposes a tyrannical Democrat leadership poised to assemble legislation in
secret, then goose-step it through Congress by the elimination of debate and
amendment procedures as part of America's governing legislative process.