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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer offered his own spin on Democratic rules changes to end term limits for committee chairmen and make it more difficult for Republicans to debate or affect legislative outcomes:

Second, the rules will no longer set term limits for Committee chairs. I understand that our Republican colleagues once wrote term limits into the rules in an effort against entrenched power. But it is now clear that that effort fell victim to what conservatives like to call the law of unintended consequences: With chairmanships up for grabs so frequently, fundraising ability became one of the most important job qualifications, and legislative skill was sacrificed to political considerations.

Third, these rules limit the abuse of motions to recommit. We invite good-faith efforts to improve legislation—and in these hard times, we need the Republican Party to be a constructive partner in policy making. But we all understand which motions are not offered in good faith: Those are the motions that attempt to kill bills through parliamentary tricks and waste our constituents’ time on 'gotcha' politics.

Let's not waste our constituents' time while wasting their money too! Some motions are offered in good faith; others the Democrats disagree with.

View all comments (7) | Leave a comment

ConservativeWanderer| 1.6.09 @ 6:24PM

Uh, not to be a proofreader, Mr. Antle, but the name of the House Majority Leader is Steny Hoyer, not Steny House. :)

Feel free to delete this post after you fix it.

W. James Antle III| 1.7.09 @ 12:09AM

Dammit. Don't know how that happened.

sidnee| 12.11.09 @ 1:01PM

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More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III

http://spectator.org/blog/2009/01/06/about-those-house-rule-changes
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