- Never before has the House of Representatives operated
in such secrecy:
-
- At 2:54 a.m. on a Friday in March, the House cut veterans
benefits by three votes.
-
- At 2:39 a.m. on a Friday in April, the House slashed
education and health care by five votes.
-
- At 1:56 a.m. on a Friday in May, the House passed the
Leave No Millionaire Behind tax-cut bill by a handful of votes.
-
- At 2:33 a.m. on a Friday in June, the House passed the
Medicare privatization and prescription drug bill by one vote.
-
- At 12:57 a.m. on a Friday in July, the House eviscerated
Head Start by one vote.
-
- And then, after returning from summer recess, at 12:12
a.m. on a Friday in October, the House voted $87 billion for Iraq.
-
- Always in the middle of the night. Always after the press
had passed their deadlines. Always after the American people had turned
off the news and gone to bed.
-
- What did the public see? At best, Americans read a small
story with a brief explanation of the bill and the vote count in Saturday's
papers.
-
- But what did the public miss? They didn't see the House
votes, which normally take no more than 20 minutes, dragging on for as
long as an hour as members of the Republican leadership trolled for enough
votes to cobble together a majority.
-
- They didn't see GOP leaders stalking the floor for whoever
was not in line. They didn't see Speaker Dennis Hastert and Majority Leader
Tom DeLay coerce enough Republican members into switching their votes to
produce the desired result.
-
- In other words, they didn't see the subversion of democracy.
-
- And late last month, they did it again. The most sweeping
changes to Medicare in its 38-year history were forced through the House
at 5:55 on a Saturday morning.
-
- The debate started at midnight. The roll call began at
3:00 a.m. Most of us voted within the typical 20 minutes. Normally, the
speaker would have gaveled the vote closed. But not this time; the Republican-driven
bill was losing.
-
- By 4 a.m., the bill had been defeated 216-218, with only
one member, Democrat David Wu, not voting. Still, the speaker refused to
gavel the vote closed.
-
- Then the assault began.
-
- Hastert, DeLay, Republican Whip Roy Blount, Ways and
Means Chairman Bill Thomas, Energy and Commerce Chairman Billy Tauzin -
all searched the floor for stray Republicans to bully.
-
- I watched them surround Cincinnati's Steve Chabot, trying
first a carrot, then a stick; but he remained defiant. Next, they aimed
at retiring Michigan congressman Nick Smith, whose son is running to succeed
him. They promised support if he changed his vote to yes and threatened
his son's future if he refused. He stood his ground.
-
- Many of the two dozen Republicans who voted against the
bill had fled the floor. One Republican hid in the Democratic cloakroom.
-
- By 4:30, the browbeating had moved into the Republican
cloakroom, out of sight of C-SPAN cameras and the insomniac public. Republican
leaders woke President George W. Bush, and a White House aide passed a
cell phone from one recalcitrant member to another in the cloakroom.
-
- At 5:55, two hours and 55 minutes after the roll call
had begun - twice as long as any previous vote in the history of the U.S.
House of Representatives - two obscure western Republicans emerged from
the cloakroom. They walked, ashen and cowed, down the aisle to the front
of the chamber, scrawled their names and district numbers on green cards
to change their votes and surrendered the cards to the clerk.
-
- The speaker gaveled the vote closed; Medicare privatization
had passed.
-
- You can do a lot in the middle of the night, under the
cover of darkness.
-
- - U.S. Congressman Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio,
is the ranking member on the Committee on Energy and the Commerce Subcommittee
on Health.
-
- http://newhomes.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stories.nsf/News/Editorial+%2F+
Commentary/9ABAC0D463E4626F86256DF9003E0D2A?OpenDocument&Headline=
CONGRESS+Democracy+crumbles+under+cover+of+darkness&tetl=1
|
