Chicanery

The Democrats keep losing battles because they are not suspicious enough of their opponents, and so they miss their chicanery.   Here's what happened that's just now coming out.

Behind the scenes, leading up to the September 30th shutdown of the government, the Republican members of the House Rules Committee concocted a scheme and quietly inserted it into Resolution 368, which was passed.

Under the standing rules of the House, any member could introduce a "clean" bill to re-open the government, but #368 restricts this right exclusively to the House Majority Leader (Erik Cantor).

This came to light when Rep. Christ Van Hollen (D-MD) tried to introduce a resolution to vote on the Senate bill.   Here's the exchange as reported by the Huffington Post:

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), presiding over the chamber, told Van Hollen that the rule he was asking to use had been "altered" and he did not have the privilege of bringing that vote to the floor. In the ensuing back and forth, Chaffetz said the recently passed House Resolution 368 trumped the standing rules. Where any member of the House previously could have brought the clean resolution to the floor under House Rule 22, House Resolution 368 -- passed on the eve of the shutdown -- gave that right exclusively to the House majority leader, Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia.

The Rules Committee, under the rules of the House, changed the standing rules of the House to take away the right of any member to move to vote to open the government, and gave that right exclusively to the Republican Leader," said Van Hollen. "Is that right?"

"The House adopted that resolution," replied Chaffetz.

"I make my motion, Mr. Speaker," said Van Hollen. "I renew my motion that under the regular standing rules of the House... that the house take up the Senate amendments and open the government now."

"Under section 2 of H.R. 368, that motion may be offered only by the majority leader or his designee," Chaffetz said.

"Mr. Speaker, why were the rules rigged to keep the government shut down?" Van Hollen asked.

"The gentleman will suspend," Chaffetz interjected.

"Democracy has been suspended, Mr. Speaker."

This speaks multitudes of truth for itself.   Republicans can win only by lies, distortions, and chicanery.   Not much to be proud of, if you ask me.

But also not much credit to Democrats who fail to catch these things.  We need a few sociopathic staff aides to spot what these devious manipulators are up to.

Ralph