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"My friends, this is how tyranny begins..." Rep. Lloyd Doggett,D-Austin. by Tim Jones 19 July 2003 18:49 UTC |
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A House divided sinks into partisan chaos"I've been here nine years, and this is one of the saddest days we've had in the House," said Rep. Ray LaHood, R-Ill. "What has happened to the Democrats is shameful, it's embarrassing to our party. I'm sad for our party and I'm sad for the House."
Find this article at:
<http://www.statesman.com/asection/content/auto/epaper/editions/saturday/news_f381deaac525c174001e.html>
Democrats walk out, and then all heck breaks loose
By Juliet Eilperin and Albert B. Crenshaw
THE WASHINGTON POST
Saturday, July 19, 2003
WASHINGTON -- It started with the mind-numbing reading of a 200-page pension overhaul bill, erupted into a remarkably bitter name-calling match between House Republicans and Democrats, and ended with a GOP lawmaker summoning Capitol Police to evict an outraged gaggle of Democratic colleagues from a congressional library.
Nobody was assaulted or arrested. But the brouhaha that exploded Friday morning in the House Ways and Means Committee marked the most bitterly partisan spat thus far in the 108th Congress, a place already known for unusually angry relations between the Republican majority and the Democratic minority, especially in the House.
The Longworth building showdown lasted less than an hour. But the aftershocks dominated the entire day on Capitol Hill, where House members suspended regular business to blast one another on the House floor.
"My friends, this is how tyranny begins," said Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin. "It is our responsibility to stand against a police state, to stand in favor of open dialogue rather than to permit a bill to pass with only the votes of one party, and move toward a one-party state."
"This is simple, serious and sad," said Ways and Means member Nancy Johnson, R-Conn., adding that both parties made mistakes that were "destructive to the body."
The morning began routinely enough. The 41-member Ways and Means Committee convened in 1100 Longworth to consider a bipartisan bill that would revise several aspects of the nation's pension and retirement-saving system.
Democrats objected when the panel's acerbic and excitable chairman, Bill Thomas, R-Calif., brought up a 90-page substitute measure that had been released shortly before midnight Thursday. Democrats said they needed more time to read it. Thomas disagreed.
In response, Democrats objected to a normally perfunctory motion to dispense with the reading of the dense legislation. A clerk obligingly began reading it line by line, pausing only when Thomas interrupted to announce: "In the House, the minority can delay. They cannot deny."
As the reading resumed, the Democrats departed en masse to a library just off the main hearing room, leaving only Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., to prevent the Republicans from obtaining unanimous consent to skip the reading. After a few minutes, Thomas suddenly asked again for the unanimous consent, and instantly brought down his gavel. Stark said he had objected, but Thomas had replied, "You're too late."
Even before Thomas gaveled the reading to an end, he had dispatched the Capitol Police to remove the Democrats from the ornate library, with its gilded ceiling molding and scores of leather-bound tax books.
Two officers soon arrived and, realizing they wanted no part of arresting House members for simply milling in a library, called their watch commander.
The commander had the same sentiments. He gently assured the Democrats -- by now playing to the news cameras, loudly demanding to know if they were under arrest -- that no one would be handcuffed or evicted.
In fact, the three officers decided, this was a matter for the House Sergeant at Arms, not the police.
A Sergeant at Arms official soon slipped into the room and settled the matter: No security officers would take action in "a committee matter," he announced. The Democrats departed for the House chamber, where there contretemps resumed.
The committee's top Democrat, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said the dispute was more about process than policy.
"That's what this controversy is all about," he said. "They unilaterally pass bills" with little or no Democratic input.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., introduced a resolution protesting the GOP's behavior, triggering an afternoonlong debate in which each side accused the other of debasing Congress.
Democrats charged that Republicans were running "a police state," with Pelosi saying her colleagues had suffered "an indignity no member should be expected to endure. But it appears indignity is the order of the day on the majority side."
Republicans recounted indignities of their own, especially at the hands of Stark.
When Rep. Scott McInnis, R-Colo., had told Stark to "shut up" during the committee meeting, the California Democrat denounced him as "a little wimp. Come on, come over here and make me, I dare you. . . . You little fruitcake. You little fruitcake. I said you are a fruitcake."
Rep. Kenny Hulshof, R-Mo., a committee Republican, said Stark's words were uttered in, "dare I say, a very threatening tone."
Democrats said the GOP wanted to change the subject, since Thomas had summoned the police before the heated Stark-McInnis exchange. Thomas neither answered reporters' questions nor appeared on the House floor Friday, letting Rep. Jim McCrery, R-La., counter Democratic charges.
Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., tried, but failed, to broker a compromise.
The House rejected Pelosi's measure 170-143.
Ironically, many Democrats support the bill that sparked Friday's furor.
Among other things, the measure would accelerate scheduled increases in various retirement contribution limits enacted in 2001. Individuals would be able to contribute $15,000 a year to a 401(k) plan and $5,000 to an individual retirement account, beginning next year. People 50 and older could contribute more.
The bill passed the committee with no Democratic votes, but such details were lost amid the animosity.
Lloyd Doggett
Fracas underscores systematic erosion of democracy
U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Saturday, July 19, 2003
O n Friday morning, the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means was scheduled to discuss a 207-page bill concerning the pension security of millions of Americans. This is the very type of vital, pocketbook issue that so many of our neighbors have discussed with me, particularly as we learn more about golden parachutes and similar special privileges for some CEOs, while ordinary employees encounter further threats to their retirement. About midnight Thursday evening, the Republican Committee Chairman, Bill Thomas, suddenly circulated an almost 100-page amendment making significant changes to this measure -- changes that will add to the national debt without addressing multiple pension concerns.
Similar far-reaching public policy decisions would not be made at the Pflugerville City Council, the Austin School Board or the Travis County Commissioners Court without a meaningful opportunity for all elected decision-makers to participate, and the same should apply in the Congress. But instead, almost every week in this House of Tom DeLay, additional limitations are imposed to marginalize the minority, squelch genuine debate and prevent presentation of alternative proposals.
Friday morning, in order to study lengthy changes in the pension bill, I joined my Democratic colleagues in the library adjacent to the hearing room. Minutes into our meeting, U.S. Capitol police officers were summoned by Thomas to clear us out of this library. As our meeting continued, additional officers and the House Sergeant-at-Arms arrived. Only a series of votes on the House floor ended the encounter.
Meanwhile, over the objection of the sole Democrat remaining at the hearing, the Republicans steamrolled the bill through without debate or amendment and adjourned while we were attempting to review the bill. Democrats were not allowed to vote. When the only Democrat present objected, he was told by a Republican member to "shut up," and then he responded with his own unfortunate insults.
Some observers seek to trivialize this incident as just another legislative "food fight." Indeed, Republicans sought such a public relations outcome by attacking the Democrat. They even claimed that the threat from this single 72-year-old man amid 20 Republicans required calling of the police, who had, in fact, already arrived next door to break up a proper meeting.
But a much more serious matter is at stake here. Squashing debate and using
federal police to attempt to disrupt the opposition is how tyranny begins. It is our responsibility to stand up firmly to those who would use police-state tactics. Our freedoms will not be taken away all at once, but they can ebb away with dangerous misconduct like this.
There is no small amount of irony that the disputed pension legislation was House Resolution 1776. The democracy that our forebears began in this land requires our continual vigilance. James Madison wrote that "there are more instances of abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpation."
This incident had both nothing to do with what recently occurred at the Texas Legislature and everything to do with it. "Nothing" in that we were not breaking a quorum or departing in protest. Rather than a walk out, we sought to walk in to meaningful participation in developing a worthwhile retirement security measure. But "everything" to do with the recent Killer D's in that federal law enforcement resources were once again diverted from public safety to partisan political purposes. And, like the events in the Texas Legislature, this troubling matter raises the question of whether democracy can flourish when the political majority tramples upon the rights of the minority.
The inspector general to the Department of Justice is now investigating misuse of the U.S. Attorney's office, the FBI and the U.S. Marshal with regard to the courageous Texas legislators, who made a stand against partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts. Just as House Republican Leader Tom DeLay misused the Federal Aviation Administration to track down state Rep. Pete Laney's airplane, and just as the Department of Homeland Security was misused, we have now seen in Congress similar arrogance, intimidation and misuse of taxpayer-financed resources to advance a political agenda.
This is intolerable in a democracy.
Americans who are concerned about us becoming a nation of citizens, who can choose only between saying "me, too" or shutting up, cannot afford to be silent.
No party, no person, has a monopoly on truth. Dissent is not an inconvenience to be tolerated, and it certainly does not warrant calling out the G-men. Dissent is the cornerstone of our democracy. Our country is stronger when we respect and show tolerance for opposing viewpoints.
To those who think such abuses will succeed, this much should be clear: We will not be intimidated. We will not back down. Too many Americans -- working families who need health care and a steady paycheck, seniors who need prescription drugs, students who need an education -- depend on us.
Doggett represents District 10, which includes Austin.
-- <http://www.groundtruthinvestigations.com/>
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