Another very revealing item being reported: Hastert wanted to avoid passage of a bill that relied excessively on Dem support. We know that the House is not enormously tilted to one side, so are we expected for the next four years to ONLY see things passed that rely mainly on the GOP-majority? That if the proportion of Dems supporting a bill is not to Denny's (DeLay's) liking, than it stands a good chance of getting defeated? If so, then the power has truly gone to their heads and increases the odds of a future implosion.
In yesterday's (Nov. 27) Washington Post, this was the topic in a news analysis piece:
Speaker J. Dennis Hastert last week enunciated a policy in which Congress will pass bills only if most House Republicans back them, regardless of how many Democrats favor them.
Hastert's position, which is drawing fire from Democrats and some outside groups, is the latest step in a decade-long process of limiting Democrats' influence and running the House virtually as a one-party institution. Republicans earlier barred House Democrats from helping to draft major bills such as the 2003 Medicare revision and this year's intelligence package. Hastert (R-Ill.) now says such bills will reach the House floor, after negotiations with the Senate, only if "the majority of the majority" supports them.
Senators from both parties, leaders of the Sept. 11 commission and others have sharply criticized the policy. The long-debated intelligence bill would now be law, they say, if Hastert and his lieutenants had been humble enough to let a high-profile measure pass with most votes coming from the minority party.
I stand by what I wrote on the 21st. And trust me, with House Republicans apparently being steered by never-to-be-mistaken-for-a-rocket-scientist Hastert (now that perhaps DeLay preoccupied with saving his own skin), the GOP implosion is on course.
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