Speaker Pelosi to shield vulnerable members from controversial votes

[mcablue]

Source: The Hill

By Jared Allen - 12/16/09 06:00 AM ET

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has privately told her politically vulnerable Democratic members that they will not vote on controversial bills in 2010 unless the Senate acts first.

After a year of bruising legislative victories that some political analysts believe have done more to jeopardize her majority than to entrench it, Pelosi is shifting gears for the 2010 election.

The Speaker recently assured her freshman lawmakers and other vulnerable members of her caucus that a vote on immigration reform is not looming despite a renewed push from the White House and the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. The House will not move on the issue until the upper chamber passes a bill, Pelosi told the members.
But according to Democrats who have spoken to Pelosi, the Speaker has expanded that promise beyond immigration, informing Democratic lawmakers that the Senate will have to move first on a host of controversial issues before she brings them to the House floor.

But according to Democrats who have spoken to Pelosi, the Speaker has expanded that promise beyond immigration, informing Democratic lawmakers that the Senate will have to move first on a host of controversial issues before she brings them to the House floor.

Read more: http://thehill.com/homenews/house/72461-pelosi-to-shield-vulnerable-members-from-tough-votes

---

Oh great. We are paying these people a salary to sit there and stare at the walls because of political reasons. Just great.

[Solly Mack]

1. Ahhh...the people's business

[Orrex]

2. ...is none of our business.

Pay no attention to the men and women behind the curtain.

[Solly Mack]

3. :)

Get out of my head!

[tularetom]

4. With all the shit that needs to be done

These people are gonna sit there with their thumbs up their butt for an entire legislative session.

Pelosi will be enshrined on Mt Rushmore for this act of statesmanship, no doubt.

[mbperrin]

5. Must be noted that they are scheduled to work a total of 17 days in

January and February. That's combined, not each month.

[WriteDown]

15. Its good work if you can get it . nt

[Enrique]

6. this isn't about the House doing less work

it's about the House letting the Senate take the lead on controversial legislation.

[No Elephants]

19. Cause anything good will die in the Senate, thanks to the Purple Snakes.

[pampango]

7. Sounds like EFCA and DADT are going on the backburner, too.

"Pelosi’s promise could dim the prospects for other White House priorities as well, including the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) — known as “card check” — and the repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” prohibition on gays serving openly in the military.

“There’s not going to be a ton of stuff legislatively next year either way,” a House leadership aide said. “But on EFCA — even though the House has demonstrated its ability to pass it — and on Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell, the Senate is definitely going to have to act first.”"

"Some liberals are concerned that there will be fewer Democrats after the 2010 elections and that the White House should ramp up, not slow down, its agenda. They have also made the case that President Barack Obama and congressional leaders must move left to ensure that the Democrats’ base will show up next November, an argument immigration reform proponents have been making with increased intensity in recent weeks."

"...on the heels of the House taking the lead on a climate change bill that was declared dead on arrival in the Senate and a healthcare bill that’s taking on a more centrist form with each passing day, the Senate would have to pass an immigration reform bill before the House would vote on its own."

[Freddie Stubbs]

17. Card check has been dead for months

Quite a few Senate Democrats have already said that they would not support it.

[No Elephants]

21. Please see reply ##s 19 and 20.

[No Elephants]

20. Liberals are NOT "concerned that there will be fewer Democrats after the 2010 elections."

Liberals are concerned that the same old POSs will get re-elected. Quantity ain't our problem. If you go solely by head count, the Democratic Caucus has all it needs, so obviously, quantity is NOT the concern of liberals.

[ArcticFox]

8. The Senate won't move on anything, or worse

The house may take the senate's pro-corporatist lead on next year's legislation.

We've all seen these past few months what happens in the senate. They move slowly. They take large sums from corporate interests. They move to the right, to the right, to the right, right, right.

This will make it cheaper for those corporate interests. Paying off enough of 100 senators doesn't cost nearly as much as paying off enough of the 435 representatives.

But this is only a symptom of the real problem: democracy is dead. We've been living with the zombie of democracy for 20 years or so. It's been getting stronger and may now be too strong to fight politically.

[Blasphemer]

9. So what else is new? They are in for a rude awakening, however... nt

[mike_c]

10. it's all about maintaining PERSONAL power....

:puke:

[Enrique]

11. huh?

what does that mean?

Is this story really anything to puke about or is it just about political strategy, maybe even a good one.

[No Elephants]

24. You see no downside to the nation or to progressives from this?

[Iowa]

12. The entire Democratic power structure is completely paralyzed.

A fumbling, bumbling, corporate whoring Senate...

An unprincipled, corporate-whoring, powder puff in the WH...

And a House that has declared it will follow the lead of a Senate they know to be a complete cluster-fuck.

Only these incompetent clowns could resurrect an evil Republican ideology that was finally circling the drain. It's difficult to comprehend how so many public officials could be so completely inept. We would do better if we grabbed up people off the street at random and elected them.

Idiots.

[twiceshy]

14. I agree with the phonebook concept 100%

I think we should have some sort of a lottery where people are selected at random (meeting some minimum requirements) and given the option to server one extended term. Four years in the house, maybe eight in the Senate. If a person refuses to serve go to the next name on the list.

Reduce the salary and perks. Reduce the permanent staffers.

[No Elephants]

28. Indeed. And that's with holding the WH and super-majorities in both houses of Congress.

Just imagine how effective they'll be after they lose seats in 2010.

[onenote]

13. this is hardly anything new -- every speaker tries to manage the agenda

so as to best serve the electoral prospects of the members of the majority caucus.

[No Elephants]

26. Being SOP doesn't make it any more acceptable. In fact, "same old" gets

less acceptable by the day. And there is a cumulative effect. It's not as though this is coming after a series of Congressional triumphs.

[bobthedrummer]

16. Madame Speaker should never have pursued the policy of taking impeachment "off the table" either...

:bounce: :bounce:

[Javaman]

18. seems to me that pelosi has an idea of how the 2010 elections are going to go...

and it's not looking pretty.

Thank you DINO's and Blue Dogs in the senate! You are fucking the dems for a long time!

Tools.

[No Elephants]

22. Can't say it better than did Iowa,, so I am cross-referencing Reply # 12,

Polar bears are not the only endangered species.

[Doctor_J]

23. Whew! So we will maybe hold on to our useless majority

Thank God!

[Ian David]

25. Explains Stephen Lynch "Not Voting" on the last HCR item. n/t

[No Elephants]

27. Yes, by all means. Save the seats of the anti abortion, conservative Democrats.

At least he's pro-labor.

[Doctor_J]

29. Anti-choice, I guess you mean

I am anti-abortion but believe that if a 12-year-old who was raped by her uncle is carrying his baby, then she, her parents, and her doctor should decide what to do, instead of Fat Tony Scalia.

[Ian David]

33. He also supports Marriage Equality. n/t

[David Zephyr]

30. House member face re-election every 2 years, the Prez every 4 and Senators every 6 years.

People need to stop and read what is going on here.

Pelosi and her troops should not be tricked by Obama into going out on limbs that he wants and then watch Obama and the Senate say later that the House went too far. What bullshit that is.

Pelosi is smart. I support her in this.

Let Obama and his crooks in the Senate "go first".

It's the House that is acting responsibly, not the Senate and not this President.

I'm with Pelosi. And so should others.

[fascisthunter]

31. nothing like having transparency in government

after all, who cares what the people think anyways, this isn't a democracy, right Pelosi?

[Kitsune]

32. Fucking hell. It's like they're TRYING to be as useless as possible.

Every time I manage to work myself back up to thinking I might vote for a Democrat again someday, they pull something like this.

Both parties need to finish spiraling down the drain so we can start fresh with parties that aren't wholly owned subsidiaries of the wealthy interests.