House Dems get first draft of new caucus rules

[Rose Siding]

There's lots of procedural stuff, but this part looks very good-

snip>
Capuano (chairman of the Democrats’ Committee on Organization) and his committee have toyed with the idea of setting down “Democratic principles” to “offer a vision” of how Democrats would run the House. He listed 50 potential principles.....

Among the most controversial are:

• Creating an outside entity to consider ethics.

• Publicly identifying which member sponsored an earmark.

• Prohibiting or limiting privately funded congressional travel.

• Banning contributions from lobbyists.

• Banning leadership PACs.

• Limiting the maximum time for a roll-call vote.

• Creating term limits for committee chairs or leadership.

• Prohibiting redistricting more than once every 10 years.

• Fostering Oxford-style debate on the House floor.

A senior Democratic aide cautioned that the proposals, which are listed separately from the rules draft, were far from being adopted.

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/091206/caucus.html

The top 5 are golden. How gigantic would public support be for those? Do you think there's any chance at all of convincing them to enact them?

[TechBear_Seattle]

1. Election year pandering

The GOP panders to their base by telling them what they want to hear; the Democrats are pandering to their base by telling us what we want to hear.

Bush will get reelected for a third term before the Democratic Caucus adopts any of the principles actually becoming caucus rules.