February 11, 2009, 8:01 pm
By Kate Phillips
A rare conference ended just a short while ago, and its unusual nature didn’t pass without notice among ranking Republicans and Democrats who took part in the session held in the L.B.J. room after they arrived at a deal for a $789 billion economic stimulus.
Representative Charles Rangel recalled being shut out of conference negotiations by Republicans when they were in charge. Senator Charles Grassley remembered following TV cameras around to try to find a Democratic-controlled conference to make his point of view known.
With Democrats from both the House and the Senate controlling the gathering today, Mr. Grassley complained that Republicans still weren’t consulted enough on
this conference, the first to be held in many years that included members of both parties. “We didn’t have a chance to negotiate,” the Republican senator from Iowa said, adding “We could’ve had 70 or 80 votes for this bill.”
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, while remarking on the rare nature of a conference, took issue with Mr. Grassley and others, saying there was more participation, especially at the committee level.
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Note to Repukes:
I guess next time you want a final say in the shaping of a piece of legislation (and you already had a ginormous say in the current legislation) in the conference committee, you probably should bring more than three votes to the table in both houses. Kind of funny how that works, as all the people who voted for the bill on the GOP side are right there working with the Democrats to finalize the bill.
You WATB’s demagogued, lied, whined, and had a hissy fit about the bill, then voted against it en masse even though it contained a number of provisions you wanted and you had inserted in the bill, and then took to the air waves pleased as punch with yourselves. The adults watched you and then decided you needed a timeout. This is bad and wrong, why?
You can whine about this, or you can make sure it doesn’t happen again. Any guesses which path the GOP takes?
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