July 30, 2008

[Guest post by DRJ]

House Republican Leader John Boehner thinks he has the votes to pass legislation that will increase domestic oil exploration and production, but earlier this month Speaker Pelosi refused to allow the legislation to move forward to a vote before Congress takes its August recess:

“Just as some Democrats in both the House and the Senate are beginning to heed the American people’s calls for more American energy production, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has threatened to do something quite different. She’d rather “pack it up and go home.”

Two weeks later, Speaker Pelosi is still blocking the energy legislation but instead of sounding like a grade-schooler who threatens to take her ball and go home, her current rhetoric sounds more like Captain Queeg:

“I’m trying to save the planet; I’m trying to save the planet,” she says impatiently when questioned. “I will not have this debate trivialized by their excuse for their failed policy.”

“I respect the office that I hold,” she says. “And when you win the election, you win the majority, and what is the power of the speaker? To set the agenda, the power of recognition, and I am not giving the gavel away to anyone.”

When she became Speaker of the House, Pelosi published a Handbook entitled “A New Direction for America.” Page 29 of the online version of the Handbook states that, in the Pelosi House, “Bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate.” Speaker Pelosi has consistently emphasized her devotion to honesty, integrity and openness.

It’s fine with me if Speaker Pelosi wants to use partisan and Parliamentary tactics to promote the interests she supports but I’m tired of her false insistence that she’s devoted to openness. If she really wants to be the House equivalent of LBJ, the Master [manipulator] of the Senate, then she should go for it. But the truth is she’s not the least bit open when it comes to legislation she dislikes and it doesn’t matter to her how many citizens or Congressional representatives support it.

– DRJ