How GOP Changed House Rules to Preclude Discharge Petition
Proponents of democracy and of basic sanity have lately pinned some hope on the possibility that a discharge petition could be used to circumvent the intractable GOP leadership and force a vote in the full House on reopening the government. Some of us have wondered impatiently why this has not yet been done.
Here (at 3 min 35 sec into this video) Rep. Chris Van Hollen explains how the GOP has rigged the rules of the House — in a vote taken in the dead of night before the shutdown — in order to preclude the possibility of using the discharge petition to reopen the government:
The following video has had nearly 3 million views on YouTube. It shows Chris Van Hollen on the floor of the House, uncovering HR368, the rule change that now prevents the possibility of using the democratic discharge petition option:
One thought on “How GOP Changed House Rules to Preclude Discharge Petition”
The rise of radicalism in a government that works only with compromise has made our system riddled with flaws and unable to continue with the business that these legislators were elected to oversee. Frankly, I see no way short of altering the rules themselves to bring our legislative process back on line, a change that seems more destructive than an improvement.
The best way, in my opinion, would be at the polls in the next election. Throw out these radical right wing obstructionists and return us to the really important issues that have been ignored in this right wing revolution in our Legislature.