tsai3904
07-22-2013, 03:56 PM
GOP insurrection heats up over surveillance
Rep. Justin Amash wants to deprive the NSA of funds for spying. Now, his angry House leadership is fighting back
http://i40.tinypic.com/2hem5w6.jpg
In an attempt to prevent Washington lawmakers from having to publicly declare their position on the National Security Administration’s mass surveillance, will congressional leaders formally snuff out one of the last embers of democracy in the U.S. House? This is one of the big questions this week in Washington, as the Republicans who control the House are resorting to brass knuckled tactics in an effort to thwart one of their own.
...
Now, let’s stop for a moment because I can sense you wondering: Why would a lawmaker from the House’s majority party like Amash ever use the Amendment Hack? It’s a good question because normally, lawmakers from the House’s majority party don’t have to — or want to — resort to the Amendment Hack. Usually, because they ideologically agree with the Speaker, they can convince the Speaker to embed their priorities in legislation at the committee level so that their priorities never face real scrutiny when the larger bill comes up for a final-passage vote. And in the rare instance when they diverge from the Speaker on a given issue, majority-party legislators often just back down and avoid the Amendment Hack, for fear of punishment for disloyalty. Indeed, a majority-party legislator using the Amendment Hack against his own leadership is seen as the ultimate form of apostasy.
...
Yes, in reaction to Amash’s amendment, Republican leaders are considering a set of radical procedural moves to limit the total number of amendments on the defense spending bill — all while National Journal reports those leaders somehow insist “they are not abandoning the open amendment process they promised when they took the majority in 2011.” Obviously, they are abandoning that promise — and they are abandoning it out of sheer fear that Permanent Washington is losing control of the national security debate. More specifically, they are apparently so afraid that public outrage over NSA surveillance will result in the amendment passing that they are trying to prevent it from even being voted on in the first place.
More:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/22/gop_civil_war_leaders_target_rising_star/
Rep. Justin Amash wants to deprive the NSA of funds for spying. Now, his angry House leadership is fighting back
http://i40.tinypic.com/2hem5w6.jpg
In an attempt to prevent Washington lawmakers from having to publicly declare their position on the National Security Administration’s mass surveillance, will congressional leaders formally snuff out one of the last embers of democracy in the U.S. House? This is one of the big questions this week in Washington, as the Republicans who control the House are resorting to brass knuckled tactics in an effort to thwart one of their own.
...
Now, let’s stop for a moment because I can sense you wondering: Why would a lawmaker from the House’s majority party like Amash ever use the Amendment Hack? It’s a good question because normally, lawmakers from the House’s majority party don’t have to — or want to — resort to the Amendment Hack. Usually, because they ideologically agree with the Speaker, they can convince the Speaker to embed their priorities in legislation at the committee level so that their priorities never face real scrutiny when the larger bill comes up for a final-passage vote. And in the rare instance when they diverge from the Speaker on a given issue, majority-party legislators often just back down and avoid the Amendment Hack, for fear of punishment for disloyalty. Indeed, a majority-party legislator using the Amendment Hack against his own leadership is seen as the ultimate form of apostasy.
...
Yes, in reaction to Amash’s amendment, Republican leaders are considering a set of radical procedural moves to limit the total number of amendments on the defense spending bill — all while National Journal reports those leaders somehow insist “they are not abandoning the open amendment process they promised when they took the majority in 2011.” Obviously, they are abandoning that promise — and they are abandoning it out of sheer fear that Permanent Washington is losing control of the national security debate. More specifically, they are apparently so afraid that public outrage over NSA surveillance will result in the amendment passing that they are trying to prevent it from even being voted on in the first place.
More:
http://www.salon.com/2013/07/22/gop_civil_war_leaders_target_rising_star/