Ovinomancer
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Not Everyone Agrees! News at 11.
No longer his circus, no longer his monkeys
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Not Everyone Agrees! News at 11.
tuxgeo
Adventurer
I doubt he can even come close to Boehner's record for crying -- overall, Boehner was an especially teary guy.
Ryan's party may well behave with a modicum of sense once he's elected SotH (if he is), as soon as conservative ideas start getting at least a hearing in bills, with some of the ideas possibly even being passed on to the Senate.
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
While what you say is true, I have faith that Ryan will try his best to beat that record.
I don't know about that. Ryan's policies don't seem to be well like. I mean, he doesn't like his own policies. What hope is there that other republicans are going to like it?
That's not exactly fair. Specifically, Ryan's issue is with the process - the deal was brokered by a handful of the top people in the House, with the White House, rather than as a more broad initiative.
The article you quote says, "They grabbed off the shelf what we’d been working on for months," Buck said, adding that Ryan supports the provision. "We were aware of that, but not what all was being traded back and forth."
(emphasis mine) So, he's happy with the stuff he wrote, but not so much with what happened in the horse-trading.
That Ryan was not included in the horse trading was intentional, actually. It allows them to get this issue out of the way, and Ryan starts with a clean slate and no budgetary Sword of Damocles hanging over his head for a while. Boehner gets to leave having avoided a crisis, Ryan gets to come in without having compromised with Democrats to avoid a crisis.
I think the point is that some of the House GOP would prefer that the Speaker do *less* personal driving of policy than in the past. I think they want him to be more about facilitating process than determining content of bills.
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
I disagree. The House GOP has been pushing the Hastert rule for quite some time. They are not interested in the process. The Hastert rule limits what can be brought up to floor to that which the majority of the majority agree on. It's used by the GOP to limit the power of minority groups. It isn't even a written House policy. It's a belief that the GOP uses to control what can and can't be voted on. So as far as them caring for the process? Yeah, that's a gigantic pile of hot and smelly you know what. The process be damned, it's all about the content of bills. As long as the content is that which the GOP likes, they could care less about the process.
As we have seen in many ways these days, "the GOP" is no longer a unified thing. That's why we have this whole circus over the Speaker in the first place.
There are elements of the GOP that don't feel they have a voice, and they don't like compromises. These are the same elements that use what power they have to take budgets hostage and threaten to get Speakers tossed out if they don't get their way, because they don't have any other way to get their ideas forward.
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
And those problems are a making of the GOP. They've ignored and/or found ways around the process, and thus created the current circus. The worst part is that the groups within the GOP that feel they have no power further ignore the process. As I said before, the GOP doesn't care about the process. It's all about the content. If Ryan decides to actually follow the process, he's going to be attacked by various groups in the GOP on an almost daily basis.
Homicidal_Squirrel
Adventurer
On a sort of related note, Dennis Hastert pleads guilty to fraud charges in hush-money case. [/quote]Former House speaker J. Dennis Hastert pleaded guilty Wednesday to bank fraud charges connected to $1.7 million he paid to cover up what federal officials said was sexual misconduct dating back to his years as a high school teacher and coach. Prosecutors are recommending up to 6-month prison sentence.[/quote]It's good to see that the GOP follows the principles of good and honest law-abiding citizens who only want to help themselves to some young men.
Perhaps we are talking past each other. I don't think the GOP is about process for the sake of process. They are not process purists. But, as a practical matter, the issue of the moment is the process - that they need the Speaker to include what they want in bills. The Speaker right now is a gatekeeper, and that's been an issue.
It isn't that they ignore the process. What they do is *change* the process so that it does what they want of the moment. Congressional rules are changed pretty regularly. When they come across the next time the process gets in the way of what they want, then it becomes about the process for a little while.
No, actually, they are experts at using the process.
Consider them to be munchkin gamers - experts at finding the odd corners of The Rules. When they can't get what they want, they threaten the GM with something *even worse* until they get the changes they want. Very much the, "Your rules won't let me do what I want? Fine, within you rules I can hold the entire game hostage until you give me what I want!"
The difference is that in a tabletop game you can boot anyone who is disruptive. In an elected body, the guy managing the thing is stuck with whoever shows up.
As I said above - until they can get the content the want, it will be about the process.
tuxgeo
Adventurer
As expected, Paul Ryan has now been nominated by the Republicans to be the next Speaker of the House. (Washington Post)
The vote of the full House for Speaker won't happen until Thursday.
The vote of the full House for Speaker won't happen until Thursday.
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