Rubber stamp Republicans turn into roadblock Republicans

from DailyKos
by Kagro X
Sun Mar 09, 2008

Well, OK, it's not pandemonium. But guess what? House Republicans are being petulant children again, and they're using the House procedural rules to play their games.

And you'll never guess what procedural device they're using to make their mischief.

Remember the motion to recommit? It's back (it never left, actually), and it's at the center of an annoying time-waster of a trick that looks like it's going to become standard Republican operating procedure for the next few weeks.

Here's what's happening.

At the end of consideration of pretty much any bill of any substance on any issue, a Republican offers a motion to recommit the bill to committee, with instructions to strike out everything in it and substitute in its place the text of the Senate-passed FISA bill -- the one with retroactive amnesty for the telecom companies.

It doesn't matter, for the Republicans' purposes, that the bill they're trying to pull this trick on has nothing whatsoever to do with FISA, electronic surveillance, or any related topic.

(Continued here.)