‘Vote No, Hope Yes’ Defines Dysfunction in Congress
By CARL HULSE, NYT, FEB. 12, 2014
WASHINGTON — After the shutdown, the filibusters and years of stalled bills, it was the actual passage of legislation this week that revealed the true depth of congressional dysfunction.
The House vote to raise the debt limit and stifle the budget wars was remarkable not only for its lack of brinkmanship, but for the vote count itself. The 28 members of the Republican majority who voted for the bill — a meager 12 percent — was the lowest percentage for a majority on passage since the House began publishing electronic data on votes in 1991. It has to rank among the lowest ever for a body defined by strict majority rule.
Not to be outdone, the Senate on Wednesday flirted with a market crisis as Republicans were initially reluctant to provide a handful of votes to overcome a procedural hurdle before clearing the way for the Senate to send President Obama legislation that takes the debt limit off the table until March 2015.
The results in both the Senate and House illustrate the countervailing political forces at work on Capitol Hill and how the current partisan environment makes governing so difficult.
(More here.)
WASHINGTON — After the shutdown, the filibusters and years of stalled bills, it was the actual passage of legislation this week that revealed the true depth of congressional dysfunction.
The House vote to raise the debt limit and stifle the budget wars was remarkable not only for its lack of brinkmanship, but for the vote count itself. The 28 members of the Republican majority who voted for the bill — a meager 12 percent — was the lowest percentage for a majority on passage since the House began publishing electronic data on votes in 1991. It has to rank among the lowest ever for a body defined by strict majority rule.
Not to be outdone, the Senate on Wednesday flirted with a market crisis as Republicans were initially reluctant to provide a handful of votes to overcome a procedural hurdle before clearing the way for the Senate to send President Obama legislation that takes the debt limit off the table until March 2015.
The results in both the Senate and House illustrate the countervailing political forces at work on Capitol Hill and how the current partisan environment makes governing so difficult.
(More here.)
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