Motion to Recommit

[bascule]

Pangloss has repeatedly broached how little of the 100 days legislation has passed (virtually none)

 

I was reading this article the other day about the GOP's use of the "motion to recommit", a procedural tactic which can effectively kill a bill on the floor and send it back to committee:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/18/AR2007051801697.html

 

From the article:

 

In the 12 years of Republican control that ended in January, Democrats passed 11 motions to recommit. Republicans have racked up the same number in just five months of this Congress.

 

Could this be an explanation for why the Democratically-controlled Congress hasn't passed much of their promised legislation?

[Pangloss]

It's part of it, just like when Democrats stymied Federal judicial appointments. Not that Democrats were doing anything new at the time Republicans seem to feel obligated to return the favor. This is part of the gradual erosion of Congressional effectiveness that follows the national trend towards ideological partisanship.

 

Republicans should change this strategy, IMO. We need the student loan legislation and other education spending changes, we need the immigration compromise (one of the best examples of the strength of compromise in recent years, IMO), and we need other measures passed as well. Republicans have been telling us for six years about the President's prerogatives having won the election(s). How about letting Congress exercise its prerogatives after the election(s)?

 

But the only thing that's going to change this is for people to stand up and tell them to knock it off. Apparently an approval rating south of the President's just isn't enough.

[ParanoiA]

You know, so many people shake their heads and make the argument that an Independent president would be ineffective, not having any Independent legislators to support him.

 

But I wonder if it would be exactly the opposite. Couldn't an independent president compliment a divided house and promote bipartisanship better than either party can? I mean, if he isn't on either team, then it's not like one side is "giving in" to the other.

[PhDP]

Couldn't an independent president compliment a divided house and promote bipartisanship better than either party can? I mean, if he isn't on either team, then it's not like one side is "giving in" to the other.

 

I remember the good ol' days, when The Economist preferred Bush to Gore on the ground that Bush was capable of bipartisanship (now they call him the "partisan-in-chief").

 

It would certainly be interesting to see how the American system would work if all the presidential candidates were NOT nominated by a major party.

[Rasori]

It would certainly be interesting to see how the American system would work if all the presidential candidates were NOT nominated by a major party.

 

Bold added.

 

I think the problem is that it wouldn't. Very very few people pay attention to the candidates. They either vote for who looks the best, or who sounds prettiest, or who their party supports.