Fishy Unawareness
House Republicans are upset about American Samoa being excluded from the minimum wage bill. Their reason-- the main employer in American Samoa, paying 75% of the territory's workforce, is Del Monte Corp., headquarterd in Nancy Pelosi's district.
I'm more distrubed, though, by this statment in the article:
Some Republicans who voted in favor of the minimum-wage bill were particularly irritated to learn yesterday -- after their vote -- that the legislation did not include American Samoa.
"I was troubled to learn of this exemption," said Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican. "My intention was to raise the minimum wage for everyone. We shouldn't permit any special favors or exemptions that are not widely discussed in Congress. This is the problem with rushing legislation through without full debate."
So much goes on during active legislating sessions that individual House offices, with staffs of 10 or fewer, sometimes simply cannot keep up with the changes in the legislation. This isn't usually a problem in the Senate where there is less legislation about and the office staffs are five times larger, but an organized caucus can still schlepp around and confuse everyone.
A year ago Democrats were absoluely furious about Republicans using the chaos of quickly forcing legislation, including waiving safeguards like the minimum time between calling for a vote on a bill and voting on the bill, to get what they wanted. It is kind of skunky of them to use the tactic themselves. Of course, this sort of thing is normal, but it buggers me that my representative can vote on bills without knowing the contents. In the old days, when committees had more power than caucuses, as things should be, this was less common.
I'm more distrubed, though, by this statment in the article:
Some Republicans who voted in favor of the minimum-wage bill were particularly irritated to learn yesterday -- after their vote -- that the legislation did not include American Samoa.
"I was troubled to learn of this exemption," said Rep. Mark Steven Kirk, Illinois Republican. "My intention was to raise the minimum wage for everyone. We shouldn't permit any special favors or exemptions that are not widely discussed in Congress. This is the problem with rushing legislation through without full debate."
So much goes on during active legislating sessions that individual House offices, with staffs of 10 or fewer, sometimes simply cannot keep up with the changes in the legislation. This isn't usually a problem in the Senate where there is less legislation about and the office staffs are five times larger, but an organized caucus can still schlepp around and confuse everyone.
A year ago Democrats were absoluely furious about Republicans using the chaos of quickly forcing legislation, including waiving safeguards like the minimum time between calling for a vote on a bill and voting on the bill, to get what they wanted. It is kind of skunky of them to use the tactic themselves. Of course, this sort of thing is normal, but it buggers me that my representative can vote on bills without knowing the contents. In the old days, when committees had more power than caucuses, as things should be, this was less common.
posted by Nate at
21:45
1 Comments:
There's a tender moment in Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 where he's interviewing NY Democrat Charles Rangel (I think) and gets him to admit that he never bothered to read the Patriot Act before voting for it. When Moore expresses incredulity, Rangel goes on to say "Well, you have to understand, we don't have time to read most of the stuff that we're voting on."
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Anonymous, at Fri Jan 12, 10:47:00 PM GMT
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