News and Document archive source
copyrighted material disclaimer at bottom of page
NewsMine cabal-elite w-administration unconstitutional-budget-bill-2006 Viewing Item | Republicans claim flaw is result of typo { February 15 2006 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/021506/news5.htmlhttp://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/News/Frontpage/021506/news5.html
February 15, 2006
‘Shut out’ Dems seize on that typo By Jeffrey Young Crying foul over “abuse of the process,” House Democrats yesterday took their first step toward invalidating Republican claims that a typo in the recently signed budget-reconciliation bill is a mere technical problem.
Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and seven other members of the Democratic leadership sent a letter to Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) demanding a new vote on the controversial spending-reduction bill and a full public accounting of the circumstances that led to the House’s voting on a slightly different version of the legislation than had passed the Senate.
House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went to the heart of the Democrats’ complaints during a briefing with reporters yesterday, saying, “We’re tired of being shut out.”
In the letter, the Democrats say that Hastert, the Senate GOP leadership and the White House were aware of the discrepancy but chose neither to inform House Democrats nor to address the problem through standard clerical procedures before the House voted.
“What started out as an inadvertent mistake by a Senate clerk has become a serious problem because of the actions taken subsequently by the Republican Leadership of the House,” the Democratic letter says.
“Since you knew about this error many days prior to the House vote on February 1, we can only conclude that the reason that the error was not fixed through a legitimate manner was because it involved another vote that might have failed the second time around,” the Democrats wrote Hastert.
The final version of the bill passed the House 216-214 after passing the Senate only through Vice President Dick Cheney’s tie-breaking vote.
Hoyer remarked: “Now why don’t they want to pass the bill again? ’Cause we’ll say it’s a terrible bill again. … A large part of the American public is buying that and talking to their representatives about that.”
The Democratic leadership also distributed a letter written by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) that cites the text of the Constitution, House rules and legal scholars to support the case that the bill has not actually been enacted. President Bush signed the legislation last Wednesday.
The GOP leadership has contended that the problem was rectified when Hastert and Senate President Pro Tempore Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) certified that the bill was correct and had been passed by both chambers before sending it the White House last week. “These leaders signed this statement despite the fact that the Republican leadership in both houses know that this was not true,” Waxman wrote. “It is a major abuse of power.”
The Senate adopted a concurrent resolution saying that the language the president signed reflects the intent of Congress; the House GOP leadership is said to be eyeing the same resolution.
Hastert and the White House did not comment by press time. Josephine Hearn contributed to this report.
|
| Files Listed: 5 |
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been
specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material
available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political,
human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc.
We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with
Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without
profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included
information for research and educational purposes. For more information,
go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use
copyrighted material from this site for purpose of your own that go beyond
'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
|