WP: GOP's Power Play (Hardnosed tactics in Congress)

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=1803&e=7&u=/washpost/a48278_2003jul25

Nearly 10 years after winning control of the House by vowing a fairer and more open Congress, Republicans have tossed aside many of the institutional reforms they promised, increasingly employing hard-nosed tactics they decried a decade ago, according to numerous lawmakers and scholars.

Among the reforms championed by an earlier generation of House Republicans, and subsequently dropped or weakened: term limits for rank-and-file members as well as committee chairmen; stricter ethics laws; and greater power for individual members and the minority party.

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Republican leaders have cracked down on GOP lawmakers who oppose them, creating a culture in which Republicans often fear bucking the party line.

And, increasingly, they have systematically prevented Democrats from offering ideas and amendments in committee or on the House floor -- a tactic DeLay, when he was in the minority, called the "arrogance of power."

---snip

Nonetheless, Republicans routinely write complicated legislation and provide Democrats little time to review it. They frequently prevent the minority party from offering an alternative.

Norman Ornstein, a nonpartisan congressional scholar, this week wrote in the newspaper Roll Call that the Democratic "high-handedness" Gingrich lamented was "nothing compared to what House Republicans are doing now."

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suprise suprise. That's what we get for being nice guys when Jeffords woke up. We could have played hardball but we didn't. Look where our courtesy got us. They just keep ramming more taxcuts for the weathy through and cutting the social safety net.

Go Dean