Biden lets the Republican cat (oxymoron, I know) out of the bag

Maybe I should say the Republican hairball out of the cat's mouth? In any case, he broadcast to a Delaware audience that the GOP holds even its most senior members captive with the threat of withholding plum committee assignments, and as we all know, most Republicans are chickenshit in the face of threats:


http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2010_06/024517.php


BIDEN REFLECTS ON GOP PARTY DISCIPLINE.... Vice President Biden spoke at an event in his home town earlier, hoping to help raise some money for Chris Coons' (D) Senate campaign. Biden raised an interesting point about the chamber he served in for several decades.

VP Joe Biden on Monday accused Senate GOPers of holding their top members' votes hostage in exchange for ranking committee posts, assailing the GOP as sitting "on the sidelines" while the economy nearly collapsed.

"I know at least 7 senators, who I will not name, but were made to make a commitment under threat of losing their chairmanships, if they did not support the leadership on every procedural vote," Biden said at a fundraiser Monday night.

"Every single thing we did, from the important to the not so important, required for the first time in modern American history, majority votes required 60 votes. All the sudden a majority became 60 instead of 50," the VP added, according to a pool report of the event.


The RNC said something about this being "a scurrilous accusation," though the party didn't exactly deny it, either.

Is it really so far-fetched? Back in October, when Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was weighing how to vote on health care reform, word went out that the ranking member post on Senate Commerce Committee was up for grabs, and if Snowe wanted it, she had to toe the party line. One unnamed GOP senator on the committee told a reporter, "A vote for healthcare would be something that would weigh on our minds when it came time to vote" on which senator got the slot.

Two months later, Snowe filibustered a motion to proceed, filibustered to prevent a vote, and opposed the legislation -- and never could explain why.

Indeed, there are widespread rumors that Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) shifted away from cooperation on reform and towards belligerence immediately after his Republican colleagues made it clear that his future committee assignments were in jeopardy if he worked with Dems to pass a reform bill.

are.

:patriot:

That is one of the reason I believe that the Democrats should call their bluff and let the bastards filibuster the next bill they try to intimidate the Dems into withdrawing.

And, please, universe, let him win in November!

I think there were more, but the one I remember was in early '05, when Hastert ousted Rep. Chris Smith as Chair of the Veterans Affairs Committee because he opposed GOP limits on funding VA healthcare. Smith was removed, over the objections of all the major veerans' organizations.

I recall other Republicans being disciplined for not toeing the party line, but apparently none was a committee chair.

Something else I remember is that when Smith was sacked, the party had to bypass two more-senior GOP members of the committee to find someone who could be trusted to be sufficiently loyal. That was Steve Buyer, who already was a Hastert ally.

what tools do they have to work with? It's called politics, business as usual.

because that guy was offered an appointment not to run for senate?

Everyone knows Mitch McConnell is not a Big crime daddy. He's just a little one.

They threatened to take away the judiciary committee from him

It is shameful and should be repaid in kind. No to the No Party.

revisit the organizing rules and make sure we get back to a 51 vote majority. I have no idea why everything now requires a 60 vote majority.

:thumbsup: