Eric Cantor’s (R-VA) program:
Peril awaits any first-term lawmaker who ventures to the House floor unprepared for a duel, but Ohio Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy had a particularly rough go of it the other day.
Kilroy took the floor to support an amendment to a popular public-service bill — only to face an ambush from Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), who hit her hard for her vote on an unrelated American International Group measure.
It wasn’t an accident.
Foxx is part of a team of Republican members that House Minority Whip Eric Cantor (R-Va.) has put together to create embarrassing, YouTube-worthy moments for vulnerable Democratic freshmen.
Cantor’s floor staff has created a photo album to help identify the 42 most vulnerable Democrats. The aides send daily e-mails to the members of the attack team and alert lawmakers when these targeted members are speaking on the floor. They even draft quick scripts to help focus the questioning.
The tactic seems to be working.
Democrats have begun pulling their vulnerable members from the floor as soon as the attacks begin. And even if the targeted Democrat doesn’t take the bait, video of the episode inevitably finds its way to the Web as evidence of either ineptitude or cowardice.
The Foxx-Kilroy smackdown was so rough that Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.) tapped Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.), a ferocious debater, to play the part of Foxx during a subsequent exercise with his freshmen on floor procedure.
First off, each GOP House member should obtain a copy of Robert’s Rules of Order. Seriously – make it part of your nature to know this, and House rules.
Now, the really cool thing about this is that it just might make the House a debating chamber rather than a rubber stamp for whomever happens to be Speaker. If we can start to get freewheeling debate where the Representative’s better know how to defend their votes, it will just make the legislation which comes out of the House much better thought out than the backroom paste-ups we get these days (such as the now infamous “Spendulus” bill). The second best thing about this is that it does nail Democrats to the wall and make them either defend the indefensible (ie, Democrat bills) or look like fools. Its a “heads I win, tails you lose” strategy for the GOP.
The House is supposed to be the tribune of the people – the place where our voices are loudest. But its not, and hasn’t been for some time now. It is the place where our voices are drowned out by special interests who grease the machine with donations and kickbacks. But this state of affairs only goes on until the light of day is brought in – and it is brought in by real debate on the floor of the House. Heck, guys and gals, we’ll even get “better” liberalism, in a sense – the Democrats still have the votes to pass whatever liberal measures they want, but if we carefully pull out the worst aspects of upcoming bills and force individual Democrats to defend it, we can force out the worst aspects of these liberal programs. We’re doing a service to the nation by not allowing Democrats to hide their votes and views.
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