I criticized Nancy Pelosi a few weeks ago, but she's entirely in the right on this. Good for her. See this editorial from Friday's Washington Post: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13533-2004Nov25.html "Sadly, this year's bill, passed by Congress last week, was no better, and on some counts it was worse. Not only was the $388 billion bill once again late and once again stuffed with pet projects, but this time it also contained what appears to be an egregious assault on taxpayer privacy: a provision slipped into the bill by staff that nobody much noticed until the votes had already been taken. The congressman in whose name the provision was requested, Rep. Ernest J. Istook Jr. (R-Okla.), swears he knew nothing about it. Because of the uproar from Democrats as well as their own party, House Republican leaders have agreed to summon their colleagues back next month to repeal the provision, thereby further delaying the whole process." -Declan -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Pelosi -- 'Assault on Taxpayer Privacy Was Not a Simple Mistake; Democrats Will Not Let Republicans Sweep It Under the Rug' Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2004 13:56:36 -0500 From: Democratic Leader <Democratic.Leader@private> News From House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi H-204, The Capitol, Washington D.C. 20515 http://democraticleader.house.gov Tuesday, November 23, 2004 Contact: Brendan Daly, 202-226-7616 Pelosi: 'Assault on Taxpayer Privacy Was Not a Simple Mistake; Democrats Will Not Let Republicans Sweep It Under the Rug' Washington, D.C. - House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi released the following statement on the Republican assault on taxpayer privacy and the need for the Republican leadership to give Members time to read the bills on which they are asked to vote: "This extraordinary invasion of privacy did not have the majority support of either chamber. It was a 'Saturday night massacre' on Americans' privacy made possible only by the Republicans' willingness to abuse the rules of the people's House. "The Republican leadership forced through a so-called 'martial law' rule that required a same-day vote, preventing Members of Congress from having enough time to read legislation that spent hundreds of billions of dollars and was thousands of pages long. This arrogance of power is part of a pattern of abuse. In the 108th Congress alone, the leadership proposed same-day votes nearly 30 times. "The assault on taxpayer privacy was not a simple mistake, and Democrats will not let Republicans sweep it under the rug. Therefore, I have informed Speaker Hastert that while Democrats insist that the taxpayer persecution provision be deleted, we will only agree to a unanimous consent procedure tomorrow if Republicans also agree to limit the use of martial law rules. "To prevent future instances of hasty and dangerous decision-making, the House of Representatives must obey current rules that require that Members of Congress have a minimum of three days to read legislation before voting on it. "To ensure that government operations are unaffected, I have also informed the Speaker that Democrats support passage of a continuing resolution to fund government agencies through December 8, and an agreement to vote on legislation to delete the taxpayer persecution provision on December 6, after the rest of the spending bill can be examined." # # # _______________________________________________ Politech mailing list Archived at http://www.politechbot.com/ Moderated by Declan McCullagh (http://www.mccullagh.org/)
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