GOP's Power Play : Goal of Reforms in House Gives Way To Tough Tactics ...

[Trajan]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A48278-2003Jul25.html

GOP's Power Play : Goal of Reforms in House Gives Way To Tough Tactics Party Once Criticized

By Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 26, 2003; Page A01


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.

Republicans have instead consolidated power in the hands of a few leaders, most notably Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (Ill.) and Majority Leader Tom DeLay (Tex.). In the process, the authority of committee chairmen and the influence of rank-and-file members have waned.

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."

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Fair and open government is NEVER a goal of the GOP .....

Ever .....