Lee H. Hamilton Quotes

His Republican controlled House of Representatives frequently were presented with the leadership with a vote they had to make on legislation which the minority Democrats, and often many of the Republicans, did not have any opportunity to know the details of the legislation on which they were voting.

In the summer of 1989 the House was anxious to adjourn for the summer recess but the savings and loan bailout legislation was stalled. The leaders of both parties forged a compromise which was not enthusiastically received by their members. A Democratic leader advised:

Despite having passed the House and a majority of the Senate favoring McCain’s bill, a filibuster was led by a few holdouts from his own party. Patiently, McCain assembled sufficient Senate support to break the filibuster.

This is especially true in the Senate, where there not only is the filibuster available to the minority but there are “holds” where a single senator can anonymously stop certain processes such as conformations of appointments and a number of other arcane techniques allowed by Senate rules.

The House Rules Committee had evolved into a very powerful committee which controlled the debate rules of every piece of legislation that came before the House. This Congress—the worst in American History—passed fewer bills than any other. Those that ever got out of the Rules Committee had Rules that prohibited the minority from even offering amendments.

The bills and legislative processes in Congress had become so large and convoluted that literally members of Congress either voted on bills that were so lage that they rarely read the entire bill or on procedures so arcane that the members could not determine ehate they were voting for. As a result most just followed the lead of their party's Congrssional Leadership.

For complex legislation, there are very few members of Congress who vote on the legislation who could honestly say that they have read the entire bill. Breyer and many others do not see this as a major problem; many others consider it a disgrace that members of Congress will vote for or against a law that they have not even read.

The then rules of the House gave the speaker control of what legislation was introduced.

When requested to have the assembly remove items in the proposed constitution at the last minute:

Personal attacks have been made in the Congress ever since that body first met. However, they were infrequent and raised concern when they were made. However, in the late 1980s, there was a series of personal attacks made across the political parties culminating in the resignation of Wright as the Speaker of the House. Some Republicans had objected to the failure to confirm John Tower as Defense Secretary because of his serious alcoholism problem which was made public, and in turn made public some of Wright’s indiscretions. From then on the personal invective and attacks increases and there was retaliation by both parties that went on for decades. At first it was exposures of real incidents but by the 21st century, the attacks were often fabricated. For example, Barack Obama was called a “Socialist Muslim” by Republicans. See {624107}

In the struggle for political power, this is often forgotten. During the Barak Administration, the President proposed measures that had been introduced and supported by his Republican opponents earlier. But they then not only failed to support them but often filibustered in the Senate to block them. The Democrats failed to support some of their ideas when President Eisenhower introduced them.