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House - January 5, 2007

From dKosopedia

House - January 5, 2007 - week 1
110th - United States Congress
Image:US-House.jpg
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Previous January 4, 2007
Next January 8, 2007


This is the daily summary of the actions in United States House of Representatives in the 110th United States Congress for January 5, 2007 during week 1 of this Congress' term. For a summary of the actions in the Senate click here, and for Congress as a whole on this date, click here.


Contents

House Daily Summary

The second day of the 110th Congress saw the finalization of the rules and regulations which will guide procedure on the House floor, and will guide the conduct of its members under H.Res. 6. The debate was a little heavier than it was the previous day due to the more meaty reforms that Democrats wanted to enact in Title III, IV and V of the five parts of he resolution.

Action: House passes Title III of H.Res. 6

During the 109th Congress, on important votes, the Republican majority often kept votes open for as long as they needed to get the votes to pass/defeat. Democrats promised to change that, and they have. All votes on the House floor will now last for fifteen minutes, unless the rule is waived. Also, the Republican House and Senate leadership would go into conference committee, iron out changes to a bill and completely shut Democrats out of the process - sometimes, not even letting them see a copy of the bill before they put it up for a vote. Now, the rules now state that the minority must be provided with a copy of the conference report and that no conference report that differs from the one they received can be considered.

Action: House passes Title IV of H.Res. 6

This one is a biggy. Two significant things were changed in this Title. First, the House agreed to publicly identify earmarks, or special-interest money and tax breaks often secretly inserted into legislation. This change makes it likely that we will see less and less pet projects. Or, at least, less than the near 10,000 in the 2006 budget. This won praise from even some Republican members, who were disappointed at their leadership’s inability to control government spending while they were in power. Democrats had “more guts than we did to tackle earmark reform in a meaningful way,” said Rep. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) [Wiki].

Second, the House re-instated the “pay-as-you-go” rule. Basically, what PAYGO does is stop new tax cuts or new spending on “entitlement” programs unless those policy changes were paid for through tax hikes or other spending cuts. Therefore, if Congress wants to spend more, it has to raise taxes. If it wants to cut taxes, it has to cut spending. The PAYGO restrictions were a big part of how the U.S. got to a balanced budget in the 1990s. Alot of Republicans went along with this, so it passed 280-152.

Action: House passes Title V of H.Res. 6

This was the Title for all the different rules Democrats wanted to make, but without really knowing how to classify them. The first section gives the minority more rights in deposing witnesses subpenoaed before a committee. The following two sections were technical changes to administrative positions, like the Director of National Intellegence. The following five sections to that, however, stirred up some debate on the floor. After pledging to reverse the Republican tradition of shutting the minority out of the legislative process, Democrats passed a set of exceptions for their priorities: the 9/11 commission recommendations, stem cell research, the minimum wage and prescription drugs. Democrats claimed the legislation they intend to present has already been discussed, and sometimes already voted on. Republicans replied that new members (of which there are more than usual) have not gotten the chance to have their voices heard. The remaining sections made some more technical changes, including banning lobbyists from entering the House gym. Every Republican was against this, but, as they will learn in their time as the minority party, they can have a rock solid caucus and still lose the vote. It passed 232-200, with three members not voting.

The House recessed until Tuesday. But when it comes back into session, the Democrats’ 100 Hours Agenda will be set loose and a bevy of legislative activity from the minimum wage to stem cells is expected. It is not known how much Republicans in the Senate (who have the power to filibuster) or President Bush will go along with what the Dems want to do.

On the Floor

The above link is to the consolidated congressional record of what occured on the floor of the House on this date.

NOTE: This area's structure and format are still in development.
This note should be removed when content is added, by removing the {{House Daily Floor-NO CONTENT}} code from the article this message appears within.

In the Committees

The above link is to the consolidated congressional record of what occured in any House committees that had activity on this date.

Note: This area's structure and format are still in development. The above header text will become a link to a culled and consolidated portions congressional record of the committees of the House that had activity on the date this page is about. This blurb here will also eventually have a format on how to link to the relevant committee articles in the Congressional Committees Project. I envision that the portions of the congressional record that will be at this link (formated similar to the floor portions of the record would be a also utilized (and with luck, maintained by those signing up for the various committees by that project.
This note should be removed when content is added, by removing the {{House Daily Committees-NO CONTENT}} code from the article this message appears within.

Resources

See also

References

External Links

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This page was last modified 04:06, 14 February 2007 by dKosopedia user Abou Ben Adhem. Based on work by dKosopedia user(s) Lestatdelc. Content is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.


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