Not surprisingly, Republicans made congressional reforms a key element of their ?Contract With America? in 1994. These included making Congress obey laws that applied to everyone else, but which it had exempted itself from; having an independent auditor examine the Congress?s own books; reducing the number of committees and cutting their staffs; and imposing term limits on committee chairmen, among other things.
It?s hard to say how much impact these efforts had in shifting public opinion. But I think they helped convince more than a few opinion makers in Washington, including some liberals, that maybe it wouldn?t be a bad idea to let the Democrats spend some time in the political wilderness. It would help cleanse the system, get rid of dead wood, and force the adoption of widely supported reforms. However, it is doubtful that any of them thought that the Republicans would be able to maintain control for more than a few years.
At first, I think Republicans sincerely wanted to change all the things they chaffed under while in the minority, such as closed rules that prevented congressmen from offering amendments from the floor. But as time went by, they have become more and more like the Democrats they deposed, using the power of the majority to crush the minority.
An Oct. 3 report in the Boston Globe recounts many of the ways in which the old Imperial Congress is back with a vengeance. It explains how bills are brought to the floor with no hearings or mark-ups by the committees of jurisdiction, no committee reports, and in many cases without even a printed bill that members can study. It tells how the House Rules Committee routinely rewrites bills, bottles up those opposed by the leadership even when they have majority support in the House, and often meets in secret in the dead of night to prevent Democrats from knowing what is going on.
The Globe says that Democrats are often prevented from attending conference committees, where differences between House and Senate bills are resolved. And contrary to standard procedures, Republicans routinely add costly pork barrel projects that did not exist in either the House or Senate versions of the legislation.
Finally, the Globe tells how Republicans stifle debate by severely limiting the amount of time a bill can be on the floor. The 2001 tax bill, for example, had only 3 hours for debate, and the controversial USA Patriot Act was passed in a single day.
Yet, as budget expert Stan Collender notes, the Republican leadership hasn?t fulfilled its primary responsibility of passing a budget, enacting appropriations bills, or raising the debt limit.
It looks more and more like the Republicans have become the Democrats they overthrew in 1994.