It's true. According to Senator Markey (co-sponsor of the Green New Deal), when Sen. McConnell called for a vote on the proposal, that's sabotaging it.
http://reason.com/blog/2019/02/13/green-new-deal-vote-markey-aoc-mcconnell
No honestly, you can't make this up. "This is a list of things we want!" "Okay, let's vote on it." "You just want to avoid a national debate about it!"
No, what's more likely is that Sen. Markey realizes the same thing that Sen. McConnell has. That it's unpassable, unworkable, and that by forcing Democrats (many of whom are running for their party's nomination for President) to vote on it, they will either have the albatross of this pile of Green dung tied around their neck, or they will be forced to repudiate it and this tick off their base.
It's not sabotage, Sen. Markey. It's being hoist in your own petard.
9 comments:
They're really in trouble unless they figure out how to rein in their freshman class.
A local official objected to my inaugural motion before the Commissioners Court for reasons that I won't even repeat, they were so silly. He kept trying to get me to withdraw it. Finally, minutes before the meeting, I said as nicely as I could, "If you really object to my motion, why don't you just vote against it?" "But that would make me look bad," he answered.
I see now I was sabotaging him.
But they are being sabotaged. The Progressive-Democrats wanted to keep the thing alive for two years as a political cudgel. Of course, there's no bill, yet, even though the House Progressive-Democrats have promised to have one. Now, though, they may slow walk/not write the bill. If that happens, McCarthy and his caucus should write the bill by using entirely and solely the New Green Deal text and demand a floor vote--thus putting the Progressive-Democrats in the House on the record in the same way that McConnell is trying to do in the Senate.
T99, you're just an Evil Woman. Keep up the good work.
Eric Hines
As with high art, the point is not the thing itself, but "starting a conversation" about it. Democrats really are pretty good at putting the best spin in the media on a lot of subjects, so they want to keep it alive and in the headlines. Actually doing the work of designing something, figuring out what it would cost, what it would accomplish, and who might support it is no longer such a strong point. Lyndon Johnson, Tip O'Neill - they could do both. The Democrats have fewer of those every year.
Tex, Ditto what Mr. Hines said.
You think I was evil before, the atmosphere has chilled even further since I lodged a formal complaint against the improper use of closed sessions, which exposes each commissioner to fines and up to six months in mail.
I'm not just whistling Dixie about this. I've been complying with the Open Meetings Act for five years as a director of another smaller local public agency. Counsel for that agency was extremely careful about these procedures. I've run my concerns by the Texas Attorney General's office and confirmed I'm on target, and by a handful of other experts, ditto. The statute really is clear. And we're not talking about petty bureaucratic requirements here. It goes to the heart of the public's right to demand open meetings. The exceptions for closed sessions are quite narrow.
Almost my entire campaign platform was transparency, with a dollop of limited government. I told the voters I couldn't vote any measures into being as one vote out of five, but one person can combat secrecy all alone.
up to six months in mail.
I wonder if that might actually be a worse punishment than jail. [g]
Go for it on the open meetings business. I strongly suspect that the shadiness of the shenanigans behind closed doors is at least linearly proportional to the amount of screaming over forcing them out into the open. How tough it is to want actual law enforcement in a Modern Liberal world.
Update to mine of 1536 above: what McConnell is going to bring to a vote is the Joint Resolution of Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Markey, whose cosponsorship gives the Senate standing to take it right on up.
I can hear the Progressive-Democrats' howls clear out here in Plano, as they object to being held to their word in an actual on the record vote.
Eric Hines
Honestly, I doubt they're really doing anything shady in closed session. They just more comfortable out of the public eye, even if they're discussing something utterly routine and uninteresting.
Occasionally, though . . . . and the point of the rules is to keep everyone in the narrow path, so when something hard comes up, they're used to the overriding principle that things should be discussed in public with only rare and narrow exceptions.
I grew up on the streets of Kankakee; it's my experience that small-town closed door meetings can be even more destructive than State or Federal closed door meetings. The academic adage that the smaller the stakes, the more bitter the dispute, applies in politics, also.
There are exceptions, but they're just that--exceptions.
Eric Hines
Post a Comment