Disorder In The House

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) has a piece on Democratic House members violating House rules in passing an agricultural bill containing handouts to illegal immigrants. CSPAN happened to catch the incident on their cameras:

Essentially, what the Democrats did was try to change the results of a vote after the vote had been called — one of the most blatantly undemocratic things a party can do. House Republicans are livid over this breach of House rules, as well they should be.

The Democrats have ruled with an arrogance even greater than what they accused the Republicans of doing when the GOP had a majority in Congress. As David Freddoso notes, this sort of thing goes beyond even the chicanery involved in passing the 2003 Medicare bill — changing a vote after the gavel has dropped is absolutely against House procedure.

Nothing will come of this, but it will give political ammunition to the Republicans. With Congress’ approval ratings at a dismal 14-25%, the Democrats shouldn’t be so fast to pretend like they can pull stunts like this. The anti-incumbent sentiment that swept the GOP out of power in 2006 has not gone away, and if the Democrats want to run on the platform that the other side is worse, that won’t do them much better than it did the GOP in the last election cycle.

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