Look no further than John Boehner’s House of Representatives (really run by the Tea Party) for a crystal clear view of what we’ll get in the Senate if the GOP wins in November and takes full control of Congress.
Every measure the House brings up seems like it tries to do the exact opposite of what a majority of Americans overwhelmingly want done … on equal rights protections, guns, tax and budget issues, income inequality and the minimum wage, global warming and so much more.
Instead, the House focuses on attacking women’s access to reproductive health care and voting to repeal Obamacare for the 50th time.
Because Speaker Boehner “governs” by a ridiculous principle known as the Hastert Rule, he refuses to let even popular legislation that would pass with majority support see the light of day — unless a majority of the Republican caucus supports it. The result: uncompromising Tea Party radicals get to block everything and only allow votes on the most extreme right-wing bills!
Could you imagine Democrats ever trying to get away with something like this? The Right would be rioting in the streets.
During the Bush years when Republicans controlled the House, they would reportedly shut Democrats out of meetings, but that’s nothing compared to how today’s GOP is running “the People’s House.”
Yet, turn on the news and still ubiquitous is the farcical “conventional wisdom” that both parties are equally to blame for the gridlock in Congress.
Last week in a committee hearing, Rep. Darrel Issa threw a tantrum and outrageously cut off the microphone of the ranking Democrat on the committee, Elijah Cummings, proving Congress’s richest members is also one of its biggest bullies. (video below)
As chair of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee, Issa has spent the entirety of his tenure pursuing one political witch hunt after another with McCarthyite fervor. And now he’s breaking House rules and denying speaking time to Democrats who challenge his nonsense by cutting their mics and abruptly adjourning hearings.
Issa’s antics are the perfect example of how the Republicans use their majority in the House and how they will use it in the Senate if they win this November. They’ll lock out minority Democrats from all decision making, silence them completely and ram through the most radically right-wing issue agenda of the modern era.