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House GOP selects members to scrutinize controversial vote |
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By Jackie Kucinich
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Posted: 09/06/07 07:31 PM [ET] |
House Republican leaders Wednesday announced their delegates to a special bipartisan committee created to investigate a vote on a Republican motion to recommit that caused anger and chaos on the floor.
Rep. Bill Delahunt (D-Mass.) will chair the six-member panel and Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) will serve as ranking member. The other four lawmakers will be Reps. Kenny Hulshof (R-Mo.), Steven LaTourette (R-Ohio), Artur Davis (D-Ala.) and Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.).
The vote at issue was gaveled in favor of the majority even though the minority believed it had won. Democrats then killed a motion to recommit that would have prevented illegal immigrants from receiving federal funds in the agriculture-spending bill.
Several GOP lawmakers yesterday wore red-and-white pins bearing the numbers 215-213 — the tally when Rep. Michael McNulty (D-N.Y.) gaveled the motion to recommit Aug. 2, according to member accounts. Rep. John Mica (R-Fla.) ordered the pins shortly after the vote to “commemorate” the “monumental moment” and passed them out to fellow members Wednesday morning.
Hulshof said the situation reminded him of his tenure on the ethics committee, during which he and his Republican colleagues chose to admonish former Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas).
“I will tell you personally, being in the majority, that was a very difficult and painful process, to have to look at one of your own and to call to task, but to call it as you saw it,” Hulshof said.
He said panel Democrats may face a similar challenge if the facts reveal that the GOP was cheated.
The privileged resolution offered by Minority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Aug. 3 directed the panel to offer an interim report on its findings Sept. 30, and a final report no later than Sept. 15, 2008. In addition, Boehner asked the panel to recommend changes to House rules to ensure a similar incident does not occur in the future.
Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), who originally said the matter should be referred to the ethics committee, called the Republican response “a gargantuan cascade of politics.”
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