House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has a great quip about the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming she created last week. The new panel was not met with universal warmth from her own flock.

The California Democrat was asked about this during a pre-State of the Union photo op on Tuesday, where she appeared with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) and Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.), who delivered the Democratic rebuttal.

“One percent complain,” said Pelosi. “Ninety-nine percent” want to be on the committee.

Point made.

Pelosi is intent on building a network with the nation’s mayors, meeting in Washington this week. She tapped a former Kansas City mayor, Rep. Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), to be the liaison between cities and faith communities.

That’s an interesting grouping.

Waxed Pelosi in her prepared text about the Cleaver appointment, “With his values and experience, global warming will be an issue that is as local as neighborhoods in your cities, and as global as all of God’s creation.”

Reid and Pelosi rolled out a media briefing blitz to drive their messages: A standing-room-only crowd of about 80 reporters filled Reid’s sitting room for a pen-and-pad on Tuesday morning with Webb.

Then the Democratic leaders invited in all the State of the Union anchors — Katie Couric, Bob Schieffer, Paula Zahn, et al, for their own special briefing. After that, the photo ops began.

To go or to eat here?

A regular order to many people — those who don’t read an insider paper like The Hill — may be the usual cheese and veggie omelet, rye toast and crisp bacon.

“Regular order” is a term I often heard during the tenure of former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). “Regular order” is used when the leaders are content to let legislation work its way through the system, kind of like those often-misleading school charts on “how a bill becomes a law.”

That’s why it’s now interesting to learn House Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) has issues with the term, as he revealed speaking after a conference meeting.

The GOP freshmen don’t know about regular order, he said. 

“We also talked about the importance, by the way, of using terms that people understand,” said Blunt. “You know, we talk about regular order; everybody in this room understands it. Almost nobody else listening understands it.”

Between 1994 and last month the GOP runs the House and NOW they have problems with jargon?

What got Blunt on his regular order riff was the Democratic leadership spiriting their first six big “promises delivered” bills through the House and sprinting through a measure to give a vote to delegates.

Pelosi will be more open to regular order — pardon the expression — after this.

It will be interesting to watch how Democrats handle “regular order” issues. They want to be more open than the Republicans; I take them at their word.

But Democrats will need to protect their members from taking tough votes designed to produce a roll call to be used against them in 2008.It’s a fine balance House Democrats have to strike.

Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it