“Should the House continue to pursue this irresponsible action, it is likely that it would lead to many years of judicial action, and would of course further poison the highly charged partisan atmosphere leading up to the elections,” Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) said on the House floor.

{mosads}”I’m asking this House not to take this action, but to sit with the Attorney General and let’s resolve this conflict between the House and the Executive Branch.”

Del. Eni Faleomavaega (D-American Samoa) agreed that the votes would not make it any easier for Republicans to obtain the documents they want, and said the action seems excessive given Holder’s cooperation so far.

“The Department has made extraordinary attempts, in my opinion, to accommodate to these requests by submitting almost 8,000 pages of documents,” Faleomavaega said. “Attorney General Holder has also testified before the Committee about nine times on this matter.

“I would respectfully urge the Speaker not to bring this resolution to the floor and allow the leadership of … the Oversight Committee not to give up and continue the dialogue,” he added.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) agreed that other steps could be taken to help resolve the issue of which documents to hand over to Republicans.

“This case could be taken to the courts to determine what documents should be brought in,” she said. “All I ask is that we not bring this to the floor, and cooler heads will come and sit down and resolve the remaining documents.”

Despite these requests, the Obama administration has asserted executive privilege over the documents sought by Republicans. Last week, House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) said that assertion indicates that the White House might have been involved in Fast and Furious at some point, as privilege implies there are White House documents involved and therefore may require an expanded House investigation.