Tuesday, January 30, 2007

George Will mad about er... something

In his latest column (linked above), George Will lambasts Democrats for reinstating the right of delegates to the House from Guam, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands and the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico, to vote in what is known as the Committee of the Whole. This is a status the House of Representatives convenes itself as in order to set different rules for debate than are required for the House by the Constitution and is also used for passing amendments to bills. Even though these delegates can't vote on the final passage of bills (when the House must convene as the House and not the Committee of the Whole) and if their votes on amendments are the deciding votes, measures will be re-voted on without their participation, George Will argues this violates Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution which states:

"The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several states...''

Of course, this ignores the fact that these delegates basically still only contain the symbolic power they had under Republican rule and that the Committee of the Whole is a extra-Constitutional creation by the House of Representatives anyway (the Constitution allows the House to create its own procedural rules, for the most part). If we are to follow Will's logic, these delegates shouldn't even exist in the first place, but he doesn't argue that. So really, if these delegates haven't really been given any new abilities that would allow them to effect change in the House in violation of the Constitution, what is George Will's point? Why, if barred from ultimately voting on these bills, should these delegates not be allowed to have their voices heard?

What I find most amusing is that conservatives only ever attack these non-issues, but say nothing of the blatant unconstitutional power grabs of this President. Perhaps George Will, in the future, will read up on his Article II and write an article with more to say.

1 comment:

Alexander Wolfe said...

Nice. The only thing seems to piss George Will off is House procedure and the minimum wage.