House Republican Whip says no to a Senate DACA bill (if there is one in future)

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Tuesday January 23, 2018 · 12:40 PM PST

2018/01/23 · 12:40

Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) questions BP CEO Tony Hayward during a House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee hearing on "The Role Of BP In The Deepwater Horizon Explosion And Oil Spill", in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, June 17, 2010. Hayward is appearing before members of Congress as the historical and deadly oil spill disaster is nearing two months. AFP PHOTO/ROD LAMKEY JR (Photo credit should read ROD LAMKEY JR/AFP/Getty Images)

It’s not like we didn’t see this coming, but House Republican Whip has stated that they won’t even take up any DACA bill that comes out of the Senate. So any “deal” between Schumer and McConnell is pretty much useless. You can pass all you want in the Senate, but the House under the leadership(?) of Paul Ryan may pretty much tell the DREAMers to go to hell. There have been multitude of discussions on the topic about how the latest cave by Schumer & Co. was not a bad deal. But if all you get in return is a commitment from just one chamber, then I still fail to see this as a solid deal-making.

CNN story here

"There were no commitments made in the House," Scalise said.

It is possible that there are a majority of Republicans in the House that have a conscience and really want to do right by the DREAMers, but I think that’s just wishful thinking. The likelihood of Senate passing something for DACA may be decent enough, but this is what I think happens in the house — they don’t pass anything and just engage in internal squabbling to run out the clock; or pass such a conservative bill that it is a non-starter in the Senate pretty much ensuring that it dies in the conference committee.

I really hope that I am wrong and there is a favorable outcome for the DREAMers before the clock runs out. But I am really skeptical of the gambit that Sen. Schumer and Senate DEMs have offered over the last few days.

Super Congress - End of democracy

FusionX

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Saturday July 23, 2011 · 10:13 PM PDT

2011/07/23 · 22:13

Not enough time for me to write a long diary, so I will keep it short. Ryan Grim on HuffingtonPost reports that there are talks to create a new legislative body called "Super Congress" which may end up tackling the debt ceiling issue and deficit reduction debate.

Link here http://www.huffingtonpost.com/...

This "Super Congress," composed of members of both chambers and both parties, isn't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution, but would be granted extraordinary new powers. Under a plan put forth by Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and his counterpart Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.), legislation to lift the debt ceiling would be accompanied by the creation of a 12-member panel made up of 12 lawmakers -- six from each chamber and six from each party.

He goes on to say the following troubling words.

Legislation approved by the Super Congress -- which some on Capitol Hill are calling the "super committee" -- would then be fast-tracked through both chambers, where it couldn't be amended by simple, regular lawmakers, who'd have the ability only to cast an up or down vote. With the weight of both leaderships behind it, a product originated by the Super Congress would have a strong chance of moving through the little Congress and quickly becoming law. A Super Congress would be less accountable than the system that exists today, and would find it easier to strip the public of popular benefits. Negotiators are currently considering cutting the mortgage deduction and tax credits for retirement savings, for instance, extremely popular policies that would be difficult to slice up using the traditional legislative process.

I am not sure about others, but I really think that this is not the right approach to dealing with this mess. While this may be Ryan Grim's interpretation of what may be going on the capitol hill, but if there is any truth in his article, then we have a problem on our hands.

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