"In the 22 years that Democrats ran the House after the electronic voting system was put in place, there was only one time when the vote period substantially exceeded the 15 minutes. At the end of the session in 1987, under Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, the vote on the omnibus budget reconciliation bill -- a key piece of legislation -- was one vote short of passage when one of the bill's supporters, Marty Russo of Illinois, took offense at something, changed his vote to no, and left to catch a plane to his home district in Chicago. He was unaware that his switch altered the ultimate outcome. Caught by surprise, Wright kept the vote tally open for an extra 15 to 20 minutes until one of his aides could find another member, fellow Texan Jim Chapman, and draw him out of the cloakroom to change his nay vote to aye and pass the bill. Republicans went ballistic, using the example for years as evidence of Democrats' autocratic style and insensitivity to rules and basic fairness.
In 1995, soon after the Republicans gained the majority, Speaker Newt Gingrich declared his intention to make sure that votes would consistently be held in the 15-minute time frame. The "regular practice of the House," he said would be "a policy of closing electronic votes as soon as possible after the guaranteed period of 15 minutes." The policy was reiterated by Speaker Dennis J. Hastert when he assumed the post.
But faced with a series of tough votes and close margins, Republicans have ignored their own standards and adopted a practice that has in fact become frequent during the Bush presidency, of stretching out the vote when they were losing until they could twist enough arms to prevail. On at least a dozen occasions, they have gone well over the 15 minutes, sometimes up to an hour.
The Medicare prescription drug vote -- three hours instead of 15 minutes, hours after a clear majority of the House had signaled its will -- was the ugliest and most outrageous breach of standards in the modern history of the House. It was made dramatically worse when the speaker violated the longstanding tradition of the House floor's being off limits to lobbying by outsiders (other than former members) by allowing Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson on the floor during the vote to twist arms -- another shameful first."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14900-2003Nov25.html
"In the session now limping to its conclusion, Democrats have been excluded from conference committees, where the majority seems to view them as a pesky irrelevance. On the energy bill, they were shut out entirely. On prescription drugs, a favored few Democratic senators inclined to support the bill were allowed into the room. But Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), who had voted for the Senate measure and been appointed to the conference by his party, was barred; so were all House Democrats. And while conferences are supposed to resolve differences between the two houses, these days legislation often emerges with provisions previously unseen -- and undebated -- in either house. Other provisions approved by both chambers disappear in conference. Lawmakers are then confronted with an unappetizing up-or-down vote on the entire package.
Rank-and-file lawmakers of both parties are often unable to see legislation until the vote is upon them -- not just because details are still being hammered out, but because exposing the document to public scrutiny would hurt the cause of those who seek to have it passed by any means. Both houses have rules designed to prevent this sort of governing by ambush. But these are routinely swept aside in the interest of swift passage, however uninformed. Contempt for the minority extends to the White House, which sought recently to require that Democrats obtain the approval of Republican committee chairs before submitting questions to the administration."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A14896-2003Nov25.html
Why do they take this lying down? The Democrats could bring the Senate to a halt. The House Democrats could at least stage a walkout, or do a marathon special order to gain attention to what's going on. But no, they seem to like lying down.