Editors at the Washington Examiner take aim at the latest power play from U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Last week, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., floated the idea of dramatically changing the way the House works. Having lost two recent votes known as “motions to recommit” — minor votes, but stinging for any House leader — she basically wants to prevent the House minority from its traditional right to force votes to change legislation before it passes.
This is a terrible, cynical idea which, had it been in place for the last 25 years, would have silenced House Democrats almost the entire time. But more importantly, it’s an idea that Pelosi is only considering because it’s easier than actually asserting control of her own party in Congress — which, if you haven’t noticed, she has nearly lost to a politically artless but media-savvy House freshman after less than two months. …
… Pelosi is considering abolishing one of the very few rights that the House minority has. That she would even consider this is rather surprising, given her historical respect for the speakership and the House as an institution.
But it is less surprising given the weakened position in which she now finds herself. …
… [T]he party’s most visible and apparently most powerful figure turns out to be not the speaker they elected, but rather, a member of the party’s socialist cuckoo-bird wing.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., is now setting the Democratic agenda in both houses of Congress. You don’t believe us? Witness how, with the aid of a friendly media that seems to enjoy her ignorant tongue-lashings as much as it bristles at President Trump’s, Ocasio-Cortez lured six Democratic senators running for president into a trap that could well cost the party their White House. They committed to her insane, embarrassingly half-baked Green New Deal proposal and will soon be forced to vote for a resolution supporting it.