Following a prolonged five minute vote, guaging Nancy Pelosi’s job performance
It’s difficult to guage how well Nancy Pelosi is doing managing and leading the Democratic House Cuacus. You can’t really defeat anything in the House, given the Republican Leadership’s strong-hand tactics, represented by the fact that for the third time the Republican Leadership extended a five minute voting window and extended it and extended it so as to nab a few reluctant Republicans to vote ‘yea’.
I don’t know what it means, but the time lag of these five minute voting sessions is getting shorter. This particular five minute voting session took fifty or so minutes. The first time we had a voting session such as this one, it lasted roughly three hours, as the House Leadership tried to find retiring Rep. Nick Smith to offer a carrot or a stick to his political office-seeking son depending on how he voted.
This time around…
It looked as if the bill was headed to defeat, two votes shy of approval. Democrats called in vain for gaveling the vote closed as GOP leaders lobbied their members to switch votes and support the bill.
House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., “worked me over a little,” said Rep. Bill Young, R-Fla., among the last group of lawmakers to switch to support the legislation.
Rep. Tom DeLay, R-Texas, who recently stepped down temporarily as majority leader after being indicted in Texas over a campaign finance issue, was as active as ever, putting pressure on wavering lawmakers in the crowded, noisy House chamber.
Congratulations to Bill Young, I guess. At least Smith held out a little longer.
Okay. Nancy Pelosi. Guage her job performance on three levels: #1: how many Democrats get elected to the House. This is a work in progress, and the first time we can check in with that is in the year 2006. #2: Democratic Unity. Unfortunately, despite her best efforts, a batch of Democrats voted for the Bankruptcy Reform Act… making it difficult to create a coherent Democratic Message. Nonetheless, she looks better than Dick Gephardt. #3: At moments like this 50 minute 5 minute vote, how she communicates the Republican Party’s Acts of Disgrace.
The C-SPAN footage shows she did well with that regard.