The leadership of the House Republican majority got off to a rough start in their new stewardship of the lower chamber. They lost two floor votes this past week, an unusual occurrence in a chamber where any significant majority rarely loses once a bill hits the floor. In this case, though, dozens of freshman have delivered a power lesson of their own by refusing to play along with steamrolling tactics:
Change.
This, not so much…
That was one of the chief complaints about Nancy Pelosi’s management of the House (although hardly the only complaint). After Barack Obama promised five days of online access on every bill, Pelosi and Harry Reid wrote most of their high-profile legislation in secret and jammed it down the throats of the House and Senate with just hours to review legislation thousands of pages long. The Tea Party made this a big issue in the midterm elections, and Republicans promised to do better.
