When the House of Representatives voted this evening on legislation to increase the limit on the federal debt by as much as $2.4 trillion, House Republicans broke a promise included in their 2010 Pledge to America to post the text of bills online “for at least three days” before bringing them up for a vote.
Flashback!!
“We will ensure that bills are debated and discussed in the public square by publishing the text online for at least three days before coming up for a vote in the House of Representatives,” said the Pledge to America. “No more hiding legislative language from the minority party, opponents, and the public. Legislation should be understood by all interested parties before it is voted on.”
Did someone pull a switcheroo and modify the pledge after the fact?
Curiously, a summary of how the Republican Congress has fulfilled the Pledge that is included on the House Republican Conference’s Web site qualifies the language of the promise to post legislation online three days before voting on it. This summary headlines the Pledge’s section on the three-day rule: “A Three Day Waiting Period on all Non-Emergency Legislation.”
The words “non-emergency” or “emergency” do not appear anywhere in the text of the original Pledge for America as published by the House Republicans, and as still available in full-text form on the Republican Conference’s Web site.
Someone has got some explaining to do
However, it might be problematic for House Republicans to call the debt-limit bill a piece of “emergency” legislation. The House has been aiming to pass debt-limit legislation by an Aug. 2 deadline ever since May 16, when Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner said the Treasury had bumped up against the statutory debt limit and that the accounting measures legally available to the Treasury in such a situation could keep the debt below that limit only until Aug. 2.
The House Republican Conference did not immediately respond to an inquiry from CNSNews.com about the origin of the language on the conference’s website that says the three-day pledge applies to “non-emergency legislation.”
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