Boehner Commits To Open Process As GOP Moves Towards Adopting Closed Rule On Health Repeal

Speaker Boehner takes the gavel
Eric Cantor knows best? The GOP moves on Health Care. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) didn't give a full-on snort as he did on "60 Minutes." But his expressions of emotion were plainly apparent, and I'm glad he didn't try to hide them. To quote Vice President Biden in another context, Boehner's accomplishment is "a big #&@!% deal." Now comes the hard part -- governing. Before handing over the Speaker's gavel, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) read through the litany of Legislation the ...

Reconsider health repeal, officials urge Boehner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any move to Repeal the sweeping healthcare overhaul passed last year would erase critical consumer protections and set the nation back on course toward skyrocketing health costs, the Obama Administration warned the new Republican House leader. The House is already planning to vote on Repeal next week, but U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday urged House Speaker John Boehner to consider the benefits of the law before ...

Fighting Obamacare in the New Congress
House Speaker John Boehner has a challenging session of Congress ahead of him. Here are three useful rules for the road ahead. 1) Use Congressional hearings to expose the flaws in President Obama’s programs — especially the new health-care law. While millions of our Tax Dollars are being spent to convince Senior Citizens and others that health reform is good for them, Republicans should take the opportunity to tell the other side. Hold hearings to help explain how ObamaCare will redu...

Rep. Ross criticizes Republican rules package related to pay-go rules
Rep. Mike Ross (D-Ark.), co-chairman of the fiscally conservative Democratic Blue Dog Coalition, criticized the Republicans' rules package for letting Trillions of dollars be added to the Debt.  "This rules package, while there are a lot of good things in it, threatens to undermine all of the hard work we have done by allowing nearly $5 trillion in Government Spending to go unpaid for," Ross said Wednesday in a statement. "That’s $5 trillion the Republicans want to add to the National Debt....

Speaker Boehner's first day of work liveblog
4:00 "This rules packages gives us an opportunity to do exactly what President Lincoln wanted." -- Kevin Mccarthy (R-Calif.) on the hilarious new "cut as you go" rule, which is such a brilliant example of something that sounds nice but doesn't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny that I honestly admire the people who came up with it. 3:00 The first real thing Boehner's House is doing: Stripping non-voting delegates of their votes in the Committee of the Whole. Sorry, Eleanor Holmes Norton. Y...

Reconsider health repeal, officials urge Boehner
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Any move to Repeal the sweeping healthcare overhaul passed last year would erase critical consumer protections and set the nation back on course toward skyrocketing health costs, the Obama Administration warned the new Republican House leader. The House is already planning to vote on Repeal next week, but U.S. Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner on Wednesday urged House Speaker John Boehner to consider the benefits of the law before t...

Boehner Promises Improvements in Process, But Policy Needs Improvements, Too
Newly minted House Speaker John Boehner was appropriately humble and reassuring in his Inaugural Speech to the 112th Congress. His pledges of openness and cooperation were welcome, after the rancorous and iron-fisted rule of the Pelosi years. But his remarks were about process, not policy, and it is regarding policy that believers in Limited Government must remain vigilant. It is important to remember that Boehner was part of the Republican leadership during the Bush era of spendthrift, big-gove...

TN Rep Roe: I'm on Medicare. Repeal Congress' Health Care and ObamaCare
TN Rep Roe: I'm on Medicare. Repeal Congress' Health Care and ObamaCare In a remarkable exchange on Lawrence O'Donnell's The Last Word, Tennessee Rep. Phil Roe says he supports the repeal of ObamaCare and the Congressional health care plan, which he doesn't use because he's on Medicare now. It was amazing and surreal all the way around. Mark Meckler, Tea Party Whore Extraordinaire, was on claiming that the "American People" supported repeal on a 2:1 basis. Adam Green of Bold Progressiv...

Contradictions Abound in New Rules Package
Today is a big day in the House, a new era with John Boehner elected as Speaker and a new set of rules that have a real effect on the House, how it does business and how it frames and decides policy. As the Ohio Republican prepares to take on his new role (wait, I am starting to tear up … talk amongst yourselves), I am struck by the differences and parallels with Speaker Newt Gingrich's experience in 1995. The Georgia Republican was the conquering hero, Moses leading his tribe from 40 ye...

Boehner makes first fundraising pitch as Speaker
House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) made his first Fundraising pitch on Wednesday since formally assuming office on Wednesday. The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) released a letter by Boehner to Republicans asking for donations shortly after Boehner wrapped up his first Speech after being sworn in as Speaker. "[W]hile our new Majority continues to listen to the American People and act on their will, those who want more spending, higher taxes, and bigger government are digg...

Boehner ascends to speaker of the House with pledge to end business as usual (Daily Caller)
John Boehner of Ohio took the gavel from Nancy Pelosi after being voted as the new speaker of the House, and waited for the applause reverberating around the chamber to die down. His first words as speaker were: “It’s still just me.” It was a fitting introduction for the second of 12 Children from a middle-class family in Cincinnati. All but one of his siblings attended the Speech and sat in the gallery. Boehner, who has a reputation for crying easily and often, shed a few te...

Nancy Pelosi hands over the gavel to Speaker John Boehner (Slideshow)
Today was a historic day in Washington D.C. as the 112th Congress convened for the first time.  Republicans officially asserted their power as the majority in the House of Representatives by electing Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) as Speaker of the House.  Boehner takes over as speaker for Rep. Nancy Pelosi who has served in the position since 2007.  In the slideshow to the left, readers can see pictures from the somewhat awkward moment when Pelosi literally hands over the gavel to Boeh...

Democrats Who Voted Against Final Passage of Obamacare Urged to Vote for Repeal Legislation
Wednesday, January 05, 2011 By Fred Lucas President Obama signs the Democrats’ Health Care bill into law in the East Room of the White House on Tuesday, March 23, 2010. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite) Washington (CNSNews.com) - Conservative groups are urging 13 House Democrats who voted against final passage of the $1 Trillion Health Care overhaul Legislation last March to vote for the Repeal legislation. House Republicans will vote next week on a bill to Repeal the Legislation they call...

Bid to revise new House rules fails
WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 (UPI) -- The first vote of the U.S. House of Representatives Wednesday was a procedural vote on whether to table an effort to delay enacting a part of new House rules. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, D-D.C., objected to a portion of the House rules package that would remove the right of certain delegates -- herself included -- to vote on the floor when it meets as the Committee of the Whole to consider Legislation. The procedural vote was on a motion offered by House Majority Lead...

GOP's Boehner Gets House Speaker's Gavel
Ohio Republican John Boehner has finally received his life-long wish: He is speaker of the House of Representatives. In a symbolic move, outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi handed over the gavel to Boehner, who gave a brief Speech in which he pledged to move forward with the conservative agenda voters approved in giving the GOP control of the House. Below are the excerpts of his address: Excerpts from Boehner's Speech to the Opening Session of the 112th Congress Washington (Jan 5) Following are exce...

Pelosi Olive Branch Is Already Dead
This morning, at a special swearing-in ceremony for the Congressional Black Caucus, outgoing Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi offered the GOP an olive branch and the promise of cooperation: “We extend the hand of friendship to create jobs, grow the Middle Class and reduce the Deficit. We look for common ground to solve the problems of the American People: their health, their housing, their jobs, their savings, their Children’s education.” But, just hours later, and about a minute after

112th Congress convenes; Boehner elected speaker
(01-05) 11:52 PST WASHINGTON, CA (AP) -- Newly elected speaker John Boehner hailed the Republican Party's return to control of the House Wednesday, vowing a more open legislative process but acknowledging that "a great deal of scar tissue has built up on both sides of the aisle." GOP lawmakers, who picked up 64 House seats in the November Elections, cheered loudly when Boehner defeated Democrat Nancy Pelosi in the roll call for speaker. The Veteran Ohio lawmaker's rise to the speakership was v...

It's official: Republicans rule the House
WASHINGTON — Newly elected speaker John Boehner hailed the Republican Party's return to control of the House Wednesday, vowing a more open legislative process but acknowledging that "a great deal of scar tissue has built up on both sides of the aisle." GOP lawmakers, who picked up 64 House seats in the November Elections, cheered loudly when Boehner defeated Democrat Nancy Pelosi in the roll call for speaker. The Veteran Ohio lawmaker's rise to the speakership was virtually guaranteed by...

No Surprise, Republicans to Break Promise on Spending Cuts
No Surprise, Republicans to Break Promise on Spending Cuts In September, future House Speaker John Boehner unveiled the GOP Pledge to America, which among its other warmed-over Republican nostrums promised to save "at least $100 billion in the first year alone" from the federal Budget. In December, incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) repeated the GOP guarantee that "a good $100 billion" would be trimmed. Now, after months of cowardly refusing to specify what those draconi...

Got a Problem with the Constitution?
On Wednesday, the 112th Congress will convene with the Republicans running the House for the first time since the dawn of the Obama era. According to many commentators, Speaker-to-Be John Boehner and his crew of zealots have some very scary ideas. Chief among them: They want to make some obscure, inscrutable tract from an ancient civilization the centerpiece of their legislative philosophy. Indeed, in a move generating consternation and exasperation at MSNBC and other bastions of right-thinkin...

West admirers celebrate and warn against business as usual
WASHINGTON -  Dozens of anti-establishment fans of tea-party favorite Allen West journeyed  from South Florida to celebrate his swearing in on Wednesday as a member of Congress, an institution many of them had come to loath. While West and his new colleagues took the oath of office, the South Floridians watched on big-screen TVs in the Rayburn House Office Building across the street. They cheered whenever the cameras panned the House floor and West appeared on screen. They applau...

Pelosi says Congress must create jobs, while giving up hers
Lessons from the November Elections are still burning — it was public anger and anxiety about The Economy and Job Losses that partly led to Democrats losing control of the House of Representatives. “Our most important job is to fight for American jobs …  And so Democrats will judge what comes before Congress from either side of the aisle as to whether it creates jobs, strengthens the middle class, and reduces the Deficit,” the first woman speaker said as she handed a...

America Comes First
Pollster Frank Luntz interviewed about 20 newly elected House Republicans on Fox News Tuesday night. These are the men and women who put themselves forward in 2010 to run for office, get elected, and produce the strong majority in the 112th Congress that has given Rep. John Boehner the speakership. A telling moment came when Sean Hannity asked the members whether they were Republicans first or Conservatives first. Unanimously, they said they were Conservatives first. But then one member interjec...

Pelosi handles Boehner the gavel; Robert Gibbs packs his bags
Get a load of this fantasy headline from the LA Times. Even if Boehner means what he says, as outgoing Speaker Nancy Pelosi hands him the gavel, his Tea Party peeps are going to be on his posterior from day one: John Boehner elected as House Speaker, promises new GOP-controlled chamber will be 'honest, accountable and more responsive' Boehner, a 20-year congressman from southern Ohio, will pledge to make the House "honest, accountable, and more responsive" to the needs of the American People...

Boehner, Pelosi, and Humility
Speaker John Boehner will do himself and the whole pro-life movement proud, and save many vulnerable human beings, if he continues as he began today: determined and humble. During the passing of the gavel, the contrast in humility between former speaker Nancy Pelosi and Boehner was stark. Pelosi wanted more time, and was reluctant to pass the gavel. She put off doing so by outlining in great detail her own groundbreaking leadership and legislative accomplishments. Boehner pointed to how little t...