The New Normal Under House Republicans

According to Majority Leader Cantor's recent legislative memo to House Republicans – the GOP's summer plan is more partisan politics and nothing to address the priorities of the American people.  Absent from the list: raising the minimum wage, restoring emergency UI for three million jobless Americans, and passing comprehensive immigration reform.

So what can House Republicans hang their hats on?  Today, the Do-Nothing House Republicans will break the record for number of closed rules in a single Congress.

From the Washington Post:

"The Republican-led House will reach a dubious milestone this week: It will enter the record books as the most gagged in American history.

"The House Rules Committee on Tuesday plans to approve two more ‘closed rules' for debate — a procedure to block lawmakers from offering amendments on the House floor — bringing the total in the current Congress to 62…

"The increasingly undemocratic way in which the House is governed is…a symptom and a cause of the fierce partisanship that has seized the country…The frequent promise to ‘let the House work its will' is almost never honored — and not just on high-profile issues such as immigration reform, unemployment insurance and the minimum wage…

"…it's striking how quickly [House Republicans] dropped their vows of transparency…"

As Ranking Member Louise Slaughter, the top Democrat on the House Rules Committee, noted:

"Given the great challenges facing our country, the GOP's record-setting closed Congress has been a colossal waste of the taxpayer's time, money, and patience. The Majority's insistence on shutting lawmakers out of the process through closed rules and blocking bipartisan compromise has made this the least productive Congress in history. Instead of working across the aisle on jobs, the economy, our crumbling infrastructure, improving education, or any of our other pressing priorities, the Majority has focused on a narrow partisan agenda designed to fire up their base while consistently shutting out voices that disagree with their insular approach….It costs us $24 million per week to run the House of Representatives, and all we have to show for that money is a government shutdown, dozens of votes to kill health care, and a bunch of messaging bills designed to help Republicans get re-elected."

The American people deserve better than this new House Republican normal.