Dems leave on vacation, GOP revolts

Since 08-02-08

Jim Brown - OneNewsNow - 8/2/2008 5:00:00 AM

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=201574

A group of House Republicans staged a revolt after Democrats passed a non-debatable adjournment resolution to shut down the chamber for a five-week vacation.

Even though lights, microphones and C-SPAN cameras were turned off, about 40 Republicans took to the House floor and railed against Speaker Nancy Pelosi's (D-California) refusal to hold a vote on legislation to allow offshore oil drilling. Their speeches were met with applause from tourists in the visitor's gallery.

One of the GOP protesters, Representative Thad McCotter (R-Michigan), says Republicans were "silenced in a Stalinist manner." "It's a representative government. Our constituents are outraged at the way the Democrats have run this Congress into the ground and done nothing on their behalf, and we were not going to have our people's voices silenced, and we're not going to let this issue go because it's not about Republican or Democrat, it's about American[s]," he argues. "Working Americans cannot afford to wait for gas price relief just because the Speaker wants them to."

He believes part of the reason Congress is so hated by the American people is because they "care more about politics than about working people." "That is why they went on a five-week paid vacation without doing their job," McCotter contends.

McCotter says he understands that Nancy Pelosi's commitment to environmental extremism would lead her to block a vote on increasing domestic energy production, but he does not understand why she would stop members from even talking about the issue on the House floor.