ABC News reports on Virginia House Republicans’ efforts to govern in secret, marking the first national coverage of this issue. I see no need to contain my glee over this. House Republicans, no longer content to shoot themselves in the foot as they have in past years (joke intended) are now holding a gun to their own temple and shouting: “Next man makes a move, the Republican gets it!” Shaun Kenney is quoted in the article several times. (Via Daily Kos)
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“It’s an effort to demonize Republicans,” said Shaun Kenney, communications director for the Virginia Republican Party. “It’s about targeting and embarrassing Republican delegates,” he said.
Well, yeah, and it’s working, dumbass. Politics ain’t beanbag.
And my own reposting of the most excellent Frederick video on my own DK diary:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/29/205110/847
Gave you a plug over there Waldo…..
That might be so, but you don’t have to call him a dumbass. :)
LOL….The Republicans are finally going to have to reveal their true nature….the camera doesn’t lie…
ALL of our elected representatives should be tapped and wire whenever conducting ANY government business…Sure makes more sense than tapping and wiring regular citizens who don’t have the power to make policy, squander out tax money, and “give favors to cronies”……buzz…buzz…
Well, if they weren’t doing nothing wrong, they wouldn’t have nothing to worry about. Would they? I mean, respectable legislators doing their job, and the people’s business don’t have a thing to worry about. But I do reserve the right to keep an eye on the employees. It’s just good business. Nothing personal Shaun.
The problem is it is not full disclosure. The DPVA is cherry picking parts and adding their own commentary and music and claiming to be presenting the truth when they’re playing gotcha. If they were full copies released for all to see and enjoy then it’d be a service. Until then it’s just a political ploy that gets in the way of true debate because everyone has to worry about how their words are going to be taken out of context.
Close. If they were full copies then it’d be a service that you would like. As a Democrat, I find it enormously valuable to be able to see the portions of a vote that are interesting and relevant; most of such meetings are staggeringly boring, of course. Remember, too, that the DPVA’s resources are limited. They don’t have the manpower to make full recordings of everything that goes on there.
I should remind you of the contrast here. House Republicans have prohibited broadcast of sessions and made subcommittee votes secret. So the DPVA records subcommittee votes that are likely to be of interest, edit them down to the parts where things actually happen, and make that video available. Democrats certainly come out far ahead in that comparison.
If House Republicans are suddenly interested in full disclosure of proceedings, they should stop blocking vote counts and the broadcasting of floor sessions, since doing so is fully within their power.
If the RPV isn’t happy with the DPVA’s version of the video and wanted to rise above politics, they could facilitate taping of their proceedings by a non-partisan group. Or, they could amend their rules to require recorded votes in all committees and sub-committees.
Somehow, I don’t see that happening. I reckon they’ll look to catch a Democrat on video in an awkward moment. And, in so doing, they’ll continue down the path of making public service an embarrassment such that nobody with any self-respect wants anything to do with it.
Waldo, not just that I’d like but it’d be a hell of a lot less partisan. Right now it is only doing a service to Democrats who already don’t like the people being targeted, whether it’s individuals or the Republican party as a whole. For Dems to pretend this is altruistic and a public service is to mislead the public and do them a great disservice.
But let’s be clear that this is being done by a political party — the very definition of partisan — so I’m not sure why anybody would expect anything different?
The only way to have this done in a non-partisan is if the House does it themselves. In the absence of that, we should be grateful to the DPVA for providing the highlights of the bills that interest thing. Perhaps the RPV will do the same, which would be just great.
I don’t see that anybody’s pretending that, Jason. At the moment, the facts favor the Democrats in the House of Delegates. So Democrats favor a full airing of those facts. It’s an action that both benefits the public (as does all sunshine) and benefits the DPVA. When Republicans are in the majority in the House in a few years, perhaps they, too, will start engaging in some sort of sunshining activities that will both serve their interest and the public’s. That wouldn’t be a disservice, and I can’t see that it would be misleading.
But to claim that “secrecy goes national” when it’s selective secrecy, it’s not doing anything but playing partisan politics.
I’ve got to admit, you’ve lost me there. I have to wonder if perhaps you’re misinterpreting something I wrote, or vice versa.
Can we agree that the story has, in fact, “gone national” — that is, it’s being covered by a national outlet?
And can we agree that, in changing the House rules to prevent votes from being recorded and in barring floor video from being transmitted outside of their building, they are keeping portions of their governance a secret?
In which case, doesn’t it follow that the story about House Republicans’ secrecy has gone national?
Facts have a well-known liberal bias, didn’t you know that?
Jason, the secrecy is not selective, it’s total. If Republicans didn’t apparently love secrecy, then there wouldn’t be any. The uncovering of secrecy is what is selective. As Waldo explained, the DPVA can only afford to tape so much of the proceedings, so naturally they would gravitate towards those votes that were being taken with no record of the vote, and no sanctioned feed from the chamber or committee room.
Other than that, I am lost too. These are the facts. Because you say it is partisan does not make it so.