Discussion: House Dems Vow To Fight Back Against GOP Response To Sit-In

Go to court and lose. The Constitution (Article I, Section 5, Paragraph 2) states:

Each House may determine the Rules of its Proceedings, punish its Members for disorderly Behaviour, and, with the Concurrence of two thirds, expel a Member.

It’s quite clear: the House is the final Constitutional authority on its rules including the definitions and punishments for disorderly behavior. It’s also very true that it’s often a bad idea to do something (like fining Members for shedding light on the legislative process) just because you can do that thing.

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“disorderly Behaviour”

How this is defined matters, and is the issue.

Ryan’s proposal may run afoul of Article 1 of the Constitution, which says “each House may … punish its Members for disorderly behavior.” For more than 200 years that has been interpreted to mean any contested sanctions against lawmakers must be approved by the full House with a floor vote, attorneys steeped in congressional legal matters say.

“The Constitution gives the House the authority to discipline members; I have never heard of anything where an officer of the House was given that authority,” said Mike Stern, a former lawyer for the nonpartisan House counsel’s office and the Senate Homeland Security Committee’s GOP staff.

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I guess time will tell, won’t it?

I’ll make a prediction: no such lawsuit will be brought.

If I’m wrong in that prediction (and I don’t think I will be wrong) I’ll make a stronger prediction: the suit will dismissed by the trial court judge on Article 1, Section 5 grounds.

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Your pure speculation and $2.75 will get you a subway ride in NYC. Grow up!

Putin hacks American election process and it’s “Let’s just move on…” ~Trump

Dems stage an orderly sit-in trying to get a vote on gun control to protect Americans and it’s a lawsuit and fine for “disorderly behavior”.

WTF???

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Excellent suggestion, fgs. Hill Democrats live in their own little Democratic Caucus bubble, in a way that Republicans don’t. Koch brothers created the Tea Party to confront House and Senate members back in their districts. Democrats should do the same – but when they are in DC, the idea of adopting 20th- and 21st-century communication techniques, including Facebook, Twitter, and radio, television, and film to communicate directly and cleverly with voters in specific districts would go a long way to addressing this Inside-the-Beltway mentality that seems to afflict our elected officials.

It’s not just the Flints, St. Louis’s and Buffalo’s of the U.S. that have been abandoned by both the GOP and the Democrats. It’s the rural areas in places like Nebraska too that have been slighted in our love affair with globalization and Wall Street. Democrats need to pay attention to how Trump picked off their base in places like Michigan and Pennsylvania. They need to get serious about responding to the country’s aches and pains. I would not refer either publicly or privately to these places as “shitholes.” That’s a sort of elitism that the poor bastards in these communities don’t deserve. They don’t know what hit them with globalization. And what’s coming down the pike in terms of automation and robotics will make globalization look mild by comparison in terms of the impact on the workforce in communities with poorly skilled and less well educated workers.

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Russia’s Duma for one.

This nazi/police state/ rhetoric isn’t helpful.

He’s a president, NOT a dictator.

He won’t get everything he wants.

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To the most basic question – How can the US Congress violate the Constitution it is sworn to uphold by sanctioning and punishing exercise of FREE SPEECH by its own members? (Don’t use “decorum” as your lame excuse, Mr. Ryan, nor the “Rules of This Chamber” which cannot in any way whatsoever supersede Constitutional protections, ESPECIALLY HERE!)

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Oh please, you sound like an Alex Jones nut with the “false flag” nonsense. No, Donald Trump and his band of idiots do not have the ability to do a “false flag” attack, this is just silly nonsense, just like Sandy Hook and 9/11 being false flags are silly nonsense.

That’s not to say people do not exploit situations (like 9/11 or Sandy Hook), indeed they do. That’s a totally different scenario.

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No worries, The reduction clause has been tested serveral times in Federal Court.

Thank God the GOP is taking action against the unethical of letting citizens know what’s going on in the “people’s house,” while they’re getting rid of that troublesome ethics commission.

But seriously: “Putin” needs to become the constant adjective for these authoritarian kleptocrats.

How dare they try to represent us!

Grow up!

Why would you respond to a respectful discussion that way? (I’m assuming this is in response to stradivarius50t3. I can’t tell for sure, since the commenting system doesn’t show to whom you were responding.)

Correct. It’s more likely to happen as it did under W: willfully ignoring urgent briefings regarding imminent attacks.

I don’t remember, but somebody wasprobably ranting/speculating without proof or reason or logic, as if saying something magically makes it true. Too many do that here.