A Chequer-Board of Nights and Days

From today's OpinionJournal Political Diary (subscription required), we learn what the consequences have been for the House majority given their decision to shut Republicans out of the legislative process. John Fund reports:

House Republicans are finally getting their groove back in their new status as the minority party. Last week they were able to stymie Democratic plans to ram through a bill giving the District of Columbia a voting member of the House. Startled Democratic leaders pulled the bill off the floor indefinitely after discovering that GOP members were on the verge of successfully attaching language that would also overturn the ban on handgun ownership in the District.

The action marked the sixth time so far in this Congress that enough Democrats have voted for a parliamentary maneuver called a "motion to recommit" to hand Republicans a floor victory. In previous Congresses, the best any minority party was able to do is three such motions in two years.

Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland has denounced the GOP tactics as "gotcha amendments" meant to force members to cast an unpopular vote or send Democratic legislation back to the committee from which it originated. Republicans say their moves are simply meant to lay down markers to tell the American people what Democratic priorities and values are.

The problem for Democrats is that many of their members are so nervous about casting sensitive votes that Democrats could find themselves tied up in legislative knots for the entire Congress. Last week, 55 Democrats voted for a GOP motion to give preference in returning to their New Orleans homes to public housing tenants who previously had held a job or were willing to perform community service. The victory was a feather in the cap of Louisiana GOP Rep. Bobby Jindal, who sponsored the motion and is now running for governor.

As for the D.C. voting rights bill, Democrats now face having it coupled with a floor vote on the popular handgun ownership issue. Democrats could respond by forcing through a new rule that would ban such motions, but that would fly in the face of Congressional tradition allowing such tactics. "They will eventually have a choice of getting a black eye for shutting off debate or constantly having to require many of their members to cast politically unpalatable votes," a House GOP leadership aide told me.

You know, this kind of thing can come to an end. All Democrats would have to do is to include Republicans more in the process and be responsive to Republican concerns. Something tells me, however, that they are going to refrain from doing that, which means that there will be more motions to recommit in our immediate future.