Boehner takes charge as new Congress convenes

Nineteen Democrats Scorn Pelosi in Speaker Vote, WaPo Buries Story on Page A8
The first vote cast by the 110th Congress on January 4, 2007 was for election of Speaker of the House. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) won all 233 Democratic votes (including her own). All 202 Republicans voted for Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio. Two years later Pelosi secured 255 (including her own), and there was only one Democrat, Rep. Luis Gutierrez (N.Y.) who did not vote. Minority Leader Boehner received every Republican vote, save for his own and three other Republicans who didn't vote. By co...

A Day Later, House Swears-in DeFazio
A rather bizarre scene unfolded Thursday morning in the Capitol as the House of Representatives interrupted its live quorum call to swear-in Rep. Peter Defazio, D-Ore. DeFazio was nowhere to be found Wednesday when the House came to order for the 112th Congress. Multiple calls, emails and a visit to his office failed to yield any explanation as to why he was absent. Now that DeFazio has been sworn-in, the House is now at full membership with 435 members. It was an uncommon move when House Speake...

Nancy Pelosi: Reader of the Constitution
The sublime irony of having Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) not only participate in a reading of the Constitution, but be assigned Article I, Section 1, seems to have been lost on those who attended the first-ever reading of the august text in the House of Representatives this morning. This, after all, is the same Nancy Pelosi who gave us gave us the now infamous “Are you serious? Are you serious?” in response  to a reporter who had the nerve to ask her which part of the Constitution authorized Congr

Conservative leader urges House to follow through on spending
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Influential conservative Dick Armey on Thursday urged the new House to take leadership in reducing the size of government and reining in spending by cutting "obnoxious programs" out of the Budget. Armey, a Republican and Veteran Washington insider who was the House Majority Leader in the late 1990's, has emerged as a force within the Tea Party movement. His FreedomWorks political action group has given direction, know-how, and financial support to many within Congress' rec...

Democrats Turned Away From Pelosi in Record Numbers in Ceremonial Vote
The abandonment of Rep. Nancy Pelosi by 19 Democrats in the pro-forma vote for speaker of the House marked a breakdown in party loyalty of historic measure, according to the Washington Post. Not since 1913, when 23 Republicans bolted from the GOP's speaker nominee, has a Party Leader suffered so many defections, Congressional Research Service records show. Of the 19 Democrats who didn't support Pelosi, one voted "present" and the other 18 cast Protest ballots for some other Democratic House memb...

Misreading the Constitution
Get alerts when there is a new article that might interest you. For days, Democrats have made clear their displeasure with the Republican leadership's decision to begin the new House term with a reading of the U.S. Constitution. But Democrats' specific grievance, immediately before the reading commenced, was a surprise: Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. and others demanded a reading of portions of the Constitution that had been superseded by amendments -- most notably, the "three-fifths" clause of the orig...

Constitution Reading Provokes Political Tussling
Thursday, January 06, 2011 By Jim Abrams, Associated Press House Speaker John Boehner of Ohio, right, accompanied by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Va., holds a copy of a proposal to Repeal the Health Care Bill, Thursday, Jan. 6, 2011, during news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon) Washington (AP) - Lawmakers took turns reading the Constitution on the House floor Thursday, a nod to tea partiers who put Republicans in power. Even the nation's founding tex...

After Railing Against Government Spending, Speaker Boehner Cant Name One Program He Would Cut
After Railing Against Government Spending, Speaker Boehner Can’t Name One Program He Would Cut Campaigning before the recent Midterm Elections, House Republicans were adamant that, if given power, they would cut government spending. However, when pressed for specifics, many were unable to list even one single item they would cut from the Budget. “The line-item will be across-the-board,” Rep. Kevin Mccarthy (R-CA) embarrassingly responded when asked for specific cuts. Speaker...

Boehner: Sure Obama's A Citizen, But I Won't Tell Others 'What To Think' (VIDEO)
In his first big interview as Speaker of the House, John Boehner (R-OH) told NBC's Brian Williams that he believes President Barack Obama is a U.S. citizen, but won't tell the other members of his Caucus "what to think." "The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there," Boehner said. "That's good enough for me." [TPM SLIDESHOW: Meet The New House Republican Leadership] Williams then pressed Boehner on whether he will tell some of his colleagues -- who are co-sponsoring legisl...

Republicans take control of the House
The results of the mid-term election became a reality for Democrats yesterday as Republicans took control of the House of Representatives, and more than 90 new members were seated. John Boehner (R-OH) defeated Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) in the election for Speaker. In fact, 19 members of her own Caucus voted for someone else (11 voted for Heath Shuler), voted present or did not vote at all; the most members of a Caucus to vote against their party’s nominee since 1923. The power exchange wasn̵...

CBO: Health care repeal would increase deficit
WASHINGTON — Repealing President Barack Obama's landmark Health Care overhaul would add billions to government red ink and leave millions without coverage, Congress' nonpartisan Budget referees said Thursday ahead of a politically charged vote in the House. House Speaker John Boehner brushed off the Congressional Budget Office analysis as emboldened Republicans, now in the majority, issued their own report arguing that Obama's coverage expansion would cost jobs and increase Budget Deficits...

Constitution Reading Provokes Political Tussling
WASHINGTON — Republicans and Democrats took turns politely in a historic recitation of the Constitution from the House floor Thursday, but the decorum hardly meant they were in agreement. In a nod to the tea partiers who put the Republicans in power, GOP lawmakers took time out from their campaign to change the way government works to read the document upon which the government was founded. Democrats went along but pointedly questioned the Republicans' insistence on omitting sections tha...

Republicans Introduce Bill To Fire Obamas Czars
This bill was introduced in the Democrat-controlled House and was pushed aside, but with Republicans now in the House majority it’s seeing the light of day again, though with Demcorats controlling the Senate and Obama still in the White House the bill is unlikely to get much further than the House. Though that doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea. A group of House Republicans introduced a bill on Wednesday to rein in the various “czars” in the Obama Administration. Rep. Ste...

Repeal Obamacare Now!
House Speaker John Boehner took issue with  preliminary analysis from the Congressional Budget Office which found that repealing ObamaCare “would add about $230 billion to the federal Deficit over the next ten years“: “I do not believe that repealing the job killing Health Care law will increase the deficit,” Boehner told reporters Thursday. “The CBO is entitled to their opinion, but they’re locked into the constraints of the 1974 Budget Act. …If you bel

Filibuster Fears
Reining in the Filibuster would make it easier for Congressional majorities to enact their proposals—and to enact them in sufficiently coherent form that they have a chance of working as planned and being judged accordingly. As I say in the Comment: if it weren’t for the filibuster, the 111th Congress would have yielded a much better health-care program, including a strong Public Option; a larger and more intelligently structured stimulus; a return to Clinton-era Tax Rates for the ri...

John Boehner Reacts to 'Birther' Outburst: "The State of Hawaii Has Said That President Obama Was Born There, That's Good Enough
Clip from NBC's Brian Williams interview with John Boehner Visit MSNBC.com for breaking news, world news, and news about The Economy firstread . In his interview with John Boehner, NBC's Brian Williams got the new House Speaker to react to today's outburst by a birther in the House gallery during the reading of the Constitution Williams : I'm curious as to how much responsibility you feel specifically because of something that happened this morning. During the reading of the Constitution, Cong...

Boehner Bullish on Health Care Repeal
New York, NY— January 6, 2011— Representative John Boehner sat down today with NBC News’ Brian Williams for his first interview as Speaker of the House. Below are excerpts from the exclusive interview. If used, mandatory credit: “NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.” Additional portions of the interview will air tonight on “NBC Nightly News” at 6:30 PM/ET. The transcript and an extended interview will be available on nightly.MSNBC.com. Photos will be a...

Speaker Boehner: GOP Will Not Increase Debt Limit Without Spending Cuts
Shouldn't Obama be in 100% agreement with Boehner here? Didn't he promise to reduce the Deficit by going through the Federal Budget line by line and get rid of those programs that do not work? gatewaypundit reported Speaker John Boehner said that Republicans will not agree to increase the Debt Limit without Spending Cuts. Boehner released a statement: Washington (Jan 6) House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) issued the following statement on the Debt limit: “ I’ve been notified that the...

Two Missed Moment to Solemnly Swear
Representative Pete Sessions, Republican of California, the man who served as chairman of the Republican Congressional Campaign Committee, and can claim a large portion of the credit for helping his party win the majority in the House, somehow managed to miss the Oath of Office on Wednesday. Apparently, so did Representative-elect Mike Fitzpatrick, a Republican from Pennsylvania. But that apparently did not stop them from casting votes on the House floor or, in Mr. Sessions’s case, from taki...

And on the second day, they read
Day Two of Republican control of the U.S. House of Representatives was highlighted with a reading of the 223-year-old Constitution — the document that formed the American government and guides it to this day. It’s often a raucous scene on the House floor. Today, it was raucous in the visitors’ gallery, when a woman calling herself “Theresa” disrupted the recitation of the Constitution at the exact point in which a lawmaker read that the president must be a “na...

Rep. Joe Courtney: On Day One, Republicans Cripple Construction Industry
It took just hours for the new Republican House majority to break their vows of transparency and Bipartisan cooperation. In the new rules they authored, Republicans exempted Budget-busting items like Health Care Repeal from their own pay-go requirements, and they took the Budget-writing process behind closed doors, consolidating it in their own hands. Without input from Democrats and without even an amendment process, they crafted a dangerous set of rules that threatens not just the way Congre...

Heckling birther disrupts Congress
Stumble This! WASHINGTON — A woman screaming that President Barack Obama was not legitimately elected to the White House disrupted a symbolic reading of the US Constitution in the House of Representatives on Thursday. Capitol police removed the Protester, who shouted "Except Obama! Except Obama! Help us Jesus!" as Democratic Representative Frank Pallone read the passage that spells out the requirements for becoming president. Some of Obama's arch-conservative opponents have leveled the un...

Boehner hedges on debt limit
Speaker John Boehner isn’t saying he will raise the Debt Limit, but he’s also hedging a bit on how he’ll go about the vote. The Ohio Republican, in a statement, said that he’s been notified that the White House will formally ask to increase the borrowing ability of the Federal Government. Continue Reading Text Size - + reset Politico 44 But he doesn’t exactly respond that he’ll hold a quick vote on the Debt limit. “The American People will not stan...

Congress Recites the US Constitution
(NewsCore) - The 112th Congress kicked off its new session Thursday by reading the US Constitution aloud for the first time in history. Newly-minted Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-Ohio) was first behind the podium, followed by Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). In all, the reading done by a Bipartisan group of 53 members lasted about 90 minutes. Some antiquated parts of the founding document were omitted from the reading, including the provision about counting slaves and Native Ameri...

Extra Bonus Quote of the Day
"The state of Hawaii has said that President Obama was born there. That's good enough for me." -- House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), in an interview with NBC News, reacting to today's outburst by a birther in the House gallery. ...