House Democrats Abandon the 'Pass the Bill to See What's in It' Gambit

AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

Hat’s off to Twitchy for pointing out the extreme irony that Democrats engaged in on Saturday during the debate to keep the government funded after September 30.

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When Speaker Kevin McCarthy offered his “clean” version of the Continuing Resolution (CR), Democrats were wholly unprepared. Some members didn’t trust McCarthy and called for an adjournment. “Our intention is not to adjourn. Our intention is to read the bill,” Dem Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.) said.

Huh?

Flashback to 2010 and the debate over the passage of Obamacare. Then House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it plainly: “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”

Now, here we are in 2023, and Democrats plead that they need time to examine the bill.

Washington Examiner:

Democrats filed a motion to adjourn the House in an effort to get more time to review the GOP legislation and citing trust issues with their colleagues across the aisle. While the effort failed, Democrats successfully stalled the vote for just under an hour as Democrats reviewed the resolution. During the motion to adjourn, which was voted against by both parties, Democrats voted one-by-one by hand in a bid to stall the vote on the stop-gap bill.

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Why didn’t Democrats just pass the bill and see what was in it that way? This was a bill that funded the government for just 45 days. The Obamacare bill was a radical revolution that gave the government new powers to control the kinds of healthcare Americans could receive and alter our lives permanently.

The Democrats’ hypocrisy did not go unnoticed on the website formerly known as Twitter.

The Democrats didn’t just want to read the CR before voting on it. Adjournment was a ploy to drag out House proceedings to see what the Senate was going to do. That’s when Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) pulled the fire alarm to try to delay proceedings further.

Kind of what the January 6 rioters were doing, although not deliberately.

Bowman’s chief of staff, Sarah Iddrissu, offered this, um, er…”explanation” for the congressman’s criminal action in interfering with the business of Congress.

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“Congressman Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote,” Iddrissu wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “The Congressman regrets any confusion.”

Fox News:

According to Axios, Bowman told reporters that he thought the alarm would open the door. Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) told Fox News that the situation was “absolutely outrageous” and “potentially criminal.”

“That any member of Congress would think it’s appropriate to pull a fire alarm to try and delay Congress from doing its business is shameful,” Lawler said. “It’s unbecoming. And he should strongly consider resigning from Congress if he did that.”

Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy called the incident “serious” and said that Bowman should be investigated.

Good luck with that.

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