Norm Ornstein offers this Roll Call column (paid subscription required). A snippet:
- Every day we get reminders about the real threat to the Capitol from vicious terrorists. The issue of ensuring a continuing Congress should have been the subject of vigorous debate from the early stages after 9/11. It is a complicated problem, and it takes time and effort for Members to get their minds around it. Far more of them should be engaged now. There was a real opportunity to do that last week, at no real cost to the leaders and their colleagues who oppose a constitutional amendment. They could have looked magnanimous and thoughtful, not spiteful and vindictive.
Of all the issues out there, this one should be the least partisan. There was no earthly reason for the Judiciary Committee to vote on strictly partisan lines on the Sensenbrenner alternative, or on the constitutional amendment. There was no reason for the House to split on partisan lines on the rule and on the motion to recommit, no reason to limit the debate to a pathetic 90 minutes, no reason to slap Dana Rohrabacher, Zoe Lofgren and John Larson in the face. It is the middle-finger approach to governing, driven by a mind-set that has brought us the most rancorous and partisan atmosphere I have seen in the House in nearly 35 years. Eventually, it is going to tick off more than a few Republicans along the way