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[GM Strong]

How the "Silent Quorum" was Nuked by Thomas B. Reed - Speaker of the House

Well, well, John Barnes at NRO has written about Reed’s rules today. http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/barnes200503070752.asp
I have been sending this story to our Senators and talk hosts for 2 years. The main reason we do not have filibusters in the House of Representatives. Thomas B. Reed - Speaker of the House(R-ME) made his mark and put his political career on the line. Bill Frist should show the same kind of cajones. Read it. Heed it. Here is a summary.

Reed's rules and the Silent Quorum

In fulfilling the "rearrangement" pledge, Reed's legacy to the House was a set of rules which give preeminence to the principle of majority governance.

When the 51st Congress began, Speaker Reed directed the Rules Committee not to report a revised code of rules until the contested election cases were decided. He employed general parliamentary law in the interim to govern House business. It was a contested election case that gave Speaker Reed his opportunity to end the disappearing quorum.

The practice was shattered on January 29, 1890. On that day a resolution was brought to the House floor that concerned who should be seated from the Fourth District of West Virginia: James M. Jackson, the Democrat, or Charles B. Smith, the Republican. Speaker Reed put this question to the Members:

"Will the House consider the resolution?"

The yeas and nays were demanded with this result: 162 yeas, 3 nays, and 163 not voting. Democrats, led by Charles Crisp (who succeeded Reed as Speaker in the next two Congresses), then declared that the absence of a quorum--a quorum was 179--prevented the House from making decisions. But Speaker Reed directed the Clerk to record as present but not voting a sufficient number of Members to constitute an official quorum for the transaction of legislative business.


Immediately, Reed's action produced an uproar in the House that lasted several days. "Tyranny," "scandal," and "revolution" were some of the words used to describe Reed's action. Democrats "foamed with rage," wrote historian Barbara Tuchman.

A hundred of them were on their feet howling for recognition. 'Fighting Joe' Wheeler, the diminutive former Confederate cavalry general, unable to reach the front because of the crowded aisles, came down from the rear leaping from desk to desk as an ibex leaps from crag to crag. As the excitement grew wilder, the only Democrat not on his feet was a huge representative from Texas who sat in his seat significantly whetting a bowie knife on his boot.(64)

Speaker Reed remained firm in the face of this parliamentary tumult and angry debate. He continued to count nonvoting legislators for quorum purposes. Reed even ordered the doors of the chamber locked when Democrats tried to exit. Finally, after five days of stridency, the contested election case was taken up and Republican Smith emerged the victor by a vote of 166 yeas, 0 nays, and 162 not voting. Then, on February 6, 1890, the Reed-led Rules Committee reported a new set of House rules. One of the new rules--Rule 15--established a new procedure for determining quorums (counting lawmakers in the chamber who had voted as well as those who did not vote); another new rule--Rule 16--stated: "No dilatory motion shall be entertained by the Speaker." Other important procedural changes involved reducing to 100 the quorum required to conduct business in the Committee of the Whole; granting the Speaker the right to refer measures to committee without debate; and recognizing formally that rules from the Rules Committee are to be adopted by simple majority vote. Eight days later, on February 14, 1890, the House adopted the "Reed Rules." Plainly, the thrust of these changes was to strengthen the authority of the majority party leadership at the expense of rank-and-file members and minority partisans.

The 51st Congress (1889-1891) proved to be one of the most partisan and productive of that era. Speaker Reed mobilized majorities to pass more than 600 public bills. Needless to say, Reed dominated the Rules Committee. According to one account, the Speaker would inform the two Democrats on the panel that he, William McKinley, R-Ohio (soon to be President), and Joseph Cannon, R-Ill. (soon to be Speaker), "have decided to perpetuate the following outrage." Then he would read and give the two Democrats "a copy of whatever special order had been adopted by the majority of the committee."(65) The Rules Committee, Reed said, must "arrange the order of business and decide how and in what way certain measures shall be considered."(66)

Like many speakers that came after him, Reed employed the Rules Committee to accomplish his partisan and policy objectives. Worth noting is that Democrats won control of the House in the election of 1890, and Speaker Crisp returned to the former practice of not counting lawmakers who were present but who did not vote. Minority Leader Reed led several GOP filibusters against Democratic measures, and soon Speaker Crisp supported a rules change which ended the silent quorum tactic once and for all. Speaker Crisp, too, expanded Rule's authority to govern the House's agenda. He ruled that "the question of consideration could [not] be raised against a report from the Committee on Rules."(67)

In 1895, Reed returned to the speakership. However, in a dispute with President William McKinley, Reed resigned from the House in 1899. David Henderson, R-Iowa, succeeded Reed as Speaker and served four years before retiring from the House. The election of Joseph Cannon, R-Ill., as Speaker in 1903 eventually led to the dramatic 1910 House "revolt" against his arbitrary and heavy-handed use of procedures, including the Rules Committee, to obstruct the House's will.

In sum, Reed riveted into House procedure the principle of majority governance. For Reed this meant party government and he utilized his position on the Rules Committee and as Speaker to facilitate that goal. As Reed once said: "The best system is to have one party govern and the other party watch; and on general principles I think it would be better for us to govern and for the Democrats to watch."(6 More generally, Reed argued that accountability and efficiency in lawmaking were paramount values in the conduct of the public's business. "When a legislative body makes rules," he wrote, "it does not make them as the people make constitutions, to limit power and provide for rights. They are made to facilitate the orderly and safe conduct of business."(69) The determination of what constitutes "orderly and safe conduct" remains to this day a fundamental assignment of the Rules Committee.


edited for formatting
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8th Army Korea 68-69

[shawa]

Great post, GM!
Frist better get some cajones pretty soon.
Specter is a disaster. Either Specter is deliberately playing ball with the Libs, or he is just plain
dumb and incompetent.
I don't think he is dumb, more like he's deliberately pandering
to HIS liberal base, just like we expected he would.

Check this article by Robert Novak:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak071.html
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“I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. ‘Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death.” (Thomas Paine, 1776)

[srmorton]

This is outrageous!! Senator Frist had better keep his word to do
everything in his power to break these unconstitutional judicial
filibusters or his presidential aspirations are finished! As for Spector,
he is even worse than I thought he would be. After he owes his
re-election to President Bush, he is trying to appease the Dems
rather than doing what is best for the confirmation of these outstanding
nominees. Hopefully, as Novak says, the Dems will be too partisian to
take advantage of Spector's treachery.
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Susan R. Morton

[GM Strong]

Time review this again. Rush brought it up 5/11/05 to my delight.


http://66.216.126.164/comment/barnes200503070752.asp
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8th Army Korea 68-69

[kate]

[GM Strong]

He is echoing Speaker Reed. Sen Frist had better follow through. McCain and the RINO faction had better pay heed.
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8th Army Korea 68-69