socialmedian: GOP Boycotts Senate Climate Change Hearing (VIDEO)

User-submitted headlines for this story

Clips

GOP Boycotts Senate Climate Change Hearing (VIDEO)

Source: Huffington Post

Nov 04, 2009

Summary

Barbara Boxer is out in front on climate change in the Senate. As a result, she spent much of Tuesday sitting by herself.

From the beginning, it was a bizarre day for Boxer's Environment and Public Works Committee and the climate-change debate in general. Making good on their boycott threats from last week, none of the seven committee Republicans were in their seats at the start of Tuesday's hearing.

This attempt to stall the committee from beginning to mark up the Kerry-Boxer climate bill was based on the EPW rule that at least two members of the minority have to be present before opening a markup. But that's just a nicety, and Boxer isn't known for being all that nice. "Sen. Boxer has been as patient as I've ever seen her. I've been with her since 1982," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.).

Boxer doesn't need to be patient, necessarily. She doesn't really need any Republicans to simply pass the bill out of the committee, which has 12 Democratic senators to the 7 from the GOP.

Democrats weren't surprised that one side of the committee dais was empty.

...Read the full article

Comments (0)

Add Your Comment