By Rick Manning
Two big stories that impact politics in America happened this past weekend, one you likely heard about, the other you probably haven’t.
The first is the election of a Republican to a Senate seat in Louisiana on Saturday that had been held by Democrats continuously since 1888. The win by Rep. Bill Cassidy finalizes the disintegration of the Democratic Party in their once solid south.
Once the new Congress and statehouses are sworn in, with the exception of Sen. Bill Nelson in Florida, there will not be a Democrat Governor or U.S. Senator from North Carolina south, all the way west to Oklahoma.
What once was the home of the yellow dog Democrat who would rather vote for a yellow dog than vote for a Republican is now almost similarly lockstep with Republicans. Senator Mary Landrieu’s loss — she is the daughter of former New Orleans boss Moon Landrieu — is the fourth powerful southern Democrat family that took it on the chin.
In Arkansas, Mark Pryor (David’s son) got crushed in his attempt to retain his Senate seat. Jimmy Carter’s grandson fell short in his attempt to win his spot in the same Governor’s mansion that his family used to launch a presidency, and also in Georgia, Michelle Nunn’s daddy’s popularity didn’t translate to the ballot box for her.
When historians write about the 2014 election the dramatic evisceration to more than 125 years of Democratic rule in the South will be one of their keystone points.
Another story which you are very unlikely to be aware of is that Representative Louie Gohmert of Texas revealed to reporter Matt Boyle of Breitbart that House Leadership pulled a fast one in getting 216 Republican Members to vote for legislation by Rep. Ted Yoho that was supposed to be a statement against President Obama’s executive amnesty.
Leadership made significant changes to the legislation through a normal process called a Manager’s amendment in the House Rules Committee. The problem was that the members outside of Rules Committee were not made aware of the changes — one of which put a massive loophole for Obama to slip through into the language of the bill. The new language provided a caveat to the condemnation and prohibition on Obama’s fiat amnesty by providing a humanitarian exception. This is the exact kind of language that the President has used to justify a good deal of his open borders policies to date.
Whether one supports or opposes the President’s executive amnesty is not what matters in this case. What matters is whether the House Leadership dealt the legislative cards straight up on the bill which narrowly passed.
Gohmert reports that the new language was never made available to the members prior to the vote, and that Majority Whip Scalise’s team actually whipped the old language when the vote was cast. This explosive allegation constitutes such a profound breach of trust that it is almost unfathomable that Speaker Boehner would attempt it.
Yet, there it is.
The last week of the lame duck is being kicked off with a bang that is surely to roil the already unsettled House Republican Conference going into final government funding discussions this week.
Two major stories: One about the death of the southern Democrat and the other about the kind of treachery that not even the fictional House of Cards would attempt to make believable.
Should be quite a week on Capitol Hill.
Rick Manning is the vice president of public policy and communications of Americans for Limited Government.
