Republican Outrages

The House's second-ranking Democrat yesterday called for an ethics investigation into a Michigan congressman's assertion that unnamed GOP colleagues offered $100,000 for his son's congressional campaign if the lawmaker would vote for a contentious Medicare bill.

Rep. Steny H. Hoyer (Md.) said the House ethics committee "ought to investigate," although he did not file a formal request in the case involving Rep. Nick Smith (R-Mich.).

It took intensive lobbying by President Bush and House Republican leaders, combined with the longest floor vote on record, to pull off House passage early Saturday morning of the most significant Medicare overhaul in the program's 38-year history.

The House vote began at 3 a.m., and by 5 a.m. it appeared the Medicare legislation would be rejected 216-218. But the Republican whip operation, aided by telephone calls to lawmakers from Bush and work on the House floor by Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson, then persuaded six lawmakers to switch their votes.

In the pre-dawn partisan tumult after the extended Medicare vote, Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer, D-Md., took to the microphones to liken the situation to one 16 years before — an instance that remains one of the formative moments of the House's current political dynamic.

WASHINGTON -- Collecting dust atop a desk in the office of House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., is a laptop computer displaying a digital clock.

At 11 a.m. on Friday, it read: 161 days, 15 hours, 11 minutes, and 00 seconds.

The "Working Families Tax Fairness Clock" has served as a useful prop whenever Hoyer talks to the media about a bill to grant child tax credits to low-income families.

The clock shows the time that has lapsed since the House passed a tax credit bill on June 12.

The congressional year ends with the future of President Bush's vaunted energy bill uncertain and no decision on how to fix the nation's crumbling highways or avoid a looming trade war with Europe. With Republicans in control of the White House and both houses of Congress, it wasn't supposed to be this hard.

Washington -- Angry House Democrats, still smarting over extraordinary parliamentary maneuvers that Republicans used last month to pass the Medicare bill President Bush signed Monday, sought to upstage Bush's big moment by taking to the floor to embarrass the House leadership.

WASHINGTON, DC – House Democratic Whip Steny H. Hoyer (MD) this afternoon spoke out on the House Floor in opposition to the Republican FY 2004 Omnibus Appropriations Bill.  The following is Rep. Hoyer’s statement as prepared for delivery:

WASHINGTON – House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) released the following statement today regarding the announcement that the House and Senate Republican leadership, under pressure from the White House, have agreed to include a provision in the Transportation, Treasury conference report that would undo fair competition processes for federal employees and weaken federal worker protections.  The following is Rep. Hoyer’s statement as prepared for delivery:

Democratic WhipSays America's Seniors Are the Losers in the Process

WASHINGTON, DC – House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (MD) released the following statement this morning regarding the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision today invalidating new Congressional Districts redrawn by the state’s Republican legislature: