Republican Congressional Walkout:Lou Dobbs is the only show that covered it.

minigunwielder

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0708/03/ldt.01.html
If you heard nothing of this, well, you arent the only one.

Uproar and chaos in the House of Representatives, a rare walkout by lawmakers. We will show you. We will be reporting to you on why. And we will be joined by the House minority leader here next.

DOBBS: There was chaos, angry charges of unfairness, a walkout, tensions boiling over in the House of Representatives late last night, Republicans shouting at the Democrats, "Shame, shame."

And as Lisa Sylvester now reports, Republicans today remained furious. They say Democrats tried to stop an effort to deny benefits to illegal aliens.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The floor of the House of Representatives disintegrated into a shouting match.

REP. MICHAEL MCNULTY (D), NEW YORK: ... to 214. The motion is unagreed to.

SYLVESTER: Angry Republicans erupted with chants of "Shame, shame."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Shame, shame, shame, shame, shame!

SYLVESTER: The explosion happened as the House was debating whether to prohibit illegal aliens from receiving welfare benefits. Deciding Democrat Michael McNulty ruled that the vote failed.

Even though when the gavel came down, the official tally showed otherwise: 215 in favor, 213 against. Democrats then accepted additional vote switches, changing the final tally to 216 against, 212 in favor. Republicans walked off the floor.

REP. MIKE PENCE (R), INDIANA: Republicans won the vote to deny illegal immigrants welfare benefits, and the imperial Democrat majority changed the vote.

REP. BRIAN BILBRAY (R), CALIFORNIA: There are people in this town that are willing to break the rules and do extraordinary maneuvers just so that illegal aliens can get benefits.

SYLVESTER: Earlier in the week Republicans butted heads with Democrats over legislation that allows illegal aliens to participate in a children's health care program.

And it comes amid Republican complaints that Democrats are engaging in heavy-handed tactics to push their agenda.

REP. JEB HENSARLING (R), TEXAS: They said this would be the most fair, open and Democratic Congress ever. And they did not shoot straight with the American people.

SYLVESTER: Democrats offered apologies but were not willing to change the vote.

MCNULTY: I wish to express my apology to all of the members of the House for calling the vote prematurely.

REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: A misunderstanding occurred. An apology for that inconvenience was given. And now we're moving onto what's next.

SYLVESTER: The dust-up forced the House into recess for most of the morning.

(END VIDEOTAPE) SYLVESTER: And now we have a standoff. Republicans say until this issue is resolved, they will not proceed with any business. The only exceptions are two pieces of legislation: to respond to the Minnesota bridge collapse and action on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act -- Lou.

DOBBS: That is just outright. A vote 215-213 as the gavel fell. That's about as bizarre as anything I've seen in the House in a long time.

SYLVESTER: You know, even Democrats are acknowledging this was unfair to Republicans, but they are unwilling to change the vote.

The bottom line is, and you can review this tape, the gavel goes down, the count was 215 to 213, but it was called 214 to 214. And with Congress, that is essentially "does not pass."

DOBBS: Well, the niceties of Congress. Speaking of is that, Lisa Sylvester, thank you.

Those Republicans tonight are outraged. I'm going to be talking with one of the most outraged among those officials about the high- handed majority.

Joining me now is the House minority whip, Roy Blunt, who's been highly critical of the Democrats' conduct last night.

I want to point out here, Congressman Blunt, we also invited Democratic members of the House leadership to discuss this issue with us here tonight, and they declined. Good to have you with us.

REP. ROY BLUNT (R-MO), MINORITY WHIP: Good to be with you. I don't blame for them for declining. I think, as you said, Lou, this was a pretty clear cut and outrageous determination to do the wrong thing.

And the real losers here are American taxpayers and Americans who are competing in the marketplace today.

This was an amendment that said people who were in the country illegally couldn't benefit from housing programs and couldn't be employed under this program.

And the Democrats -- 17 of the Democrats agreed with us. You know, we don't have a majority. So 17 of them agreed with us. That's how we got to that 215 number. And it was clearly ignored and abused by the majority party yesterday.

DOBBS: Well, meanwhile, the Democratic Party's leadership are driving through legislation with benefits for illegal aliens in this country, expressly against the wishes of the people, as revealed by poll after poll and by, I'm sure, their own -- the Congress's own telephone system and e-mail systems.

But I mean, what looked to me like, Congressman, and I've got to declare myself here. I'm an independent populist. I don't have a dog in your hunt. I mean, I don't think much of the job Republicans did in Congress last year. I don't think much of the job Democrats are doing.

But to watch that vote, 215-213, I've got to be honest with you, that's the kind of conduct I expect from some sort of banana republic.

BLUNT: Well, it's bad conduct, and I hope that our friends in the majority pay a price for it and learn a lesson from it.

People can expect us to come here to debate, to solve problems, to be an example of democracy, not an example of the kind of situation you just talked about. It's outrageous. It needs to change.

Last week, as was said before, we took money away from seniors with a Medicare cut so we could add money to both legal and illegal immigrants in the Children's Health Care Program. We almost -- all the Republicans, all but five of the Republicans voted against that, too.

We're going to fight this fight. And it's an important fight to fight. But it's hard to fight when they change the rules at the end of the game.

DOBBS: I don't know what -- I don't know what difference any of your votes will make, frankly, at this point. If -- if the leadership can simply call, as Congressman McNulty did, a 215-213 vote. That's remarkable.

But also remarkable is the idea that Congressman McNulty, whom I don't know -- I do know -- Congress -- Speaker Pelosi, the crocodile tears they were shedding over their regrettable error, for which they did apologize but which they won't make right.

BLUNT: Well, normally, you know, one of our common members early this morning mentioned to me maybe we just ought to vote our burning cards. If it doesn't do any good, if it doesn't make any difference, maybe our protest should be just to permanently realize that they're going to do whatever they want to do.

That's why we walked away last night. If our votes don't matter, let's not stand here and let the majority pretend like they do. And that they are advancing an agenda that the American people agree with. Because they don't agree with this agenda. And you and I both, I think, know that, Lou, as you said.

Our letters and our phone calls and our town hall meetings would all give plenty of evidence that we need to secure the borders. We need to have people who are in the workplace, in the workplace legally, and they don't need to be working for the federal government.

DOBBS: Well, I guess it was a result of last night, one could almost say, that the law was broken in terms of counting that vote to help those who had broken the law. So perhaps there is perfect symmetry in what has passed.

BLUNT: I'm very offended, as I can tell you are, by what happened yesterday. And I hope -- I hope it creates enough concern that this system changes. This Congress is now the least popular in the history of the country, and maybe that's why.

DOBBS: Well, I got to tell you, I can't see them after this, popularity rising. For either party in this -- in this Congress and in this dispute.

Congressman Roy Blunt, we thank you for being here.

TL;DR: Democrats vote after the fucking gavel went down, republicans walk out of congress.

Feral

This is just sad.

Edit: apparently the computerized voting system was down that day, and the issue is not that McNulty allowed votes to be changed after the gavel, but that he gaveled too early.

And the error has been corrected, and the measure ultimately passed. This is a non-issue, and if the Republicans actually did threaten a walkout over this, they're just making themselves look like spoiled children.

minigunwielder

ahh, that explains it.

when did they figure out that there was a problem?

minigunwielder

Also, close thread.

Feral

I just did a Google news search for 'mcnulty' and 'gavel.'

Gosling

So the original result was 'pass' and then got changed to 'against', then back to 'pass'.

Bad gaveling, but at least the proper result eventually came. (Whether I agree with that result or not.) Proper punishment here, I'd say, is little more than not letting McNulty near the gavel again. (Which is in fact punishment- being the speaker-for-a-day gets you face time on camera, free spots on the news you wouldn't get otherwise, makes you look like you have some measure of power to your constituents even if you don't, and helps your chances of re-election.)

Elki