It May be Sunshine Week, But There Are Dark Clouds over the Slaughter House

Wednesday, March 17, 2010 5:20 PM

House Republicans held a press conference earlier today calling for allowing cameras to be admitted to the Rules Committee's deliberations on the procedural questions relating to the government health bill.

There are only three committees that are not covered by cameras, and the Rules committee is one of them.  But certainly after all the promises relating to procedural transparency for the health care debate, it would only be appropriate if taxpayers were finally being treated to the promised openness.

The general refusal to open up the process to more public scrutiny, however, is in line with Speaker Pelosi's statement a couple of days ago that"we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it." Realizing that the public's disapproval of the package grows with every passing minute, Leadership is ready to use every tactic at their disposal to just get this bill passed as swiftly as possible, and if that means sacrificing transparency and accountability, so be it.

One can't help but notice the irony, though, that of all weeks Sunshine Week would be the week for them to try to shut the public out, skirt a roll call vote on the actual bill and ram this package through once and for all.

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