Altered rule poses danger

Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: April 13, 2008

“What nation would conclude a treaty with the United States knowing that Congress can change the rules of the game after it is negotiated?” asked House Minority Leader John Boehner.
Indeed.
Political gamesmanship on Capitol Hill is now putting at risk the very honor of the United States.
Also in peril, of course, are the economic and political advantages of the trade treaty with Colombia that is now being subjected to rewritten rules in Congress.
Under legislative rules regarding trade negotiations, Congress must vote on the free-trade pact within 90 days and cannot make changes to it.
Instead of honoring that rule, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised to change it.
The United States and Colombia initially completed the pact in 2006, then reworked it last year in an attempt to meet the concerns of a strengthened Democratic Party regarding labor and environmental issues. The White House has been trying to schedule a vote in Congress since last year.
Finally frustrated, the president chose to send the treaty to Congress and force its hand. Under the rules, Congress would have to vote the treaty up or down within the deadline.
Instead, Ms. Pelosi said she would seek a rules change to freeze action on the deal.
Changing the rules midstream to ensure a favored outcome is cynical in the extreme.
Indeed, it is corrupt.
Ms. Pelosi has suggested that Congress wants, and needs, to place its attention on dealing with the domestic economic crisis.
She and other congressional leaders also have said that the plan would not pass in any event; opposition to it remains too strong.
However, their critics contend that the effort to rewrite the rules and delay action is not due to any tender concern for improving the treaty and ensuring its eventual acceptance. Rather, say critics, Democrats simply do not want to touch the controversial treaty during an election year; they instead want to neutralize it as a campaign issue by taking it off the table.
There is also a hint of personal pique in her decision. A “good faith” effort to massage the treaty into acceptability “is not possible if the president of the United States is going to usurp the discretion of the speaker of the House to bring a bill to the floor.”
There should be no “discretion” about altering rules in the middle of the process. Where is the “good faith” in that? 
Any rationale for thwarting the rules is potentially dangerous. If rules of procedure mean nothing, then the legislative process can be warped — and, moreover, it can be warped at the “discretion” of a single powerful person.
This is not the way democracy should work.
The effort to change the rules after the process was under way dishonors Congress.
And failure to adhere to its own rules dishonors the United States in the sight of its treaty partners, and the rest of the world.