House Democrats strip GOP minority of a key clock-management tool

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In a move that is simultaneously the most inside of inside baseball, deeply historic, and possibly of great importance from a policy perspective, the House Democratic majority stripped the Republican minority of one of its few remaining powers: The right to argue until the cows come home. 

Technically, Friday afternoon’s action was a revision of the House’s permanent rules. In effect, it deprives the GOP of its most potent remaining tool: The ability to slow passage of bills in the Legislature to a near-halt at crucial junctures, which in turn limits the number of bills that can pass before lawmakers adjourn for the year. This right to stall by making your point at exhaustive and exhausting length had been on the books for more than a century, through both Democratic and Republican majorities.

Here’s why you should care about this: If you’re a left-leaning progressive, Republicans’ use of such dilatory tactics in recent years has been a galling, antidemocratic barrier to progress. If you’re a conservative opposed to the agenda of the increasingly progressive Democratic majority, it’s been a fragile seawall holding back a tsunami of bad ideas.  

This photo of House Speaker Laurie Jinkins, D-Tacoma, is actually from last year, but you can readily project a seething desire to gavel the Republicans into silence. (Photo by Tim Gruver.)