Freedom Caucus Board Says Pelosi Must Go
Posted September 18, 2020Pelosi must go - the House is in dire need of new leadership
By REPS. ANDY BIGGS (R-ARIZ.), ANDY HARRIS (R-MD.), JODY HICE (R-GA.), PAUL GOSAR (R-ARIZ.), AND CHIP ROY (R-TEXAS), OPINION CONTRIBUTORS - 09/17/20 06:00 PM EDT
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has consistently demonstrated both an inability and unwillingness to govern, and her complicit alliance with the extremists of the far left put the future and well-being of the United States of America in peril. Our nation cannot afford to wait until January to end her toxic leadership and chart a new and better course. Congress must immediately move forward on a resolution to "vacate the chair" and thereby remove Pelosi as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.
Time and again throughout the 116th Congress, the Speaker has put partisan grandstanding above the needs of the American people. Her politically motivated misuse of House rules and procedures have relegated the chamber and its members to mere spectators in the business of legislating and problem-solving.
Where to begin? For starters, Pelosi has all but removed the most fundamental responsibility of a member of Congress - voting. This summer, the Speaker broke with over 230 years of precedent by jamming through H.Res. 965, authorizing so-called "proxy voting," which unconstitutionally allows a member to delegate his or her vote to another without being present, as well as allowing a proxy vote to count towards a quorum.
For two centuries, through the Yellow Fever of 1793, which took out 10 percent of the population of Philadelphia, the burning of the Capitol during the War of 1812, the Civil War, the Spanish Flu of 1918, both world wars, and 9/11, Congress never flinched from its constitutional duty to assemble in Washington, D.C. to conduct the People's business.
Under the new rules of Pelosi, only 23 of the 435 members of the House need to be present for the chamber to conduct business. You read that correctly. Thanks to the Speaker, the House can now pass legislation with roughly 5 percent of the chamber present to vote. The other 95 percent of the House could be rendered powerless. Exactly how Pelosi wants it.
You see, it wasn't difficult to predict where we were headed under Pelosi, given that she has routinely bypassed the committee process and blocked amendments for every bill, effectively shutting out participation for rank-and-file members of both parties as the House has considered important matters such as policing reform, surface transportation reauthorization, ObamaCare, FISA, and the $3 trillion HEROES Act, just to name a few.
For the Speaker's pi�ce de r�sistance, she opened (for the first time in our nation's history) a presidential impeachment inquiry without a vote of the full House to authorize it, inflicting yet another serious blow to our constitutional system and wasting precious legislative time we could have spent working to solve America's real problems.
Not only is Speaker Pelosi tearing down the institution of the House, but she's also encouraging the same lawlessness and rioting which is eroding the very foundation our nation. She doesn't care about the mobs and ongoing attacks on Americans and their property. She refuses to take any steps to restore the rule of law. In her words, "people will do what they do." Pelosi won't address calls within her party to "defund the police," and accused congressional Republicans of "getting away with murder" for bending over backwards to get her to bring bipartisan police reforms to the floor.
And let us not forget that while Republicans continue to try to accomplish the work of the American people, the Speaker labeled every Republican in America, not simply those in Congress, "enemies of the state."
Let us remind you that the same person who is likening half of America to domestic terrorists was the very individual who has refused to condemn anti-Semitic statements made by her fellow Democrat members. She is the same individual who helped force stringent lockdowns on Americans, causing unknown individuals to forgo medical screenings and treatments, die alone without loved ones in hospitals, lose the businesses they spent their lives building, and more, while she gets haircuts in a fancy private salon in San Francisco while - you guessed it - not wearing the mask she demands Americans wear every single day. Even worse, she, who makes the laws, claimed she didn't know the rules.
Given this track record, and with the important business of revitalizing our country after the damage caused by COVID-19, continuing government oversight, and funding the 2021 fiscal year of government spending still before us, we should not wait until a new Congress to address this historically poor leadership. The lack of true leadership in the House is undermining our democracy, destroying the institution of Congress, sabotaging our national economy, and fomenting violence and danger in our communities.
It is time for the House of Representatives to work for the American people again, but it cannot do that without new leadership. Pelosi must go.
Andy Biggs, Andy Harris, Jody Hice, Paul Gosar and Chip Roy are members of the House Freedom Caucus Board.