Americans for Prosperity in Virginia started this campaign a week ago to record subcommittee votes for the House of Delegates. Looks as if a combination of this effort and the new 15-bills only rule in the House has effected change, as noted by the WaPo:
Americans for Prosperity, a group that supports limited government and free trade, had pushed Republicans to make the switch and submitted hundreds of signatures of those who supported a change.
“This is a great victory for government transparency and a great victory for people in Virginia,” Ben Marchi, state director for Americans for Prosperity, said today.
The rule was primarily designed to get bad legislation off the books quietly and without embarassment. Unfortunately, some of the legislation was designed specifically to do this.
Think back to the “Motions to Recommit” in the U.S. House regarding body armor for the troops that were essentially a Catch-22. Vote for it, and it’s a vote to send the bill back to committee (a vote against the troops); vote against it, and the bill fails on the floor of the House (and troops really don’t get body armor that year).
The Democrats used the tactic masterfully in 2006 through 527s like MoveOn.org to embarrass Republicans. And because you couldn’t boil it down to a five-second clip, it sticks.
House leadership reacted with closed door meetings. Damn shame at the time. Transparency kills off so many bad things… including this deplorable tactic.
In 2007, the Democrats resorted to videotaping every subcommittee vote where they thought they could catch a contested candidate in the House of Delegates off-guard. Now, the work is done for them.
Hopefully a more skeptical electorate will be wise against the tactic, and in the end, who knows? Folks just might be a bit more knowledgeable about how their state legislature works. In 2009, too many people would love to play politics with the ignorance of others.