My memory is faulty and I’m having trouble figuring out how long House Republicans boycotted the House last year when they were in the minority. According to this article they were out for a week:
Near the end of the 2004 session, Republicans boycotted the House for a week, killing dozens of pieces of legislation, because Democrats refused to let them debate a gay marriage ban proposal.
(According to news reports earlier in the week their walkout killed about 80 bills.)
According to Rep. Tom Saunders, quoted here by Rebecca Helmes in the Palladium-Item, the Republicans weren’t gone for even a day:
“There was a real difference here,” Saunders said. “We never stayed gone for an entire day. Basically, we’ve wasted two months.”
I’d be much obliged to anyone who can reconcile the statements for me, or at least tell me when the Republicans were gone last year and whether the House was in session those days (and, if not in session, whether the House didn’t convene solely because the Republicans were gone.)
(And the Republicans are spouting nonsense when they say that their boycott was different because they were trying to force consideration of a bill whereas the Democrats were trying to stop consideration of a bill. By this logic, the Democrats would be justified in walking out any time a committee chair declines to hear a bill. And that, seems to me, makes for a ridiculous distinction. Either they’re both deserving of praise or both deserving of condemnation, and in approximately equal amounts. Less legislation doesn’t bother me. Hypocrisy does.)
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