Joe Pitts for Congress Blog

According to the Constitution, a bill that gets a majority of votes in the House or Senate passes, and can proceed to become law. However, it doesn’t matter how much support a bill has if there isn’t a vote. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Majority Leader Steny Hoyer have the power to decide which bills get voted on and which ones don’t.  Unfortunately, that power is being abused to prevent Republicans from even offering amendments to key bills that are on the floor.  More and more bills are going through the House with no amendments allowed unless they are pre-approved by the Democratic leadership.   There have always been some limits on amendments. But it has never before been done on the all-important appropriations bills that decide how your money is spent.  This week, for the first time ever under the modern appropriations process, Republicans had to get our appropriations amendments pre-approved by Democratic Leaders.  The reason?  They’re scared Democrats will vote with us and our good ideas will become law.