Those people, for some reason, remind me of little kids playing "dress up".
Partisan tension has been growing in recent months on the committee. Democrats have frequently complained that the panel has not held hearings on topics of interest to them. In December, ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) began holding alternative hearings using one of the committee’s smaller hearing rooms.
Republicans objected to the first hearing in December, noting that participants had called Conyers “Mr. Chairman” and that the proceedings very closely resembled an official hearing. Their complaints prompted Conyers to redub the gatherings “forums” and to ask attendees to refrain from addressing him as “Mr. Chairman.”
After Conyers’s most recent forum several weeks ago, Democrats were notified that they would be denied future use of hearing rooms.
Now Conyers plans to take the meetings to the Democratic National Committee headquarters on South Capitol Street, where he will again call them hearings and be addressed as “Mr. Chairman,” said his spokeswoman Dena Graziano. “He would be chairman of the Judiciary Committee Democrats,” she said.
One such Democratic hearing is slated for tomorrow covering the so-called “Downing Street Memo” on prewar intelligence.
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and
Judiciary GOP pulls the plug on Conyers 'forums'
If the Financial Services Committee is the best in the House when it comes to bipartisan comity, then the Judiciary Committee may well be the worst.
In December, ranking Democrat John Conyers (Mich.) began holding “forums” — gatherings with all the trappings of official hearings — after Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) refused to hold hearings on topics Conyers requested. The forums have been held in smaller committee rooms, often with C-SPAN coverage and formal witness lists.
In a sign of how far relationships on the committee have soured, majority staff recently announced a new policy to deny any request from a committee Democrat for the use of a committee hearing room.
Majority spokesman Jeff Lungren said the Republicans have given Democrats three opportunities to make clear that the forums are not official committee business. Nevertheless, Lungren said, in at least one case, members were addressing Conyers as “Mr. Chairman.”
“They were unwilling or unable to make those changes,” Lungren said. “At this point, if they want to hold these forums, they’ll have to find some other place to do it.”
Sean McLaughlin, deputy chief of staff for Sensenbrenner, recently wrote to a minority staffer in more pointed language.
“I’m sitting here watching your ‘forum’ on C-SPAN,” McLaughlin wrote. “Just to let you know, it was your last. Don’t bother asking [for a room] again.”
A committee source said committee Democrats are still planning to hold the forums when they find other available space.
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