Left and Libertarians Unite to Amend House Spending Bills.

[elleng]

From abortion to electronic privacy to gun background checks, a strange thing has been happening on the floor of the House as it debates its spending bills for the coming fiscal year: the stirrings of liberalism.

The House on Thursday voted 221-200 to approve an amendment by one of its most vocal liberal members, Representative Rosa DeLauro, Democrat of Connecticut, to ban federal contracts for companies that set up sham headquarters in offshore tax havens like Bermuda. Thirty-four Republicans bucked their party to push it to passage.

That was only the most recent stirring of life on the House’s left flank. Democrats have long hoped they could find common cause on at least some issues with the Republican conference’s libertarian wing. That is starting to happen, fueled by rising distrust of government on the right, a willingness of Democrats to defy the Obama administration in some instances and a freewheeling amendment process on appropriations bills.

Lawmakers involved in the legislating say their successes on the spending bills are not the result of luck or happenstance, but of concerted outreach and negotiations. As momentum builds, those efforts could extend beyond routine spending bills to larger policy matters, like overhauling mandatory prison sentencing laws, reinstituting voting-rights protections stripped away by the Supreme Court, or pressing far-reaching changes to intelligence and surveillance practices.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/16/us/politics/left-and-libertarians-unite-to-amend-house-spending-bills.html?&hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&version=HpSum&module=second-column-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news

[leftstreet]

1. There are Leftists in the House? Since when? n/t

[Comrade Grumpy]

2. We also see this on drug policy. When Rand Paul stands with Pat Leahy on sentencing reform...

...I stand with both of them.

[woo me with science]

10. +100000

[woo me with science]

3. K&R Breaking the partisan con game they use to keep us divided

and unable to stop malignant policy.

This is very good news, to see people uniting on important issues rather than labels.

[Bonobo]

4. +1. Woo, you are a clear thinker.

I love how you remain relatively uninfluenced by the claptrap that clouds the minds of so many.

[woo me with science]

7. I return the compliment with great respect, Bonobo.

Isn't it nice to see some resistance to the con game.

[sabrina 1]

9. I agree!

[sabrina 1]

6. I agree, it is very good news. Some Dems have always worked with the

Libertarians in Congress, Kucinich and Grayson eg, have worked with Ron Paul on several issues, in Kucinich's case the Iraq War and the funding eg. I am happy to hear this may be more widespread because we certainly need something to happen to disrupt the left/right games they've been playing where the 'left' seems to vote 'right' more often than not.

[woo me with science]

8. Yes, they definitely deserve our thanks.

I really think the country is getting ready to move beyond the con game. It's interesting to see the rhetoric of the left *and* the right starting to coalesce around themes of ridding the country of corporate cronyism and returning representation to the people.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025092718

[lonestarnot]

5. I'm not holding my breath, that may raise my blood pressure.