Editorial: Minority vs. majority

Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2004 | 8:43 a.m.

Last week Congress resolved an impasse between the Senate and the House that had held up passage of landmark legislation overhauling the intelligence agencies. The reforms recommended by the 9/11 commission had a tough time getting approval, however, because House Speaker Dennis Hastert had delayed a vote on the legislation.

It wasn't that there weren't enough votes to pass the legislation -- Democrats overwhelmingly supported it. It was because a couple of weeks ago only a minority of the Republicans backed the bill. Hastert, a Republican, said he wouldn't move the legislation unless there was a "majority of the majority." In our view, Hastert needlessly held up the bill.

Republicans claimed Democrats did the same thing on legislation when they were in control of Congress, but on major votes -- such as the North American Free Trade Agreement and authorizing the Gulf War -- Democratic leaders allowed votes to be taken even though there was strong opposition within their party. We hope that as the Republican leaders tackle major issues such as taxes and Social Security that they get rid of this "majority of the majority" nonsense and actually reach out to Democrats, fashioning consensus legislation instead of allowing a minority of Republicans in Congress to dictate what bills will see the light of day.