Thoughts on the First Two Days

I've been house-sitting for the last few days, and so haven't had much to do other than watch C-Span and read. That means I've seen a whole lot of the proceedings on the floor of the House through the first two days, and thought I'd make a few comments on who impressed me, and who did not, early on. I admit to being somewhat surprised by the results.

First, a recap on what Congress has done so far since convening. The answer - not a whole heck of a lot. In the Senate, members have been sworn in, officers have been selected (including the ever-exciting Sergeant-at-Arms and Doorkeeper of the Senate), and a whole lot of simple resolutions have been passed notifying the President and the House that the Senate is in session, and who the leaders and officers are. They also passed their half of a joint resolution renaming a park in Vermont for the late Senator Stafford.

In the House, things have been a bit more exciting. After the tedious election of Speaker Pelosi, the House proceeded to a consideration of a Rules package (after doing the busywork of Officer appointments and announcing resolutions like the Senate). Of the five titles in the rules package, three of them (adoption of the bulk of the 109th Congress' rules, ethics reform, and "civility") pretty much passed without opposition (I think two were unanimous, and a lone Republican voted nay on the other), while two others (pay-go and a miscellaneous section) faced lock-step Republican opposition. Of course, when you're the Majority, you can ram things through anyway (rightly or wrongly), and the Dems did just that, adopting the Rules as they wanted them, without allowing amendments.

Here's who stood out to me in the pieces that I saw and paid attention to:

1.) Ron Paul (R-TX) - Paul stood up at the end of the legislative day today to speak for five minutes. He spoke forcefully against the proposed surge of troops in Iraq, and even more forcefully against any proposed draft. In fact, rather than wanting to impose a draft, Paul wants to pass legislation eliminating the draft; he views it as a form of "indentured servitude," and therefore unconstitutional. I don't know enough about Paul to say whether this a new position for him to take or not, but I can't imagine that it's easy being a Texas Republican with these views.

2.) David Dreier (R-CA) - the ranking member on the House Rules committee, Dreier controlled the Republican side of most of the debate on the new Rules package. He was convincing and forceful in his responses to Democrats, without seeming petty.

3.) Alcee Hastings (D-FL) - the man is smug; he battled back and forth with Dreier a number of times in the early stages of the Rules debate, and I'd say Dreier got the better of him.

4.) Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) - I don't know if our new Speaker is trying to look natural and not pulling it off very well, or if she just naturally looks like she's trying to stage manage things. Seeing her grandchildren scampering all over her was fine, but she seemed to be actively trying to make sure that they'd be in the camera shot with her. I don't know - her speech was good, she was gracious to the Republicans, but it didn't always look smooth.

5.) Steve King (R-IA) - King made a lot of sense today in a 60 minute address to the empty chamber that finished off Friday's House action. I didn't catch the whole thing, but what I caught was pretty dynamite. He made a strong case for line-item removal of earmarks in the middle of the year, talked about the impact (the positive impact, nonetheless) of blogs on the political world, and discussed his desire to get all campaign contributions online in a searchable database that is easily accessed. He made his points quite effectively, without seeming like a nutcase.

6.) Ted Poe (R-TX) - I don't know why he does it, but Poe ends every floor speech with "and that's the way it is." I don't know if it's an homage to someone else, but it's obnoxious, distracting, and more than a little strange.