A short note about

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A short note about the vote. The DeLay Rule vote, that is.

A number of congressmen (no congresswomen yet) are now telling their constituents that there’s no question to answer because the DeLay Rule never came to a vote. (Staffers from Congressmen Tom Davis and Tom Feeney offices have both used this line, according to TPM readers.)

Nice try.

As we noted earlier, the rule was put to a voice-vote in the GOP caucus meeting. That means they asked for yeas and nays. And the yeas had it.

So it’s true that there was no recorded vote. So there’s no truly definitive way to know one way or another what a particular representative did unless they conspicuously said one thing or another and other members saw them say it.

All we really have to go on is how they say they voted.

Based on published accounts of members in the meeting, the number of ‘nays’ has been described as anything between a “handful” of members to between 30 and 50.

As we’ve already noted, it seems there are more members who now claim to have been in the Shays Handful than anyone saw voting ‘nea’ at the meeting. But what can you do?

In any case, the relevant point is that there was a vote. It wasn’t recorded. There’s no official tally. But everyone who was there was asked to say yea or nea. Why shouldn’t they be willing tell their constituents what they said?

One final note: If your member of congress tells you there wasn’t a vote, ask them whether those in the Shays Handful are lying when they say they voted against it.

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