Dem Aide: GOP Claims about Lantos Fracas “Preposterous”

As we noted earlier, there was something of an uproar in the House this morning when a Republican called for a vote during the memorial service for Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA). The vote was part of a general Republican effort to delay the scheduled vote on contempt resolutions against White House officials.

As the Politico reported, there has already been plenty of rancor over the move. The Dems, via a spokeswoman for House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-MD) called the move “unjustifiable.” But GOPers said it was justifiable, and explained that the Dems were really at fault because they broke their commitment to keep the House in recess during the memorial service:

“The reason for the chaos is the majority,” [Jo Maney, a spokeswoman for Republicans on the House Rules Committee] said. “We made clear we would use every procedural rule” to delay the contempt votes.

“There was an agreement that there would be no votes during the service, but they [Democrats] rang the bells” to bring the House back into session, Maney said.

But a Dem leadership aide responded that that explanation doesn’t hold water:

“This is the height of disrespect and completely shameful. None of their procedural options were denied by starting when we did; they just chose to call for a vote at the most inappropriate time. The idea that Republicans had no choice is preposterous, all they had to do was allow debate to continue for another 20 minutes and the service could have concluded in peace.”

We’ve bounced it back over to the Republican to side to see if they have a rejoinder. Here’s video of Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-FL) explaining why he called the vote.

Update: Here’s CQ’s version of what happened.

Update: To cap it all off, see House Minority Whip Roy Blunt’s (R-MO) floor comments on this below:

“First of all, I was at the memorial service for Tom Lantos this morning, as many of you were, and I was privileged to be there. And frankly there are very few members of Congress in the history of the Congress that we would have this type of service for today – with the Foreign Minister of Israel, the Secretary of State, the head of the United Nations, and the Speaker of House all in attendance. It was an impressive service for an impressive man and I hate that we’re having this debate around any lack of respect for that service.

“On the other hand, the only work we had to do today was one hour of debate on a rule that would then also replace the debate. One hour of debate. The service was scheduled to last from 10:00 until 11:30. It turned out it lasted until 11:50. When at 10:45 the majority decides we’re going to start the one hour of work we have to do today at 11:00, the majority should expect the other side to complain. If in fact Mr. Diaz-Balart had not had his objection, 50 minutes of that one hour of debate would have been gone before I ever walked out of the memorial service.

“Of course we should have said, let’s not start the debate on the only work we’re doing today, while we’re passing up the work on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. We’re voting instead on how you can kill rats in the technical correction to the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act. That’s the only debate we’re having today. With 50 minutes of the one hour of debate today occurring during the memorial service, of course Lincoln Diaz-Balart or somebody should have stepped up to stop that. And thank goodness he did. And I am really sad that a service we should have all agreed on would be the priority of the morning we couldn’t manage for that to be the priority of the morning.

“I regret that my good friend had to rise to this moment of personal privilege but I certainly support him in seeking this privilege and hope that the members of the house will understand what happened here and appreciate the great respect we all have for tom Lantos. I yield back.”