Shadegg leads 'speak in' on gas prices as House adjourns
Washington,
Aug 4 -
The following article appeared today in the Arizona Capitol Times:
Shadegg leads 'speak in' on gas prices as House adjourns
By Reid Wilson, Arizona Capitol Times correspondent
Monday, August 4, 2008
It is rare that a sit-in - or rather a speak-in - should happen in the halls of the U.S. House of Representatives. But an unusual scene unfolded Friday as Congress adjourned for August: Instead of rushing for the nearest flight home, as many as forty Republicans, led in part by Arizona Rep. John Shadegg, stayed in the chamber to protest the House's inaction on new energy-production legislation.
With no cameras on, the microphones and lights off, only a smattering of late afternoon tourists and just one Democrat -- Ohio Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who soon left -- Republicans nonetheless took turns demanding a special session of Congress to address high gas prices which, in recent days, inched slightly lower than $3.90 a gallon in the AAA's national average.
The GOP, sensing a winning political issue, has no urge to change the subject, and in a highly unusual move, House Minority Leader John Boehner issued a memo this weekend urging colleagues to return to Washington to call for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to start a new session.
Amazingly, some members are taking time off from their re-election bids, their vacations or simply time at home to return to Washington for more time in a darkened, microphone-free chamber. "Republicans have been phenomenally frustrated by the Speaker's iron hand," Shadegg, R-Ariz., told the Arizona Capitol Times in an interview on his way to Sky Harbor Airport to return to Washington.
"She's used every procedural move in the book to keep Republicans from being able to offer even an amendment or a motion to recommit to put us on the path down the road to more American-made energy," he said, adding that an Aug.1 move to offer a second motion to adjourn the House was "something I've never seen done."
With the microphones off, Republican Reps. Lynn Westmoreland and Tom Price, of Georgia, and Mike Pence, of Indiana, spoke alongside Shadegg. But when Shadegg's turn came, he found the chamber's control panel, and with it, the microphone switch. "I went up and was able to turn those on," he laughed.
Republicans admit that their hopes of getting Pelosi to call their chamber back in session are not high, but Shadegg said even the gesture is worth it. "The odds of (Pelosi) calling us back anytime soon are pretty slim, but the value of this statement to the American people, I think, is pretty substantial," he said. "I think she's misjudged this pretty badly, from what I'm hearing at home."
"Is it rational to continue to ship all our money and all our jobs overseas to people who hate us, or to people who fund people who hate us?" Shadegg asked. "I think that gas, the issue, is viable, even if gas prices drop to, let's hope, $3.50 a gallon or less, because it's not just about gas prices."
Republicans spent much of Aug. 4 on the House floor calling for action as Shadegg prepared to join them. Fellow Arizonan Jeff Flake will head to Washington next week, a spokesman for his office said. Calls and e-mails to the offices of Reps. Trent Franks and Rick Renzi were not immediately returned.
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