Of the People, By the People, For Countrywide Insurance

Congress has reached a new level of immaturity. This week, congressional Democrats, let by Congressman Edolphus Towns (NY) decided to lock the minority Republicans out of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee room.

The most logical question would be why the majority in the committee made all that effort to change the locks on the committee room door so that the minority couldn't meet.

It was retaliation.

According to The Hill...

Towns’ action came after repeated public ridicule from the leading Republican on the committee, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.), over Towns’s failure to launch an investigation into Countrywide Mortgage’s reported sweetheart deals to VIPs.

For months Towns has refused Republican requests to subpoena records in the case. Last Thursday Committee Republicans, led by Issa, were poised to force an open vote on the subpoenas at a Committee mark-up meeting. The mark-up was abruptly canceled. Only Republicans showed up while Democrats chairs remained empty.

The story continues (bold font added)...

A GOP committee staffer captured video of Democrats leaving their separate meeting in private chambers after the mark-up was supposed to have begun. He spliced the video to other footage of the Democrats’ empty chairs at the hearing room, set it to the tune of “Hit the Road, Jack” and posted it on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee’s minority webpage, where it remained as of press time.

Towns’s staffers told Republicans they were not happy about the presence of the video camera in the hearing room when they were not present. Issa’s spokesman said the Democrats readily acknowledged to Republicans that they changed the locks in retaliation to the videotape of the Democrats’ absence from the business meeting even though committee rules allow meetings to be taped.

So, let me see if I can summarize this.

• There's a committee in Congress that was formed specifically to investigate corruption and misuse of government funds.
• Countrywide Insurance allegedly misused government funds to create sweatheart deals for VIP clients.
• Republicans in the aforementioned committee wanted to investigate.
• Democrats in the aforementioned committee said "no".
• Republicans videotaped Democrats ditching the aforementioned committee's hearing that would have required Countrywide to submit their financial records for investigation.
• Democrats were embarrassed.
• Democrats ordered the locks to be changed on the aforementioned committee room's doors, so that Republicans couldn't get in.

There are two things I gather from this: (1) Congressman Towns has the maturity level of a 5th grader. (2) This reeks of elected officials playing the lobbyist game.