"Ryan’s difficulty ... is that regular order requires good faith, which is in short supply." That's putting it mildly.

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COMMENTS:
*  Authorizing war against ISL? Nope, too hard.  Voting on a new Authorization to Use Military Force? Nah, too complicated. Turning against mostly women and children fleeing a war zone? You bet! It's an "emergency"! We can break promises to get that done super fast!  Ladies and gentlemen: Your GOP.
*  When in doubt, a GOPer simply makes up something.
*  "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free — except if you're brown and Muslim."  The new GOP-endorsed inscription on the Statue of Liberty.
*  Despite all the knee-jerk right-wing nonsense, Milbank's point remains: In their panic and desire to heighten irrational fear in their base, the Republicans are on the cusp of passing a bill that has warranted less thought and time than renaming a post office for Ronald Reagan. Nothing like another kick to the head for perhaps the most desperate people in the world, people with no home, who've survived a deadly gantlet, who've lost loved ones in horrible circumstances, who have nothing. Of course, this attitude comes from the same bunch who would deny proper medical care, pensions and quality of life to its own citizens. How sad the Republicans are, how very unAmerican.
*  When I get right wing posters on FB that say the President wants to bring refugees here when we have thousands of homeless veterans, I reply that the problem could be fixed if congress and private enterprise worked together...we are the richest nation...it comes down to priorities. Self righteous patriots, those folks, as they revile and malign the President.
*   What does it say about the Republican party that their leadership is not just a Profiles in Cowardice, but much worse. They plan to pass legislation that they know that the president, for decency's sake will veto. This action only pays off in the wake of a terrorist attack that they can blame on the president. That puts them in a position of hoping that their country is attacked by terrorists for their political gain. I'm sure that they have correctly calculated that no wealthy persons will be harmed in the attack they hope for. Only "fly over" Americans will likely be killed.
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Paul Ryan quickly restores the House’s regular disorder
By Dana Milbank, November 18, 2015

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

Three weeks ago, Paul Ryan accepted the speaker’s gavel with a vow to return to “regular order,” in which the Congress runs by deliberation rather than fiat and lawmakers have loose rein to amend and shape legislation. “The committees should retake the lead in drafting all major legislation,” he said, adding that “when we rush to pass bills, a lot of us do not understand we are not doing our job.”

That dream died about 10:15 p.m. Tuesday night. That’s when House leaders announced they would take up a never-before-seen piece of legislation, written that very day, to rewrite the rules of the U.S. refugee program for those coming from Syria and Iraq. There had been, and would be, no hearings or other committee action before the legislation was rushed Thursday to the House floor, where no amendments would be allowed.

H.R. 4038, the “American Security Against Foreign Enemies Act” (a contrivance to produce the abbreviation “SAFE Act”) was not drafted after expert testimony or consultation with the agencies involved with homeland security and refugees. Rather, it was drafted in response to panic whipped up by Republican presidential candidates after the terrorist attacks in Paris.

The bill isn’t unreasonable on its face: establishing new vetting requirements for Iraqi and Syrian refugees in which the heads of the FBI, homeland security and national intelligence must certify to Congress that each refugee is not a security threat. A Ryan spokesman points out that the bill was written by Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-Tex.), whose panel had looked into the Syrian refugee issue previously. But there’s no way to know whether this legislation (called “emergency” to circumvent House rules) is the best path forward, or better than the current 18-to-24-month refugee vetting process, because there have been no hearings on this or related bills.

Conservatives complain that it doesn’t impose an outright ban on refugees from Syria and Iraq. Democrats complain that the new certification regime, whatever its merits, would essentially shut down the refugee resettlement program for years while a new bureaucracy is created.

Even if the bill were to survive the Senate, President Obama would veto it, which means the only “emergency” it’s addressing is public passion — and the only sure result of Thursday’s vote will be to return the House to business as usual. Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi asked Ryan on Wednesday whether he would allow a vote on an alternative Syrian refugee bill; he refused.

This retreat from “regular order” is unfortunate, because this week brought new evidence of its promise. On Wednesday morning, negotiators gathered for a conference to harmonize House and Senate versions of a transportation bill. The bill cleared the House by a large majority last week, in large part because Ryan had allowed more than 100 amendments to be taken up on the House floor — and the result was a bipartisan and bicameral love fest.

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) said he and his Democratic counterpart, Sen. Barbara Boxer (Calif.), formed “a great unholy alliance, a team.”

Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) amended the characterization: “I think this is a holy alliance.”

“Absolutely,” concurred Boxer. “We can actually work together now on this. . . . We’re in hand-to-hand combat so much of the time. We don’t have to be on this bill.”

Ryan seems genuinely to wish for a change. He has relinquished some of his power, changing the GOP’s internal rules to give backbenchers more say. But maintaining regular order is time-consuming and difficult to maintain with the abbreviated congressional workweek. After the exhaustive amendment process for the transportation bill, Ryan began this week by taking up the 45th “closed rule” of the year, setting a record for the number of bills on the House floor without the possibility of amendment.

As my Post colleague Mike DeBonis pointed out recently, John Boehner began his speakership with similar promises of letting the House work its will under regular order. Boehner began by allowing more than 100 votes on amendments on the floor to a single spending bill. But it didn’t last.

Ryan’s difficulty, like Boehner’s, is that regular order requires good faith, which is in short supply. Hard-liners can bottle up legislation in committees until a deadline approaches — and then leaders have little choice but to shove committees aside and deny lawmakers the right to amend.

With the Syria bill, though, there was no such deadline. If Ryan wanted to find and fix problems with refugee resettlement, he could direct his committees to work with the administration to come up with a solution — and not impose one, arbitrarily, in the dark of night.
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