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Local Congressmen Join Congressional Revolt

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The Tampa Tribune

Published: August 20, 2008

U.S. Reps. Gus Bilirakis and Adam Putnam, who represent parts of Brandon, Valrico, Riverview, Lithia, Plant City and Seffner, hoped to vote to rescind the congressional ban on offshore oil drilling. The area Republicans will have to wait, however, until the House returns from its summer recess.

Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, adjourned the House at 11:23 a.m. Aug. 1, sending the lower chamber on a five-week paid vacation.

Left unaddressed by the House's adjournment was a comprehensive energy bill that would allow increased offshore oil drilling, something Pelosi vehemently opposes. Republican members of Congress, confident that a drilling bill would have passed with bipartisan support, staged a revolt, refusing to leave the floor and demanding a vote.

Even after Pelosi had the lights and microphones shut off, as well as cameras that C-SPAN uses to get video feed, the Republicans held the floor. They even brought tourists, Boy Scouts and visiting German army personnel into the chamber for the occasion.

With the press gallery locked up, remaining reporters were claimed as guests by the House holdouts to keep them from being thrown out - and to maintain a press presence.

With the acoustics of the House chamber providing good resonance, the lack of microphones proved no impediment to the Republican renegades' effort to make their point. With guests filling up the chamber and ordinary citizens wandering through realizing history was in the making, House members took turns calling for the energy bill and decrying the adjournment before a vote could be taken. People in the gallery began to chant, "Vote! Vote! Vote!"

Representatives returned to the chamber again and again to resume the protest as days passed.

Bilirakis and Putnam said failing to vote on an energy plan was a colossal mistake.

"Going on a five-week vacation is shameful," Bilirakis said. "I, along with all of my Republican colleagues, voted to stay in session. I was proud to remain on the floor that first day and demand Speaker Pelosi open the people's house to a debate and a vote on energy.

"I plan on returning and keeping the pressure on," he said. "The Speaker's obstinate defense of the status quo is indefensible. Republicans, along with a sizable portion of Democrats, want to debate, want to vote and want to stop sending $700 billion a year to our enemies."

Five days later, Putnam introduced former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, a Georgia Republican, who joined the protest against Pelosi's refusal to act on the energy crisis.

"We are now in the first full week of the five-week recess that Nancy Pelosi has declared," Putnam said, "but we are also well into an unprecedented protest by House Republicans to demand that the speaker bring Congress back to Washington to have an up-or-down vote on a pro-American, pro-production energy strategy.

"At home," Putnam said, "we are hearing about school districts having to cut back, municipalities cutting back the numbers of police cruisers, manufacturing jobs being lost to overseas competitors, because Congress has not put forward an American energy strategy.

"In every corner of America, we want Americans to understand that there is a bill out there that will produce more American energy. There are pro-energy members of Congress in both parties who are willing to cast that vote, and there is one speaker who refuses to schedule that vote," Putnam said.

"Tire gauges, driving smaller cars and waiting for the wind is not an energy plan," Bilirakis said, referring to Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's recent proposal. "It's a punch line. An 'all of the above' energy plan that diversifies our energy base and builds a renewable future is needed now. This is not the old Republican Party. I won't settle for talking the talk without walking the walk. We want energy freedom, and the speaker can lead, follow or get out of the way."

Valrico resident Frank Shannon can be contacted at (813) 546-2282 or FXShannon@aol.com.

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