By JENNIFER STEINHAUER
c.2011 New York Times News Service
WASHINGTON - It was billed as a battle over numbers, but the marathon floor fight in the House this week was more a drama over core political beliefs, with long-simmering resentments, partisan grandstanding and startling personal revelations sprinkled throughout the script.
In the witching hours Thursday night, Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., denounced the fight over a short-term spending measure as an "orgy of self-congratulation" and threatened to lengthen the already endless debate over the hundreds of amendments if he was not permitted to speak his mind about how much he hated the process.
That same night, Rep. Jackie Speier, her eyes narrowed and voice choked with rage, revealed on the House floor that she once had an abortion. For three riveting minutes, Speier, D-Calif., decried an amendment - that later passed - to take away federal financing from Planned Parenthood.
"I'm one of those women" who had an abortion, she said, adding that it was because of a medical emergency. "For you to stand on this floor and suggest as you have that somehow this is a procedure that is either welcome or done cavalierly or done without any thought is preposterous."
There was a smattering of applause.
On Friday, moments after Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., suggested that the term "Obamacare" be excised from the House floor because that term disparages the president, Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, used the term repeatedly.
For hour after painstaking hour, Republicans presented their vision for America through a series of amendments designed to cut spending in Washington. There were proposals to curb environmental regulations, withdraw financing for space exploration, end the practice of reining in wild horses, prohibit assistance to countries that oppose the United States in the United Nations, prevent members of Congress from naming programs after themselves and to cut money for the study of Asian carp.
Virtually no aspect of American life, from farms to the Internet to sexuality to education, was left untouched. While Democrats spoke angrily in defense of programs, Republicans, like Rep. Paul Broun of Georgia, who suggested that payments to the United Nations were akin to money tossed into "ratholes," hit back in the name of fiscal austerity.
But some Democrats took advantage of Speaker John A. Boehner's willingness to allow almost all comers to offer amendments (a big shift in policy from the tight control of floor proceedings practiced by the Democrats when Nancy Pelosi was speaker). There was an effort to deny the Defense Department the right to sponsor NASCAR (failed), and the withdrawal of financing for a peace-oriented policy institute (passed).
While most of the amendments were permitted 10 minutes of debate, others were given 20 minutes or more, depending on the topic.
It was, said member after member, a battle over ideas and principals, of a vision for what the nation will be. Rep. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., summed up his view of it thusly: "Are we going to stand with big oil, or with Big Bird?" - an allusion to proposed cuts to public broadcasting.
While Frank denounced the lengthy process that left members in the chamber into the wee hours, Republicans welcomed the spirited exchanges. Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, was blistering in his response to Frank's critique. "To sit here and listen, after having spent four years in the most closed Congress and then to be lectured" was, Gohmert concluded, "the real travesty."
Tones were angry, and voices were raised, and legislators were reminded at times not to address each other directly, per the rules. But members also used their congressional inside voices, as when Rep. Lee Terry and Rep. Norm Dicks clashed briefly over whose turn it was to discuss net neutrality.
Dicks, D-Wash., was convinced that Terry, R-Neb., had already spoken, and Terry, in protest, said: "Yield to me please. Give me a little bit of respect." Dicks replied, "I yield to the gentleman," then conceded: "You're such a handsome guy, I thought you spoke twice. I'm sorry."
In the middle of it all on Friday, members stopped their fighting to give an acclamation to Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who is retiring. This is what is known on the Hill as professional courtesy. It also takes a lot of time.