House "Stolen Vote" Controversy

The House formed a special investigative panel over the weekend to investigate the alleged vote steal by the Democrats of a vote regarding a farm bill in debate.

In case you aren’t aware, there was an incident late Thursday night where a series of mishaps with the voting process in the House led Republicans to charge that the Democrats were finagling the voting process to defeat a measure which would ensure that illegal immigrants do not receive agricultural benefits from the new farm bill they were working on. The counting of the votes seemed to end abruptly with the wrong number of votes counted. The Republicans claim that they won a narrow victory, the final tally seemed to put the Democrats as in the lead on the issue.

Frankly, I agree with Rep. Hoyer, when he says, “I do not believe there was any wrongdoing by any member of the House. I do believe a mistake was made.” I’m pretty much right there with him on this. The whole thing looks like just a mistake, and one which was most likely made by a clerk and not a member of either party. The investigation will come out but I’m sure the Republicans will seize on this as a political opportunity. Considering the Democrats ran on a stance of trying to clear these things up in the last election, it’s not a bad point to nail them on. Better, though, would be talking about Rep. Murtha’s $150 million in pork or Sen. Clinton’s refusal to refuse lobbyist money.

House Forms Special Panel Over Alleged Stolen Vote
Washington Post

The House last night unanimously agreed to create a special select committee, with subpoena powers, to investigate Republican allegations that democratic leaders had stolen a victory from the House GOP on a parliamentary vote late Thursday night.

The move capped a remarkable day that started with Republicans marching out of the House in protest near midnight Thursday, was punctuated by partisan bickering, and ended with Democratic hopes for a final legislative rush fading. Even a temporary blackout of the House chamber's vote tally board led to suspicions and accusations of skullduggery.

While Democratic leaders hoped to leave for their August recess on a wave of legislative successes, the House instead slowed to an acrimonious crawl that threatened to stretch the legislative session into next week.

The agreement to form a special committee was extraordinary. Such powerful investigative committees are usually reserved for issues such as the Watergate scandal and the funneling of profits from Iranian arms sales to the Nicaraguan contras in the 1980s.

"I don't know when something like this has happened before," said House deputy historian Fred W. Beuttler. He called the decision "incredible."