Democratic House to Repeal Openness Rules

President-Elect Barack Obama has made much about "change" and bringing in a new era of open government. But it appears that the Democratic majority is on a different page, and are planning on repealing a number of reforms brought on with the Republican Contract with America.

Reforms to the House Rules as part of the Contract with America were designed to open up to public scrutiny what had become under this decades-long Democrat majority a dangerously secretive House legislative process. The Republican reform of the way the House did business included opening committee meetings to the public and media, making Congress actually subject to federal law, term limits for committee chairmen ending decades-long committee fiefdoms, truth in budgeting, elimination of the committee proxy vote, authorization of a House audit, specific requirements for blanket rules waivers, and guarantees to the then-Democrat minority party to offer amendments to pieces of legislation.

I hope this is a misunderstanding, and Chairperson Pelosi has no such plans. But majorities tend toward corruption. Then again, maybe it is the opening the GOP needs to reunify itself for a comeback in 2010.