Witnesses were called to testify before the House Financial Services Subcommittee on Consumer Credit regarding changes to the terms of their credit cards for what appear to be completely arbitrary reasons, and the Republicans on the committee demanded that they sign releases allowing the credit card companies to release their complete credit records on any public forum.

My question is why the Republicans were given veto power over witnesses. They are no longer in the majority.

The answer appears to be that they would have:

Their removal, however, was more the result of political gamesmanship than it was a legitimate legal move. That is, the Democrats could have attempted to seat the consumer panel even without the members signing the waivers. But, according to a Democratic staffer familiar with the dance, the Republicans, in that case, would have presented a number of procedural roadblocks that would have stalled the hearing indefinitely. Rather than waste the entire morning fighting endless motions to adjourn, Democratic committee leaders Barney Frank (Mass.) and Carolyn Maloney (N.Y.) decided to scrap the first panel and salvage some of the hearing.

I think that a better understanding of Republicans, that they have no interest in the legislative process, and thus should be accorded no courtesies whatsoever, is needed.

The Waivers read as follows:

I hereby authorize Chase Credit Card Services to publicly discuss my Chase credit card account(s) in connection with the March 13, 2008 and April, 2008 credit card hearings by the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit.

Translated, this means that if they thought it was “in connection with the March 13, 2008 and April, 2008 credit card hearings by the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit, they could release their account numbers, SSNs, mother’s maiden names, and passwords for online access.