JUST WHO ARE THE OBSTRUCTIONISTS HERE?

Nadler, Conyers, and other Dems are turning up the heat.

Sensenbrenner abruptly gaveled the hearing to a close Friday over cries of protest from Nadler and Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas). Parliamentary practice in the House generally requires that the committee chairman adjourn on motion or without objection, neither of which was the case Friday.

Democrats continued to make statements and witnesses continued to offer testimony after Sensenbrenner had left the room. C-SPAN cameras were still rolling as the committee’s majority staff rushed to turn off microphones and lights on the Democrats, prompting the television crews to break out boom mikes.

The hearing was one of a dozen the Judiciary Committee has held on the reauthorization of the Patriot Act, but it was the only one to feature solely witnesses put forth by the panel’s Democrats.

Partisan tension has been growing in recent months on the committee. Democrats have frequently complained that the panel has not held hearings on topics of interest to them. In December, ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) began holding alternative hearings using one of the committee’s smaller hearing rooms.

After Conyers’s most recent forum several weeks ago, Democrats were notified that they would be denied future use of hearing rooms.

Now Conyers plans to take the meetings to the Democratic National Committee headquarters on South Capitol Street...One such Democratic hearing is slated for tomorrow covering the so-called “Downing Street Memo” on prewar intelligence.

They try to arrest our lawfully elected representatives, deny them meeting space and then call us "obstructionist"? Pot, meet kettle.