I came across this press release from Representative Charlie Dent’s office yesterday congratulating incoming Appropriations Committee chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen of New Jersey. This passage struck me as funny:

Rep. Dent, a strong proponent of the regular order budget process, is confident that Congressman Frelinghuysen will do his utmost to steer vital spending legislation through the Committee with the same alacrity and legislative mastery as the Appropriations Committee’s most recent Chair, Rep. Hal Rogers of Kentucky.

A “strong proponent of the regular order budget process”? Representative Dent is the lawmaker who recently managed to sneak in an amendment that made a joke of regular order and Speaker Paul Ryan’s promise that the old ways of doing business — e.g., violating House rules and allowing problematic provisions to be snuck through without a vote and attached to a funding bill — were over. The Dent amendment, which has a brother in the Senate thanks to Senator Lindsey Graham, would allow for a change in the law to reduce the Ex-Im Bank’s quorum requirement so that the agency can to go back to its crony ways and back millions and millions of dollars in loans for the benefit of super-large, politically connected companies.

I hate to break it to you, Representative Dent, but that’s not what I would call being “a strong proponent” of regular order.​

Now, I am happy to report today that lawmakers have once again denied the desire of President Obama, Representative Dent, and Senator Graham of restoring the Bank’s full lending authority by pushing out a Continuing Resolution that didn’t include a provision to reduce the quorum requirement. They should be commended for it. Now let’s see if it sticks.

Also, looking at this paragraph, I see a reference to Frelinghuysen doing “his utmost to steer vital spending legislation through the Committee.” Vital spending . . . such as Freylinghuysen’s amendment which added $33 billion of largely unrelated pork to the Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill? (Dent voted for both amendments.)

I do have to wonder whether these types of press releases are just for show — and whether their authors truly believe their content.