A former House Leadership staffer writes me to comment on the infamous 2003 Medicare Prescription Drug vote, and he compares it to last night’s travesty of Democracy:

[T]he whole “Tom DeLay kept the vote open” thing isn’t really accurate. Though he doesn’t like to admit it because we eventually won, he had pretty much given up on the Medicare vote very early on (for him). It was Mr. Hastert who played the heavy that night and kept the vote open after [DeLay] and Blunt told him there weren’t any other votes to get.
And secondly, though I personally disliked the whole thing, the keeping the vote open thing was totally within the rules. Outside of tradition, and excessively obnoxious, but entirely legal.