That was “Plan C” 
Perhaps I don’t understand the Hastert Rule or its circumvention but I thought it required a majority of Republicans - 121 (241/2) to call for a vote. Requiring 218 Republicans would mean that Democratic reps could just stay home.
Well, 175 Republicans supported the 2011 budget compromise. If Boehner genuinely can’t even get that many Republicans on board he’s in serious trouble, but I doubt that is the case. All it took was a handful of the craziest Tea Party congressmen to stop Plan B, so I’m not particularly surprised it was stopped.
Yea, that’s my point. “Plan B” was never going to get any Dem votes (that was basically the point of its existing), so it required 218 Republicans to pledge that they’ll vote for it. There’s no “rule” that Boehner couldn’t bring it to the floor anyways, but as a practical matter, he doesn’t want to bring a bill to the floor that doesn’t have the votes to pass.
So in that case, Boehner’s bar to pass as far as getting GOP support was a lot higher. The Hastert Rule was irrelevant, since the Speaker needed more votes from his caucus then those required by the rule.
A “compromise” bill that requires Dem votes doesn’t have that problem. It doesn’t need 218 GOP votes to pass, since it can make up the difference with Dem votes. So it would only need 121 GOP votes to make it to the floor in the manner prescribed by the Hastert Rule.
Its surprising because it was basically a meaningless symbolic vote to make Obama look bad. It was never going to get through the Senate, so Boehner was free to throw a Conservative wishlist of repealing bank regulations and parts of Obamacare in it along with the budget stuff. And he had Cantor and and Ryan, who presumably have a lot of tea-party cred whipping up votes for it. Even Norquist gave it a stamp of approval.
Having 36 or more party members balk at a symbolic vote to make the Prez look bad is pretty surprising, IMHO.
Only if they get some really interesting pictures that they can use later in return for their votes.
Holy crap, I agree 100% with this post. Are we sure the Mayans weren’t right after all?
Not that Plan B stood a chance in the Senate, but it would have at least demonstrated Obama has someone to negotiate with.
Even the part where he claims the Republicans unwillingness to compromise is a media creation?