The Democrats should go even farther than calling it a “Republican shutdown”- they should call it “John Boehner’s Shutdown”.
A majority of the House would support a clean budget continuing resolution, and we know the Senate would support it and the President would sign it. That’s the only version that, if put up for a vote, all branches would support. But Boehner refuses to put it up for a vote.
This is because of Boehner’s failure of leadership. The President has led- a majority of the House and Senate support his view, but he can’t force Boehner.
This is Boehner’s shutdown, and any resulting economic slowdown should be called the Boehner slowdown. If we default on our debt, it will be Boehner’s default.
He has a difficult enough of a time keeping the disparate parts of his party (nuclear-tactics-wise, that is,) together without further painting him into a corner. As it stands, he is very likely to continue to insist on the shutdown in order to preserve his speakership. If you paint him as the main instigator of the shutdown, you signal an unwillingness to work with him that will either push him further toward intransigence, or cost him his speakership in favor of an even more uncompromising leader.
That said I do wish there was an unreluctant leader of this in the House to successfully demonize. I don’t think Boehner is it, even though his willingness to be the standard bearer of the shutdown for his personal reasons is bad for other reasons.
Republicans – including about 20 of them who say they would vote for a “clean” bill to reopen the government – had their chance Wednesday, but declined.
It came in the form of a House Democratic bid to force a vote using parliamentary tactics… But Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Mich.) objected that the Democrat’s measure was not germane, and the presiding officer ruled in his favor. Van Hollen challenged the ruling and demanded a vote on the decision, which he lost, 230 to 194.
… if the moderate Republicans who back a clean funding bill had gone along and voted to overrule the chair, the measure would have been brought up for a vote. The shutdown could have ended Wednesday night.
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So the 20 sane Republicans would love to end the insanity, but are unwilling to do so if it embarrasses Mr. Boehner?
Boehner is in a corner, yes- and it’s a corner with only one way out: the end of his speakership. He should accept this and do what’s right for the country (put up a clean CR). There’s no way for this to end without the far-right Republicans being pissed at Boehner. The sooner he realizes this the better. Until the shutdown ends, I think it should be called “Boehner’s Shutdown”. When he puts forward a clean CR, we can praise him and call it “Boehner’s sacrifice” or something. But until then, make him feel the heat from all sides, since he’s the only one who can actually fix it.
The shutdown is due to the failure of Boehner’s speakership. Personally, I prefer the term Boehner’s Boner.
Being the Speaker right now is like herding cats. It is utterly impossible. It’s time that Boehner put the country first and said “OK, let’s pass a clean CR and clean debt ceiling increase, if I have to give up the gavel, so be it.”
This is a good understanding of how negotiations actually work. It’s very reminiscent of how Kennedy and his team of advisers successfully navigated the waters with Khrushchev, they recognized that Khrushchev was in a precarious position with the party leadership and there were “reasonable options” that simply were not available to him because it would have threatened his own position. [And in that era of Soviet politics possibly a loss of the leadership position would have mean loss of freedom or your life.] Kennedy understand they had to come out “winners” but they had to do it in a way that kept Khrushchev with his honor.
Boehner is not the right point to target, the individuals who should be targeted are the moderate Republicans who number at least 180 that are willing to vote for a clean CR. If they are pushed in the right direction, Boehner has more reason to fear pressure from the 180 than he does the 52 or so far right congressmen who probably will not sign on any CR even one that ultimately is negotiated and includes minor concession from the White House.
It’s difficult for political reasons only. As a technical matter the Speaker of the House has de facto control of all legislation that comes to the floor, nothing can come to the floor for a vote without his say. The way around that is a discharge petition, if a discharge petition is passed by a majority of the House, then the House can immediately vote on a bill even over the Speaker’s objection.
With 200 Democrats in the House, you only need 18 Republicans to sign on to a discharge petition to make this happen.
So why hasn’t it happened? Because while there are estimated to be upward of 180 Republicans that would pass a clean CR, the number who are willing to go against the Speaker in a discharge petition is much, much lower. If Boehner was made so weak that he lost the Speakership due to letting the discharge petition happen, then maybe the Republicans who crossed him would suffer few consequences. However, if it just empowers him more with the far right members of the caucus and actually strengthens his support from the rest of the House Republicans, then each Republican House member to sign the petition will probably be done in Republican (and potentially Congressional) politics. They will be stripped of all committee positions and rendered irrelevant in the chamber, and will also likely not have any party support in their next reelection bids and may even see the party supporting a primary challenger over them.
Edit: This isn’t just speculation, in the early 1990s some Congressmen crossed party lines to sign a discharge petition against their own Speaker. They were stripped of all committee positions and while some eventually made a come back to political relevance some basically had their political careers ended by it.
It isn’t always that way, though. A discharge petition got McCain-Feingold out of the House but did not result in much if any retribution. It was seen more akin to a British “morality vote” or whatever and the leadership was mostly just blocking it because a majority of their caucus wasn’t in favor of it.
Balls, bro. Boehner is no Soviet, this will not cost him his life. A concession might be political suicide, but it would be more of a martyrdom thing where he shows any cowards in his party that it’s ok to show your balls and represent the interests of your people, not your party.
It seems like the easy solution is to form a sub caucus with the 180 sane Republicans that works with the Democrats to pass measures that stop embarrassing EVERYONE, and marginalizes & snubs the nutjobs. The R party needs to get out of their lockstep party march and start voting as individual representatives of their people. Until they do, Boehner is calling the cadence and this is his baby.
I thought you were previously on record with “if it’s legal, it’s okay” so the question is not really if it was germane, but if it was a legitimate (i.e., allowed by the rules) maneuver.
I guess I’m confused–if 180 Republicans support a clean bill, what kind of cowards do they have to be not to push for it? I mean, this isn’t Pakistan, where standing up for what you believe means the Taliban might visit you at midnight. Letting your political ambition and fear of being thwarted turn you into a whipped dog is shameful.
Maybe it wasn’t “germane.” But the rules apparently allow a majority to override the Chair and rule it germane. IOW, “germane” means whatever the Chair or majority chooses.
I’m not sure what the technical differences are between this tactic and the “discharge petition” Martin Hyde describes. But whatever the details, it sounds like the Speaker has enormous power. Has it always been so?
Is the “Hastert Rule” part of the problem? Paraphrased, that rule means that if 51% of Republicans in the House go insane, the remaining 49% are obliged to lose their wits also. Do Democrats play Hastert when they’re in the majority?
I’m usually pessimistic but have a feeling that if/when the country recovers from the GOP’s homicide/suicide pact, the GOP will be finished, at least in its most insane and detestable form. (I realize that polls show 38% of Americans blame the Democrats but those are the 38% who would never support Democrats anyway.)
I agree it’s pretty bad, but there’s politics at work, of course. Any Republican who crosses the line on this runs a good chance of losing a primary to the Louie Gohmert clone that the local Tea Party is threatening to sic on squishes and traitors. It’s pretty easy to sit back and say that they should be willing to lose their job to save the country - but maybe they’re thinking their constituents are better served by them and not the complete lunatic who would replace them. So they sit back a while and see if someone else is maybe willing to jump on that grenade so they don’t have to.
