By falling on his gavel, House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) cleared a path for Congress to pass a short-term spending bill and avoid a government shutdown.
The Senate will begin considering Monday evening a bill to fund the government through Dec. 11, the controversial Planned Parenthood funding included. With a final vote expected Tuesday, the House will have about a day to pass the legislation and keep the government open in time for the Sept. 30 deadline.
A major obstacle in the advancing the House version of the stop-gap spending bill was removed Friday when Boehner announced he was stepping down as Speaker. The hardliners in his party had been threatening a potential coup if it appeared Boehner had cut a deal with Democrats to keep the government open, but with his resignation they lost that leverage. Now Boehner can pass the bill over the objections of the so-called Freedom Caucus, with the help of Democratic votes.
“It’s not going to happen,” Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) said Friday of a potential shutdown. He told reporters that Boehner had informed him and other members that the House would be voting on a “clean” continuing resolution — a short-term spending bill that did not included riders attacking Planned Parenthood or otherwise — by this Wednesday.
Democrats signaled they would support the legislation, as the White House and congressional leaders have presented a united front in demanding a clean spending bill.
“By Tuesday they will send us a bill, and I expect that bill to be clean and if it’s clean, I’d hope that we can pass that,” House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) told reporters Friday.
The maneuver sets a stage for a high-stakes fight later this year, when the funding of the government past December could be wrapped up with raising the debt ceiling, which will likely be necessary by the end of this year, as well as other must-pass legislation.
The maneuver sets the stage for a high-stakes fight later this year, when the funding of the government past December could be wrapped up with raising the debt ceiling, which will likely be necessary by the end of this year, as well as other must-pass legislation.
They really call themselves the Freedom Caucus? Why not go all in and call themselves the, “Patriots for God (not Allah), Freedom (not for women), and The Divine American Exceptionalism (for white and wealthy) Way Caucus?”
I dunno… check me here but this is just Boehner being gutless to the end…
if he really wanted to do something to go out in style he’d drop a fully funded budget resolution that funds thru the whole fiscal year and not a continuing resolution that just gives him time to get out of town…
I agree. Go All-in.
I wonder if that would get passed, though?
No
Look, if you talk about the crazies in his caucus threatening to stop a clean CR, there are two ways they could do that.
They could put up this privileged motion that the chair is vacant, which seems to preempt other votes, presumably including the vote on the clean CRs. Enough of them, plus the Ds, vote yes on that motion, and the incumbent is no longer Speaker, and can’t put up anything for a vote.
The other way works only if the Speaker needs other people in the leadership to get something like these clean CRs to the floor for a vote. The crazies would threaten the future leadership careers of whoever is needed to bring the clean CRs to the floor.
Making yourself a lame duck doesn’t improve your ability to fend off either mode of attack.
There’s less threat of retaliation for making the motion of vacancy or voting yes on it, if the Speaker you’re ousting is leaving soon anyway. Sure, you no longer need the vacancy motion to get rid of the Speaker in the long run, but if the whole point of the exercise is to keep clean CRs off the floor, yes, you still need the motion of vacancy to preempt that. Now its easier, less risky.
The effect on the other members of the leadership, aside form Boehner himself, is even greater. Announcing you’re resigning means that it is now definite that they will face election soon to move up, or even keep their current positions. This makes them maximally susceptible to pressures from all quarters, including the pressure to block the CRs from coming to the floor.
Sure, deciding to quit takes pressure off Boehner to make the crazies happy, because he no longer has to fear that they will take his job away. But announcing that decision made him a lame duck, and thereby less able to do anything with the time he has left in the Speakership. Maybe his lame duck status won’t fatally weaken his power, maybe he will still be able to get clean CRs to the floor. But making himself a lame duck had no prospect of making that task anything but more difficult and risky.
they call themselves that because irony escapes them…