Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) doesn’t want Democrats to think they can leave him hanging on the the floor Monday night when the House votes on legislation to raise the debt limit, and slash deficits by at least $2 trillion.
But with Democratic leaders declining to whip for the bill, and wide swaths of their party vowing to oppose it, he’s got to be wondering whether they’ll come through.
Here’s what he told reporters at a Capitol press conference Monday.
“I would remind all of you that this is not just an agreement between the President and myself,” Boehner said. “This is an agreement between the bipartisan leaders of the Congress and the President of the United States. And all the leaders have a responsibility, because they’ve all signed off on the agreement, to bring sufficient votes to make sure that it passes.”
He was referring specifically to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), who earlier in the day left Boehner with the onus for getting the bill past 216 votes.
“You’ll have to ask the Speaker,” she said. “He has the majority.”
Pelosi herself plans to vote for the bill, but her progressive peers do not.
The massive, 75-member Congressional Progressive Caucus is vowing to oppose the bill. The Congressional Black Caucus is whipping its members to withhold their votes — yes, or no — until Boehner can demonstrate that more than half of his members support the plan. If that’s true, the vote total will tick up slowly. However, the expectation, just a few hours before the vote, is that the plan has enough support in each party to pass.
