Here’s the latest on Boehner’s decision to postpone tonight’s vote.
Dispatches from the Capitol via our reporters and others’ indicate a steady stream of Republican Members of Congress — who are already announced “No” votes on the Boehner plan — being summoned to the Speaker’s office.
On his way in to the Speaker’s office, Rep. Louis Gohmert (R-TX) — a strong “No” vote — said he had been called to the principal’s office. On the way out, Gohmert said he was still a “bloody, beaten down no.” Read More
If John Boehner does convince some no votes to switch to yes, you wonder who they will be, how they explain the arm-twisting, and how that plays politically down the road.
This kind of last-minute, high-stakes whipping is very fraught for everyone involved. There’s a long tradition of this kind of thing happening, but in modern times with the press scrutiny of the Hill, there’s a new emerging tradition of these kinds of arm-twisting sessions proving politically embarrassing to the twister and the twistee alike.
Should be interesting.
Reporters are massed outside Speaker Boehner’s office, and House Democrats are poised to vote as soon as the speaker clears the way for a final vote on his debt plan. But there’s still no indication of when that might be.
Earlier Majority Leader Cantor’s office said the re-scheduled vote would come around 7 p.m. ET. But still nothing. The vote whipping continues. This could go on all evening — or, Boehner could secure the necessary votes and bring it to a vote at any time. Stay tuned.
Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), who has been considered either undecided or a no vote for Speaker Boehner’s debt plan, tells reporters he’s now a yes vote.
Does Boehner have the votes now? “Apparently not, or we’d be upstairs voting,” Burgess said.
As for Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ), he told reporters, “I haven’t changed my mind about anything … I’m looking for a restroom, you gonna follow me in?” Franks is considered a “No” vote.
It’s been four hours now since Speaker Boehner scuttled the scheduled vote on his own debt plan. We have five TPM reporters up on the Hill, along with dozens of reporters from other outlets, awaiting some signal that Boehner has rounded up the necessary votes. No decisive movement of Republican votes in his direction has been detected, though often times these things don’t become publicly visible until after the fact.
There are rumblings, unconfirmed, that Boehner may have to make some tweaks to his bill to win over a few more votes and get it passed. But that would probably delay a final vote until tomorrow at the earliest.
One interesting dynamic here is that this Republican House has foresworn earmarks, the type of baubles that come in very handy when it’s time for horse-trading. That makes the art of persuasion more difficult for Boehner.
House Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) just announced there will be no vote tonight on the Boehner debt bill.
A remarkable turn of events. Simply no reason for Boehner to bring up his own bill if it was doomed to fail, and clearly it was.
Despite a lot of confident talk from Boehner and his leadership team, it appears they never had the votes. Read More
Our Susan Crabtree reports in from the late night Rules Committee meeting …
The House Rules Committee met at 11 p.m. Thursday and voted on a party-line 8 to 4 vote for allowing GOP leaders to revise and vote on the Budget Control Act without going back to the Rules Committee anytime through Aug. 2, but not before Democrats angrily accused Republicans of pulling the vote because some of their members had issues with $17 billion in the bill for Pell grants. Rep. David Dreier (R-CA) said only “there are a number of issues” GOP hold-out members have with the bill.
More running updates in our auto-updating TPMLivewire.