Kicking the Can

1 October 2015

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Government Shut Down Averted for Now

Congress did its job yesterday, more or less, by passing legislation to continue funding the federal government through December 11. With President Obama's signature, the feared government shut down was averted, for now. However, 151 Republican members of the House voted against the legislation, meaning that outgoing Speaker John Boehner passed it using mostly Democratic votes to secure the 277 ayes. Over on the Senate side, 20 GOP members opposed the bill. In the next two months, the Republican leadership needs to get its ducks in a row, or a holiday season shutdown will damage their chances for the November 2016 elections.

The pretext for the negative votes was the continued funding for Planned Parenthood that would persist under the continuing resolution [CR]. Not a budget, the CR merely extends previous budgeted spending through a given date. As a result, nothing could be cut without amendment, and any amendment would need debate, reconciliation with the Senate, and presidential approval. It was not possible. So, the Speaker opted to kick the can down the road since he is quitting his job this month.

For the incoming speaker (likely to be Kevin McCarthy of California), this will present the first test of his leadership. Shortly before this CR expires, another must pass or a full-blown budget will have to make its way into law. To keep the 50 or so hard-right members happy, something will have to be done with the funding of Planned Parenthood. To get the support of Senate Democrats, who could filibuster the bill if funding were cut, funding will have to remain in place. Squaring the circle will prove tricky.

That said, there is a simple solution, and that is to do as Mr. Boehner has done this week, and let the House vote. This is not what he has always done. Indeed, most of the Boehner Speakership has been ruined by his insistence on maintaining what is known as the Hastert Rule. Not actually a rule but more of a guideline, this says that the Speaker should only bring a bill to the floor for a vote if he has a majority of the majority supporting it. Mr, Boehner took this even further by insisting that the 218 votes needed to pass anything had to be Republican votes. In other words, a GOP caucus of 240 would need 218 ayes before he brought it to the floor, instead of 121 (a majority of 240), that then would pass with 97 Democratic votes. This gave the hard-right a veto over everything, and since they preferred nothing got done to compromising, the last few Congresses have been the least productive in history.

Nevertheless, one doubts that Mr. McCarthy or any rival will have the necessary backing of the party to actually let the House vote. Many have noted that Congressman McCarthy has served only 9 years, which is not sufficient time to develop the knowledge and relationships needed to force members to do what they might not wish to do. Moreover, he has never held a committee chairmanship, so his experience of getting bills done is questionable. In short, he probably won't stand up to the Tea Party members in his fight budget fight in the first days of December.

While a government shutdown thrills the grassroots in some of the most conservative districts, the broader public would, as they have in the past, dislike a shutdown and blame the Republican Party for such a failure to govern. Were that to occur, the Republicans running for president would find themselves in a rather dire situation. Either they could support the shutdown to curry favor with the primary voters just two months before Iowa and New Hampshire start picked convention delegates, or they could associate themselves with the majority of voters by opposing the shutdown, risking failure in the primaries.

Conservatives cheered the announcement of John Boehner's pending resignation. This may well be a case of being careful about what one wishes.

© Copyright 2015 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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