Tweet
Speaker John Boehner
The House approved a $50 billion Sandy relief bill Tuesday evening, after several hours of contentious debate in which scores of Republicans tried unsuccessfully to cut the size of the bill and offset a portion of it with spending cuts.
Members approved the Disaster Relief Appropriations Act, H.R. 152, in a 241-180 vote. Among Republicans, 179 voted against it, and just 49 voted for it, a protest against a bill that many conservatives say is too big and provides funding for things other than immediate relief for New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
This normally shouldn’t happen in the House. The Speaker of the House has basically complete power over what bill ever make it to the floor and Republicans have traditionally used this to enforce a “majority of the majority” principles. The general idea is that no bill should be allowed to make it to the floor unless at least a majority of the party in control supports it.
For this to happen you need a majority of Republicans wanting to be on record voting against a bill but also afraid of being blamed for its failure. The legislative equivalence of plausible deniability. This is now the second time this month that House Republicans have dealt with a politically tricky piece of legislation by allowing it to come to the floor then voting against it. The other time was to deal with the fiscal cliff.
Speaker Boehner’s recent willingness to break the majority of the majority principle is likely making the Obama administration feel more confident about the debt limit standoff. If the House Republicans fold, it would most likely take the form of allowing a clean increase to come to the floor then having it approved with mostly Democratic votes.
21 Comments
Support this site!
Subscribe to the newsletter
Advertise on Firedoglake
Send
us your tips
Make us your homepage
About FDL Action
Is 50 billion enough money?
One of the BEST things that could happen would be for Boehner to jettison the “Hastert Rule” which required this majority of the majority BS.
If 100% of the minority and slightly less than 50% of the majority (IOW perhaps 75% of the House) was for a bill, because of the “Hastert Rule”, the bill wouldn’t even make it to the House floor.
Is it POSSIBLE that Boehner has figured out that the tea party lunatics are so off the wall that he needs to work around them?
Considering the GOP has more red states vulnerable to hurricanes does the GOP really think that this won’t be remembered when their states get hit?
I know New England GOPers are an endangered species but acts like this will make it very hard for the GOP to have any presence in New England…so just what are they thinking?
If the GOP tries this lets delay and then not vote for disaster relief plan and let Dems pass the bills well drought, flooding, tornado and earthquake victims might all stop voting GOP.
Again can anyone explain what are they thinking?
Is 50 billion enough?
Unless you KNOW what that number relates to, it might be enough and then again, it may NOT be.
Throwing out an arbitrary number is meaningless.
Sort of like when the tea party says cut spending, but doesn’t specify what they want cut.
Can he is my question I don’t think the Speaker has any clout to deliver votes so if the Orange One is just a Puppet then who really pulls the strings in the House?
As much as I despise him, I have to admit that Cantor is true to his principles. When disaster aid for HIS district came up, he voted against it.
And yet, he got re-elected.
So Canter might be the string puller that is good information to know we should look at what Canter wants and thinks about and realize that only the things he wants and thinks about are going to pass the House this year.
I agree he is true to his principles his insane voters have rewarded him with another term in Congress but I doubt that to many other GOPers in the House have voters that will feel that way.
Cantor’s philosophy on disaster relief could cost the GOP lots of districts.
James Madison must be twirling in his grave. Cantor’s district includes Montpelier.
That’s an interesting question. I think you’re right, Boehner does not control the house. His only leverage left seems to be to allow a bill to the floor, since the Dems could never succeed with a discharge petition.
So, who’s in charge? I vote….perceived public opinion. His Orangness sees a real risk of losing his position to a dem in two years.
Not that he’s at any risk of losing his district here. The dem area is cut out of OH-8 and there’s nothing in that district that has experienced a tornado recently enough to care.
Boxturtle (FSM, if we MUST have a natural disaster, please make it in a GOP leadership district)
At a moment like this, I truly miss David Dayen. Dday would have three posts up before 10 am explaining the deep historical significance — and the irony — of a Speaker who represents only a minority of the House passing major legislation. Apparently a vanishingly-small minority, if the 49 GOP votes he collected on this bill were the best he could do.
The GOP’ers could not bear the loss of their GOP committee chairmanships and GOP committee staff patronage (jobs), so they held their noses and re-elected Boehner. But they won’t follow Boehner. So the progressives among the House Dems need to show they can do something more clever than just pass bills with four dozen Repubs on their side. The progressive House Dems need to exploit Boehner’s uselessness as leader.
One way I can think of is to show the White House that 49 progressives can tank a deal just as easily as 49 Repubs can pass a deal.
What that means, using basic arithmetic, is that a switch of thirty (30) votes from the majority on that bill would have resulted in a tie vote. We better not hear lame excuses from the progressives about “we couldn’t stop the bill” on any future bill where the White House gets a winning margin of less than three dozen votes.
amazing that 2 pieces of legislation that actually benefit citizens have escaped from boner’s house! compared to the last boner congress, this is cause for celebration no matter how it occured.
Fractal @ #10: excellent analysis; we’ll have to be calling the “progressive caucus” when the soc sec, medicare and the post office cuts come up.
We better not hear lame excuses from the progressives about “we couldn’t stop the bill” on any future bill where the White House gets a winning margin of less than three dozen votes.
The chances of the progressives offering lame excuses are at least 100 percent. That has become their role in the Democrats’ repertory theater company.
Why can’t the Democrats succeed with a discharge petition? If Boehner had complete control of his caucus, he could order them all to refuse to vote “yes”, but as we can clearly see, he doesn’t have this control. Furthermore, there’s a north-south split developing in the Republican party; northern Republicans are highly pro-corporate, but they aren’t on board with tea party craziness like those in the South. That can be exploited.
I agree. Cantor is a genuine despicable asshole, through and through.
Gotta admire that. :-)
TO quote the “King and I” in my BEST Deborah Kerr impression (I wish you could hear this) ..”Oh I hope so your majesty. I certainly hope so.”
Wow, wishyou could heard that in peson.
I agree. BUt, let’s give Jon credit where credit is due.
NIce job Jon.
I wouldn’t call Boehner a “puppet”.
“Dummy” maybe.
I think most of our founding fathers, and mothers too, have been rolling over in their graves like a whirling dervish for severl years now.
Is it jut me or is BOehner actually LESS orange.
Ahhhhhhhhh, his “winter” tan.
Because they’d need GOP votes. And the GOP has made it clear that unless their re-election is at stake, they’re against anything the Dem’s support.
That Boenher, from the land of the Crazy Winds, can vote no safely tells us everything we need to know. The trailer park wing of the party will support him as long as he’s anti-abortion. The country club wing will support as long as he’s anti tax.
Boxturtle (the rest of the voters don’t matter to him)