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Dems move to force Republicans to reopen the government

azgreg

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Dems move to force Republicans to reopen the government

House Democratic leaders believe they have hit on a new way to potentially force House Republican leaders into allowing a vote on a “clean CR” funding the government without any defunding of Obamacare attached.

At last count, as many as two dozen House Republicans appear prepared to vote for a clean CR. With Democrats included, that means a majority of the House of Representatives would vote right now to reopen the government. But the House GOP leadership won’t allow such a vote.

Dems have hit on a way to use a “discharge petition,” which forces a House vote if a majority of Representatives signs it, to try to force the issue. Previously, it was thought this could not work, because a discharge petition takes 30 legislative days to ripen, so if this were tried with the clean CR that passed the Senate, this couldn’t bear fruit until some time in November.

But now House Democrats say they have found a previously filed bill to use as a discharge petition — one that would fund the government at sequester levels.

The bill in question is the “Government Shutdown Prevention Act,” which was introduced in March by GOP Rep. James Lankford of Oklahoma. As the Congressman’s release describes it:

If Congress fails to approve a budget by the end of each fiscal year, the Government Shutdown Prevention Act would ensure that all operations remain running normally without any interruption of services by automatically triggering a continuing resolution (CR) or short-term, stop-gap spending device. The bill creates an automatic CR for any regular appropriations bill not completed before the end of the fiscal year. After the first 120 days, auto-CR funding would be reduced by one percentage point and would continue to be reduced by that margin every 90 days.

UPDATE: One slight clarification. If Dems can get the 218 signatures on the discharge petition, then Dems would use a procedural move to replace the Lankford bill with an amendment: A clean CR, just like the one in the Senate. So this would not enshrine the periodic one-percent reductions in spending in the Lankford measure.

Can this happen this way?
 
Just like they resorted to a "trick" to pass ACA and want to rely on a "trick" the to have the President raise the debt ceiling himself, I guess the Democrats will use a "trick" to get their way. Pathetic, but that's how they operate...
 
Just like they resorted to a "trick" to pass ACA and want to rely on a "trick" the to have the President raise the debt ceiling himself, I guess the Democrats will use a "trick" to get their way. Pathetic, but that's how they operate...

That is how they have always operated. Just look at their list of accomplishments.
 
Just like they resorted to a "trick" to pass ACA and want to rely on a "trick" the to have the President raise the debt ceiling himself, I guess the Democrats will use a "trick" to get their way. Pathetic, but that's how they operate...

Which trick do you think allowed the passage of the ACA?
 
Haven't you been schooled yet by these RepubLiCong insurgents that 'you're an "us vs. them" Dem'?
We all know the party of trickey dickey would never use tricks.
We also know Repups have never used "discharge petitions'. Poor things.
Which trick do you think allowed the passage of the ACA?
 
25 out of 44 Repub Senators refused to filibuster Senate Dems.
When Senate Dems wanted cloture to remove default language from the CR.
This fact will never go away.
 

Getting Republicans to dissent is far more difficult than their Democratic counterparts, but there are a couple dozen moderates who are getting raked over the coals in their own centrist districts. That being said, the House Democrats would still have to offer them "something" that could convince skeptics at least in their own districts that their dissent was worth undermining GOP solidarity, and the Senate and Obama would have to approve that deal.

... it could establish a healthy precedent if Republicans as well as Democrats could collude with each other against their own parties.
 
My problem with the this whole thing is if the GOP succeeds here the precedent set can be catastrophic. Imagine anytime a party gets control of the House all they will have to do is decide to defund any law they don't like.
 
Just like they resorted to a "trick" to pass ACA and want to rely on a "trick" the to have the President raise the debt ceiling himself, I guess the Democrats will use a "trick" to get their way. Pathetic, but that's how they operate...

Ah, the reverso-meme. Only in teapartybizarroworld is forcing the House to actually vote a "trick".

Boehner has used procedural tricks to keep a clean CR from a floor vote. I hope the Democrats can circumvent that trickery and force the GOP cowards to go on record.
 
This is great news... if it happens. I just hope it funds the government for a year like a budget is supposed to do.

It might be a sufficient exit strategy for some of the less irrational Republican to climb on board. It's murky enough to look like the Democrats are forcing it, so that the remaining rational Republicans in the House might help it along.
 

Probably. Most things the Democrats do are properly categorized as a discharge.

I assume that they'll figure out some obscure way to get their way in the end. That helps nail the inevitable disastrous results to them though. If the electorate begins to think while there effectively remains such a thing it will go badly for Reid's Party.
 
Probably. Most things the Democrats do are properly categorized as a discharge.

I assume that they'll figure out some obscure way to get their way in the end. That helps nail the inevitable disastrous results to them though. If the electorate begins to think while there effectively remains such a thing it will go badly for Reid's Party.

that didn't take long to go from policy discussion to "libruls bad... herp derp."
 
Just like they resorted to a "trick" to pass ACA and want to rely on a "trick" the to have the President raise the debt ceiling himself, I guess the Democrats will use a "trick" to get their way. Pathetic, but that's how they operate...

The Constitution and Separation of Powers means nothing to Obama and his legion of Obots
 
My problem with the this whole thing is if the GOP succeeds here the precedent set can be catastrophic. Imagine anytime a party gets control of the House all they will have to do is decide to defund any law they don't like.

Chaos is here to stay until one of the two major parties obtains a decisive and persistent advantage over the other.

The Constitution and Separation of Powers means nothing to Obama and his legion of Obots

Sure.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...-constitutional/2011/03/31/AFdkyvBC_blog.html

Passing laws without the approval of the President or the Senate . . . I always wanted a parliament in the United States, but I didn't expect anyone would try to jerry rig one out of our current system of checks and balances.
 
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Probably. Most things the Democrats do are properly categorized as a discharge.

I assume that they'll figure out some obscure way to get their way in the end. That helps nail the inevitable disastrous results to them though. If the electorate begins to think while there effectively remains such a thing it will go badly for Reid's Party.

Whoosh, right over your head. The Discharge will only work if some House Republicans sign the petition for it. They might, because it's essentially an exit strategy for them which the Democrats are providing. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if the less irrational Republicans in the House suggested it.

In any case, Americans want a vote on a CR in the House. Boehner is preventing that using procedural tricks because he a craven shill of the tea party. But this my circumvent his spinelessness.
 
Whoosh, right over your head. The Discharge will only work if some House Republicans sign the petition for it. They might, because it's essentially an exit strategy for them which the Democrats are providing. Indeed, it wouldn't surprise me if the less irrational Republicans in the House suggested it.

In any case, Americans want a vote on a CR in the House. Boehner is preventing that using procedural tricks because he a craven shill of the tea party. But this my circumvent his spinelessness.

Who are these "Americans" of whom you speak, and when did they become unanimous in their opinions?
 
The irony (one of many) of conservatives getting worked up about the discharge bill is that one of the few times it was successful was in 1985 when the NRA campaigned to pass the bill in the House via discharge petition to loosen gun control. The conservatives didn't think it was a "trick" when they used it back then. But now, when the Democrats want to use it, it's a trick.
 
that didn't take long to go from policy discussion to "libruls bad... herp derp."

That's because the mental and political climate that makes Modern Liberalism possible in large numbers supposedly rational adults is the fundamental reason that so many of our public policies are childish fantasies.

You see?
 
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