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Key House spending bill fails over LGBT controversy

danarhea

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Washington (CNN) In an embarrassing blow for Speaker Paul Ryan, the House on Thursday failed to pass its annual spending bill funding water and energy programs after a contentious debate over rights for LGBT federal workers.

Republicans came under pressure after a bipartisan amendment was attached to the bill that protected federal workers from being fired on the basis of sexual discrimination or gender identity.

But it was more than that. There were poison pills introduced by both Democrats and Republicans. The result was both Democrats and Republicans voting against the bill en masse.....305 votes against, and the spending bill went down in massive flames. Ryan should have seen this coming and pulled the bill from consideration. Instead, he has plenty of egg on his face. He was hoping to run the House. Instead, the House is running him.

This, my friends, is our Congress three ring circus monkeys at work.

Article is here.
 
Ryan is finding out that his open-amendment process is a two-way street.

He's also about to get Boehner'd with continuing resolutions .
 
Wouldn't you rather a nice Democratic House?
 
How about people stop attaching random crap they want done to spending bills?

Just a thought.
 
So, perhaps the article has just been updated since this morning, but the spending bill actually passed with a 223-195 vote. Additional article here: House passes LGBT amendment after GOP leaders defeated it last week - CNNPolitics.com

Either way, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. No body should be fired based on their sexual orientation. People should be hired and fired based upon skill and respect, and those two qualities alone. You're not hiring someone for sex, so it shouldn't even be a part of the equation.

In a sign of how passionately opponents felt about the provision, a Georgia Republican member opened an early morning meeting with a prayer that warned colleagues that any House GOP member who backed the LGBT provision "was going to hell."

And the above quote is proof that we really do have a three ring circus rather than a congress, and that we need to rotate out some of those members.
 
So, perhaps the article has just been updated since this morning, but the spending bill actually passed with a 223-195 vote. Additional article here: House passes LGBT amendment after GOP leaders defeated it last week - CNNPolitics.com

Either way, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. No body should be fired based on their sexual orientation. People should be hired and fired based upon skill and respect, and those two qualities alone. You're not hiring someone for sex, so it shouldn't even be a part of the equation.



And the above quote is proof that we really do have a three ring circus rather than a congress, and that we need to rotate out some of those members.

If it is so important that you want it done then it's important enough to be its own bill. We need a law that forbids random crap being attached to bills. If it is a bill for spending for a certain thing then everything in the bill should pertain to it. I want representatives that will vote down every single ****ing bill with random amendments for other things added to it.
 
How about people stop attaching random crap they want done to spending bills?

Just a thought.

Ryan has acquiesced to his Freedom Caucus to allow more amendments than Boehner.

That means both parties get amendments.

Though Ryan only blamed DEMs in the OP link .
 
If it is so important that you want it done then it's important enough to be its own bill. We need a law that forbids random crap being attached to bills. If it is a bill for spending for a certain thing then everything in the bill should pertain to it. I want representatives that will vote down every single ****ing bill with random amendments for other things added to it.

I agree with you entirely, however in order to do that we'd have to have adults in congress, and that's obviously not the case.

Because it is not the case, I think that amendments should only be voted down if they're truly undesirable, and I don't think this amendment was.
 
Ryan has acquiesced to his Freedom Caucus to allow more amendments than Boehner.

That means both parties get amendments.

Though Ryan only blamed DEMs in the OP link .

Amendments themselves aren't the problem. What is the problem is amendments that have nothing to do with the bill in question. In this case democrats stuffed an anti-discrimination amendment into a spending bill for water and energy programs.
 
So, perhaps the article has just been updated since this morning, but the spending bill actually passed with a 223-195 vote. Additional article here: House passes LGBT amendment after GOP leaders defeated it last week - CNNPolitics.com

Either way, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. No body should be fired based on their sexual orientation. People should be hired and fired based upon skill and respect, and those two qualities alone. You're not hiring someone for sex, so it shouldn't even be a part of the equation.



And the above quote is proof that we really do have a three ring circus rather than a congress, and that we need to rotate out some of those members.

which has nothing to do with a water or energy bill.
of course that doesn't mean that the senate can't pull it out.
 
Amendments themselves aren't the problem. What is the problem is amendments that have nothing to do with the bill in question. In this case democrats stuffed an anti-discrimination amendment into a spending bill for water and energy programs.

You're obviously expecting DEMs to play by a different set of rules than the GOP you favor .
 
How about people stop attaching random crap they want done to spending bills?

Just a thought.

Nice idea, but somehow I don't think they got the memo. LOL.
 
So, perhaps the article has just been updated since this morning, but the spending bill actually passed with a 223-195 vote. Additional article here: House passes LGBT amendment after GOP leaders defeated it last week - CNNPolitics.com

Either way, I'm not sure what all the fuss is about. No body should be fired based on their sexual orientation. People should be hired and fired based upon skill and respect, and those two qualities alone. You're not hiring someone for sex, so it shouldn't even be a part of the equation.



And the above quote is proof that we really do have a three ring circus rather than a congress, and that we need to rotate out some of those members.

They passed the Amendment, then proceeded to shoot down the whole bill.
 
Ryan has acquiesced to his Freedom Caucus to allow more amendments than Boehner.

That means both parties get amendments.

Though Ryan only blamed DEMs in the OP link .

Ryan blamed the Dems, but Republicans attached their own poison pill which said that the Federal Government would not be allowed to shut off funds to North Carolina over HB2. This is why both Dems and Reps voted against the final bill.
 
Ryan has acquiesced to his Freedom Caucus to allow more amendments than Boehner.

That means both parties get amendments.

Though Ryan only blamed DEMs in the OP link .

Actually, Ryan told everyone that if he accepted the Speaker's position that he would stick to Regular Order, to give the minority and everyone else the ability to add amendments when a bill makes it out of committee and reaches the floor of the House. That's something the Democrats raised hell about not happening under Boehner, and the Republicans raised hell about not happening under Pelosi.

Ryan is keeping his word, and allowing the US House of Representatives to operate the way it's supposed to operate - in the full light for everyone to see, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

The bill that the OP story is lambasting the Republicans over, passed the House with like 42 or 43 Republican votes and most of the Democrats (I believe a few voted against it, but I can't remember without looking it up, and it's just too late for me to do that right now).

The problem with the first vote, was that under Regular Order, anyone can bring an Amendment to a Bill up for a vote immediately, without notice to the other members, once a bill is on the floor of the House. The Amendment in question here was offered on the floor and voted on immediately, with no one on either side having a chance to read it - so... of course the Republicans voted it down being that 1) it was an "LGBT Rights" Amendment and the average GOP Congresscritter ain't gonna vote in favor of anything LGBT without reading it, and 2) well, regardless of the subject matter, they didn't know it said and it was being offered by a Democrat.

After the Amendment was Amended with superfluous language that stated that the 1st Amendment protections for religious groups and organizations was still in place, the Amendment and the Bill as a whole passed.

As for the Congressman that gave the speech before the prayer at the caucus meeting, he really screwed up when he told those that voted in favor of the bill that they would be going to hell. All of the GOP leadership (including my Congressman) voted in favor of both the Amendment and the Bill. That guy is now on the list that isn't the one that leads to getting support from the House Leadership.

I had lunch with my Congressman in Friday, and we discussed this Amendment to this Bill in depth.
 
They passed the Amendment, then proceeded to shoot down the whole bill.

Here's what it said:

Amendment No. 34 Offered by Mr. Pittenger

Mr. PITTENGER. Mr. Chairman, I have an amendment at the desk.
The Acting CHAIR. The Clerk will designate the amendment.
The text of the amendment is as follows:

At the end of the bill (before the short title), insert the
following:
Sec. __. None of the funds made available by this Act may
be used to revoke funding previously awarded to or within the
State of North Carolina.

The amendment didn't stop federal punishment of NC for HB2, it only prevented money in THIS bill from being used to withhold funding already previously awarded to NC - in other words, on-going projects that are already being funded couldn't be de-funded by using money from THIS bill. Money from other bills could be used to do so, just not money from THIS bill.

I totally disagree with Pittenger for bringing up the amendment. However, the amendment couldn't actually stop the President from withholding money from NC over HB2, it only would stop the use of funds from this single bill from being used to do so. The Democrats voted against the bill en masse. Only 6 Democrats voted in favor of the bill while 175 voted against it. 100 Republicans voted for it, and 130 voted against it. If the Democrats would have voted in favor of the bill, it would have passed, and the President would have had a win with the Maloney Amendment, and he could have still de-funded NC from federal money if he wanted to do so.

Ryan was correct - the Dems are to blame for this one not passing, because the "poison pill" they used as an excuse was not a poison pill, but rather a feather being wielded in place of a sword. However, the GOP could have passed this one on their own, and failed to do so - given that, the GOP owns some of the failure here as well.

If just over half of the Dems had voted Yea, this would be over right now.
 
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