As House Republicans debate, no sign government shutdown can be avoided
| Washington
In a rare聽Saturday聽caucus meeting, House Republicans rejected a Senate stopgap measure that would have averted a government shutdown at聽midnight Monday.
Instead, the GOP-controlled House is expected to send back to the Senate, as early as聽Saturday聽evening, a funding bill (CR or 鈥渃ontinuing resolution鈥�) to keep government open through聽Dec. 15聽and force a one-year delay in the implementation of Obamacare, set to begin on聽Oct. 1.
In a bid to win Democratic support, the measure also repeals a controversial tax on medical devices and adds a measure to ensure that US military forces continue to be paid, even if the government shuts down.
This means that the US government is very close to a shutdown on聽Oct. 1, and there appears to be no way out, unless someone blinks.聽House Speaker John Boehner,聽under fierce pressure from the right wing of his caucus and outside conservative groups supporting them, did not blink.
鈥淲e鈥檙e in a very good spot,鈥� said Rep. Tom Graves (R) of Georgia, who along with Sen. Ted Cruz (R) of Texas, began organizing the House GOP caucus last summer to rally around a plan to fund government only if Obamacare were defunded.
鈥淲e鈥檙e unified. There鈥檚 a lot of energy, and excitement, and resolve,鈥� Rep. Graves said after Saturday鈥檚 caucus meeting.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not being obstructionist, the Senate is,鈥� said Rep. Mo Brooks (R) of Alabama. It鈥檚 Harry Reid and the Democrats who see a 鈥渢actical advantage鈥� in a government shutdown, because they鈥檙e convinced that Republicans will be blamed, he added. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know a single Republican who believes there is a tactical advantage to shutting down government.鈥�
To recap:聽聽Senate majority leader Harry Reid says that the Democrat-controlled Senate will reject any measure that alters the health-care law, period.
The only way to avert a shutdown is for the House to accept the CR that the Senate passed聽Friday聽on a party-line vote that simply funds government through聽Nov. 15, Sen. Reid said. To emphasize the point, the majority leader adjourned the Senate until聽Monday聽afternoon.
Moreover, President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner have, repeatedly and publicly, declined to negotiate with each other.聽They haven鈥檛 spoken since Sept. 20, says a Boehner aide.
With the Senate out of town and the president out of contact, that leaves the ball in Boehner鈥檚 court.聽To accept Reid鈥檚 take-it-or-leave-it offer, Boehner needs 217 votes.聽
He could get those votes with help from Democrats, as he did to pass the fiscal cliff deal on Aug. 1, 2012, aid for the victims of Hurricane Sandy on聽Jan. 15, and the reauthorization of the violence against women act on聽Feb. 28 鈥� all issues that generated significant opposition in House GOP ranks.
But in accordance with what has come to be known as the Hastert rule, the default position for GOP leaders is to take to the floor only those measures that have the support of a majority of their majority.
Dennis Hastert, the longest serving Republican Speaker of the House in history, adopted the rule publicly during a bitter fight within the Republican Party over an immigration bill in 2003.
鈥淚 knew we were going to have a difficult time to get this out,鈥� he said, in a phone interview.
Supporters of immigration reform had urged the Speaker to take the bill to the floor and pass it with a majority of Democratic votes. But Hastert says that he refused, saying: 鈥淲hen you pass legislation with a majority of Democrats, you鈥檙e not in control anymore.鈥�
But applying that principle to the current civil war in GOP ranks over health-care reform may not be feasible, Hastert says, because leadership is having such trouble getting warring factions in the party to come to the table and work out a compromise.
Part of the problem, he says, is the long-term impact of campaign finance reform in weakening political parties by diverting big-donor funding to outside groups. One result is that the candidates elected under the new campaign-finance regime are coming to Congress with a narrow or more extreme agenda.
聽鈥淟eadership should be able to bring warring factions together, but maybe the candidates you are now bringing in are so extreme that you can鈥檛 bring them to the table,鈥� he says.
Still, Boehner has the option of ignoring the Hastert rule, as he did with fiscal cliff legislation, hurricane aid, and violence against women act, and take the Senate funding bill to the floor, passing it with the help of Democrats at the 11th 聽hour聽on Monday聽-- and promising Republicans to fight Obamacare on another day.聽聽
鈥淲hat a lot of Republicans need to do is still to go against it [Obamacare] until the last minute,鈥� says Julian Zelizer, a congressional historian at Princeton University.聽鈥淭here鈥檚 always room for Speaker Boehner to lead. He could really put the tea party Republicans out on their own.鈥�
