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House Democrats Propose Rube Goldberg Machine Strategy For Ending Shutdown
House Democrats think they've found a legislative ploy to bring the Senate-passed temporary spending bill to the House floor and end the government shutdown.
The move amounts to a legislative Hail Mary because it would require moderate Republicans to break with their leadership, something they've so far been unwilling to do.
In recent days, talk of a "discharge petition" has been circulating the Capitol. The simple explanation of that process is this: If more than half of the House (217 today) signs a petition to bring a bill to the floor, the legislation can be considered without House leadership signing off on it.
But the procedural catch is, a bill being brought to the floor via a discharge petition must have been filed for at least 30 legislative days. For the recently filed Senate-passed temporary spending bill, a 30-day delay would last until November and well past the debt-ceiling deadline that is looming in mid-October. In other words, too late to do much good.
But House Democrats think they've found a procedural loophole, according to a plan outline obtained by TPM. The road is a bit complicated.
They're planning to bring an existing bill, filed in March by Rep. James Lankford (R-MT), called the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, to the floor. That bill would keep the government funded at current levels. By using an existing bill, they avoid the 30-day delay.
Here's the timeline. House Democrats will file an "Open the Government" resolution, calling for a floor vote on Lankford's bill, on Friday. After it sits untouched in the House Rules Committee for seven legislative days, they can file a discharge petition to bring the resolution to the floor, likely by Oct. 14 at the earliest.
After the resolution is approved by a simple majority of the full House, then by the resolution's own terms the Lankford bill would come up for a vote. At that point, Democrats would replace Lankford's bill with the Senate bill and vote on it.
Governmentin' is hard
The move amounts to a legislative Hail Mary because it would require moderate Republicans to break with their leadership, something they've so far been unwilling to do.
In recent days, talk of a "discharge petition" has been circulating the Capitol. The simple explanation of that process is this: If more than half of the House (217 today) signs a petition to bring a bill to the floor, the legislation can be considered without House leadership signing off on it.
But the procedural catch is, a bill being brought to the floor via a discharge petition must have been filed for at least 30 legislative days. For the recently filed Senate-passed temporary spending bill, a 30-day delay would last until November and well past the debt-ceiling deadline that is looming in mid-October. In other words, too late to do much good.
But House Democrats think they've found a procedural loophole, according to a plan outline obtained by TPM. The road is a bit complicated.
They're planning to bring an existing bill, filed in March by Rep. James Lankford (R-MT), called the Government Shutdown Prevention Act, to the floor. That bill would keep the government funded at current levels. By using an existing bill, they avoid the 30-day delay.
Here's the timeline. House Democrats will file an "Open the Government" resolution, calling for a floor vote on Lankford's bill, on Friday. After it sits untouched in the House Rules Committee for seven legislative days, they can file a discharge petition to bring the resolution to the floor, likely by Oct. 14 at the earliest.
After the resolution is approved by a simple majority of the full House, then by the resolution's own terms the Lankford bill would come up for a vote. At that point, Democrats would replace Lankford's bill with the Senate bill and vote on it.
Governmentin' is hard
2 replies
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= new reply since forum marked as read
Although we will give him to them if they want him.