House Democratic loophole plan to reopen Government

[cthulu2016]

File this under, "Things that are not going to happen," since it requires the "moderate republicans" of myth and legend to 1) exist, and 2) cast a series of votes against the Speaker. Since supposed moderates have already passed on the opportunity to bring the senate bill to a vote in the House, such a revolt is not what you'd call expected. But it is important to game-out these things to see what is possible if there really were moderate republicans.

...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-OK), 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...

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/house-democrats-propose-hail-mary-strategy-for-ending-shutdown

[bunnies]

1. Good.

We'll find out if the "moderates" are telling the truth or not.

[Nye Bevan]

2. We need clever ideas like this to beat the Republicans' shenanigans (nt)

[Motown_Johnny]

3. If they can replace Lankford's bill with the Senate Bill ....

then the Senate should pass a bill that raises the debt ceiling cleanly too.


Get all this crap behind us in one fell swoop.