About that "present" vote by the Dems the other day...

[Thunderstruck]

Can someone please explain what it means?

I've read a couple of articles but I'm still not clear on what it accomplished and what the point was.

[MineralMan]

1. It was to make the Republican own what they're doing.

Always a good idea.

[tabatha]

2. I think present is like abstain.

It is not counted. Therefore some Repubs had to show their true colors and change yes votes to no, otherwise it would have passed. If it had passed then the Repubs would be on record as voting for a very bad bill.

[Thunderstruck]

3. Was all of that recorded so that the idiots who initially voted

yes will still be known regardless of their vote change? Is there a list that you know of of the ones that changed their votes?

[Zambero]

11. It's on the video footage, each vote switch clearly announced

I laughed when I heard some of the GOP switcheroos who had changed their votes. Dreier (R-CA) being one of them. Vulnerable perhaps?

[Drale]

4. Not just a very bad bill but

possible the worst bill ever voted on in congress.

[Pirate Smile]

5. It was an even worse version of Ryan's plan. More draconian. More horrible. Republicans wanted it to

lose but a lot of them wanted to be on record voting for it.

They reasonably assumed that Democrats would all vote against it so it would go down but more Republicans could make the symbolic vote of voting for it to show how "tough" they are on cutting spending.

Hoyer knew that and decided to not have Democrats play their assumed roles.

He told (by House D Whips & by e-mail) Dems to vote late - to wait....while letting Republicans entered their votes... and then to vote present.

So the vote would have passed without the Dem no votes. When the Republicans figured out what was going on - they freaked and had to switch enough votes so it would lose.

Neither the budget the Republicans passed (Ryan's plan) or the even worse version will ever become law - the Senate wont pass it & the President would never sign it.

It is a vote that shows what these Republicans support which Democrats can use against them in the 2012 campaign.

[Thunderstruck]

7. That is very helpful in understanding what happened. Thank you very much.

[Maine-ah]

9. and it's still making me laugh!

they need to pull shit like this more often!!

[fredamae]

12. Oh, hell Yes!

They are starting to look like the Dem Wing of the Dem Party...Like the WI-14 and the IN-37. I love this!

[Zambero]

6. Initially it was intended to portray Democrats as against deficit reduction

The majority of GOP members didn't want it either, favoring Ryan's plan, but they introduced it for three purposes:

1. To placate those extreme right-wingers in and out of Congress who favored the Republican Study Group (RSG) proposal, which was more Draconian and "flat tax" than even Ryan's plan.

2. To portray Democrats (who were expected to carry the necessary burden of voting against it) as being opposed to meaningful deficit reduction.

3. To cast themselves as being "reasonable" when they eventually passed the more "mainstream" Ryan plan.

The political posturing was to be able to point to Democrats as being obstructionists. "Hey we tried, but look at the Democrats, they're at it again!" When the Democrats voted "present" it suddenly put Republicans in the position of moving forward to approve a radical plan that they figured would be DOA courtesy of the Democrats. If Republicans had passed this measure, the political blowback would have been enormous. Enough of them scrambled to change their votes from yay to nay at the last minute (they actually had to extend add'l time to GOP members to do this!), but their ploy became blatantly obvious at that point.

Boehner & company might have learned a valuable lesson with their failed exercise-- don't mess around with the likes of Nancy Pelosi, unless you wan to come out looking like complete idiots.

[Thunderstruck]

8. So, can we now use those switched votes to beat Regressives

over the head with in the upcoming campaign season?

[Zambero]

10. Or target the 120-odd Republicans who still kept their "yes" votes

A lot of them are no doubt from diehard red districts whose clueless constituents will approve of their vote. But there could be some marginal seats in there. At any rate, it's all part of the public record and those GOP members are fair game for having supported the RSG plan.

[Snoutport]

13. Even Better...the dems can really hit the switch voters-

the dem can say "they voted yes to (insert the very worst of the bill here)
then the rep. has to come out explaining their vote (which takes them off message)
then the dem gets to hash out the fine points and then bring up the worst of the ryan bill
then the rep has to explain (which takes them off message)

It is a very weak platform to run on!

[LiberalAndProud]

14. Perfect illustration of the game the Repubs are playing.

The gamemanship pisses me off. They're playing games with our lives and our futures. It's a GAME to them, and I am fed up with it.

FED UP.