Welcome to the Congressional Republicans’ game of “Chicken!” brought to you by McDonald’s wage theft. In the red corner is John Boehner, representing the House Republicans, and in the other red corner is Mitch McConnell, representing the Senate Republicans.
Round 1: The bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security
Boehner currently has the lead in the side-betting which is an unusual position for him. He’s been plagued in the past with a number of devastating failures in the ring, so many that it would take a separate diary to enumerate them all. Just choose your favorite debacle and pass the popcorn.
Knowing that the party base expected nothing less than a demand to overturn President Obama's new immigration policy, Boehner accommodated them by inviting the tea party extremists to write the bill whereupon House Republicans obligingly passed it. The bill then became Boehner’s gauntlet which he threw down on McConnell’s desk.
McConnell's initial reaction is unrecorded but it's safe to say it wasn't joyful. Nevertheless, in warrior fashion, he rose to the challenge and brought the bill up for a vote. Two of his own caucus promptly defected with one abstaining and the other joining the Democrats in voting “No!”. Not an ideal opening for McConnell. Undeterred, he brought it up for a second vote and then a third vote just to make it abundantly clear to House Republicans that their bill was definitely dead and without hope of resuscitation in its present form.
It didn't get anywhere near the 60 votes required to move it forward and this cold, hard fact (an anathema to Republicans everywhere) exposes the underlying problem in this particular stand-off: the inability of both leaders to count votes. Now you might feel moved to point out that managing the numbers is a reasonable expectation for both Congressional leaders. After all, they both have party whips to help them if they find themselves a bit short in the math department. But no. It turns out they are all math-challenged. Not only are Senate Republicans short of the 60 vote threshold, neither chamber has the votes to override a presidential veto in any case.
There followed a brief desultory attempt to involve the blue team. As Chris Weigant noted in his article Boehner and McConnell Argue Over Who Should Cave First:
When asked about the next step for Republicans in their windmill-tilting over the Department of Homeland Security funding and President Obama's new immigration policy, Boehner tried to shift the blame elsewhere, responding: "Why don't you go ask the Senate Democrats when they're going to get off their ass and do something other than to vote no?"
What Boehner is asking Democrats in the Senate to do, when put in the proper historical and metaphorical context, is to stop being Democrats. Getting up "off their ass" would mean, in essence, jumping on an elephant instead. Boehner is basically mad that Senate Democrats insist on being Democrats and refuse to become Republicans. But, as [President] Andy Jackson would tell you, jackasses are known, more than anything else, for being stubborn. So Boehner's strategy is just not going to work.
It was never going to work but it isn’t Boehner who is taking the heat this time. It’s McConnell who is stuck with a bill that he cannot get to pass in his chamber and there’s absolutely no motivation on Boehner’s part to help McConnell out. In fact, Boehner has all the appearances of being delighted with McConnell’s predicament as he pointed out, "You know, in the gift shop out here, they've got these little booklets on how a bill becomes a law." Apparently he feels that Senate Republicans are in need of a refresher course. Score 1 for Boehner. The battlelines have been drawn.
During strategy meetings held this week with both House and Senate Republican caucuses, shots were exchanged on both sides. After Sen Cory Gardner and Sen Shelley Moore Capito, two Republican senators who were House members last year, had addressed their former House colleagues, Rep Bradley Byrne fired this salvo:
They explained to us how the Senate process works and we were glad to have some of our former colleagues do that. But from this House member's perspective, and I think that I reflect the vast majority of the members of our conference, the Senate needs to do its job. Period.
Followed by Rep John Carter:
Work 24 hours a day until the February deadline and see if you can't convince the Democrats to actually be patriots and not obstructionists. We've done our job.
Ted Cruz acolyte, Rep John Fleming, also fired a shot:
Our bill is our bill. This is what we passed, and this is what we expect you to pass. So get it done.
Boehner must have been so proud!
In retaliation, the senators brought forward one of their big guns, a presidential candidate no less. Take it away, Sen Lindsey Graham:
Clearly the DHS bill, as constructed, is not going to get 60 votes. So we would urge the House to do something new.
Oh dear... triple misfire there. House Republicans are not going to get the “60 vote” reference (is that one of those fact thingies?); “urge” is too limp a word and “something new”, while creditably lacking in detail as is the Republican wont, is far too vague for your average tea partier to grasp. They’ll need Ted Cruz to explain this one to them. However, since he’s on the side of the House tea partiers, it probably won’t help the senators much... it's highly unlikely to help them at all.
Can Mitch McConnell do better? He has the ball and he's on the run:
I think it's clear we can't go forward in the Senate, unless you all have heard something I haven't. So the next move obviously is up to the House.
Yes, he’s thrown it to their end! But Boehner is having none of it and sharply lobs it back in the final shot of the day:
The House has done its job. It's time for the Senate to do their work.
Ah yes, nicely played. I’ll leave you to decide the score at this stage though I think you’ll agree that the House Republicans are a nose in front with a basket in hand. McConnell isn’t used to grappling with the irrational intransigence of the tea partiers while Boehner knows them all too well.
Further complicating this game of “Chicken!” is the inescapable fact that both leaders have sworn they will not shut down Homeland Security over their immigration fight with Obama. Sans any details as to how and exactly when they will do so, they are locked into passing the DHS budget by the end of the month. But Congress is set to be in recess next week which will leave a mere four days from when they resume on February 23 until the deadline on February 27.
Currently it’s all about the impasse. By February 23 it will be all about the urgency. The clock is ticking. Who will blink first?
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