The only thing preventing the House from passing a clean
continuing resolution to open the government AND a clean resolution to raise
the debt limit is Speaker John Boehner’s reluctance to bring such bills to the
floor of the House for a vote. If he
did, Democrats and enough Republicans would vote in favor to pass them. Boehner is reluctant to take such a step
because he would anger Tea Party Republicans so much that he would likely NOT
be re-elected Speaker at the next session of Congress, assuming Republicans
retain control of the House which they probably will. Additionally, Boehner might face a Tea Party
challenger in the Republican primary which could cost him his seat. Moderate Republicans who might support a clear CR and debit limit increase are being threatened by rich Tea Party backers--We will spend a fortune to defeat you in the primary.
So is there a way out of the government shutdown/debt
ceiling impasses? Yes. Of course it is a
way, way out idea for a way out but it IS perfectly Constitutional and entirely possible
or nearly so. Here is how it would work.
Article I, Section II of the Constitution says: “The House of Representatives shall choose
their Speaker and other officers, and shall have the sole power of
impeachment.” Members of the House elect the Speaker by majority vote at the
beginning of each session of Congress.
Usually each party nominates someone for Speaker and the vote is along
party lines, but it does not have to
be. Representatives can vote for anyone
to be Speaker including someone who is not a member of Congress. A majority vote elects the Speaker. Currently, that means 217 votes are required
to elect the Speaker. Boehner could make
a pack with Democrats for enough of them to vote for him for him to remain Speaker
if Republicans retain the Majority in 2015.
Of course if he did that, he would not be reelected to the House. Of course that wouldn't matter because the
Speaker doesn't have to be a member.
So, here is how such a deal might work. Boehner makes a deal with the Democrats in
the House. He will agree to bring a
clean bill to the floor for a continuing resolution and another clean bill to
raise the debt ceiling. Both bills would
probably pass since the 200 Democrats would only need 17 Republicans to join
them to reach the 217 votes required to pass the bills.
The Senate would pass the clean resolution and debt limit increase and
Obama would sign them. The whole crisis
would be over and the country could get back to whatever we do when we don’t
have a political and economic crisis facing us.
In return for bringing the clean bills to the floor,
Democrats and the 17 Republicans would agree to vote for John Boehner for
Speaker in 2015 if Republicans retain control of the House. Now, the 17 Republicans would join the
Democrats in this deal because they are all from swing districts who could lose
to a Democrat in 2014. In return for
their help in getting Boehner to bring the bills to the floor, Democrats would
agree not to run a candidate in the next election against the 17 Republicans
that went along with the deal and/or these 17 Republicans could run as
Democrats with plenty of Democratic support.
Remember these 17 Republicans have to run in swing districts, districts
that voted for Obama. Of course, the Tea
Party would go nuts and Boehner most likely wouldn’t survive the Republican
primary so he would lose his seat in the House.
However, that wouldn’t matter if Republicans retain a majority in the
House as is likely. Democrats would
nominate Boehner for Speaker. They and
the 17 Republicans who retained their seats primarily because of the deal would
vote in a block for Boehner. Boehner
would become the first bi-partisan elected Speaker in the history of the
country.
Of course, the downside of this is we would be stuck with
Boehner as Speaker for two more years.
But then, unlike the Tea Party children, we don’t expect to get
everything we want.I told you it is a way, way, way out idea for a way out. But, it just might work.
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