2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumRepublican House chairman gavels out every Dem in this video
Fucking Repug asshole! May your sedition come back to haunt you!
http://www.nbcnews.com/video/nbc-news/53135364/#53135364
Shrike47
(6,913 posts)Your asses.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)The Hastert Rule is the big problem. It blocks the Republicans from bringing up for a vote in the House a bill that does not have a majority of Republican members willing to vote for it.
Think for a moment what that means. That means that you cannot have a bill pass if a minority of Republicans and all Democrats want it to pass and are willing to vote for it. Just one Republican House member can join other extremist Republicans in the House and prevent a bill from being passed based on cooperation between a minority of Republicans and the Democrats.
At this time there are 234 Republicans and 201 Democrats in the House. A majority of House members is 218. That means if the Democrats were willing to vote for a bill and could attract the votes of 17 Republicans, the bill could pass.
EXCEPT, that cannot happen because of the Hastert Rule (if I understand it correctly.)
Under the Republican (not Democratic, not House) Hastert Rule, Boehner will not, is not supposed to bring a bill up before the House for a vote unless at least 117 (the majority of Republican members rather than 17 which would add up to a total of House members) Republicans support it.
That is why the Republicans and their undemocratic party rules are TOTALLY TO BLAME FOR THE GRIDLOCK IN CONGRESS AND INABILITY OF CONGRESS TO WORK TOGETHER AND SOLVE PROBLEMS.
The media is not explaining this as far as I can tell. The media is, as usual, once again, irresponsible in not reporting clearly to the voters on what the Republicans are pulling in Congress and how they are harming the country. The Democrats and Republicans are not equally responsible for the gridlock. The Republicans are primarily responsible for it. The Hastert Rule is just on example of their super-partisan conduct in Congress.
NutmegYankee
(16,199 posts)There is no other way and he's done it before. But always at the last hour.
Response to NutmegYankee (Reply #3)
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JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)The majority of the majority policy as a general guideline (not an actual rule) is not unreasonable. BUT the flip side is that if you're going to follow that guideline as Speaker, you'd damn better be able to convince a majority of your caucus to accept a deal that you negotiate with an opposing White House. Otherwise, the President has absolutely no reason to even bother negotiating with you, since he can just sit back and watch your caucus disintegrate into chaos.
Newt during his tenure ultimately overreached and made some stupid tactical errors making comments about sitting on the back of Air Force One. But he at least had the ability to pull his caucus back from the brink. Boehner can't pull back from the brink, unless the rank and file are secretly okay with another CR passed with mostly Democratic votes. But if a shutdown actually happens, I can't imagine that will be the case.
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Hippo_Tron
(25,453 posts)I can't imagine that the majority will just consent to another CR passed by Democrats.