Yesterday, during speeches in the House, Chip Roy, a proud member of the chaos caucus, asked a question of his fellow Republican lawmakers.1
“One thing! I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing ― one! ― that I can go campaign on and say we did. One! Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me, one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, ‘Well, I guess it’s not as bad as the Democrats.’”
If you have the time, the whole speech2 is worth listening to because it speaks to the chaos caucus’ total misapprehension of the legislative process. Roy is throwing a tantrum, because he is saying that he and his compatriots should just say no, and they will eventually have to be given their way. When my daughter was two and did that, I told her she needed a time out for attitude adjustment and took her away from the spotlight until she calmed down enough before she could go back. It didn’t take many times before she realized tantrums weren’t going to work. Just asking her if she needed time for an attitude adjustment would be enough to stop the impending upset. Unfortunately, there is no basic parental leadership in the House Republican Conference.
Roy’s speech was also an indictment of Mike Johnson’s strategy of tying something that both parties want, like aid to Israel, to something only the Republicans want, and that is anathema to Democrats, like cutting funding to the IRS.
In other news, the Senate passed the “laddered” continuing resolution, averting the shutdown. 3 The vote was 87-11, with 10 Republicans and one Democrat voting no. Fox News touted it as Speaker Johnson’s first big win, avoiding a “spending monstrosity”. Fox noted the House vote in the article, as quoted below, neglecting to mention that the overwhelming majority was due to the Democrats voting for the bill.
The CR passed in the House of Representatives on Tuesday by an overwhelming majority of 336-95.
How likely is it that the appropriation bills will be passed by the new drop-dead dates?
Currently, none of the 12 appropriations bills have had both of their independent versions pass their respective chambers, let alone have gone through the reconciliation process, and have had the identical reconciled versions that emerge from the conference committees pass both Houses. The conference committees have equal numbers of members from the House and Senate appointed by the chamber’s leadership, so given the current split majorities in the chambers and the polarization between Republicans and Democrats, reconciliation will likely be contentious. The one saving grace is that the reconciled appropriations bills reported out of conference are voted straight up or down with no further amendment possible. The bills then need to be sent to Joe Biden for signature to be enacted into law or he could veto them and they would go back to Congress where both chambers would have to override the veto with 2/3 majorities.
A look at the House calendar proves instructive. At 1:33:36 on November 15, the House adjourned after Speaker Johnson announced that November 15 through Monday, November 27, would be a 12-day “district work period.” This was in spite of the fact that November 16 had previously been scheduled as a DC Work day according to the calendar published by Steve Scalise, the House Majority Leader. When the House returns on November 28, there will be 3 days left in November when the House will be in session. There are only 9 DC work days scheduled in December.4 There are 8 DC Work Days scheduled on the January 2024 House calendar ahead of the first stage of the “laddered” continuing resolution, which expires on January 19, 2024. That leaves 20 days when the House is in session to pass the first four appropriations bills, which concern military construction and Veterans Affairs; Agriculture; Energy and Water; and Transportation and Housing and Urban Development. 5
How did the House spend its precious floor time yesterday besides listening to Chip Roy spew?
As part of the standard opening procedures, there were 10 1-minute speeches doing things like honoring the principal of an elementary school.
There was a privileged resolution H.R. 871 regarding a member of a committee offered, not read aloud, and was tabled. The text of the resolution was not available as I wrote this.
Resolution HR 869, was called up for consideration. This resolution contained the determination by the Rules Committee for how the first appropriations bill for the Departments of Justice, Commerce and Science H.R. 5893 would be handled on the floor as a structured rule with separate votes on 119 amendments, and that H.R. 5961 No Funds for Iranian Terrorism Act would be handled with a closed rule—no amendments.
Thomas Massie (R-KY), Member of the House Rules Committee and Jim McGovern(D-MA) Ranking Member of the committee debated the Rule with eloquent prose, such as this, from Massie:
MR. SPEAKER, TO SAY THE DEMOCRATS SPEND LIKE DRUNKEN SAILOR IS AN INSULT TO SAILORS. THIS BILL CUTS WASTEFUL SPENDING. IF THERE'S ANY SCORECARD TO BE KEPT BETWEEN DEMOCRAT SPEAKERS AND REPUBLICAN SPEAKERS, IT SHOULD BE ON SPENDING. (Sorry but the transcript on the House website appears in all caps.)
Jim McGovern, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, responded at a later point in the hour-long debate with the following, given that all 119 amendments that came out of the Rules Committee were offered by Republicans and amendments proposed by Democrats were blocked:
SO I THINK I'M BEGINNING TO UNDERSTAND THE LOGIC OF THE GENTLEMAN FROM KENTUCKY. HE THINKS WE HAVE AN OPEN PROCESS AS LONG AS AMENDMENTS THAT HE AGREES WITH ARE MADE IN ORDER. BUT ANY AMENDMENTS THAT HE DOESN'T AGREE WITH, IT'S OK TO BLOCK THEM. I DON'T HAVE ANY PROBLEM WITH SOME OF THE CRUMMY AMENDMENTS THE GENTLEMAN AND THE REPUBLICANS HAVE MADE IN ORDER THAT IN MY OPINION ARE REALLY BAD FOR THIS COUNTRY. WE'LL HAVE THOSE DEBATES AND VOTE ON THEM. I HAVE NO PROBLEM WITH THAT. BUT I DON'T KNOW WHY MY FRIENDS ARE AFRAID TO HAVE A DEBATE ON WOMEN'S REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS, WHETHER OR NOT WE SHOULD PROTECT A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO CHOOSE, WHETHER WE SHOULD PROTECT A WOMAN'S RIGHT TO ABORTION IN THIS COUNTRY. THEY BLOCKED IT. THEY ADDED LANGUAGE IN THAT CURTAILS WOMEN'S RIGHTS BUT WON'T ALLOW AN AMENDMENT SO WE CAN HAVE 10 MINUTES OF DEBATE. I DON'T KNOW WHY THE GENTLEMAN IS AFRAID TO HAVE A DEBATE ON WHETHER OR NOT WE SHOULD END BIGOTRY AGAINST THE LBGTQ+ COMMUNITY. YOU KNOW, IF THEY BELIEVE THAT IT'S OK TO CONTINUE PREJUDICE AND DISCRIMINATION AGAINST THAT COMMUNITY, THEY CAN VOTE NO ON OUR AMENDMENT. LET'S HAVE THE DEBATE. OR ON CLIMATE CHANGE, OR EVEN ON, YOU KNOW, WE HAVE A DIFFERENT POSITION ON ASSAULT WEAPONS. THE GENTLEMAN CAN OFFER HIS AMENDMENT AND WE HAVE A DIFFERENT AMENDMENT. WHY IS IT THAT THE AMENDMENT WE OFFERED IS BLOCKED. IT'S JUST A STRANGE VIEW OF THE WORLD WHEN YOU COME UP HERE AND YOU SAY THAT WE HAVE A VERY FAIR AND OPEN PROCESS HERE BUT WE BLOCK ALL YOUR AMENDMENTS BUT WE'RE MAKING ALL THE AMENDMENTS WE AGREE WITH BASICALLY IN ORDER. I DON'T REALLY THINK THAT THAT'S A FAIR PROCESS. BUT IN ANY EVENT, LET ME ASK THE GENTLEMAN, HOW MANY MORE SPEAKERS DOES HE HAVE ON HIS SIDE?
At 10:20 AM McGovern (D) demanded a roll call vote and the resolution to establish the rule for the debate on the actual appropriations bill was tabled.
The House went into a short recess.
The Roll Call vote on Resolution 859, the Rule for bringing the actual appropriations bill to the floor for debate, failed by a vote of 198 (R-198 D-0)- 225 (R-19, D-206) with 11 Representatives, 4 R and 7 D not voting. This forced the actual appropriations bill to be tabled as unfinished business.
The Republicans blocking the resolution were Biggs, Bishop (NC), Boebert, Breecheen, Burchett, Cloud, Crane, D’Esposito, Gaetz, Garbarino, Good (VA), Gosar, LaLota, Lawler, Luna, Norman, Perry, Rosendale, Roy.
The House then proceeded to roll call votes on amendments to the appropriations bill for the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services and Education. H.R. 5894 that had previously been tabled.
Shutting the government down remains the chaos caucus objective. This was a challenge to Mike Johnson’s leadership. The fracture of the FRP is coming. Looks like a shutdown is too.
My goodness, Georgia, how can you bear to get down in the weeds every day? Thank you for sharing your research and describing in detail how little actual work is being accomplished. But perhaps a toddler tantrum timeout is exactly what’s needed?
Georgia, I am so impressed by your knowledge and your dedication to sharing what you know. I always look for your comments on other substacks. I hope other people notice that you have your own. I just saw it in your comment today. Thank you so much for your work.