HCR House Debate: Procedural Votes a Clue on Final Votes?

[Joanne98]

Sat Nov 07, 2009 at 02:36:04 PM PST
Over at Congress Matters, David posts about the first procedural vote of the day.

Ordering the previous question is akin to a House version of cloture, except that instead of unlimited debate, there's only an extra hour at stake. Well, that and the ability to amend the rule, which would be an exceptionally dangerous surrender of the power the majority gives itself on the Rules Committee.

Essentially, ordering the previous question asks, "Will the House now end debate on that thing we were just debating -- hence "previous question" -- and move next to a vote on that thing we were just debating?" Defeat the previous question, and the House moves into default procedural mode, in which everything gets an hour of debate. The rule for the health insurance reform bill is the pending question, so that would stay on the floor unless it was pulled by the leadership (which is the most likely outcome of a defeat on the previous question), and the next hour would be devoted to the debate of proposed amendments to the rule. That would pretty much defeat the entire purpose of having developed the rule in the Rules Committee in the first place. So you don't want that.

Now, on the one hand, these Dems likely only voted against the previous question because it made no difference, with 240+ votes for it already racked up. On the other hand, a vote against the previous question is a vote that says, "I do not want the Democratic majority to control the agenda and the voting procedure in the House of Representatives today."

Ten Democrats said that today, which is bad enough. But to top it all off, they only said it because they want to be able to tell their constituents that they "stood up to the leadership" on that vote -- even though the bottom line was that it didn't make a damn bit of difference where they stood. So, doubly craven.

Those ten Democrats?

Boren, Bright, Childers, Davis (AL), Griffith, Marshall, Melancon, Minnick, Loretta Sanchez, Taylor

Loretta Sanchez? Really? That's a head scratcher, as is the full list of 15 members who voted against the final rule. It's the 10 above, plus these five:

Jason Altmire, Brian Baird, Frank Kratovil, Heath Shuler, and Ike Skelton

So we pretty much know the 15 who are going to vote against their party, their President, their constituents. They get every damned thing they want, with a watered-down public option and with the odious Stupak amendment, and turn around and thumb their noses at leadership on the procedural votes. At what point does leadership get around to the realization that appeasing these assholes just empowers them?

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/11/7/801842/-HCR-House-Debate:-Procedural-Votes-a-Clue-on-Final-Votes