[Breaking News: Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who typically supported the Republicans, won’t run for reelection in 2024 but hasn’t ruled out a presidential run. He said he would travel the country “to bring Americans together,” something he failed to do while in the Senate. Spoiler group No Labels has been wooing the 76-year-old as a presidential candidate. Green Party’s Jill Stein, spoiler for Hillary Clinton in 2016, has announced another presidential run.]
A Shutdown?
At Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate, Vivek Ramaswamy called the Republicans “a party of losers,” and the House, under new Speaker MAGA Mike Johnson, is working hard to prove Ramaswamy right. For the second time in two days, the GOP pulled another appropriation bill required to avoid a government shutdown without a continuing resolution for the budget, due last September. That makes a total of three pulled bills since Johnson became Speaker under three weeks ago. House Republicans have approved only seven of the 12 full-year spending measures individually.
Tuesday, Republicans canceled votes on the Transportation-HUD bill because coastal Republicans opposed cuts to Amtrak. Thursday, they postponed the Financial Services and General Government measure which included prohibiting Washington, D.C. from blocking employer discrimination based on their reproductive health decisions.
One House Republicans complained about “ungovernable” divisions, and conservative Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who thought the Speaker’s “honeymoon” might last for 30 days, says it’s “shorter than we thought.” Johnson has had several meetings with conservative GOP senators about a staggered bill for a continuing resolution to the budget problem, but he’ll have to persuade all Republicans and another 11 Democrats to pass his bill in the Senate. In addition, He needs a CR strategy by tomorrow to comply with the 72-hour rule, giving House members the weekend to read the legislation before next week. The House closed for the weekend on Thursday afternoon.
Like the Financial Services measure, several appropriation bills have anti-abortion provisions, shown in the Tuesday elections to be unpopular. The amendments make the bills highly unlikely to move forward in the Senate even if they do pass the House, especially in the remaining eight days before the government shutdown.
Some of the amendments demonstrate way that their sponsors and supporters look at governing as a game, not a serious attempt to help the United States. The House majority number reinstated the “Holman Rule,” allowing them to try to slash specific salaries of federal officials on spending bills. Earlier this year, they tried to cut almost the entire salaries for Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin salary and Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm. And Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning, and Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Gary Gensler.
An amendment by Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) to reduce White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre’s salary to $1 got 165 GOP votes. Democrats were joined by 54 Republicans to vote it down. False accusations included Jean-Pierre’s “lies,” her “condescending manner toward reporters,” and her violating the Hatch Act. Republicans were the ones who did that during DDT’s time in the White House as they illegally used their official positions to campaign for DDT and other Republicans. Tenney has a history of anti-LGBTQ+ statements: Jean-Pierre and her wife have a daughter. Last year, Tenney released a photo of Paul Pelosi, the former Speaker’s husband, falsely insinuating he was beaten because he was gay with the message “LOL.”
Over 100 House Republicans, 106 of them, voted for Rep. Mike Collins’ (R-GA) to completely defund VP Kamala Harris’ office.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) amendment to drop the salary of Transportation Department’s secretary, Pete Buttigieg, to $1 passed with a voice vote. One of her complaints was that he received awards “for the way people have sex.”
Infuriating conservatives, Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-FL) proposed Financial Services amendment barring funding for the FBI headquarters in Maryland failed by 145 to 273 votes with one Democrat voting yes. Spending time on these frivolous attempts to pass their culture wishes by putting them on appropriation bills has wasted a great deal of time.
In another argument about appropriation bills, Rep. John Ragan (R-TN) wants to block federal funds to feed school children from low-income families without evidence that the program increases test scores. He failed to answer a question about whether feeding low-income children is in itself good but instead changed the topic to data about academic improvement to avoid waste.
Using the argument that “we gotta cut something,” Rep. Warren Davidson (R-OH) urged the House to save $505 million by cutting the only federal program providing housing funding for people living with HIV/AIDS. He added that “we don’t have programs for everybody that gets a disease.” Last year, HUD determined that stable housing “reduced transmission of the disease.”
In a debate with Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), Boebert appeared confused when he tried to explain to her that she couldn’t strip funds from a bill that doesn’t cover what she wants to remove. Even his thorough explanation didn’t clarify the issue for Boebert; she asked him to vote for her amendment.
Both House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Shumer (D-NY) call for a bipartisan “clean” stopgap bill “as quickly as possible. The Senate has passed only three of the 12 funding bills, and they are far different that the ones coming out of the House which also have huge cuts to the agencies. Republicans claim they are concerned about the cost of government, but closing the government costs billions of dollars.
Johnson’s preferred approach is a “laddered” CR with two temporary funding packages, one ending in early December and the other in mid-January. The first would include four less controversial funding bills and the other the remaining eight. The Freedom Caucus, creating the proposal, like the idea—the other Republicans, not so much. Conservative Chip Roy (R-TX) said the laddered idea was a way “to force the Senate” to negotiate separate appropriation bills instead of an end-of-year combined bill. It would extend the deadline for each of the 12 individual appropriations bills, rather than the budget as a whole, Johnson said. One senior GOP aide joked that it would have a dozen fiscal cliffs instead of just one. Sort of like a family going without food for a while, then shelter, and clothing, etc.
On Wednesday, Johnson said he would decide which path the House would take, evidently leaving the other 220 GOP members out of the decision. Any choice Johnson makes will require all except four Republicans for support because of his rule that all bills must have the majority of Republicans. Any bill the Freedom Caucus approves will be poison to the majority in the Senate.
Wasting more time, Greene is forcing a vote on impeaching Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. The privileged resolution, guaranteed a floor vote, alleges he has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” by failing to maintain operational control of the border. Two of her constituents died in a car accident with a car supposedly carrying smuggled migrants fleeing police in Batesville (TX). Since President Joe Biden took office in 2021, U.S. border agents arrested over 5 million migrants trying to cross the border outside controlled stations.
Several of Greene’s GOP colleagues are embarrassed by her behavior, according to a Daily Beast article earlier this week. The feeling has only worsened since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) ouster because of their closeness. Greene has been kicked out of the far-right Freedom Caucus after her attacks on Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO), still a member, and her support of McCarthy’s raising the debt ceiling. Her frequent derision of other conservative House members produced hostility toward her and a lack of trust in her.
Government agencies are preparing for a shutdown: the White House’s top budget office told agencies to make plans for a major interruption with millions of civilian workers and military personnel sent home or forced to work without pay after November 17. Before boarding Air Force One on Thursday, Biden beseeched the House to “just get to work.” He added:
“The idea we’re playing games with a shutdown at this moment is just bizarre.”
A shutdown would close most federal health-care, education, science, research and labor programs, damaging the economy—perhaps what Republicans want in order to improve their election chances. Low-income could face crises as programs providing childcare, nutrition assistance, college financial aid, and housing support use up their reserves. Two million federal workers will have their pay interrupted while some of “essential employees” such as bag inspection agents at airports, will be forced to work without wages. The 1.3 million active-duty troops will also receive no pay. The current House disaster also blocks assistance for both Israel and Ukraine.
A few more election results:
Michigan: Democrats are now tied with Republicans in the state House after two members won mayoral races. Special elections for their replacement will not be for months. In the Senate, Democrats keep their two member majority.
New Hampshire: Democrat Paige Beauchemin’s special election win for the House brought the GOP advantage to only one seat.
Derby (CT): Although GOP Gino DiGiovanni Jr. faces six criminal charges for the January 6 insurrection, he got 44 percent of the mayoral vote in this town of 12,000.
Nel's New Day 