In public, Republican leaders vigorously oppose the executive branch’s highest priority, while in private they leave undisturbed language in a budget bill that lets the executive do what they say they oppose. Conservatives then rally around an effort to close the loophole. Leadership claims the conservatives’ efforts are “unnecessary.” Sound familiar? [read_more]
It should. That’s what happened in Virginia this June, when legislators were under pressure to avoid a government shutdown and simply pass the so-called “clean” budget without taking up a Medicaid expansion bill. The only problem, of course, was that the “clean” budget wasn’t so clean. In fact, it included language Democrats had been planning on using to allow Governor McAuliffe to expand Medicaid on his own without any need for additional legislation:
Republicans moved ahead to capiÂtalÂize on their coup [of flipping the Senate with Phil Puckett’s resignation], claiming control of the Senate that Monday and calling it back into session to approve a “clean,†Medicaid-free budget that Thursday.
Still, McAuliffe’s stealthy Medicaid strategy remained on track, with the budget language tucked inside the hefty bill. The plan was so tightly under wraps that some Democrats who had vowed not to back a budget without expansion were threatening to vote against it.
“Trust us, just do it,†Sen. John S. Edwards (D-Roanoke) said they were told. “I took several aside and said, ‘We’ve got it figured out.’ â€
So had conservative Bull Elephant blogger Steve Albertson, spotting the language and warning that it was a loophole McAuliffe might try to exploit.
“If conservatives in the Senate vote for the House budget without fixing this backdoor — for the governor — then they will be held responsible for allowing Terry McAuliffe to get away with expansion,†he wrote Tuesday, June 10, concluding with, “We’re watching.â€
By Tuesday night, it was clear that the tea party could do more than watch. In a stunning upset, then-House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) lost a primary to an underfunded tea-party-backed rival, Dave Brat.
When they returned to Richmond two days later, rank-and-file Republicans refused to pass the spending plan with the worrisome language.
Had Puckett been there to vote, the budget would have passed the Senate. Whether McAuliffe’s scheme would have emerged from the House is less clear. Conservative delegates were alarmed by the language, but they risked saddling the GOP with all the blame for a possible government shutdown if they rejected the budget.
Shortly before midnight Thursday [nb: after six hours of intraparty Republican wrangling], a truly “clean†budget cleared the General Assembly and was on its way to the governor. And McAuliffe called Puckett to declare, “Medicaid is done.â€
The grassroots movement to convince rank-and-file Republicans to remove the key language—inserted as part of the 2013 deal to secure Democrat votes for GOP leadership’s tax and transportation plan—was championed by Sen. Dick Black (R-Loudoun), hence the hashtag #BLACKorBUST.
Dave Brat, who won his stunning primary victory over Eric Cantor the same day we wrote about the “so-called ‘clean’ budget,” has now taken that same approach to the immigration debate in Washington, DC. When President Obama announced his intent to unilaterally grant amnesty to millions of illegal immigrants, House Speaker John Boehner made a lot of loud noises about how much he opposed that, and even threatened lawsuits against the president. Now, with the specter of a government shutdown, he’s urging Republicans to ignore conservatives who complain of the backdoor to executive action on amnesty that is contained in the current spending bill.
Dave Brat knows better, and together with Reps. Matt Salmon (R-AZ) and Mick Mulvaney (R-SC) he is pushing an amendment to that bill that would affirmatively close the loophole the president is counting on:
Election results in November that emboldened the House Republican majority and delivered the U.S. Senate majority to the GOP be damned, House Speaker John Boehner is desperately turning to the Democrats to pass his omnibus bill that enables President Barack Obama’s executive amnesty.
…
Boehner will need to lean extra heavily on Pelosi and Hoyer for a bailout, however, as conservatives aren’t relenting. Rep. Dave Brat (R-VA), who was just elected to the House after beating now former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a primary, is leading a last-ditch effort to stop amnesty via the omnibus. He’s pushing an amendment with support from several House conservatives that would be added to the bill before it hits the floor—unless House Rules Committee chairman Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) blocks the amendment, something that would surely spark substantial grassroots outrage against him in his conservative Texas district.
Kudos to Dave Brat for leading on this important issue! Regardless of how one feels about immigration amnesty (or Medicaid expansion, for that matter), it is important that these kinds of issues are debated in an open and transparent way, not tucked into larger bills that few legislators have read, much less understand. This is an important move not just for securing our borders, but for good governance.
According to Brat’s office, 53 House colleagues have joined as co-sponsors of his amendment. We applaud Reps. Rob Wittman (R-VA1), Morgan Griffith (R-VA9), and Randy Forbes (R-VA4) for joining Brat as co-sponsors! Hurt is apparently supporting as well. No word yet on why Scott Rigell, Frank Wolf, and Bob Goodlatte may be sitting this one out, but if you feel strongly that they should join the rest of the Virginia Republican delegation, call their offices and urge them to vote for the Brat Amendment!
Scott Rigell: 202-225-4215
Frank Wolf: 202-225-5136
Bob Goodlatte: 202-225-5431
UPDATE: Brat’s amendment failed in the Republican-run Rules Committee. Then came the news today, encapsulated well in this excellent but depressing analysis by Ken Cuccinelli:
It’s all kabuki theater.
29 comments
amnesty is only one of the issues with this bill. The changes to the frank dodd financial fix include automatic bailouts for the big banks when their derivatives exposure causes the subsidiaries supported by the fdic have to cover the losses. the big banks bet trillions on oil staying in the 90 dollar range, the folks pumping oil sold futures oil at 90.00 price, but now that the price is 60.00 the big banks are set to lose enough money to make them fail, again.
“Welcome to Congress, Dave Brat. Thanks for your input. You’re #434 on the seniority list. Go sit down.”
#BUSTorBUST
Not a Chance. We need more freshman Congressman to stand up to the cheap tricks the establishments plays.
Post has been updated, with a very depressing analysis from Ken Cuccinelli.
Depressing yes, but the message was clear after it was jammed through Sessions’ rules committee on a closed rule vote last night. The upside is that the 216/214 vote earlier this afternoon indicated despite all Boehner’s confident talk his team could not whip the vote even with Obama riding to his rescue and sending out a WH policy statement in support earlier today. He had turned his back on using the conservatives in the House to get this done and thought he had enough Democratic votes to backfill the shortfall. In stepped Warren and Pelosi rejecting Obama’ marching orders and telling the liberal base we don’t support this thing and rug yanked out from under the Majority Leader. They may twist enough Republican arms to squeak by but he has NO leverage over Pelosi’s caucus. So if the conservatives in the house hold strong it may be a short term CR through early Feb. and the Cromnibus dies a well deserved death. If there is a way to look more incompetent and ineffective as a majority leadership team I don’t know what you would have to do. The new Congress will need to make some serious changes beginning with Boehner.
Subsequent to this article (last night) the Rules Committee met to decide how to handle the Cromnibus and its amendments. There were 21 amendments filed in total. The GOP-led committee decided the Cromnibus rule will be a closed rule, meaning there will be no amendments allowed at all. Therefore, the Cromnibus will head to the floor today (?) without any amendments. Afterwards the Rules Committee chair led by GOP Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX) rigged the process to allow one “bi-partisan†amendment the leadership wanted regarding pension reform (big business give away) called the Kline-Miller Amendment. They claimed with a straight face that they could so because they included it as part of the Cromnibus and therefore it would not receive a separate vote as if it were an amendment. The question WHY this couldn’t be done with the other 20 amendments was ignored. Jonathan Gruber thinks we are stupid imagine how stupid Speaker Boehner, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, Whip Steve Scalise and Rules Committee Chair Pete Sessions thinks we are!
Call your US Congressman and Senator and tell them that you want legislation to go after employers who hire illegals.
You want a bounty paid to whistle blowers who report employers who hire illegals!
Lets get real! These people are not tourists?
This is a positive direction. Brat is wise to quickly leverage the “fame” from his defeat of Cantor to get some high-profile news coverage of this issue. I bet he could call news conferences now and get some media outlets to come cover them. Use the juice why you have it!
He’s also smart enough not to paint himself as the new Louie Gohmert.
Excellent. Go Dave Brat.
You can just about always count on Congressman Wittman to do the right thing.
On another note it looks like there will not be a thread about the proposed US budget. I want to go on record, it sucks. It is actually worse than that.
The Republican’s want to go back to the 2008 bailouts, and the recklessness that made them necessary. I also heard yesterday where you can now get a home mortgage with 3% down. Sound familar? Here we go again!
What good does it do to write about a budget after it is enacted?????
you certainly have a point
Update – Rep. Robert Hurt is also co-sponsor! Plenty more have signed on too – BRAVO! Here’s link (this is the 2nd Amendment) – http://rules.house.gov/bill/113/hr-83
Dave Brat is the real deal. So greatful for his election.
its not difficult to understand why Rigell, Goodlatte, and Wolf are sitting this one out.
Bob’s holding hearings. He held hearings last summer as the children flooded across the border. He is holding hearings on the President’s Amnesty Proclamation. Bob’s getting to the bottom of this.
We need Action on this now. Hearings must be backed with Action otherwise it sounds hollow.
Bob’s got this covered. If Bob has to eat lunch at his desk for the next 3 months (excluding Saturdays and Sundays, and three weeks off for the holidays), Bob is going to get to the bottom of this. There simply must be some reason that Brat, Griffith, Hurt, Wittman and Forbes are pushing a rider to defund Obama’s illegal amnesty proclamation, and Bob’s the man who will find out why. Bob’s quiet, but he’s got this.
He and Darrell Issa seem to run neck to neck on holding the most meaningless “hearings” that garner PR and self promotion but accomplish little to nothing.
how does the amendment read? do we have a draft?
Dave, Good Job!!!! Keep it up. I tweeted and called Rigell, Wolf (no answer no VM) and Goodlatte (he’s afraid he will lose one of those Chairmanships he paid for)
Is he holding hearings on the “Ministry of Silly Walks” yet?
I’m beginning to thing that maybe Dave Brat was playing possum with his Conservatism.. he appeared to be Conservative Lite but he’s been there a couple of weeks and is already taking on the big guys! Hot Damn…So far we did good.
Filling in for Cantor in the lame duck session newly minted 7th District Rep. Brat has really only had one meaningful floor vote to date (pre 2014 Omnibus) that would give you any real indication of where he will fall on conservative principles. I’m putting aside the ardent speechifying on the house floor and the posturing in front of the media cameras (they are all conservatives in that meaningless arena) but rather an actual committed vote. He voted “yea” on the last push in the house to extend for another year $10 billion for renewable energy credits with H.R. 5771. These so called renewable energy credits are really just a crony handout to big wind manufacturers like GE and a number of foreign-owned companies. Call it an early Christmas present to these multi-nationals removed directly out of the taxpayers pocket. The AEA estimates that wind power is more than 125 percent more expensive than natural gas-generated electricity and 90 percent more costly than coal-fired generation so the only way wind producers stay in business is with the taxpayers’ “help” (i.e. your cash). One vote does not define a direction or indicate a path but its NOT a very auspicious first step for him.
Thanks for the info,
Was that bill stand alone or in a larger bill. It is in inexcusable for him to have supported that as a conservative. That is just corruption and crony capitalism. And they kill birds!
Believe it was stand alone up/down floor vote about a week ago.
And so it begins……
Hopefully, the freshmen coming into Congress will stand with Dave Brat! If not, they are tone deaf.