(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . THIS WEEK IN CONGRESS: Oh Boy, It's McCarthy's Shutdown Follies! A Look Back & Forward w/Poll. [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2023-09-25 THIS WEEK IN CONGRESS (TWIC) What a week it was! What a week it will be! For those who used to follow my TWIC posts (all 6 of you probably), I used to post them every week on Sunday or Monday to let folks know what the Congress Critters did in the past week, and what they were planning to do during the next week. I stopped posting regularly after we lost the House because my personal life became busier (in a good way), and because I couldn’t bring myself to write about the totally dysfunctional Clown Show that is the GOP House. But today I am making an exception because what happened last week and what is expected to happen (or not happen) this week, was too juicy to pass up! So let me start with last week and historic FAILED votes in the House. LAST WEEK : House — Barely Speaker McCarthy proved once and for all that he is absolutely incapable of doing one of the basic tasks as Speaker, Counting Votes. Unlike like his predecessor, the Great Speaker Pelosi who was a master at counting votes and as a result never put a Bill on the floor that didn’t have the votes to pass, last week McCarthy couldn’t even get enough votes to get a Bill on the floor, let alone pass one. Below is a recap of these failed votes followed by a discussion of just how historically embarrassing they were for the Bad Ringmaster of the Clown Show, Barely Speaker McCarthy. 1. 9/19/23 — House Resolution (H.R.1435) - Preserving Choice in Vehicle Purchases Act & House Resolution (H.R.4365) — Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024. Vote on H.Res.680 - Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1435) to amend the Clean Air Act to prevent the elimination of the sale of internal combustion engines, and providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4365) making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes. I will skip the details of H.R.1435 which was a bill to prevent ending the sale of gas powered vehicles that McCarthy attached as a sweetener bill to try to get the Free-dumb Caucus crazies to vote to start floor debate on the DoD Appropriations Bill. The second Bill, H.R. 4365, is a bill to provide funding for the Department of Defense through Fiscal Year (FY) 2024. However, the bill also sets forth requirements and restrictions for using funds provided. (You can read a summary of the Bill HERE, or if you really want to jump into the weeds you can read the Full Text of the Bill HERE.) Democrats- 0 Yes 209 No 0 Present 3 Not Voting Republicans- 212 Yes 5 No 0 Present 4 Not Voting Independents- 0 Yes 0 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting Totals- 212 Yes 214 No 0 Present 7 Not Voting FAILED Voting Details HERE. Details — Of course the Democrats all voted against this resolution on the Rule to bring these Bills to the House Floor because of the stupid, pro=climate change Bill to prevent the ending of gas engine cars, and because of a number of odorous funding restrictions in the DoD Bill to advance the GOP’s social conservative agenda. The real surprise to McCarthy (but no one else) were the 5 Republicans who voted with the Democrats in a “strange bedfellows” way, to prevent even beginning debate on the DoD Bill. They were: Biggs, Bishop (NC), Buck, Norman & Rosendale. Conspicuously missing among the no list were Bobert, Gaetz and MTG. Another surprises to Kevin was that his second in command Steve Scalise was absent and did not vote. 2. 9/21/23 — House Resolution (H.R.4365) — Department of Defense Appropriations Act, 2024. Vote on H.Res.712 - Providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 4365) making appropriations for the Department of Defense for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2024, and for other purposes; providing for consideration of the bill (H.R. 1130) to repeal restrictions on the export and import of natural gas; and providing for consideration of the resolution (H. Res. 684) condemning the actions of Governor of New Mexico, Michelle Lujan Grisham, for subverting the Second Amendment to the Constitution and depriving the citizens of New Mexico of their right to bear arms. Again, I will skip the details of H.R.1130 and H. Res. 684 which were McCarthy’s sweetener bills to try to get the Free-dumb Caucus crazies to vote to start floor debate on the DoD Appropriations Bill. The important thing is this was Barely Speaker McCarthy’s second attempt to get H.R. 4365, a bill to provide funding for the Department of Defense through Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 to the floor, with its requirements and restrictions for using funds provided. (Again, you can read a summary of the Bill HERE, or if you really want to jump into the weeds you can read the Full Text of the Bill HERE.) Democrats- 0 Yes 210 No 0 Present 2 Not Voting Republicans- 212 Yes 6 No 0 Present 3 Not Voting Independents- 0 Yes 0 No 0 Present 0 Not Voting Totals- 212 Yes 216 No 0 Present 5 Not Voting FAILED Voting Details HERE. Details — Again Democrats all voted against this resolution on the Rule to bring these Bills to the House Floor because of the stupid, pro=climate change Bill to repeal restrictions on import/export of natural gas and the slap on the wrist resolution against the New Mexico Governor for daring to promote gun safety in his State, and again because of a number of odorous funding restrictions in the DoD Bill to advance the GOP’s social conservative agenda. The real surprise, once again, to McCarthy (but no one else) were the now 6 Republicans who voted with the Democrats in a “strange bedfellows” way, to prevent even beginning debate on the DoD Bill. This time they were: Biggs, Bishop (NC), Crane, Cole, Greene (MTG)(GA) & Rosendale. Conspicuously missing among the no list were Bobert & Gaetz. Other surprises to Kevin were that his loyal follower MTG stabbed him in the back this time by voting “no” (apparently she went full pro-Putin over the fact that there were no restrictions on funding Ukraine in the Bill) and that again his second in command Steve Scalise was absent and did not vote. Commentary — Reportedly, McCarthy’s original plan was to get the DoD Appropriations Bill passed quickly (a Bill that usually is a “no brainer”, easy layup for House Republicans) and then move onto trying to pass a much downsized and very short-term Continuing Resolution (CR) to keep the government at least partially funded past September 30th. However, not only did he FAIL to pass the DoD Bill so he could get to the tougher to pass CR, he FAILED at getting the DoD Bill just onto the House Floor TWICE. A disastrous feat that no Speaker has accomplished in decades. I ahve to believe that former Speaker Pelosi spent most of last week in LoL mode. THIS WEEK : This week you will see a BIG contrast between a legislative body involved in performing acts of responsible government (the Senate), and a “legislative” body involved in acts of anarchy and destruction (the House). House — In the House, it is reported that Barely Speaker McCarthy has pretty much thrown in the towel with respect to keeping the government open and has effectively turned over the gavel to Matt Gaetz to allow him to execute the “Gaetz Plan”. The Gaetz Plan is to try to pass the remaining 11 2024 Appropriations Bills in a week. Bills that will have reduced funding amounts from 2023 and will be filled with far right poison pills. They have no chance of being the vehicle that keeps the government open past September 30 even if they all got passed by the House in a week because they would be DOA in the Senate. But it will be impossible to get all 11 Bills passed in the House in a week, because it took over a month for them to pass just one Appropriation Bill earlier this year and there is no guarantee that there will be enough GOP votes to pass any of them. So this week will be allowing the Crazies to run the asylum. Although this is apparently the House plan at the moment, who knows what really will happen this week. Anyway it would be entertaining C-Span viewing if the consequences of the House clown show weren’t so serious. Senate - In the Senate, Schumer reportedly plans to work through a Continuing Resolution (CR) to actual keep the government funded at or near existing levels beyond September 30, with some added funds for FEMA and Ukraine. Since Schumer and McConnell are very close to agreement on such a Bill, there will almost certainly be at least 10 Republican cloture votes to limit debate and allow passage of the Bill in the Senate. For some of you familiar with the Constitution you may be wondering how the Senate can do this since the Constitution requires all legislation dealing with appropriations/funding must originate in the House. However, Schumer can take any of the numerous odorous Bills sent over from the House and use it for a “Substitute Amendment”, which is to completely delete the House Bill’s entire content and replace it with the CR described above. We can expect that the Senate process will take most of the week, unless Schumer can pass some Unanimous Consent (UC) requests to speed things up which is sometimes difficult since it only takes one GOP Senate crazy to Object and scuttle a UC request. So to start the process, Schumer will have to file a Cloture Motion on Tuesday to limit debate on starting the debate on the Substitute Amendment (i.e., to get the Amendment onto the floor to begin debating it). Per Senate Rules, such a motion cannot be voted on until the next legislative day, which would be Wednesday. If it gets the 60 or more votes needed (which is likely since Schumer and McConnell will have made a deal on the CR before this point), it will limit debate on starting debate on the Bill to 30 hours, unless Schumer can get the 30 hours waved by Unanimous Consent. So the Senate could begin actually debating the CR amendment on Wednesday or Thursday, and concurrently Schumer will file a Cloture Motion to limit debate on the Amendment. Again, per the rules, the on that Cloture Motion would be on Thursday or Friday. Once it passes by 60 or more votes it will limit date to 30 hours, again unless Schumer can get a UC to waive the 30 hours, and move to a final simple majority vote to pass the Substitute Amendment. So we are looking at a Friday or Saturday Senate passage, barring a crap load of UCs without objections which could shorten this timeframe. After Senate passage, the plan is to send the CR amendment over to the House at the last minute just before the shutdown deadline (an act known as “jamming” the House). McCarthy will then have to decide whether to put it on the House floor for passage with the votes of Democrats and some non-crazy Republicans, or not bring it to the floor and consequently, own the shutdown. What McCarthy will do if/when confronted with the above choice is anybody’s guess. Whichever he chooses be assured it will be whatever he thinks has the best chance of avoiding a Motion to Vacate and keeping the Speaker’s gavel in his hands, which is the only thing that matters to him in his narcissistic mind. Discharge Petition — There is an outside shot that we could get a Dem. sponsored CR Bill on the House Floor by means of a Discharge Petition. Apparently, some smart Democrats introduced such a Bill in Committee awhile back, so that the Bill has “ripened” long enough to allow it to be extracted from the Committee and put on the House floor for a vote by means of a Discharge Petition. Assuming that such a petition has already been signed by all 212 House Democrats (which seems likely) we are only five (5) Republican signatures shy of the 217 signatures needed to get the Bill to the floor for a vote (the majority is at 217 instead of 218 since there are currently 2 vacant seats in the House). There are currently 2 “moderate” House Republicans who have said they would sign the Discharge Petition if there is no other way to prevent a government shutdown. If they keep their word, that would leave us just 3 short. It’s still a long shot, but not impossible. Have fun watching Congress this week, and keep fingers crossed that we avoid a Republican lead shutdown! 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