House Republican Dysfunction On Display Again

Last week provided a couple of vivid examples of the dysfunction not only within the House Republican Caucus but also how that dysfunction spills over into coordination with Senate Republicans. When John Boehner resigned, one of the demands the caucus had for the new Majority Leader was the establishment of regular order which would allow individual members to introduce amendments. Needless to say, this also meant that Democrats could also offer amendments, something some Republicans apparently failed to consider. On Wednesday night, 43 Republicans joined Democrats in passing an amendment attached to an energy bill that would have codified into law President Obama’s 2014 executive order barring federal contractors from discriminating against workers based on sexual orientation. Unfortunately, this amendment proved too much for the other members of the Republican caucus who then refused to vote for their own bill which, without full Democratic support, went down to defeat by a large margin.  Apparently, the defeat of their own energy bill even caught the leadership off guard, first announcing passage of that bill before having to pull that news release. This disaster had followed another incident earlier in the week when the very same amendment seemed to have passed with limited Republican support but the vote was held open well beyond the time limit in order to allow Republicans to change their votes in order to defeat the amendment, infuriating Democrats.

Another failure that exposed the divisions between the House and Senate Republicans is reflected in the inability to come to an agreement to appropriate funds to combat the Zika virus. The House passed a version of the bill that agreed to fund only about half of what the Senate bill had allocated to fight the Zika virus.  In addition, the House required that all the money allocated must be offset by other cuts in the budget, something that is not contained in the Senate bill. Negotiations to resolve these differences will probably take a significant period of time and may turn out to be impossible.  With that in mind, Republicans left the negotiations unfinished and headed off for a two week Memorial Day break, allowing Democrats to blast them for leaving town with so much “unfinished business”.

The failure of the energy bill and inability to deal with the Zika threat are just minor, but indicative, failures for House Republicans. They have not been able to pass a number of appropriation bills or, for that matter, a budget, because they can not come to agreement within their own caucus, despite having the largest Republican majority in the House in nearly 100 years. As the vote for the Democratic amendment shows, there is a majority in the House made up of Democrats and a smaller number of reasonable Republicans who still believe in an effective government.  But Democrats are under no obligation to help Republicans push through their own bills, especially when Republicans have such a large majority.  But without Democratic support, no majority can hold. This is what got Boehner into such trouble with his own party, because he allowed Democrats to help him pass some bills that couldn’t pass with Republicans alone.

All of this, especially the inability to pass a budget, does not bode well for the fall, where even the Senate’s #2 Republican, John Cornyn, is already raising the possibility of a government shutdown in October, primarily due to the dysfunction in the House. It is rare that I ever agree with what Cornyn says, but in this case he is right on target, saying “it’s a terrible way to govern”. I think we can all agree with that sentiment.