U.S. House signs off on deal to reopen the federal government and pay America’s bills

An eleventh-hour agree­ment nego­ti­at­ed by Har­ry Reid and Mitch McConnell to reopen the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and pay Amer­i­ca’s bills was accept­ed by the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Wednes­day night after top House Repub­li­cans admit­ted that their attempts to extract a ran­som in exchange for sim­ply ful­fill­ing their basic respon­si­bil­i­ties as rep­re­sen­ta­tives had failed miserably.

With less than few hours to spare, the House signed off on the Sen­ate’s amend­ments to H.R. 2775, send­ing the leg­is­la­tion to Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma for his sig­na­ture. The White House said the pres­i­dent was pre­pared to sign the leg­is­la­tion imme­di­ate­ly, there­by allow­ing agen­cies that depend on con­gres­sion­al appro­pri­a­tions to reopen for busi­ness begin­ning tomor­row. The Depart­ment of the Trea­sury, mean­while, will soon have the author­i­ty it needs to pay the nation’s bills.

The deal pro­posed by Reid and McConnell and passed by Con­gress can be likened to a band-aid that was quick­ly placed over a wound that was on the verge of begin­ning to bleed very bad­ly. It treats only symp­toms and does not address any of the under­ly­ing root prob­lems that have caused us to lurch from one man­u­fac­tured fis­cal cri­sis to anoth­er. But its impor­tance can­not be understated.

The agree­ment keeps the so-called “sequester” in effect and only keeps agen­cies sub­ject to the appro­pri­a­tions process fund­ed through mid-Jan­u­ary, set­ting up anoth­er bud­get show­down after the new year. The so-called debt ceil­ing (debt repay­ment ceil­ing would be more appro­pri­ate) will need to be raised again by mid-Feb­ru­ary in order to once again pre­vent a default.

House Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leader Nan­cy Pelosi ral­lied her entire cau­cus behind the agree­ment. With the excep­tion of two Democ­rats who are out sick, Pelosi and her lead­er­ship team deliv­ered the votes of every sin­gle Demo­c­ra­t­ic mem­ber of the House. John Boehn­er, on the oth­er hand, was only able to per­suade eighty-six of his col­leagues to vote with him to reopen the gov­ern­ment and pay Amer­i­ca’s bills. One hun­dred and forty-four Repub­li­cans refused to go along.

The final tal­ly was two hun­dred and eighty-five ayes, one hun­dred and forty-four nays. As not­ed, all of the nays came from Republicans.

The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

Vot­ing Aye: Democ­rats Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Jim McDer­mott, Adam Smith, Den­ny Heck (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Peter DeFazio, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Kurt Schrad­er (OR); Repub­li­cans Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Doc Hast­ings, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, Dave Reichert (WA), Don Young (AK), Steve Daines (MT), Mike Simp­son (ID)

Vot­ing Nay: Repub­li­cans Greg Walden (OR) and Raúl Labrador (ID)

Ear­li­er today, NPI asked the Repub­li­can mem­bers of our region’s con­gres­sion­al del­e­ga­tion to vote to reopen the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and autho­rize the Depart­ment of the Trea­sury to pay the bills. Most did so, even Doc Hast­ings and Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, who rep­re­sent the most con­ser­v­a­tive dis­tricts in Wash­ing­ton State.

To them, we say thank you. The shut­down nev­er should have hap­pened in the first place, and Repub­li­cans were wrong to try to extract a ran­som just for doing their jobs. But all of the Repub­li­cans in the aye col­umn above deserve cred­it for their votes. They did what we asked them to do today, and we are grateful.

Greg Walden and Raúl Labrador, on the oth­er hand, failed to do as we asked. They vot­ed to keep the gov­ern­ment closed and to bring on a cat­a­stroph­ic default. They may think or say they cast a prin­ci­pled vote. But in truth what they did was incred­i­bly irre­spon­si­ble and reck­less. And that’s putting it mildly.

Walden, in par­tic­u­lar, should be ashamed of him­self. Labrador is a known mem­ber of the Ted Cruz fan club — his vote was cer­tain­ly irre­spon­si­ble, but it also was­n’t much of a sur­prise. Walden, how­ev­er, is part of John Boehn­er’s cir­cle. He is much more expe­ri­enced and he should know bet­ter. He should have joined with Boehn­er and McMor­ris Rodgers in vot­ing aye. We at NPI hope the pro­gres­sive con­stituents in his dis­trict won’t let their fel­low cit­i­zens for­get about his vote tonight.

We can­not com­mend Nan­cy Pelosi enough for her lead­er­ship. Once again, she has shown what a capa­ble orga­niz­er and leg­is­la­tor she is. She kept the entire House Demo­c­ra­t­ic cau­cus togeth­er and made sure that every Demo­c­ra­t­ic rep­re­sen­ta­tive vot­ed to reopen the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment and pay Amer­i­ca’s bills.

Her efforts and Har­ry Rei­d’s efforts result­ed in a remark­able out­come: Total and com­plete Demo­c­ra­t­ic uni­ty in both hous­es of Con­gress. No defec­tions. Not one. This is some­thing that we have rarely seen, but it’s wonderful.

We can all sleep a bit eas­i­er tonight know­ing that we will not have to wake up to scary head­lines tomor­row morn­ing and and the fright­en­ing prospect of our gov­ern­ment default­ing on our nation’s debt.