A short time ago, the United States House of Representatives narrowly voted to pass a mammoth-sized, Republican-engineered appropriations bill loaded with goodies and gifts for Wall Street and K Street. Nicknamed the CRominbus (continuing resolution + omnibus appropriations bill), it would keep most of the federal government open till September, but at an unacceptably high cost.
H.R. 83 passed with the votes of a majority of Republicans and a minority of Democrats after having sat in limbo for much of the day as John Boehner and top Republicans (lacking the votes to pass the so-called CRominbus themselves due to their breakaway Tea Party wing) waited expectantly for the House Democratic caucus to capitulate and pony up the necessary votes for its passage.
That happened at around 6 PM Pacific Time, after the White House and Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer (their man on the inside) were confident they had the votes to guarantee Boehner success. The House returned from recess to begin voting. In the end, fifty-seven Democrats — including Hoyer and James Clyburn — joined with one hundred and sixty-two Republicans to back the CRomnibus. The final vote was two hundred and nineteen to two hundred and six, with ten not voting.
The CRomnibus now goes to the U.S. Senate.
The rest of the House Democratic caucus stuck with Leader Nancy Pelosi, who adamantly withheld her support and circulated a short letter thanking supportive members of her caucus for standing with her.
Pelosi might have succeeded in forcing House Republicans to make changes to the CRominbus if President Barack Obama if he had let her, but instead he intervened on John Boehner’s behalf, all but destroying the goodwill he has built up in the wake of the 2014 midterms with the Democratic Party’s progressive base. His White House certainly has a penchant for snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
It is absolutely absurd that Democrats are allowing Republicans to exact a heavy price just for keeping the federal government open for a few more months. H.R. 83, a product of establishment sausage-making, includes a high number of awful riders, including one that rolls back some of the most important provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act of 2010.
Another allows political parties to accept much larger sums of money from individual contributors. Still another would prevent the Export-Import Bank from opposing coal fired power plants built abroad.
Given that John Boehner did not have the votes from his own caucus to pass a continuing resolution of any sort, Democrats should have been able to demand a clean CR free of gifts to K Street and Wall Street. But instead of using their leverage, they capitulated, like they have so many times before. And the result will be that needed appropriations will be accompanied by very bad public policy.
At least the Washington and Oregon Democratic delegations held together and followed Nancy Pelosi’s lead. The roll call from the Pacific Northwest was as follows:
VOTING AYE: Republicans Jaime Herrera-Beutler, Doc Hastings, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Dave Reichert (WA), Greg Walden (OR), Mike Simpson (ID), Don Young (AK), Steve Daines (MT)
VOTING NAY: Democrats Suzan DelBene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Jim McDermott, Denny Heck (WA); Suzanne Bonamici, Earl Blumenauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrader (OR); Republican Raúl Labrador (ID)
NOT VOTING: Democrat Adam Smith (WA)
With the exception of Idaho’s Raúl Labrador, the Pacific Northwest’s congressional delegation voted along party lines.
Labrador belongs to the Tea Party wing of the House Republican caucus, which has been almost ceaselessly agitating for another government shutdown.
U.S. Representative DelBene, who represents NPI’s home district, released a forceful response condemning the vote within minutes of its conclusion.
“I am extremely disappointed that Congress has opted to push through a divisive spending bill that was injected with irrelevant, controversial and harmful provisions,” she said in an emailed statement. “It contained measures that will re-open the door for taxpayer-funded bailouts of Wall Street and weaken campaign finance law to give even more influence in our elections to special interests.”
“Instead of offering a responsible approach to keep the government funded, this legislation represents a cynical effort to jam unrelated policies that threaten the stability of our economy and democracy into the appropriations process.”
“Moving forward, I urge House leaders to work in a more collaborative and transparent process to pass a clean appropriations bill that funds the government and separately allows for a reasoned, vigorous debate on bipartisan policies to grow our economy and create jobs.”
Derek Kilmer piled on a few minutes later.
“Part of the reason Congress is held in such low esteem is that it does things like this,” said Kilmer. “While I’m all for funding government, adding a provision at the last minute to a must pass bill that benefits the wealthiest donors and floods our elections with even more money undermines our democracy.”
We can be thankful that none of our region’s Democrats were among the fifty-seven who gave John Boehner a victory tonight. Those Democrats, by the way, were:
John Barrow (GA)
Ami Bera (CA)
Sanford Bishop (GA)
Timothy Bishop (NY)
Julia Brownley (CA)
Cheri Bustos (IL)
John Carney (DE)
William Lacy Clay (MO)
James Clyburn (SC)
Gerry Connolly (VA)
Jim Costa (CA)
Joseph Crowley (NY)
Henry Cuellar (TX)
Susan Davis (CA)
John Delaney (MD)
John Dingell (MI)
Sam Farr (CA)
Chaka Fattah (PA)
Pete Gallego (TX)
John Garamendi (CA)
Jim Himes (CT)
Steven Horsford (NV)
Steny Hoyer (MD)
Marcy Kaptur (OH)
Ron Kind (WI)
Ann M. Kuster (NH)
Dan Lipinski (IL)
Nita Melnikoff Lowey (NY)
Dan Maffei (NY)
Sean Maloney (NY)
Jim Matheson (UT)
Carolyn McCarthy (NY)
Gregory Meeks (NY)
George Miller (CA)
Jim Moran (VA)
Patrick Murphy (FL)
Bill Owens (NY)
Steven Palazzo (MS)
Ed Pastor (AZ)
Ed Perlmutter (CO)
Scott Peters (CA)
Gary Peters (MI)
David Price (NC)
Mike Quigley (IL)
Cedric Richmond (LA)
Raul Ruiz (CA)
Dutch Ruppersberger (MD)
Brad Schneider (IL)
Allyson Schwartz (PA)
David Scott (GA)
Terri Sewell (AL)
Brad Sherman (CA)
Krysten Sinema (AZ)
D. Wasserman Schultz (FL)
Names highlighted in bold are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, who should have been adamantly against this awful legislation.
Hoyer and Clyburn are highlighted in yellow, along with Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the ineffective chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, who doesn’t seem to understand what real leadership is all about.
Shame on these fifty-seven Democrats for enabling tonight’s disgraceful vote on H.R. 83. Instead of putting the CRominbus on ice and forcing House Republicans back to the drawing board, they made John Boehner’s night. They might as well all be honorary members of Boehner’s caucus; they certainly filled in nicely for the sixty-seven Republicans Boehner couldn’t convince to vote yes.