House Democrats use their new majority to pass bills to reopen the federal government

Upon tak­ing the gav­el ear­li­er today, Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi declared:

“Our nation is at an his­toric moment. Two months ago, the Amer­i­can peo­ple spoke, and demand­ed a new dawn… They want a Con­gress that deliv­ers results for the peo­ple, open­ing up oppor­tu­ni­ty and lift­ing up their lives.”

With­in hours of that speech, House Democ­rats used their new major­i­ty to pass leg­is­la­tion to reopen the gov­ern­ment of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca, which has been par­tial­ly shut due to Don­ald Trump’s ridicu­lous demand for more than five bil­lion dol­lars to osten­si­bly be used for con­struct­ing a wall on the bor­der with Mex­i­co. (Trump said Mex­i­co would pay for it dur­ing his cam­paign, but of course, he was lying, and he has con­tin­ued to lie each and every day since.)

The House act­ed on two bills: one to re-open and fund the gov­ern­ment until Sep­tem­ber (H. R. 21) and one to fund the Depart­ment of Home­land Secu­ri­ty with­out mon­ey for a bor­der wall (H. J. Res 1). Each passed easily.

Sev­en Repub­li­cans broke ranks to help Democ­rats pass H.R. 21. The total num­ber of votes in favor was two hun­dred and forty-one. One hun­dred and nine­ty votes were cast in oppo­si­tion, all from the remain­ing Republicans.

The roll call on H.R. 21 from the Pacif­ic North­west was as fol­lows:

Vot­ing Aye: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, Den­ny Heck (WA); Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Peter DeFazio, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Kurt Schrad­er (OR); Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Greg Walden (OR)

Vot­ing Nay: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA); Mike Simp­son and Russ Fulcher (ID); Greg Gian­forte (MT); Don Young (AK)

Ore­gon’s Greg Walden was the only Repub­li­can from this region to break ranks and vote for the bill. The oth­er Repub­li­cans who vot­ed aye on H.R. 21 were Will Hurd of Texas, Peter King of New York, Bri­an Fitz­patrick of Penn­syl­va­nia, Elise Ste­fanik of New York, John Katko of New York, and Fred Upton of Michigan.

At Indi­vid­ual Num­ber One’s behest, the White House wast­ed no time in announc­ing its oppo­si­tion to H.R. 21 in a State­ment of Admin­is­tra­tion Pol­i­cy.

The vote for H.R. 1, which pre­ced­ed the vote for H.R. 21, saw the Pacif­ic North­west­’s del­e­ga­tion divid­ed along par­ty lines, with no Walden defection:

Vot­ing Aye: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, Den­ny Heck (WA); Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Peter DeFazio, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Kurt Schrad­er (OR)

Vot­ing Nay: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera-Beut­ler, Dan New­house, Greg Walden (OR); Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA); Mike Simp­son and Russ Fulcher (ID); Greg Gian­forte (MT); Don Young (AK)

Peter King of New York and Fred Upton of Michi­gan joined Greg Walden in oppos­ing H.R. 1, but lat­er vot­ing for H.R. 21. Chris Smith of New Jer­sey was the only Repub­li­can to vote for H.R. 1, but against H.R. 21.

Mitch McConnell has vowed not to take up these bills, stu­pid­ly insist­ing that he won’t bring any bill to the floor for a vote that Trump opposes.

(This sense­less and inde­fen­si­ble pos­tur­ing has caused peo­ple to joke that McConnell is oper­at­ing the U.S. Sen­ate like it’s a sub­com­mit­tee of the White House.)

But McConnel­l’s cau­cus is already frac­tur­ing. Vul­ner­a­ble Repub­li­cans up in 2020 have start­ed releas­ing state­ments say­ing they want to reopen closed fed­er­al agen­cies, like Col­orado’s Cory Gard­ner and Maine’s Susan Collins.

Mitch McConnell has a rep­u­ta­tion as a shrewd strate­gist and tac­ti­cian, but so does Nan­cy Pelosi. The Speak­er has a proven track record of hold­ing House Democ­rats togeth­er, and her cau­cus’ posi­tion (let’s restore fund­ing and get on with gov­ern­ing) is entire­ly rea­son­able, where­as McConnell, who must face vot­ers in Ken­tucky in 2020, has tak­en Paul Ryan’s place as Don­ald Trump’s chief lap­dog in Congress.