The lead­er­ship of Repub­li­cans in Con­gress, prompt­ed by Don­ald Trump, spent Wednes­day hang­ing out to dry those House Repub­li­cans who want a Sep­tem­ber 11th style com­mis­sion to inves­ti­gate the Jan­u­ary 6th insur­rec­tion at the Capitol.

While House Minor­i­ty Leader Kevin McCarthy lob­bied hard and watched with fel­low cau­cus lead­ers at the back of the cham­ber, how­ev­er, thir­ty-five Repub­li­cans joined two hun­dred and sev­en­teen Democ­rats to pass leg­is­la­tion cre­at­ing a ten-mem­ber com­mis­sion. The nay votes totaled one hun­dred and sev­en­ty-five, all Repub­li­can. The roll call from the Pacif­ic North­west was as follows:

Vot­ing Aye in favor of the com­mis­sion: Demo­c­ra­t­ic Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Suzan Del­Bene, Rick Larsen, Derek Kilmer, Prami­la Jaya­pal, Kim Schri­er, Adam Smith, Mar­i­lyn Strick­land (WA), Suzanne Bonam­i­ci, Earl Blu­me­nauer, Peter DeFazio, Kurt Schrad­er (OR); Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Jaime Her­rera Beut­ler and Dan New­house (WA), Cliff Bentz (OR), Mike Simp­son (ID)

Vot­ing Nay against the com­mis­sion: Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tives Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers (WA), Russ Fulcher (ID), Don Young (AK), Matt Rosendale (MT)

Sen­a­tor Mitch McConnell of Ken­tucky speak­ing at the 2013 Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­fer­ence (CPAC) in Nation­al Har­bor, Mary­land (Pho­to: Gage Skid­more, repro­duced under a Cre­ative Com­mons license)

Sen­ate Minor­i­ty Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to block the bill in Con­gress’ upper chamber.

If you missed the so-so movie “Twister,” the gyra­tions of McConnell pro­vide a sub­sti­tute. This is the guy, back in the win­ter, who told the Sen­ate: “There is no ques­tion, none, that Pres­i­dent Trump is prac­ti­cal­ly and moral­ly respon­si­ble for pro­vok­ing the events of the day. A mob was assault­ing the Capi­tol in his name.”

As late as Tues­day, McConnell said he was open to vot­ing for the House bill.

On Wednes­day, how­ev­er, McConnell was describ­ing the pro­pos­al being vot­ed on across the Capi­tol as a “slant­ed and unbal­anced pro­pos­al for anoth­er com­mis­sion to study the events of Jan­u­ary 6th.“

“Anoth­er” com­mis­sion? Do we already have one?

Of course, Mitch added: “The facts have come out and will con­tin­ue to come out.” He seems to have brought rank-and-file sen­a­tors with him.

The Sen­ate will like­ly vote on the House-passed mea­sure next week.

McConnell may be right, for those who would hang col­leagues out to dry may end up get­ting drenched them­selves. If the com­mis­sion plan is blocked in the Sen­ate, House Speak­er Nan­cy Pelosi pre­dict­ed that a select com­mit­tee, with sub­poe­na pow­er, will be named and go to work. Delay can car­ry McConnell and McCarthy only so far. As Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Chuck Schumer not­ed of his GOP coun­ter­parts, “They are still cav­ing to Trump and the big lie.”

The com­mis­sion plan vot­ed by the House tracks close­ly with the pan­el cre­at­ed to probe the Sep­tem­ber 11th, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Cen­ter and Pen­ta­gon, described as “the god stan­dard for com­mis­sions” by Rep. Ben­nie Thomp­son, D‑Miss., chair­man of the House Home­land Secu­ri­ty Committee.

Its ten mem­bers would be even­ly split between appointees of both par­ties. The com­mis­sion­ers would need to be out of gov­ern­ment, as were Sep­tem­ber 11th com­mis­sion­ers Slade Gor­ton of Wash­ing­ton and for­mer Deputy Attor­ney Gen­er­al Jamie Gore­lick. The pan­el would have sub­poe­na powers.

The plan, shaped by Thomp­son and John Katko, R‑New York – the chair­man and rank­ing Repub­li­can on the House Home­land Secu­ri­ty Com­mit­tee – tracks close­ly with a pro­pos­al sub­mit­ted ear­li­er this spring by thir­ty House Republicans.

The pro­pos­al was endorsed Tues­day by the bipar­ti­san House Prob­lem Solvers Cau­cus, which con­sists of bicon­cep­tu­al law­mak­ers — Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans who active­ly use both the pro­gres­sive and con­ser­v­a­tive val­ue sys­tems in dif­fer­ent areas of their polit­i­cal thinking.

The Wash­ing­ton State del­e­ga­tion split along inter­est­ing lines.

Cathy McMor­ris Rodgers, Trump’s chief enabler in the state, vot­ed No. The two Repub­li­cans who vot­ed for impeach­ment in Jan­u­ary, Jamie Her­rera Beut­ler and Dan New­house, were among the thir­ty-five aye votes. All sev­en of the state’s Demo­c­ra­t­ic House mem­bers vot­ed to cre­ate the commission.

“It is appalling that some Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans, the for­mer Pres­i­dent and oth­ers want to deny the real­i­ties of what hap­pened on Jan­u­ary 6th,” said Rep. Adam Smith, D‑Wash. “In addi­tion, many of these same Repub­li­can lead­ers con­tin­ue to per­pet­u­ate lies about the 2020 elec­tion, deny­ing its legit­i­ma­cy and under­min­ing faith in the elec­toral process… The commission’s report will pro­vide a full under­stand­ing of the facts of Jan­u­ary 6th and the influ­ences that led to the assault so we can help ensure it nev­er hap­pens again.”

“When some­body says of some­thing, ‘It’s not pol­i­tics,’ it’s pol­i­tics,” the late Sen. Dale Bumpers of Arkansas once quipped. The House Repub­li­can lead­er­ship appar­ent­ly made two polit­i­cal cal­cu­la­tions.  Back­ing cre­ation of a Sep­tem­ber 11th style com­mis­sion would anger Trump and the Repub­li­can base.

The commission’s delib­er­a­tions, while direct­ed to end this year, might spill over to 2022 and impact the midterms. The com­mis­sion might, in words of Q‑Anon fol­low­er Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene, R‑Georgia, make Repub­li­cans “look bad.”

Of course, there are larg­er issues which impact the Repub­lic, mob vio­lence and intim­i­da­tion plus a President’s attempt to forcibly over­turn his deci­sive elec­tion loss. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Peter Mei­jer, R‑Michigan, who backs cre­at­ing the com­mis­sion, said late Wednes­day: “I am strug­gling with some of the false ratio­nales and expla­na­tions.” House Major­i­ty Leader Ste­ny Hoy­er put it more blunt­ly in a House floor speech: “It is unfath­omable, with any integri­ty, they could oppose this.”

McCarthy did not speak dur­ing floor debate, but left oppo­si­tion to Mar­jorie Tay­lor Greene and intel­lec­tu­al­ly chal­lenged Texas Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Louie Gohmert.

Trump weighed in on the eve of the House vote, say­ing of the pro­posed com­mis­sion: “It is just more par­ti­san unfair­ness and unless the mur­ders, riots and fire bomb­ings in Port­land, Min­neapo­lis, Seat­tle, Chica­go and New York are also going to be stud­ied, this dis­cus­sion should be end­ed immediately.”

He’s expect­ed back out on the hus­tings before long.

The Jan­u­ary 6th insur­rec­tion has already result­ed in four hun­dred and fifty arrests, with over one hun­dred more like­ly to come. New details are still com­ing out dai­ly. For instance, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Andrew Clyde, R‑Georgia, rhetor­i­cal­ly doc­tored the insur­rec­tion last week, say­ing: “You know, if you didn’t know the TV footage was a video from Jan­u­ary the sixth, you would actu­al­ly think it was a nor­mal tourist vis­it.” CNN and MSNBC were air­ing footage last night show­ing Clyde help­ing bar­ri­cade doors to the House cham­ber against ram­pag­ing “tourists.”

One more fac­tor explains why House GOP Leader McCarthy is quak­ing in his pol­ished shoes. He had a con­tentious mid-insur­rec­tion phone con­ver­sa­tion with Trump, per­haps unset­tled at chants of “Hang Pence!” from the president’s sup­port­ers. News of the con­ver­sa­tion was “out­ed” ear­li­er this year by our very own Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jamie Her­rera Beut­ler. Deposed House Repub­li­can Con­fer­ence Chair Liz Cheney said last week that McCarthy should be called to tes­ti­fy before inves­ti­ga­tors, under sub­poe­na if necessary.

Odds are that Schumer won’t get the six­ty Sen­ate votes need­ed to bring the House pro­pos­al to a vote on final pas­sage, and Speak­er Pelosi will con­se­quent­ly need to go the select com­mit­tee route. Sen­a­tor Susan Collins, R‑Maine, a vote for impeach­ment in Jan­u­ary, was back with McConnell, say­ing she could not sup­port the House­’s Jan­u­ary 6th com­mis­sion plan in its present form.

Collins is liv­ing proof of a half-cen­tu­ry-old joke once told by anti-war Sen­a­tor Eugene McCarthy of Min­neso­ta (1916–2005): “A lib­er­al Repub­li­can is some­one, if you are drown­ing fifty feet off­shore, will throw out a thir­ty-foot-long rope… and say [they] have gone more than halfway.”