House Rules

Are there ways for House Democrats to get around Speaker Boehner's refusal to bring a clean Continuing Resolution to a vote? Since Oct 1, they have used several parliamentary rules to force consideration. 

Last week, House Democrats raised five motions to recommit to replace H.R.59 (the House CR) with the Senate version. They were defeated on procedural grounds as not germane. They were also defeated on a motion to defeat the previous question.

On Friday, House Democrats began the process of filing a Discharge Petition. A Discharge Petition brings a bill directly out of a committee without the consent of the committee chair or, often, the House leadership, and brings it to an immediate vote. 

The first step, done last Friday, was to take an existing bill and file a resolution that offers substitute language on that bill. This Friday, they will begin gathering signatures on a Discharge Petition. They will need a simple majority of House members to sign; all 200 House Democrats plus at least 18 Republicans. If they get the required signatures, they can file the petition which will cause the bill to be discharged from the Rules Committee and force an immediate up or down vote.

Unfortunately, signing a Discharge Petition is a direct challenge to the leadership of the House in a manner that is far worse than simply voting for a bill the GOP doesn't back. Members who do so risk having their chairmanships of key committees revoked and losing the backing of the RNC for re-election bids. Further, Speaker Boehner can pre-empt the makers of the petition if it looks like they could get the 218 signatures. Discharge petitions have rarely worked because of that. The last one that actually garnered the required signatures was the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform bill in 2002. That petition forced Speaker Hastert to bring the legislation to the floor despite Republican opposition, and it eventually passed.

As a side note, I have seen a few articles accusing Speaker Boehner of adhering to the Hastert Rule. This is an unwritten House rule that the Speaker will not allow legislation unless a "majority of the majority" in in favor. Regardless of whether this rule has ever existed, Speaker Boehner has not adhered to it. Nearly half of all bills passed by the 113th Congress have passed without the support of a majority of House Republicans.