Boehner Demanded House GOP Drop Opposition

UPDATE: Done deal, Congress just passed the modified two-month extension. See you all again in February ...

Friday, Dec. 23 at 9:55 a.m.: Rank-and-file House Republicans, many of whom shot down John Boehner last weekend when he tried to sell them on the Senate's two-month extension, were silent Thursday night when the speaker briefed them via conference call on the ever-so-slightly modified deal he cut with Senate Democrats this time around.

But that's likely only because their lines were muted.

Politico with the behind-the-scenes details:

At no small personal political risk, Boehner laid down the law to his unruly caucus, substituting his own judgment for their collective wisdom in cutting a very slightly altered deal ... "Speaker’s decision," Rep. Jeb Hensarling, the fourth-ranking House Republican, said in introducing Boehner on the call.

The House is expected to clear the bill by unanimous consent later Friday, despite the fact that a number of Republicans aren't happy with Boehner's decision to overrule them and cave to the demands of the White House. Politico again:

Boehner’s plan, however, prevents most of them from doing anything about it. The House is scheduled to consider the bill Friday morning under unanimous consent rules — meaning any member could object and force a vote next week. But that’s not enough time for Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) and some of the other dissenters to scramble back to Washington to nix the agreement.

Thursday, Dec. 22 at 5:31 p.m.: Speaker John Boehner has confirmed the reports that he and Harry Reid have finalized a deal that will have the House sign off on a version of the Senate's two-month extension. The lower chamber is expected to formally approve the measure under unanimous consent sometime Friday morning.

FWIW, here's the speaker's statement.

Thursday, Dec. 22 at 4:09 p.m.: Deal? It looks that way.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that House Republicans are ready to sign off on a version of the two-month pay roll tax extension they rejected earlier this week.

GOP and Democratic congressional sources tell the National Journal that it is a done deal, and a Democratic leadership aide tells Reuters the same thing. Politico, citing GOP sources, is being a little more cautious, reporting only that a deal is in the works and that Speaker John Boehner and other House leaders will hold a conference call later this evening with their rank-and-file colleagues to sell them on the proposal. If all goes well, both chambers could approve the measure by voice vote by the end of the day Friday.

(Given Boehner reportedly held a similar call last weekend, only to be rebuffed, we'll caution no congressional deal is a done deal until it passes both chambers.)

The framework of the deal currently in place would have the House sign off on a slightly modified version of the two-month extension that sailed through the Senate. Boehner and co. appear to have secured a small concession during negotiations (which, as politicians are wont to do, they'll likely try to spin it into something more substantive in the eyes of the American public): namely, the bill will reportedly include language that would expedite negotiations over a full-year extension in January.

Thursday, Dec. 22 at 11:22 a.m.: This one has to hurt for House Republicans.

Mitch McConnell, the Senate's top Republican, called Thursday for Speaker John Boehner and his House colleagues to pass the two-month pay roll extension that sailed through the upper chamber.

Politico reports that McConnell's statement came 30 minutes after Boehner renewed his pledge to continue to push instead for a one-year extension, despite the fact that most lawmakers have left town for the holidays.

McConnell did, however, hedge some, also calling for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to appoint conferees to negotiate a long-term version of the bill, as the House has formally requested. Nonetheless, McConnell's comments come as a blow to House Republicans, and further undercut their ability to score political points on the issue, as Karl Rove and others have suggested is all that is left for them to do.

Thursday, Dec. 22: The chorus of Republicans saying that their House brethren have made a political mistake by rejecting the Senate's two-month payroll tax extension is growing. The latest major addition: Karl Rove.

In an interview with Fox News, the former George W. Bush adviser said that he agreed with the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, which suggested that House Republicans cut their losses and sign off on the bipartisan deal.

Rove said that Speaker John Boehner and co. "have lost the optics of it," and that "the question now is how do the Republicans get out of it."

Rove's advice? They should "use it for political theater and then vote the two-month extension and get out of town."

He continued: "The only way to win it is to just stick there and ruin their own Christmases and wait until the president heads off to Hawaii for this, and then lambaste the Democrats for having abdicated their responsibilities to pass a year-long tax cut."

Wednesday, Dec. 21: The standoff over the payroll tax extension continues, but the battle is starting to look more and more like one between House Republicans and pretty much everyone else in Washington.

Democrats—in the House, the Senate, and the White House—are all pushing the Senate's two-month extension, and so too are an increasing number of Senate Republicans, either publicly or behind closed doors, who worry that the House's unwillingness to pass a bipartisan deal hammered out between Republicans and Democrats in the upper chamber will hurt the GOP in the next election.

Sen. John McCain had this to say about the House's role in the standoff (via CNN): "It is harming the Republican Party. It is harming the view, if it's possible any more, of the American people about Congress."

A senior GOP aide went further, telling Politico: "This is a colossal fumble by the House Republicans. Their inability to recognize a win is costing our party our long-held advantage on the key issue of tax relief. It’s time for [Speaker John] Boehner and [House Majority Leader Eric] Cantor to look these rookies in the eye and explain how the game is won or lost."

Tuesday, Dec. 20 at 1:18 p.m. As promised, House Republicans voted Tuesday afternoon to disagree with the Senate's bipartisan payroll tax extender deal and to call for a House-Senate conference to sort out the differences between the two-month extension and the yearlong bill they favor.

House Speaker John Boehner was able to keep his GOP caucus mostly united, with only seven Republicans breaking ranks and voting against the measure. The disagree/conference bill passed 229-193.

The vote came after House GOP leaders spent most of Monday maneuvering to figure out how best to proceed with their plans to deal with an issue that has exposed an unusual rift among congressional Republicans. While the House GOP caucus stands mostly united in its opposition to the two-month extension, the majority of GOP senators have already signed off on the deal.

Boehner had originally planned to hold a straight up-or-down vote on the Senate package, but ultimately opted for an alternative route that allowed rank-and-file Republicans to avoid casting votes against a bipartisan bill that includes tax cuts. Still, the speaker and other GOP leaders were clear that Tuesday's vote was a rejection of the Senate proposal.

The upper chamber has already recessed for the holidays, and Democratic leaders have suggested they won't cave to the House demands to hold a conference before the current payroll tax holiday expires at the end of the year.

Tuesday, Dec. 20: It looks like House Republicans have dropped plans to hold a straight up-or-down roll call vote on the Senate's two-month extension, instead opting to vote to form a a House-Senate conference to hash out the differences between the bipartisan package that sailed through the upper chamber and the yearlong extension the House GOP favors.

Speaker John Boehner and co. dropped plans to outright defeat the Senate package on Monday night, something that would have required House Republicans to go on record against a package of tax cuts that many of their GOP colleagues in the Senate have already signed off on. Regardless, Boehner's team is still billing Tuesday's vote as an indirect rejection of the Senate bill.

"Our members do not want to just punt and do a two-month, short-term fix where we have to come back and do this again," Boehner told reporters Monday. "We're here. We're willing to work."

Senate Democrats, however, have stressed that they have no plans to budge. They maintain they have already worked out a deal with Republicans in the Senate, and say they see no need to return to the table to renegotiate with the House GOP so late in the game.

The House is expected to vote midday Tuesday. For those looking for more on the political
maneuvering going in within the House GOP caucus, Politico has a good take on the challenges Boehner is facing controlling his rank-and-file, and the National Journal has a look at how the Republican strategy is still evolving.

Monday, Dec. 19, at 9:03 p.m.: House Republicans say they will wait another day to reject the package of tax-cut extenders that has already sailed through the Senate with bipartisan support and earned the blessing of President Obama. 

Speaker John Boehner and co. had previously indicated that they would vote Monday evening to defeat the measure, but once it became clear that the House schedule would mean that votes on the topic would not be able to be held until late Monday or in Tuesday's early morning hours, the GOP postponed the votes—but gave no indication they have changed their minds about the two-month extension.

One unnamed GOP aide explained the scheduling rationale to the National Journal like so: "The overwhelming sentiment in our conference is that [Senate Majority Leader Harry] Reid is the one who should be ashamed and that we should vote in light of day."

Assuming the House Republicans reject the bill as planned, it will leave Congress in much the same place it has been since the 2010 midterm elections: With the GOP-controlled House at a standoff with the Democratic-controlled Senate. House Republicans say the Senate's two-month extension is unacceptable because it won't provide enough certainty for job creators; Democrats, meanwhile, are accusing House GOP leaders of unnecessary brinkmanship over something that Boehner had already suggested he would support.

This latest episode of the congressional soap opera that has been playing out in one form or another for months, however, has one significant difference: A handful of Senate Republicans have publicly voiced their displeasure with their House colleagues, a move that would appear to give Democrats the upper hand in the partisan messaging battle that would likely ensue if no deal is struck by Dec. 31 and roughly 160 million Americans see their taxes increase in the new year.

Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown, for one, released a statement Monday calling House Republicans "irresponsible and wrong" for rejecting the Senate's bipartisan bill.

"The refusal to compromise now threatens to increase taxes on hardworking Americans and stop unemployment benefits for those out of work," he said. "During this time of divided government, both parties need to be reasonable and come to the negotiating table in good faith. We cannot allow rigid partisan ideology and unwillingness to compromise stand in the way of working together for the good of the American people."

Monday, Dec. 19, at 9:44 a.m.: The House is scheduled to vote on the Senate's bipartisan tax cut extension deal later Monday, and Republicans say they have enough votes to kill the bill.

Speaker John Boehner made it clear Sunday that he and his fellow House Republicans would not support the two-month extension, throwing cold water on the idea that Congress had finally struck a deal to extend the tax cuts through February and setting up yet another fight with Senate Democrats.

The decision to hold a vote on the bipartisan Senate bill came late Sunday night, Politico reports, with GOP leaders suggesting their caucus has the unity needed to defeat the measure.

Most senators have already hit the road for their Christmas vacations, so full negotiations between the upper and lower chamber seem unlikely. Without a deal, the tax-cut holiday will end on Jan. 1.

Sunday, Dec. 18: It looks as though the tax cut extension deal is no deal after all. Shocking news.

One day after the Senate passed a two-month extension of unemployment benefits, House republicans are saying they won’t support the measure.

The New York Times reports that House Speaker John Boehner has pulled a 180 degree turn from yesterday, when he urged Republicans in his caucus to support the measure, which would deliver not only unemployment benefits but avoid cuts to pay for doctors to accept Medicare through February.

“It’s time to just stop, do our work, resolve the differences, and extend this for one year,” Mr. Boehner said on NBC’s ‘Meet The Press’ Sunday. “How can you have tax policy for two months?”

Republican leaders said that they wanted to extend the tax cut for middle income families, but not without paying for the cuts with equivalent cuts to government programs. Senate leader Harry Reid (D-NV) shot back Sunday in a statement that the GOP was walking away from an already-brokered compromise that will leave middle class families in the lurch.

“If Speaker Boehner refuses to vote on the bipartisan compromise that passed the Senate with 89 votes,” said Sen. Reid according to the Times, “Republicans will be forcing a thousand-dollar tax increase on middle class families on January 1^st.”

It appeared Speaker Boehner’s about-face was due to a vocal minority within the Republican party that was opposed to compromise on the issue.  

Saturday, Dec. 17: It wasn’t exactly a Christmas miracle, but it wasn’t all coal in the stocking, either.

Saturday the Senate passed legislation that would extend a Social Security payroll tax cut and jobless benefits for two months, according to the Associated Press. The bill will now head to the House for passage before heading to President Obama’s desk.

The Senate also signed off on over $1 trillion year-end budget bill that the House passed Friday.

The tax cut extension, which lawmakers have been wrangling over for weeks, impacts some 160 million taxpayers, and has been a part of the president’s recent jobs agenda. But the current bill also includes language from Republicans that attempts to require the president to sign off on a controversial oil pipeline that would stretch from Canada to Texas—a move he has said will result in a veto.

The president has said he wouldn’t sign any bill that tried to include expediting approval of the pipeline, which some environmentalists oppose until more research has been conducted regarding the pipeline’s impact. But since the construction of the pipeline could create American jobs, unions are eager to see the permit granted to begin construction, and Republicans have been pushing for it.

Whether and how the pipeline issue will be resolved by the legislation remains in question. From the AP:

“The legislation, would require the president to grant a permit, but allows Obama to opt not to do so if he determines that the pipeline is "not in the national interest." One senior administration official said the president would almost certainly refuse to grant a permit. The official was not authorized to speak publicly.

The developments came a few hours after the White House publicly backed away from Obama's threat to veto any bill that linked the payroll tax cut extension with a Republican demand for a speedy decision on the 1,700-mile Keystone XL oil pipeline proposed from Canada to Texas Gulf Coast refineries.”

Republican senators said the tax cut extension would be paid for by raising fees on new mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Republicans were able to block new federal regulations on light bulb efficiency and clean water permits for the coal and logging industries. But the passage of both the payroll tax cut and funding bills were seen in some circles as a win for Democrats.