We've been chronicling the financial and ethical woes of the NRCC and House Republicans for the last few days here at the Bluestem Prairie. And after Congressman Walz mentioned the nuisance votes that House Republicans, we went to Thomas and looked at the frivolous motions to adjourn that were impeding the people's business over the last few days..
But nothing prepared us for Dana Milbank's headline this morning in the Washington Post: Republicans Vote Against Moms; No Word Yet on Puppies, Kittens. The details:
It was already shaping up to be a difficult year for congressional Republicans. Now, on the cusp of Mother's Day, comes this: A majority of the House GOP has voted against motherhood.
On Wednesday afternoon, the House had just voted, 412 to 0, to pass H. Res. 1113, "Celebrating the role of mothers in the United States and supporting the goals and ideals of Mother's Day," when Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), rose in protest.
"Mr. Speaker, I move to reconsider the vote," he announced.
Rep. Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), who has two young daughters, moved to table Tiahrt's request, setting up a revote. This time, 178 Republicans cast their votes against mothers.
It has long been the custom to compare a popular piece of legislation to motherhood and apple pie. Evidently, that is no longer the standard. Worse, Republicans are now confronted with a John Kerry-esque predicament: They actually voted for motherhood before they voted against it.
Republicans, unhappy with the Democratic majority, have been using such procedural tactics as this all week to bring the House to a standstill, but the assault on mothers may have gone too far. House Minority Leader John Boehner, asked yesterday to explain why he and 177 of his colleagues switched their votes, answered: "Oh, we just wanted to make sure that everyone was on record in support of Mother's Day."
By voting against it?
If Boehner's explanation doesn't make much sense, he's been under a great deal of stress lately.
There's the case of one member of his caucus, Rep.Vito Fossella (N.Y.); the father of three from Staten Island yesterday announced that he has a fourth, a 3-year-old love child with a woman from Virginia. . . .
. . .For the record, Fossella did not participate in the Mother's Day vote.. . .
. . . Boehner has enough trouble to preoccupy him here in Washington, where House Democrats have been passing their agenda with little thought for Republican preferences. "The majority has taken, once again, their go-it-alone policy," Boehner lamented yesterday. "It's time for Democrats and Republicans to work together."
To induce this working together, Boehner decided to stop the House from working at all. As House Democrats tried to pass legislation to ease the mortgage crisis on Wednesday, Republicans served up hours of procedural delays, demanding a score of roll call votes: 10 motions to adjourn, half a dozen motions to reconsider, various and sundry amendments, a motion to approve the daily journal, a motion to instruct and a "motion to rise."
The high point came just after 6 p.m., when, after one of the motions to adjourn, 61 members lined up to change their votes, one by one. Forty-six went from aye to no, while 15 changed from no to aye. The maneuver ate up 28 minutes in all -- and caused an eruption by Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who accused the minority of a "filibuster by vote changing."
. . . the dilatory maneuvers continued, and the Democrats finally announced that they would postpone the vote on the mortgage bill until Thursday, thereby pushing a war spending bill to next week.
Finally, Republicans decided yesterday to suspend their shenanigans; it was time to catch flights to their districts. "Never underestimate the desire of members to go home," Boehner spokesman Kevin Smith explained.
They might also need some extra time with their mothers.
For the record, Congressman Jim Ramstad (R--MN-3) joined Minnesota's Democratic Representatives in voting for motherhood after they had voted for it. Representative Bachmann and Kline voted against motherhood after they voted for it.
Will baseball and the flag be next?
Update: Think Progress has the video.
Actually, this isn't quite so boneheaded as it seems (though it is very much about slowing down the House). The 178 Republicans did not switch to voting against mothers, whatever Milbank might say. If you read the actual Congressional Record, you find that they voted against tabling reconsideration of whether they supported mothers. Now you might think that the only reason to object to tabling reconsideration would be because you wanted reconsideration. And that is correct. And you might think that the only reason you might want to reconsider a unanimously passed motion would be so that this time you could vote against it. But that is not so true. There are noble reasons why one might want reconsideration -- so that more colleagues who had not been on the floor for the first vote could join you in supporting it. And there are less noble reasons why one might want reconsideration -- so that you could further prolong the time spent on motherhood, at the expense of other matters.
Ollie says: We go with the latter explanation. Milbanks was teasing them about being against motherhood; his larger point was to drawn attention to their tactics to slow things down. We share that purpose.
Posted by: Max Hailperin | May 09, 2008 at 03:22 PM