Congressional Democrats are going to try to bypass the TanMan, Weeper of the House John Boehner, the “Worst. Speaker. Ever.” who has refused to bring up any immigration bill in the House that he controls, by introducing a discharge petition in the House today. Democrats to Try Long-Shot Tactic for House Immigration Vote:
House Democrats will carry out a long-shot legislative maneuver on Wednesday that is intended to bring a broad immigration bill to the House floor for a vote — or, at the very least, to increase the pressure on Republicans to move forward on some form of overhaul before the end of the year.
The maneuver, known as a discharge petition, would require 218 signatures and allow House Democrats and Republicans who support the immigration legislation to circumvent the Republican majority and bypass the regular committee process.
House Democrats are calling the effort the #DemandAVote petition, and they hope to force Republicans to take up the immigration bill, which largely mirrors the broad measure the Senate passed last year. The bill has 200 co-sponsors, including three Republicans, and it is officially known as the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act.
Like the bill the Senate passed, the House measure includes a path to citizenship for the 11 million immigrants who are in the country illegally.
Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, said Tuesday that Democrats were simply asking for a vote on an issue they believed would pass with bipartisan support.
“Despite the huge benefits for our fiscal health and our nation’s vitality, not to mention the overwhelming support of the American people, House Republicans continue to block a vote on comprehensive immigration reform,” Ms. Pelosi said. “Enough is enough, and Democrats are demanding a vote. It is time for Republicans to stop catering to the most extreme, anti-immigrant wing of their caucus, and allow a vote on the bipartisan immigration reform our nation so urgently needs.”
Yes the discharge petition is the premise of Legally Blonde 2: Red, White & Blonde. Discharge petitions rarely succeed.
House Democrats have tried to use the maneuver to push other legislative goals like extending unemployment insurance, raising the minimum wage and encouraging equal pay for women. Although the petitions have raised the visibility of those signature Democratic issues, they have not led to a vote on the House floor.
Any discharge petition in the current Congress would require the support of more than a dozen Republicans, an unlikely prospect because it would require them to defy their party’s leadership. The last successful discharge petition was in 2002 and helped win passage of a major campaign finance law.
Ms. Pelosi has acknowledged that a discharge petition on immigration will probably not succeed either. “We’ll never get to 218 on the discharge petition because the Republicans generally won’t sign,” she said this month in an interview on Sirius XM Radio. “The outside mobilization is saying all we want is a vote.”
The tactic will keep the pressure on House Republicans to offer their own immigration legislation.
A spokesman for the House speaker, John A. Boehner of Ohio, used Ms. Pelosi’s own words to sum up the speaker’s views on the Democrats’ maneuver. “Representative Pelosi has said publicly that this effort is pointless and doomed to failure,” said the spokesman, Michael Steel. “We agree.”
Remember when Republicans used to chant “Just give us an up or down vote”? That’s all that Democrats are asking here. That’s how democracy works.
If you want comprehensive immigration reform, the TanMan has to go. John Boehner is the villain here blocking what the vast majority of Americans — and likely a majority of Congress would vote in favor of if given the opportunity — because he fears a revolt of his nativist anti-immigrant Teabagger members threatening his gavel. The TanMan cares more about his title than his country or doing what is morally just.
We can take away his gavel by electing more Democrats to the House and bringing an end to the woefully inept less-than-do-nothing Congress that Boehner has presided over since 2011.
Weeper of the House John Boehner will be in Southern Arizona this weekend. Maybe our feckless news media will ask Boehner, Arizona’s GOP congressional delegation, and GOP congressional candidates where they stand on comprehensive immigration reform and the discharge petition currently pending in Congress. Will Martha McSally ever go on the record to take a position on any issue in this campaign?