The House of Representatives’ chamber was its usual clamorous self Thursday afternoon as lawmakers sped through a lengthy vote sequence on amendments to the farm bill. Members dashed in and out during a “lightning round” of two minute roll call votes, squeezing in brief calls on their iPhones in the Speaker’s Lobby. Aides scurried about, briefing members on amendments. Some raucous shouts of “hurry up!” and “regular order” emanated from impatient lawmakers as the House hurtled toward a final up-or-down vote on the farm measure.
Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-KS) presided over the House, launching the last vote with a rap of the gavel. The gigantic, electronic screens bearing the surname of each House member sparked to life. Neon green “Y’s” and red “N’s” burst suddenly onto the board next to the names, denoting how each lawmaker voted.
And suddenly the din subsided. The frenzied back-and-forth to the Speaker’s Lobby halted. Mouths hung agape.
An eerie pall swallowed the chamber-- which was weird considering how boisterous it had been.
But something “bad” was happening. And people started whispering toward the back of the room.
The farm bill was supposed to pass. Only it wasn’t.
Lawmakers sat in their seats, staring up at the vote tally board. Some clenched the armrests with both hands. There were murmurs.
Bystanders of traffic accidents often speak of seconds before the crash where time seemingly slows to a crawl. The witnesses see the car run the light and see the other vehicle about to make the left-hand turn. But there’s nothing they can do about it. They know there’s going to be a wreck. And they feel helpless as mere spectators, destined to watch the accident unfold in slow motion.
Such was the case on the House floor during the farm bill vote. Lawmakers from both sides stood around and saw the accident coming. But there was little they could do. House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) walked the center aisle. House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) huddled in the well of the chamber with Agriculture Committee Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK) and a squadron of aides.
The crash was happening before their very eyes. The margin between the yeas and nays swelled. It wasn’t even close. Lawmakers were helpless. And after a few minutes of an uncomfortable quiet, Yoder banged the gavel, closing the vote.
There were 234 nays and 195 yeas. Only 24 Democrats voted yes. 62 Republicans voted no.
It is said that success has many fathers. Failure is an orphan. Unless there’s blame involved. And Congress being Congress, everyone rushed to find a scapegoat.
For the Republican leadership, the choice was obvious.
McCarthy spokeswoman Erica Elliott read the vote total to a scrum of reporters in the Speaker’s Lobby. She characterized the mere 24 Democratic yeas as “pathetic.”
As he exited, the chamber, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) pinned the blame on a tried-and-true GOP target.
“I am very disappointed in (House Minority Leader) Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who chose partisanship over progress,” said Cantor.
“Everybody thought this was going to pass,” groused Cantor’s spokesman Rory Cooper. “Democrats are not able to govern.”
Of course, Republicans hold a 234-201 advantage in the House of Representatives. One GOP aide who asked not to be identified quipped that “at the rate we’re going, we may wind up in the minority. But there’s no reason to act like we’re there yet.”
Cooper later clarified his remark in a Tweet, saying Democrats “won't work in good faith to participate in governance.”
Pelosi was having none of it.
“It’s silly. It’s sad. It’s juvenile. It’s unprofessional. It’s amateur hour,” fumed the California Democrat.
Others castigated Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), the senior Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, for the failure. Republicans argued Peterson at one point promised 70-80 Democratic votes. Then before the vote, the GOP aimed to get about 40 from the Democratic side. But those Democratic votes never materialized.
“They can try to blame it on me but that ain’t going to work,” steamed Peterson, who in turn imputed Republicans.
“If you overreach, you get nothing. You get nothing. You take things too far and it blows up on you,” Peterson said.
The “overreach” Peterson alluded to was amendments that drastically altered the original farm bill passed out of committee. There was an amendment offered by Rep. Steve Southerland (R-FL). It would allow states to impose work requirements on those who receive food stamps. The House okayed Southerland’s amendment 227-198. But only one Democrat, Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN), could stomach it and vote yes.
In particular, Peterson fought for his own dairy plan in the farm bill. But Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R-VA) advocated his own amendment to kill the federal stabilization program for milk and fill in the gaps with insurance.
The House overwhelmingly okayed Goodlatte’s dairy measure 291-135. But despite his resounding victory, Goodlatte still voted no on the entire bill. Goodlatte chairs the House Judiciary Committee. Four other committee chairs joined him with nay ballots: Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI), Veterans Affairs Committee Chairman Jeff Miller (R-FL) and Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce (R-CA).
Some immediately asked why the leadership could allow those chairmen to vote no on a bill like this.
Others asked about how the bill got to the floor at all. Longstanding parliamentary doctrine dictates that the House of Representatives almost never brings a major piece of legislation to the floor for a vote unless the votes are locked down. So what happened here? Earlier in the week, there was chatter the House would debate the farm bill this week and then punt passage to next week. That would make sure everything was set. That didn’t happen. So naturally, some blamed Cantor, who controls the floor schedule, for bringing the bill to the floor for a vote.
Kevin McCarthy wouldn’t escape blame either, as he is in charge of whipping the vote. Of course McCarthy said Peterson was supposed to deliver a chunk of Democratic votes. But that didn’t happen. Still, some point out that McCarthy is the ultimate arbiter of vote counting in the House. Right or not, sources from both sides of the aisle blamed the Whip for misjudging where the votes were.
Then comes John Boehner.Few in Congress have as much disdain for farm bills as Boehner. He’s only voted for one in his Congressional career. But Boehner has long said he would support this farm bill, even if he didn’t like all parts of it.
Speakers of the House vote sparingly on the floor. But Boehner made a point of voting in favor of the Goodlatte amendment. It was the first time during his speakership that the Ohio Republican voted on something other than final passage of a bill. Boehner then left the Capitol to deliver a speech to the National Association of Manufacturers. He then high-tailed it back to the floor to vote yea on the farm bill.
No one could remember an incident where the Speaker of the House took the rarefied step of voting for a bill-- especially a big one-- and then watched it melt down.
The press and commentators immediately jumped on Boehner. They described it as a debacle, suggesting this was yet another case of him not coaxing Republicans to support him on major pieces of legislation like avoiding a government shutdown, raising the debt ceiling, renewing the payroll tax, sidestepping the fiscal cliff, approving money for victims of Hurricane Sandy and a host of others.
Boehner wasn’t a fan of the entire bill. But he believed it carried significant reforms. It included deep cuts in the food stamp program and eliminated direct payments to “farmers”-- some of whom are simply property owners in the Midwest who live in Midtown Manhattan.
“It’s preposterous the Speaker is being cited as a failure in all of this,” said Tyson Redpath, a former Boehner aide and current agriculture lobbyist. “He was committed to the process. He was committed to the bill, which was a seismic step forward.”
But Boehner’s backing wasn’t enough to secure buy-in from 62 members of his conference-- to say nothing of Democrats.
Political analysts suggested this didn’t bode well for Boehner and the House at large as it begins tangling soon with immigration reform. Then there’s a potentially epic struggle over sidestepping a government shutdown and raising the debt limit.
Backers of the farm bill contend there were billions of dollars in savings in the package. Some of those supporters complained that conservatives who voted no because the cuts weren’t enough will be at Boehner’s throat later this year-- demanding cuts during the debt ceiling/government shutdown fight. Those critics contend some conservatives weren’t willing to accept this plan because it wasn’t “perfect.”
Meanwhile, interest groups like Heritage Action reveled in their prescience.
In May, Heritage Action sent to a letter to Boehner and Cantor. It urged them “to avoid bringing any legislation to the House Floor that could expose or highlight schisms within the conference.” Heritage Action CEO Michael Needham specifically cited the farm bill as one of those bills.
The farm bill failure reignited an old debate about palace intrigue in the leadership ranks. Some aides who toiled on the farm bill suggested they got “played” and this was part of an elaborate scheme to embarrass Boehner. One aide described the atmosphere on Capitol Hill as being “rife with conspiracy.” Of course, there’s no evidence of such an elaborate cabal attempt. Chatter about internecine leadership battles had all but stopped. However, the farm bill debacle quickly rekindled that talk.
Over the coming days, there will be many interpretations, theories and distillations about the meaning of Thursday’s havoc and who is responsible. But Thursday’s vote represents a tectonic shift in how the House of Representatives has operated over the past two and a half years to approve major, “must do” bills.
In the previous Congress (spanning 2011-2012), Republicans had a high-water mark of 242 GOPers. Democrats had 203 or fewer. That meant Boehner could only afford to lose 19 of his own before he required help from the Democrats to pass those measures.
For instance, in April 2011, 59 Republicans voted against keeping the government operating. But Democrats made up the difference. In August 2011, the GOP lost 66 of its own on the debt ceiling vote. But 95 Democrats helped usher that plan to passage.
Similar situations unfolded on the transportation bill in 2012, the fiscal cliff package and Hurricane Sandy relief. In some ways, Democrats were John Boehner’s best friend.
But those bipartisan coalitions frayed on Thursday.
The course ahead?
The GOP leadership brain trust knows it can always pass very conservative bills-- which wouldn’t have a chance of getting anywhere in the Senate or past President Obama. It could now adopt that strategy. But it would detonate immigration reform and result in a fiscal crisis this fall.
Or, it could revert to engineering a bipartisan coalition again on those “must pass” measures. Historically, farm bills have been bipartisan. But it’s harder to write a bill with wide bipartisan support when the nation is polarized.
Lots of whispering goes on at funerals. The House chamber fell silent as shock consumed members on the farm bill. Most were stunned, whether they liked the bill or not. But lawmakers were quiet because they may have witnessed the death of bipartisan coalitions to pass major bills which have dominated the GOP-controlled House for so long.
And everyone is whispering about who to blame.
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