Upon becoming Speaker, in 2011, Boehner pledged to follow something called the Hastert rule, named for former House Speaker Denny Hastert, who believed during his speakership, which lasted from 1999 to 2006, that every bill brought to the House floor by the leadership should be supported by “a majority of the majority”—in other words, by a majority of Republicans. Boehner has stuck to the Hastert rule, with a couple of exceptions. One was a vote for Hurricane Sandy relief, which was opposed in 2012 by a majority of the majority. Most House Republicans took the position that they couldn’t possibly vote to provide help for the stricken, unless, of course, a natural disaster struck their districts directly, in which case their small-government principles suddenly became less relevant. But because most of them could at least envision something disastrous happening to their constituents, Boehner paid no political price for that one. The other exception was for the budget deal at the end of 2012. Because President Obama was holding the high cards—the Bush tax cuts were scheduled to expire at the end of the year—Boehner, after much delay, was forced to do a deal that left families making more than four hundred and fifty thousand dollars unprotected from a modest tax increase. His House colleagues were upset about this, but they had no real alternative, and reëlected him Speaker last January. So why not break the Hastert rule one more time and spare the country this madness? Because this time Boehner would risk losing his speakership, should he defy the collection of House radicals now dubbed “Banana Republicans” by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. Boehner told Republicans Thursday afternoon that he would not invoke the Hastert rule for raising the debt ceiling, a bow to common sense and the financial backers of the G.O.P. who don’t want to see the U.S. economy go over the cliff. But for now, anyway, he is still allowing a minority of a minority to continue to hold eight hundred thousand government workers hostage. From Boehner’s perspective, he has to: House Republicans would likely vote to dump him should he allow a continuing resolution to come to the floor—another humiliation, more visible this time. So that’s where we are: a Speaker desperate to avoid a repeat of the most searing defeat of his life, but unable to cut a deal that might satisfy his members. Were he a less frightened man, we’d be in a better place.
Posted on: Mon, 07 Oct 2013 23:15:39 +0000
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