House Republicans have demonstrated once again that they're better at politics than at strategy, or even understanding how the body they work in actually works. The
growing spat between House Speaker John Boehner and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is turning into a bigger fight, with
a bunch of House members demanding McConnell nuke the filibuster.
"If we're going to allow seven Democratic senators to decide what the agenda is of the House Republican conference, of the Senate Republican majority, then we might as well just give them the chairmanships, give them the leadership of the Senate," Rep. Raul Labrador (R-Idaho) said at an event held with the Heritage Foundation.
He and other conservatives called for Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to gut the Senate’s filibuster if necessary to move the House bill to President Obama. With Democrats objecting to the immigration language, Republicans in the Senate are far short of the 60 votes needed to overcome procedural hurdles.
Senate Republicans quickly fired back at Labrador, arguing the suggestion was unrealistic.
"We should change 200 years of precedent?" Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, told The Hill. "No. If you change it for one issue, then you change it forever."
Yeah, not really 200 years, since the 60-vote majority rule was
adopted in 1975, but you wouldn't expect a senator in leadership to actually know the history of the Senate, at least not a Republican one. It's the same myth they used to fight filibuster reform when they were in the minority. Back then it was to save their ability to obstruct everything President Obama wanted, mostly. But now there are some strategic issues they're grappling with that the peabrains in the House can't quite fathom.
Like the fact that there's still a Democratic president with a veto pen. The yahoos in the House Republican caucus still seem to be operating under the premise that they can make stuff happen just by having temper tantrums, not realizing that it only works with Boehner. What would be the point of McConnell completely reversing himself on the filibuster (and proving how craven he's been on the issue) if anything he passes will just be vetoed? No, it makes much more sense for him to wait until 2017, and if he still has the majority and a Republican is in the White House, overcome his principles then on the grounds that the Democrats are preventing the country from moving forward. Then he would have a much better chance of convincing 51 of his fellow Republicans to pull the trigger. Right now, so many of them raised holy hell over Reid's reforms on nominations, he'd be hard-pressed to find 51 willing to make themselves look like massive hypocrites.
For now, he gets to share Boehner's long-standing headache of a House Republican caucus clamoring for him to commit political suicide. Couldn't have happened to a more worthy guy.