Careful, you might lose your grip on that thing
On Friday night, we were treated to a remarkable spectacle: Republican House Speaker John Boehner
completely lost control of his caucus, and a bill to fund the Department of Homeland Security for three weeks went down to defeat because Democrats refused to vote for it, as did
52 conservative dissenters from the GOP ranks.
Funding for the department was set to expire at midnight that night, but at the next-to-last minute, the House did succeed in passing a one-week extension, with nearly unanimous support from the Democrats. The same wasn't true on the other side of the aisle, though: The Republican dystopian brigades still refused to go along with the plan because it didn't involve rolling back Barack Obama's executive actions on immigration, a pipe dream they've nevertheless insisted on smoking from day one.
The first vote failed because Nancy Pelosi had whipped her caucus against the three-week bill, but then she subsequently encouraged her members to vote for the one-week bill. Why the change of heart? Because, said Pelosi, John Boehner promised to allow a vote next week on the "clean" bill that would fund Homeland Security through September—a bill the Senate already passed. (The legislation is "clean" because it doesn't contain any amendments about those executive orders concerning immigration that the tea drinkers are so incensed about.)
The bill would readily pass the House, since every Democrat would support it, and a sufficient number of less-crazy Republicans would back it, too. Boehner has relied on this "coalition" to advance critical legislation in the past (such as last year's vote to raise the debt ceiling), but doing so requires that he violate the so-called "Hastert Rule," a doctrine that says Republicans must only pass legislation that the majority of their caucus favors.
And every time Boehner breaks that rule, he enrages the ever-growing ranks of ultra-extremists in his own party, increasing the likelihood that he'll lose his speakership—or at least will find himself with even less leverage the next time he faces a high-pressure situation (as he did on Friday night). That's why Boehner quickly denied he'd promised Pelosi a vote on the full funding bill.
But Pelosi's far from stupid. The traditional media loves to claim that it's the "Democrats in disarray," but the blue team easily held the line on the three-week vote while Boehner's caucus devoured itself. Pelosi wouldn't then turn around and release her troops on the one-week bill without getting something in exchange. Boehner can pretend there's no deal, but then he's teleported back to square one, where he either has to pray Democrats cave, or he has to allow the Department of Homeland Security to shut down.
Democrats have shown they won't roll over, though, and the very concept of a shutdown has already become a byword for Republican intransigence, as polls have shown. Boehner's best choice right now is to honor his agreement and ignore the Hastert rule, even if that means putting his speakership in peril. Is he smart enough to realize the obvious? We'll soon see.