Earlier this evening the House Rules Committee approved H
Res 367, the latest effort of the Republican leadership to craft an a version
of HJ Res 59 that would be acceptable to the Republican’s conservative base and
might pass muster this evening in the Senate.
House Rule
The latest move would vacate Saturday’s House amendments to
the Senate amendment to HJ Res 59 and then put into place new language at the
end of the Senate version that would:
• Changes end date to December 15th,
2013 {§138};
• Delays individual mandate requirements
of Obamacare one year {§141}; and
• Removes the government
contribution to the health insurance for Congress, its staff, the President and
his staff and the political appointees in the executive branch {§142}.
It appears relatively obvious that the leadership accepts at
face value Sen. Reids’ assertion that no modification of Obamacare will pass
the Senate. Section 2 of H Res 367 provides that the currently approved waiver
of House Rules with respect to the restrictions on the same day action on a
House Rules Committee rule is extended to October 7th, 2013.
Floor Action
The House took up H Res 367 this evening and passed it on a
nearly party-line vote (6 Republicans voted no) of 225
to 204. A short time later on a slightly more mixed vote (12 Republicans
voted no and 9 Democrats voted yes) the House passed the newly revised language
of HJ Res 59 on a 228
to 221 vote. The Senate subsequently voted to table consideration of the
Republican amendment the expected party-line vote
of 54-46, effectively dropping the matter back into the House.
It is remotely possible that the House might take the matter
up again tonight; they recessed after the earlier vote instead of adjourning. In
fact, the House Rules Committee just announced that
it was holding another meeting tonight at 10:30 EDT.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment