HR 3746 Rule Published – Debt Limit Bill

Yesterday, the House Rules Committee met to craft the rule for the consideration of HR 3746, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023. As expected, the Committee crafted a closed rule, with limited debate (1 hour) and no amendments to be offered on the floor. The Committee did approve (and incorporated into the version of the bill to considered on the floor) one amendment that made a variety of technical changes to the bill.

There were 81 amendments submitted to the Committee, while would have made relatively minor changes to the language of the bill, most would have made significant changes to the deal crafted over the weekend. If almost any of the 80 other amendments had been incorporated into the final bill, they would have essentially killed the deal that brought the bill to the floor of the House today.

The Committee vote on the bill yesterday was unusual, a 9 to 7 vote in favor of adoptions. Typically votes in this Committee are 9 to 4, reflecting the party composition of the Committee. Yesterday two Republicans {Rep Norman (R,SC) and Rep Roy (R,TX)} voted against the bill. These two, along with Rep Massie (R,TX) were appointed to the Committee as part of the deal through which Rep McCarthy (R,CA) was finally elected to Speaker of the House. I suspect that there was a great deal of arm twisting applied to Massie to get his yeah vote. If his vote had gone the other way, I suspect that the Democrats would have provided a single yeah vote to move the bill to the floor.

According to reporting by the NY Times, it does not look like Chip Roy, the prima facia leader of the Republican opposition, will resort to the use of a vacate motion to slow consideration of the bill. But, as I noted yesterday, he does not really control the bomb throwers on the right. A motion to vacate may still come if/when the bill is approved in the House. Even if (as I expect that he would) McCarthy survives such a vote, it will almost certainly fatally damage his tenuous control of the Republican fringe in the House and will force him to work more often with Democrats to move legislation (especially spending bills) through the House during the remainder of the session.

On a side note, there were only 21 bills introduced yesterday. That was not surprising given that both the House was originally scheduled to working in their districts (read fund raising) this week. One bill that is worth mentioning here is HR 3750 introduced by Rep Mills (R,FL), it would provide a one-week extension of the debt limit. If HR 3746 fails in either the House or Senate (still a possibility, however remote), this bill may become an important vehicle extending the deadline for a new deal.

Bills Introduced – 5-29-23

Yesterday, in a rare Memorial Day session, the House met in pro forma session to introduce one bill, HR 3746, the Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023, Rep. McHenry, Patrick T. [R-NC-10]. This is the debt ceiling bill that was finalized in negotiations earlier over the weekend. The full text of the bill is available.

The House Rules Committee is scheduled to hold a hearing on the rule for consideration of HR 3745 later today. This will almost certainly be a ‘closed rule’ with limited debate (not too limited, there will be time for venting and posturing), and no amendments will be accepted. A vote on the bill will almost certainly be held in the House tomorrow

Extremists on both sides of the political spectrum in Congress will find much in this bill with which to object. Some measures will go too far, while others will not go far enough. The political middle will find those measures to be more palatable. I suspect that there will be sufficient votes in both the House and Senate to pass the bill when it comes to a vote.

The big question now is what will the bomb throwers do in either house. In general, the right-wing extremists got what they wanted, they forced Biden to negotiate on the debt limit and forced spending cuts. They did not get all that they wanted, but after some pointed and loud complaints they will vote against the bill to establish their credentials (and aid fundraising). They, as a group, will not give Speaker McCarthy too much of a hard time on the bill. McCarthy did as they wanted and was largely successful.

But, and this is a LARGE BUT, there are members of this group who have made their reputation by (and receive their funding for) disrupting the operations of the House. This is where a single bomb thrower could offer a privileged motion to vacate the Office of the Speaker, and the House would be required to stop what it was doing and vote on that motion. Now it would take 217 votes to actually remove the Speaker, and that is not going to happen over this bill (the moderate Democrats will 'save' McCarthy). But it would slow down operations a small amount and it would make McCarthy’s future more difficult. But, even with a motion to vacate, the House will vote on this bill and almost certainly pass it on Wednesday.

The Senate is a different story. There are not ‘bomb throwers’ in the Senate, it is much too dignified and proper to allow such members. It does, however, have rules in place for the slow and measured consideration of legislation. And it takes (maybe several) unanimous consent motions to work around those rules to pass legislation quickly. And the Senate has any number of members on the left and right who would insist on following the rules and object to such unanimous consent motions. It is very likely that the Senate will go through the prolonged debate process to pass this bill, but it will pass.