How Republicans could avert a debt ceiling showdown

Kevin McCarthy won the House speakership in part by making himself hostage to Republican hardliners, promising high-profile confrontations on issues like funding the government and preventing debt ceiling violations. And he can use his power over the House agenda to make that promise, blocking bills on the topic from coming to a vote unless conservatives get what they want.

But Democrats and GOP moderates have a strange trick they can use to stop him: discharge petitions.

This procedure was created to allow the majority of the House to force action on bills that the speaker or key committees do not hold a vote in the House. For example, if McCarthy does not allow a vote on the “clean” debt ceiling Increase Bill, 218 members of the House can sign a motion to discharge forcing such a vote – and, since the majority, the Bill is likely to pass. After the vacant Democratic seats in blue areas are filled in next month’s special election, only five Republicans need to join 213 Democrats to make a successful discharge petition.

There are many things procedural and time technicalities which can complicate this if it happens before the debt ceiling or government shutdown deadline. But in theory, it could happen, if only a few Republican members wanted to.

The real problem, of course, is political — because there are so many political reasons that even moderate Republicans would be reluctant to take this step.

A discharge petition is a bold challenge to the speaker’s authority, effectively removing control of the chamber from his hands. In this case, it will also undercut his negotiation strategy, because he purportedly tries to win the concessions the Republicans want. Working with Democrats on petitions would also be a sign of partisan disloyalty. Whoever does it will hit their targets at the end of next year — and, if they survive, Democrats will back down and try to defeat them in public.

Some moderates feel empowered to defy their party on key issues like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), and recent history suggests that House Republican moderates are unlikely to do that. But partisan loyalties and a reluctance to take a bold stand could plunge the country into crisis. So even if there is a trick to save us from the brink, its success will still depend on navigating the political polarization that brought us to the brink in the first place.

One of the strange tricks to oust the leader of the DPR

Through much of the House’s history, chamber members have fought over who should control the chamber’s agenda — what to do and when. Does it have to be a speaker? Does it have to be the chairman of the main committee? Or should groups of different rank-and-file members be able to have a voice?

By 1910, the old guard Republican Speaker Joseph Cannon had centralized power in his hands to an unprecedented degree. But eventually enough Progressive Republicans joined the Democrats and rebelled, forcing Cannon to make concessions limiting his authority. One of the changes in House rules created a discharge petition, although the details of how it worked changed in the decades that followed.

Often threatened and tried, successful discharge petitions have been rare – but some have been extremely consequential.

In 1938, Rep. Mary Norton (D-NJ) used it to get the Fair Labor Standards Act, which sets the federal minimum wage, overtime pay, and bans on “oppressive child labor,” out of the Rules Committee. (Democrats have a majority in the House, but some Southern Democrats oppose the bill and hold key seats on the Rules Committee.)

In 1963, Democrats forced the chairman of the conservative Rules Committee Howard Smith to hold a hearing on civil rights legislation with a discharge petition – Smith caved before getting 218 signatures, and the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed the following year.

Democrats repeated the game in 1965 to pass a bill to make the District of Columbia self-governing through another conservative Democratic committee chairman, although the Bill is not a law of that session. (Apparently, in all three cases, Democratic presidents have approved release efforts to bypass conservative Southern Democrats who hold key committee seats.)

But it’s not just used to win over courageous liberals — interest groups also find discharge petitions can help them corner unpopular committee seats.

Soft drink distributors sought and won an antitrust exemption in 1980, the banking industry overturned new tax avoidance laws in 1983, and the National Rifle Association won a gun rights bill in 1986 — and all used the movement to unseat Democrats. chairman of the committee opposed to the measure. Additionally, a final exemption petition won 218 votes to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank through the conservative GOP committee chairman in 2015.

Impeachment petitions have also been used to force party leaders to vote for their preferred vote.

When Democrats controlled Congress in the 1980s and early 1990s, conservative Republicans and Democrats repeatedly used discharge petitions to force a vote on constitutional amendments to balance the budget (although, because constitutional amendments require two-thirds of the chamber to be approved. graduate).

In the Republican-controlled House in 2002, Democrats and moderate Republicans used to get campaign finance reform to the House floor, even though Republican Speaker Dennis Hastert refused. He succeeded, passing the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act, otherwise known as McCain-Feingold.

Lessons from the last great discharge petition battle

But to understand why Republicans might be shy about using it this year, it’s worth looking back at the last release petition that almost succeeded, in 2018.

The battle then went over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which provides temporary deportation protection to some illegal immigrants who came to the US as children. President Obama has established the program through executive authority, but now Trump is trying to phase it out. Many believe that if a legislative fix for DACA is presented to the House, it will pass (with the support of Democrats and some moderate Republicans). But Republicans control the chamber and, deferring to conservatives, they don’t act.

So finally, Reps. Carlos Curbelo (R-FL) and Jeff Denham (R-CA) filed a discharge petition to try to force the House to vote on four different DACA bills, including a bipartisan compromise bill. Eighteen Republicans signed first, and then in the next month, every Democrat, as well as several other Republicans, added their names, raising the number of signatures to 216 – two less than what was required.

Then Republican Speaker Paul Ryan stepped in to prevent others from faltering. He cut a deal where he agreed to vote on certain DACA measures — but not a bipartisan bill. Instead, Ryan wants Republicans to strike a deal among themselves that would include the border security measures that conservatives want. Ryan insists that only that process can pass a bill that President Trump will sign (although Politico suggests Ryan fears the potential “huge embarrassment” of a bipartisan bill and angry conservatives). The deal ultimately failed miserably on the House floor in June, with opposition from most Republicans and all Democrats.

Did the GOP moderates just happen to be two votes short of what they needed – meaning, if only two sympathetic members were in Congress, they could succeed? If so, it may be a sign for a discharge petition in this Congress, because only five moderates instead of 25 are needed this time.

A cynic can suspect, though, that the moderate key is always likely to cave if they are close to success – making the whole effort look more like image-burnishing for the purpose of reelection than the original rebellion. Or, maybe he’s just trying to force some action but feels more comfortable with Republican action than joining Democrats to anger his own party.

Prospects this year

So what is the probability that a discharge petition will be circulated this year, to wrest control from McCarthy and rights on certain issues?

One of the complications is that there are certain procedural and time limits on how it can be used. The process will take more than a month from start to finish, as Josh Huder outlined on Twitter. It’s no accident the process is cumbersome – it’s meant as a last resort rather than a first resort. As Joseph Zeballos-Roig of Semafor points out, these complications can cause problems when there are tough deadlines, such as raising the debt ceiling or funding the government.

But there are other political differences from past cases where discharge petitions have been successfully used. Usually, frustrated members of the majority party turn away when the leader or party members themselves try to stay out of trouble, taking no action.

In both the debt ceiling and government funding, though, the House GOP will likely actively try to make something happen in negotiations with the Democrats – spending cuts that most of the Republicans want in exchange for increasing the debt ceiling.

McCarthy’s strategy is to drive hard bargains, continuing to pressure the Senate and President Biden to make concessions to the GOP. That means, for Republicans, joining the discharge petition means undermining the party’s leadership’s negotiating strategy and reducing GOP influence — treason. (One can, of course, argue that it is unethical to hold the nation’s credit rating at all, but good luck convincing the Republicans of that.)

Take Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, one of the most moderate Republicans in the House. Fitzpatrick told Semafor that a discharge petition is “one option” to avoid default, but also told Politico that he needs moderate Democrats to “come out” with spending cuts in exchange for raising the debt ceiling. That is: They want a deal where Democrats make concessions.

Indeed, the more the discharge petition effort is seen as defying McCarthy, rather than defying the extreme group of hardline House Republicans, the less likely House moderates will do it. The pressure to be a good partisan soldier is quite strong. Swing-district Republicans will face difficult reelections and may think they need money McCarthy and allies can steer the way.

They also have to go through the primary before even going to the public, which makes many reluctant to anger right. Only a few members have the appetite to actually become mavericks – for most, the least resistant path is to stay with the team (although there may be a scenario where McCarthy secretly approves the discharge petition, so he can argue that it’s in the right side. his hand is forced).

Again, these members of Congress have agency, and it’s important to remember that five Republicans can actually act boldly, complete petitions to save the country from a dangerous crisis, if they want to. They just probably don’t want to, because they won’t see it as it is in their own political interests.

More generally, there is a long-standing centrist fantasy of a coalition of general moderates coming together, dramatically wresting power from the extremes, and doing the right thing — funding the government, preventing debt ceiling violations, and perhaps enacting other good policies. .

In one sense, this never happened, because partisanship was so strong.

But in another sense, it happens all the time – just less dramatically. The appropriations process continues with bipartisan support in the Senate. Even during the last eight years of House Republican control, there was only one major battle over the debt ceiling and one over government funding. For the rest of that time, GOP leaders routinely allowed bipartisan deals with Democrats on the matter to reach the floor and bypass conservative opposition.

No discharge petition is required for all. The question is whether McCarthy is really the right wing that will be needed now.