Um, define “undermine” (UPDATED: this qualifies)
By D.J. McGuire | Wednesday, June 30th, 2010 | Policy, Politics
As of 1:30 PM this afteroon (EDT), confusion reigns across the rightosphereon just what House Minority Leader John Boehner and his number two (Eric Cantor, the Congressman from a district neighboring mine) had in mind when they put their names to two discharge petitions (one from Steve King, the other from Wally Herger) for bills purporting to repeal Democare.
To hear Eric Erickson (Red State) tell it, the two-bills-is-better-than-one move was a clever bait and switch designed to prevent repeal, rather than enhance its prospects:
Notice that Cantor and Boehner were absolutely silent on Rep. King’s efforts until they had Wally Herger’s discharge petition ready to go. Why? Because they want to bully Republican House members into signing the Herger petition and undercut the repeal effort with a “replace and replace with lame legislation” effort. In effect, this undercuts a unified repeal effort and muddies the waters.
Now, yours truly has been leery of Messrs. Boehner and Cantor ever since they rolled over for TARP two years ago. Additionally, the muddy-the-water-with-multiple-bills move is hardly unprecedented or unbelievable. Finally, Herger’s “replacement” could very well be as weak as Erickson says it is.
There is, however, one problem, namely coming straight from the Hill article to which Erickson himself links:
King’s petition would repeal parts of the healthcare reform law that originated in the Senate, while Herger’s petition would repeal all of the healthcare law and the reconciliation bill.
Wouldn’t that make Herger’s bill closer to genuine repeal?
I don’t ask that rhetorically. I’d really like to know. My eyes say yes, but a blogger I trust says no. They can’t both be right.
UPDATE: Ramesh Ponnuru weighs in on the subject in The Corner. He doesn’t question motives, but he argues – convincingly – that Herger’s replacement bill gets in the way of King’s repeal bill. Just as importantly, he explains why King’s bill doesn’t repeal the reconciliation side-car (it was introduced before the sidecar passed). I’m not ready to say Cantor and Boehner deliberately damaged King’s petition, but I now agree that Herger’s bill distracts.
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Former candidate for Board of Supervisors in Spotsylvania, current blogger, economics teacher, and long-rumored windbag. There are two causes closest to the heart: steering the country away from the social democratic nonsense that is sinking Europe, and convincing the rest of the "rightosphere" that the NBA really is a joy to watch.
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6 Responses to "Um, define “undermine” (UPDATED: this qualifies)"
[...] Cross-posted to BD [...]
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by bearingdrift, Timothy Watson. Timothy Watson said: Folks at RedState need to stop promoting conspiracy theories. RT @bearingdrift: Web: Um, define “undermine” http://bit.ly/9PgSl7 [...]
The entire bill originated in the house on a different topic, was sent over to the Senate, who completely changed the bill and was forced to vote on their product after Scott Brown’s election to avoid a filibuster.
That Senate Bill (which remember, started in the House as something completely different but was completely changed in the Senate so they could get around the rule of revenue bills having to start in the House) was voted on in the House without a change in language (to avoid it being sent back to the Senate) and signed into law.
Rep. King’s bill will wipe the bill clean of all Senate changes (returning it to the completely unrelated bill it had been first sent over to the Senate as) while Herger’s bill is grandstanding by the establishment to muddy the waters.
But there was also the reconciliation bill that was passed afterwards. If King’s bill doesn’t include that, then it stays in place and we don’t have full repeal.
From RedState:
“Last week and on Monday I mentioned Rep. Steve King’s effort to repeal Obamacare and start over. He’s filed a discharge petition. If he gets 218 signatures, Nancy Pelosi must hold a vote.”
PROBLEM 1- where is he going to find some 40 Democrats to sign on to repeal Obamacare?
From reading only the RedState article, it looks like the main distinction is that King’s bill would merely repeal Obamacare, whereas Herger’s bill would repeal and replace Obamacare. Neither petition has anything close to a legitimate shot at garnering 40 Democrat signatures- at worst, it looks like Boehner and Cantor are trying to avoid being tagged as being naysayers without an alternative (a.k.a. “The Party of ‘NO’”).
SO WHAT IS REDSTATE’S POINT IN ALL THIS?
“Any Republican who signs on to the Herger discharge petition should be driven from office for betraying the ‘repeal’ cause. This does nothing but provide cover to people who don’t really want to repeal Obamacare, just nibble at the edges.”
More than anything, it looks like a witch hunt to weed out the only 99.99% Conservatives.
Anyone serious about repealing Obamacare can start here: focus your energy on defeating Democrats and getting a majority in the house- without a majority, Republicans cannot repeal anything.
Bingo, spartacus. That’s the only real answer. Neither of these petitions will ever see the light of day. There’s no point in going down this path of trying to see if there is dissent between Boehner and Cantor. The focus needs to be on November. We won’t be repealing Obamacare until after 2012 anyway.
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