by Randy Shannon
The House Farm bill was just defeated by 62 Republicans and 133 Democrats. This was a major defeat for the House Republican leadership. It highlights the unpredictability of the far-right Tea Party caucus .
On Monday June 17th Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) held demonstrations across the country at the offices of Democratic Representatives demanding a ‘No’ vote on the Farm Bill. It contained $20 billion cuts in SNAP, aka food stamps.
Members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus challenged other Democratic representatives to join them in a one week food stamp diet to dramatize the impact of the proposed cuts.
On Wednesday June 19th PDA members visited over 150 Congressional district offices to demand a ‘No’ vote on the Farm Bill. The swing of a large majority of Democrats against the bill was aided by President Obama’s statement that he would veto a Farm Bill with massive cuts to food assistance. The AFL-CIO also stated its opposition to the cuts.
Members of the PA 12th CD Chapter visited the Beaver office of Representative Rothfus and faxed letters stating our opposition to cuts in food assistance. Representative Rothfus, a Tea Party caucus member, voted against the Farm Bill even though is was sponsored by his own party leadership. Rothfus made no comment on the House floor in the debate over the Farm Bill.
Calls to Rothfus office failed to elicit a statement or comment on this vote. When asked, Rothfus Washington staff stated that the reason for his vote was not “a secret.” Rothfus’ office promised that a “letter explaining his position” will be mailed in the future.
The commentary below was just published in the Washington Post. It analyzes the situation within the Republican Party. The Democrats voted against the bill because the cuts in food stamps were too much; the Tea Party voted against the bill because the cuts were not deep enough.
The 2014 election will go a long way in determining whether people in the US will starve or continue to get food aid while the economic crisis drags on.
The failure of the farm bill — and why House Republicans can’t be led
By Chris Cillizza, Updated: June 20, 2013
The House Republican conference simply cannot be led.
That reality hit home — hard — this afternoon when the House failed to pass a farm bill. The bill failed 234-195 with 62 Republicans voting against it and just 24 Democrats voting for it.
Republican insiders immediately tried to foist the blame on Democrats, insisting that 40 “yea” votes had been promised and the vote count was dependent on those votes being delivered. (Worth noting: The administration made clear in a statement Monday that President Obama would veto the bill if it passed, a declaration that undoubtedly had a chilling effect on Democratic votes in favor of the legislation.)
But, here’s the simple political reality: The majority party in the House should never — repeat NEVER — lose floor votes on major (or, really, minor) pieces of legislation. Republicans, literally, write the rules governing the debate — and, as the majority, must ensure that even in the worst case scenario that they can get the “yeas” they need from their own side. That didn’t happen as a number of conservatives revolted, believing that the cuts proposed in the bill were insufficient. (Democrats who voted against the bill largely did so out of a concern that the legislation cut in the wrong places. Wonkblog has a good rundown of what was in the bill.)
“Republicans continue to act as an opposition party and not as a governing party which is congruent with increasing parliamentary behavior among the electorate and their elected officials,” said one former Republican lawmaker. “This is not a path to a majority. House Republicans need to recognize their destinies are intertwined.”
It’s not the first time that the GOP leadership team of House Speaker John Boehner (Ohio.), House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Va.) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) have failed to wrangle conservatives allied with the tea party into line.
Earlier this week the House voted to ban abortions after 20 weeks, a measure pushed by conservatives but one that many in the party viewed as an unnecessary distraction given that the legislation had no chance of even being taken up by the Democratic-controlled Senate.
And, late last year, conservatives revolted against Boehner’s “Plan B” proposal on the tax rate showdown with the White House — forcing the Speaker to pull the legislation before he even offered it.
It’s easy in the wake of this trifecta of votes to make the case that Boehner, Cantor and McCarthy are simply ineffective leaders. (House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who knows something about rounding up votes, described Thursday’s vote as “major amateur hour”.)
But laying the blame at the feet of Boehner etc. overlooks a more basic point: The Republican House conference, as currently comprised, cannot be led.
The main reason for that fact is the rump group of tea party-aligned conservatives who do not take orders from their party leadership. A look at the Republican votes against the legislation reads like a “who’s who” of tea party icons: Justin Amash (Mich.), Michele Bachmann (Minn.), Paul Broun (Ga.), Steve Stockman (Texas) and so on and so forth.
If you think that anyone – and that includes much-discussed Speaker-in-waiting Paul Ryan (Wisc.) — can tell that group of legislators what to do, you don’t understand the political calculus they use to make decisions. They are far more loyal to the tea party movement than to the House Republican establishment. Jim DeMint or Ted Cruz would have a far better chance of convincing them how to vote than Boehner, Cantor or McCarthy do.
It’s also worth remembering that the way votes were whipped in the old day was by inserting various earmarks that benefited the districts of wavering members. When House Republicans re-took control of the House in the 2010 midterms, they instituted a ban on earmarks — effectively robbing the leadership of just the sort of plums that had always been used to sweeten the pot for lawmakers who needed a little something extra to get to “yes”.
That’s not to say that the GOP leadership team is blameless, however. Five House Committee chairmen – Ryan (Budget), Jeb Hensarling (Financial Services), Ed Royce (Foreign Affairs), Bob Goodlatte (Judiciary) and Jeff Miller (Veterans Affairs) — voted against the farm bill. While each of them undoubtedly had their own reasons for their “no” votes, chairmen are supposed to support the leadership on key bills. It’s why they are chairmen.
The big takeaway from the failure of the farm bill is that House Republicans simply cannot be led by anyone at the moment. That means you should be wary of predictions about the fate of the immigration bill in the House — among others pieces of pending legislation. “If they can’t manage the farm bill, what’s going to happen on immigration?,” asked Democratic Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.).
No one knows the answer to that question — up to and including House Republicans.
Beaver County Blue: Voice of the 17th CD of Progressive Democrats of America 
Looks like a split in the dam. Americans are mad at being ripped off by the non-working Congress. When elections are over, its time to get to work. This Congress failed to get things done.