Your Daily Dose Of, "John Boehner Is Useless": "The Violence Against Women Act" Edition

The Senate passed a version of the Violence Against Women Act that House Republicans don't like. Clearly that means it's dead, right? I mean the whole argument is, sure you can't force things like entitlement reform with just the House but you can stop bad things from passing.

No, Boehner brought it up and it passed.

The process took some Republicans by surprise.

When the House votes Thursday to reauthorize the Violence Against Women Act, ending a drawn-out fight over whether some groups should be afforded protections under the bill, the measure will likely pass with a minority of Republicans supporting it.

...

House leaders reached the decision to pitch the Senate bill late Tuesday, only once it became clear a House version of the measure could not pass. At a meeting earlier in the evening among members of the Whip team, which counts votes, the contingency of the Senate bill coming to the floor was not even raised.

"You would have never thought that had the slightest possibility of happening based on the discussions," one House Republican aide familiar with the meeting said. The member of Congress for whom the aide works only learned that the House would vote on the Senate version of VAWA later — from Politico.

Does Beohner know that he doesn't have to bring up every bill the Senate sends over? Because if he's unclear on how this works, he could just look at how Harry Reid sits on Republican bills all the time.

What happened to the promises of regular order (each house passes a bill and then conference) and no more violating the Hasteret rule (you need a majority of the majority to pass a bill) after he did this with the fiscal cliff and Sandy relief bills? Yeah, about that taste in your mouth.

But hey, don't worry, there's no chance of the House caving on sequestration, guns or immigration once the Senate passes a bill.

I get the bill has a scary title, "The Violence Against Women Act" but it's not like the GOP is suddenly going to stop getting called anti-women because of this. It's not like Harry Reid is suddenly going to let the GOP pass a bill in the Senate just to show some good faith.

No, the Democrats will laugh all the way to the bank knowing that they don't have to give Boehner anything. Just apply enough pressure and he'll give it all to them with the help of House Democrats.

Why are you still a Republican?

posted by DrewM. at 12:40 PM

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