There's one more of Rump Speaker Ted Cruz's brilliant ideas down the drain. Cruz told the House Republicans that should pass government funding bills one piece at a time, everything but Obamacare (which is already funded and not shutting down, but they're not geniuses, so....). Last week they thought that idea was absolutely stupid, but since they've failed with every other effort so far, they
decided to give it a try. They offered the bills under a suspension of the rules, which means they had to get a two-thirds vote in order to pass.
They failed, on the veterans bill 264-164, on D.C. operations 265-163, and on parks 252-176.
House Republicans picked as the winners in their mini funding spree veterans benefits (at a much, much lower level than in the budget they passed earlier this year), the National Parks/Smithsonian, and operations for the District of Columbia. But they didn't offer these bills through regular order—probably to avoid a chance of Democrats offering up the clean CR from the Senate. Under regular order, Democrats would have offered a motion to recommit the bill that would substitute the Senate's clean continuing resolution (which has the votes to pass). It's also possible Republicans just wanted more theater and this is an opportunity to blame Democrats for the shutdown.
Democrats didn't fall for it on any of the three votes. So what is Speaker Cruz going to come up with next?
Join Daily Kos and the DCCC to tell John Boehner: End this shutdown now.