Adrift.
House Republican leadership is still without a clue as to how to avoid a government shutdown over Planned Parenthood and pass a continuing resolution to fund government until some time in December, so they're
trying to buy off the problem children hell-bent on shutdown with "listening sessions." No, really.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and House Republican Conference Chairwoman Cathy McMorris Rogers (R-Wash.) will lead the effort. They hope to come to a conclusion on how to proceed by the end of the week, or at latest, over the weekend. A vote on a funding bill is almost certain to come next week.
Right now, they're kicking around at least three ideas, one of which they hope will deter the whack-jobs. One is to just give in and give them their continuing resolution bill to keep government open, but that totally defunds Planned Parenthood. That would die in the Senate and if it didn't die there, would be vetoed. That would at least prove that they can't defund Planned Parenthood and maybe, maybe get everyone on board to give up the fight for now. The second option would be to pass a "clean" funding resolution and have a stand-alone defunding bill, while at the same time directing that funding to other clinics (which
we already know won't work) and continuing the Planned Parenthood "investigations." That's unlikely to appease the whack-jobs. It's certainly not enough to appease Rump Speaker Ted Cruz. The third possibility is using the reconciliation process—last seen as the solution to repealing Obamacare—to freeze all funding—including Medicaid—while "investigations" proceed in Congress.
Against all this, the very open civil war within the House GOP continues, with leadership aides as willing to trash the would-be coup leaders as those guys are to trash Boehner. "If a small group of members want to try and take out the speaker simply because he's unwilling to shut down the government and ultimately damage the pro-life cause," said one Republican staff, "that's a pretty sad commentary on their mindset." Which means chaos.
Congress has "a great capacity to screw up. Never underestimate our ability to screw up," Rep. Charlie Dent (R-Pa.), an Appropriations subcommittee chairman, said in a phone interview. Dent added that he's dreading "another messy session."
That's precisely the bed that the GOP made for themselves when they turned control over to the whack-jobs, so it's pretty much impossible to have any sympathy for them.